Why do intelligent people give money to self-proclaimed psychics or get sucked into Ponzi schemes? Why are most of us so bad at judging risk? Journalist, psychologist and professional poker player Maria Konnikova, PhD, author of the “The Biggest Bluff” and “The Confidence Game,” talks about why anyone can fall for a con, the psychology of risk, and how her knowledge of psychology did—and didn’t—help her at the poker table. Links Maria Konnikova, PhD

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Despite how common mental illness is, people with mental illness often keep their diagnosis a closely guarded secret in the face of widespread stigma and discrimination. Patrick Corrigan, PhD, editor of APA’s journal Stigma and Health, discusses where this stigma comes from, how it affects people’s lives, why it’s important for those with mental illness to share their stories, and whether or not celebrities’ new openness about mental health is decreasing stigma.

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Most of us expect the intensity of new love to fade over time. But some couples remain deeply in love for the long haul, even after years or decades together. What sets those relationships apart? Are some couples just lucky? Or are there things that you can do to sustain love, or rekindle it, in any long-term relationship? Dr. Arthur Aron, of Stonybrook University, discusses what the science says about the secrets of long-term love. Links Arthur Aron, PhD - https://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/psychology/faculty/faculty_profiles/aaron 36 Questions in Love - http://36questionsinlove.com Sponsor Love Crunch https://naturespath.com/love-crunch Get 14% all Love Crunch products during the month of February Use promo code love14

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Why do people like to watch scary movies or listen to sad songs? We do we run marathons and raise children, even though both of those pursuits come with struggle and pain? Dr. Paul Bloom discusses why suffering is linked to meaning in life, the connection between pleasure and pain, and the difference between chosen and unchosen suffering. Links Paul Bloom, PhD - https://psychology.yale.edu/people/paul-bloom Speaking of Psychology - https://www.apa.org/speakingofpsychology

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As an adult, making new friends – and maintaining old friendships – can be tough. Life is busy and friends end up taking a backseat to other relationships and responsibilities. Dr. Marisa Franco, psychologist and friendship expert, talks about how to make new friends and strengthen and rekindle old friendship ties, why Americans’ friendship networks are shrinking, the differences between men’s and women’s friendships, and more.

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Super-recognizers have an extraordinary ability to recognize faces – they can pick faces they’ve seen only briefly out of a crowd and can recognize childhood acquaintances they haven’t seen in decades. Dr. Josh Davis, a professor of applied psychology at the University of Greenwich, and super-recognizer Kelly Desborough, discuss the origins of this ability, why you can’t train yourself to be a super-recognizer, how super-recognizers compare with facial-recognition algorithms, and why security organizations are interested in working with super-recognizers.

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We’ve all had good reason to feel anxious over the past two years. But sometimes, anxiety is more than a normal response to stress. Anxiety disorders are among the most common of all mental health disorders, affecting an estimated 15% to 20% of people at some point in their life. Dr. Bunmi Olatunji, director of the Emotion and Anxiety Research Lab at Vanderbilt University, discusses the emotions that drive anxiety disorders, how to treat them effectively, and how people can recognize the difference between feeling anxious and an anxiety disorder – and know when it’s time to seek help.

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More than 20 percent of U.S. adults suffer from some form of chronic pain. For many, effective treatment remains elusive, with medications and even surgeries giving little in the way of relief. But in recent years, psychologists’ research has begun to suggest that at least for some people, the answer to chronic pain may come not from healing the body but from treating the mind. Dr. Tor Wager, of Dartmouth University, discusses the relationship among our thoughts, feelings and beliefs about pain and the actual physical pain that we feel, what pain looks like in the brain, and how new research findings are leading to effective new treatments for pain.

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Many people around the world have lost their sense of smell this past year due to COVID-19. Before the pandemic, scientists had already begun to gain a deeper understanding of how sophisticated our sense of smell is and how it is intertwined with our mental and physical health. Now, the pandemic is giving that research new urgency. Pamela Dalton, PhD, of the Monell Chemical Senses Center, discusses what we know about how our sense of smell works, the connections between smell, emotions and memory, how a rapid smell test could improve COVID-19 screening, how she developed the “world’s worst smell,” and more.

Links Pamela Dalton, PhD Monell Chemical Senses Center Music

Electronic Ambient Loop by tyops via Freesound.org

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For people with Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory, or HSAM, every day is memorable. Ask them what they were doing on this date 10 years ago, and they’ll be able to tell you. Markie Pasternak, one of the youngest people identified with HSAM, and Michael Yassa, PhD, director of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at the University of California Irvine, talk about what it’s like to have this ability, what we know about how the brains of people with HSAM store and retrieve this vast amount of autobiographical information, and what studying this unique ability can teach us more generally about how memory works.

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