Talk Psych to Me

We continue our journey through the psychology of the seven deadly sins. This week, we're talking greed! Is greed the root of all progress or the root of all suffering? What makes someone greedy, and just how greedy are you?

Talk psych to us:
Instagram: @talkpsychtomepodcast
Email: [email protected]

Produced by Scarlet Moon Things
Music by Barrie Gledden, Kes Loy, and Richard Kimmings

Feeling lazy? Tune in to understand why as we explore the psychology of the seven deadly sins, starting with sloth. At best, you'll walk away with greater motivation or self-acceptance. At the very least, you can put off doing more important things for 35 minutes!

Don't be too lazy to talk to us:
Instagram: @talkpsychtomepodcast
Email: [email protected]

Produced by Scarlet Moon Things
Music by Barrie Gledden, Kes Loy, and Richard Kimmings

Can psychology help us understand the mysterious worlds we visit and lives we lead while we're asleep? In this episode, we tackle questions like: Why do we dream? What do our dreams mean? Why didn't Brian join The Smurfs when he had the chance? And how can we become better dreamers?

It would be real dreamy to hear from you:
Instagram: @talkpsychtomepodcast
Email: [email protected]

Further Reading:

• The Interpretation of Dreams by Freud (1899)
• Finding Meaning in Dreams by Domhoff (2004)
• “Typical dreams experienced by Chinese people” by Yu (2008)
• “Typical dreams” by Schredl et. al. (2010)
• “The Typical Dreams of Canadian University Students” by Nielsen et. al. (2003)
• “Memory, Sleep and Dreaming: Experiencing Consolidation” by Wamsley and Stickgold (2011)
• “Dreaming of a Learning Task Is Associated with Enhanced Sleep-Dependent Memory Consolidation” by Wamsley et. al. (2010)
• “The effect of dream report collection and dream incorporation on memory consolidation during sleep” by Schoch et. al. (2018)
• “Replaying the Game: Hypnagogic Images in Normals and Amnesics” by Stickgold et. al. (2000)
• “Sleep on it, but only if it is difficult: Effects of sleep on problem solving” by Sio, Monaghan, and Ormerod (2013)
• “After being challenged by a video game problem, sleep increases the chance to solve it” by Beijamini et. al. (2014) 
• “Good morning creativity: task reactivation during sleep enhances beneficial effect of sleep on creative performance” by Ritter et. al. (2012)

Produced by Scarlet Moon Things
Music by Barrie Gledden, Kes Loy, and Richard Kimmings

Mucus. Puss. Maggots. Feces. Eating bats. Eating cows. Racism. In this episode, we discuss the benefits and dangers of disgust and tackle some tough questions like: Is anything objectively disgusting? Why are some people more easily disgusted than others? And... what's that smell?

Discuss disgust with us!
Instagram: @talkpsychtomepodcast
Email: [email protected]

Further Reading:

• "Disgust" by Rozin, Haidt, & McCauley (2008)
• "The Moral Affiliations of Disgust: A Functional MRI Study" by Moll, et. al (2005)
• "The emotional dog and its rational tail" by Haidt (2001)
• "In bad taste: evidence for the oral origins of moral disgust" by Chapman et. al. (2009)
• "The makings of the magical mind: The nature of function of sympathetic magic" by Nemeroff & Rozin (2000)
• "The Child's Conception of Food" by Rozin et. al (1986)
• "Sex Differences in Disgust: Why Are Women More Easily Disgusted Than Men?" by Al-Shawaf, Lewis, & Buss (2017)
• "Feelings of Disgust and Disgust-Induced Avoidance Weaken following Induced Sexual Arousal in Women" by Borg and de Jong (2012)
• The Disgust Scale by Haidt, McCauley, & Rozin (last updated in 2012)
• "Disgust as Embodied Moral Judgment" by Schnall et. al (2008)
• "Is that disgust I see? Political ideology and based visual attention" by 
  Oosterhoff & Ford (2018)
  • A more recent study that challenges the finding that conservatives are more easily disgusted than liberals: "Is Disgust a 'Conservative' Emotion?" by Elad-Strenger, Proch, & Kessler (2019)

Produced by Scarlet Moon Things
Music by Barrie Gledden, Kes Loy, and Richard Kimmings

Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg, author of What's Your Problem? joins us this week to talk about the psychology of problem solving. Learn his top tips for problem reframing and how to become a skillful problem solver.

