This audio podcast is co-hosted by former CBS correspondent Dan Raviv and a leading expert on human motivation, the U. of Maryland's Distinguished University Professor Arie Kruglanski.

Our guest is Dr. Michele Gelfand, a professor at Stanford University's business school. Considered a cross-cultural psychologist, Professor Gelfand is the author of the cutting-edge 2018 book, "Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World."

She and Professor Arie Kruglanski admire and understand each other's work. In this chat, we consider how people quest for significance in those different kinds of cultures: tight ones (with rules and restrictions) such as Singapore and Japan -- versus loose cultures (where people can seek success or respect in many creative ways) such as the United States or New Zealand.

The result is a half-hour conversation that is both warm and enlightening!

All the video and audio podcasts in this series are related to the book published by Routledge in April 2025: "The Quest for Significance: Harnessing the Need that Makes the World Go Round" -- by Arie W. Kruglanski and Dan Raviv. Here's how to buy the book as a paperback or Kindle e-book: https://www.amazon.com/Quest-Significance-Arie-W-Kruglanski/dp/1032508787

This podcast series is based on a book by Dr. Arie Kruglanski and Dan Raviv, The Quest for Significance: Harnessing the Need that Makes the World Go Round, published in 2025 by Routledge.

Arie Kruglanski is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland and author of countless books, articles, and studies that have made him one of the world's leading experts on human motivation. He has been honored by the American Psychological Association for distinguished scientific contributions, and received a Lifetime Achievement award from the Association for Psychological Science. One of his most recent books is Uncertain: How to Turn Your Biggest Fear Into Your Greatest Power.

Dan Raviv was a CBS News correspondent, covering big stories worldwide for more than 40 years. He co-authored a national best selling book, Every Spy a Prince: The Complete History of Israel's Intelligence Community. His most recent book about Israeli security and espionage, also co-authored with Yossi Melman, is Spies Against Armageddon: Inside Israel's Secret Wars. He is based in Washington, DC. You can hear his weekly podcast, THE MOSSAD FILES.

On YouTube and other platforms featuring video podcasts, you can find video versions of THE QUEST FOR SIGNIFICANCE PODCAST. Please do.

To purchase our book, we suggest: www.amazon.com/Quest-Significance-Harnessing-Makes-World/dp/103253169X ... or ... (with som...

Our guest is Dr. Michele Gelfand, a professor at Stanford University's business school. Considered to be a cross-cultural psychologist, Professor Gelfand is the author of the cutting-edge 2018 book, "Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World."

She and Professor Arie Kruglanski admire and understand each other's work. In this chat, we consider how people quest for significance in those different kinds of cultures: tight ones (with rules and restrictions) such as Singapore and Japan -- versus loose cultures (where people can seek success or respect in many creative ways) such as the United States or New Zealand.

The result is a half-hour conversation that is both warm and enlightening!

This podcast series is based on a book by Dr. Arie Kruglanski and Dan Raviv, The Quest for Significance: Harnessing the Need that Makes the World Go Round, published in 2025 by Routledge.

Arie Kruglanski is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland and author of countless books, articles, and studies that have made him one of the world's leading experts on human motivation. He has been honored by the American Psychological Association for distinguished scientific contributions, and received a Lifetime Achievement award from the Association for Psychological Science. One of his most recent books is Uncertain: How to Turn Your Biggest Fear Into Your Greatest Power.

Dan Raviv was a CBS News correspondent, covering big stories worldwide for more than 40 years. He co-authored a national best selling book, Every Spy a Prince: The Complete History of Israel's Intelligence Community. His most recent book about Israeli security and espionage, also co-authored with Yossi Melman, is Spies Against Armageddon: Inside Israel's Secret Wars. He is based in Washington, DC. You can hear his weekly podcast, THE MOSSAD FILES.

On YouTube and other platforms featuring video podcasts, you can find video versions of THE QUEST FOR SIGNIFICANCE PODCAST. Please do.

To purchase our book, we suggest: www.amazon.com/Quest-Significance-Harnessing-Makes-World/dp/103253169X ... or ... (with...