Talk psych to us:
Instagram: @talkpsychtomepodcast
Email: [email protected]

Further Reading:

• What's Your Problem?  by Wedell-Wedellsborg (2020)
• Innovation as Usual  by Miller and Wedell-Wedellsborg (2013)
• Switch  by Heath and Heath (2010)
• Decisive  by Heath and Heath (2013)
• "Identity and Epistemic Emotions During Knowledge Revision: A Potential Account for the Backfire Effect" by Trevors et. al. (2016)
• "Cognitive Reappraisal in Children" by DeCicco, O'Toole, and Dennis (2014)
• "When surface and deep-level diversity collide" by Phillips and Loyd (2006)
• "Mechanizing in problem solving" by Luchins (1942)
• "A brain mechanism for facilitation of insight by positive affect" by Subramaniam et. al. (2008)
• "The cognitive neuroscience of insight" by Kounios and Beeman (2014)
• "The creative brain" by Fink et. al. (2008)
• Six Thinking Hats by De Bono (1999)
• "Should Public Figures Apologize?" by Sunstein (2019)
• Creativity by Csikszentmihaliy (1999)
• “Boundary Spanning Individuals: Their Role in Information Transfer and Their Antecedents” by Tushman and Scanlan (1981)
• "Why Decisions Fail: Avoiding the Blunders and Traps That Lead to Debacles" by Nutt (2003)
• The Creative Vision by Getzels and Csikszentmihaliy (1999)

Produced by Scarlet Moon Things
Music by Barrie Gledden, Kes Loy, and Richard Kimmings

In honor of Brian's birthday, we talk about the psychology of age and aging. Does being slightly older or slightly younger than your classmates in school impact you later in life? (Spoiler alert: yes!) What are some of the benefits of aging? And what advice do older adults have that we should all pay attention to today?

Talk psych to us:
Instagram: @talkpsychtomepodcast
Email: [email protected]

Further Reading:

• “Happy birthday” by Wattie and Baker (2013)
• “Age and Gender Differences in Self-Esteem—A Cross-Cultural Window” by Bliedorn et. al. (2016)
• “Does Retirement Hurt Weil-Being?” By Reitzes, Mutran, and Fernandez (1996)
• “Personality changes for the better with age”  John, Gosling, and Potter (2003)
• “Happiness and age in European adults” by Morgan, Robinson, and Thompson (2015)
• 30 Lessons for Living by Pillemer (2012)

Produced by Scarlet Moon Things
Music by Barrie Gledden, Kes Loy, and Richard Kimmings

Come join the Luna family debate about empathy. Does it do more good or harm in a zombie apocalypse? How about in today's world? What exactly is empathy anyway? And how can we learn to use it well?

Talk psych to us:
Instagram: @talkpsychtomepodcast
Email: [email protected]

Further Reading:

• “Toronto Empathy Questionnaire” by Spreng et. al. (2009)
• Needle through hand video
• “Mirror neurons” by Acharya and Shukla (2012)
• “Empathy for positive and negative emotions in the gustatory cortex” by Jabbi, Swart, and Keysers (2007)
• “Empathy toward strangers triggers oxytocin release and subsequent generosity” by Barraza and Zak (2009)
• “Patterns of Cognitive and Emotional Empathy in Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration” by Rankin, Kramer, and Miller (2005)
• “Is emotional contagion special?” by Nummenmaa et. al. (2008)
• “The relationships between social intelligence, empathy, and three types of aggression” by Kaukianinen et. al. (1999)
• “The Emerging Study of Positive Empathy” by Morelli, Lieberman, and Zaki (2015)
• “Maintenance of satisfaction in romantic relationships” by Davis and Oathout (1987)
• “The Neural Correlates of Empathy” by Rameson, Morelli, and Lieberman (2011)
• “Relationships Between Nurse‐Expressed Empathy, Patient‐Perceived Empathy and Patient Distress” by Olson (1995)
• “Racism and the Empathy for Pain on Our Skin” by Forgiarini, Gallucci, and Maravita (2011)
• “A Less Attractive Feature of Empathy” by Fourie, Subramoney and Gobodo‐Madikizela (2017)
• “A theory of unmitigated communion” by Helgeson and Fritz (1998)
• “Empathy is hard work” by Hutcherson et. al. (2019)
• “Compassion Fade” by Västfjäll et. al. (2014)
• “Empathy and Attitudes” by Batson et. al. (1997) 
• Against Empathy by Bloom (2016)

Produced by Scarlet Moon Things
Music by Barrie Gledden, Kes Loy, and Richard Kimmings

As quarantine drags on, we have to shift out of crisis mode and into Perseverance Mode. In this episode, we learn from neuroscience, prisoners of war, homelessness, and Brian's dad to unpack the psychology of persistence.

Talk psych to us:
Instagram: @talkpsychtomepodcast
Email: [email protected]

Further Reading:

• “Psychiatric illness in U.S. Air Force Vietnam prisoners of war” by Ursano et. al. (1981) 
• Good to Great by Collins (2001)
• Man's Search for Meaning by Frankl (1959)
• On Death and Dying by Kübler-Ross (1969)
• On Grief and Grieving by Kübler-Ross and Kessler (2005)
• “The Emerging Neuroscience of Intrinsic Motivation” by Domenico and Ryan (2017)
• “Dopaminergic Mechanisms of Individual Differences in Human Effort-Based Decision-Making” by Treadway et. al. (2012)
• Tiny Habits by Fogg (2019)
• Mindset by Dweck (2006)
• “Benefits of napping in healthy adults” by Milner and Cote (2009)

Produced by Scarlet Moon Things
Music by Barrie Gledden, Kes Loy, and Richard Kimmings

Just what is luck, exactly? How does it play a role in our lives? Are some people luckier than others? Can an overdose of luck result in 'luck guilt'? And what can all of us do to become luckier?

Talk psych to us:
Instagram: @talkpsychtomepodcast
Email: [email protected]

Further reading:

• “Moral and Epistemic Luck” by Statman (1991)
• “The Psychology and Philosophy of Luck” by Pritchard and Smith (2004)
• “Propensities and counterfactuals: The loser that almost won” by Kahneman and Varey (1990)
• “Unlucky victims or lucky survivors?” By Teigen and Jensen (2011)
• “The Herald of Free Enterprise Disaster: Lessons from the First 6 Years” by Dalgleish, Joseph, and Yule (2000)
• The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations by Heider (1958)
• “Exploring the role of talent and luck in getting success” by Pluchino, Biondo, and Rapisarda (2018)
• “The Belief in Good Luck Scale” by Darke and Freedman (1997)
• The Luck Factor by Wiseman (2003)
• Bonus (not mentioned in the episode but a great read): Can You Learn to Be Lucky? by Starr (2018)

Produced by Scarlet Moon Things
Music by Barrie Gledden, Kes Loy, and Richard Kimmings

Special guest, psychologist Vaneeta Sandhu, joins the show this week to talk about the psychology of cursing. Why do we do curse (or is it cuss)? Can other animals swear? How does profanity impact us and our teams? Does it shape how people see us? And why does it feel so f@#king good?

Talk (or curse) with us:
Instagram: @talkpsychtomepodcast
Email: [email protected]

Further Reading:

• Jay & Jay (2013) cursing frequency research.
• Appropriateness of swearing is highly contextual and variable.
• Swearing activates our autonomic nervous system.
• People who sweat more when swearing were more likely to have been punished for swearing as children.
• Persuasion and swearing 
• Building rapport in office settings
• Swearing among Australia’s construction trades builds camaraderie 
• Cold water task
• Swearing and verbal fluency
• Benjamin K. Bergen: What the F: What Swearing Reveals About Our Language, Our Brains, and Ourselves (2016)
• Emma Byrne: Swearing is Good for You: The Amazing Science of Bad Language (2017)
• Cursing chimps research by Fouts & Mills: Next of Kin: My Conversations with Chimpanzees (1997)

Produced by Scarlet Moon Things
Music by Barrie Gledden, Kes Loy, and Richard Kimmings