If you think about it, 1.5 billion people who live on the continent of Africa do not get the attention, the respect, and the sense that their lives matter that they surely deserve. They are not being accorded Significance, and like all human beings they crave it and strive to create it themselves.

Victor Mark-Onyegbu says the United States is particularly frustrating, because most Americans know pitifully little about Africa -- and when asked to name three countries there, they invariably include the Marvel-fictional Wakanda (in the "Black Panther" movies).

On a serious and hopeful note, Onyegbu -- who is a leader of an organization called Africa No Filter -- lays out his plan for earning more dignity for Africans in the global media and international relations: "to tell stories better by adopting nuanced, ethical, and balanced story-telling about Africa."

In conversation with the authors of THE QUEST FOR SIGNIFICANCE, Professor Arie Kruglanski and Dan Raviv, Onyegbu -- in Lagos, Nigeria -- emphasizes that "Africa" is not one huge monolith. Each of the countries has its own strengths, weaknesses, and fascinating cultural heritage.

This is a half-hour Americans rarely hear. 

On YouTube and Spotify, find our video podcasts. And there are half a dozen audio podcasts at: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-quest-for-significance-podcast-arie-kruglanski/id1807928190 .

Our book, published by Routledge, is available here: https://amzn.to/3Y2cawj .

This podcast series is based on a book by Dr. Arie Kruglanski and Dan Raviv, The Quest for Significance: Harnessing the Need that Makes the World Go Round, published in 2025 by Routledge.

Arie Kruglanski is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland and author of countless books, articles, and studies that have made him one of the world's leading experts on human motivation. He has been honored by the American Psychological Association for distinguished scientific contributions, and received a Lifetime Achievement award from the Association for Psychological Science. One of his most recent books is Uncertain: How to Turn Your Biggest Fear Into Your Greatest Power.

Dan Raviv was a CBS News correspondent, covering big stories worldwide for more than 40 years. He co-authored a national best selling book, Every Spy a Prince: The Complete History of Israel's Intelligence Community. His most recent book about Israeli security and espionage, also co-authored with Yossi Melman, is Spies Against Armageddon: Inside Israel's Secret Wars. He is based in Washington, DC. You can hear his weekly podcast, THE MOSSAD FILES.

On YouTube and other platforms featuring video podcasts, you can find video versions of THE QUEST FOR SIGNIFICANCE PODCAST. Please do.

To purchase our book, we suggest: www.amazon.com/Quest-Significance-Harnessing-Makes-World/dp/103253169X ... or ... (with...

In their book, “The Quest for Significance,” Prof. Arie Kruglanski and Dan Raviv find that from the beginning of humankind, everyone has tried to make their life matter — but how?  It isn’t always about money and prestigious titles
or political power. 

Professor June Tangney of George Mason University is the author of “Shame and Guilt,” based largely on researching people in prisons and during their readjustment to life in freedom. 

Tangney’s thoughtful half-hour discussion with Kruglanski and Raviv explores the loss of — and acquisition — of all-important Significance in its various forms. This includes identifying what the people around you crave — and giving them some Significance, because you’ll get plenty of it back.

Kruglanski and Raviv's book, THE QUEST FOR SIGNIFICANCE, can be purchased where you buy books, including Amazon: https://amzn.to/3Y2cawj

And please tell your friends to look for The Quest for Significance Podcast -- in video and audio forms -- on all the major podcast platforms.

This podcast series is based on a book by Dr. Arie Kruglanski and Dan Raviv, The Quest for Significance: Harnessing the Need that Makes the World Go Round, published in 2025 by Routledge.

Arie Kruglanski is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland and author of countless books, articles, and studies that have made him one of the world's leading experts on human motivation. He has been honored by the American Psychological Association for distinguished scientific contributions, and received a Lifetime Achievement award from the Association for Psychological Science. One of his most recent books is Uncertain: How to Turn Your Biggest Fear Into Your Greatest Power.

Dan Raviv was a CBS News correspondent, covering big stories worldwide for more than 40 years. He co-authored a national best selling book, Every Spy a Prince: The Complete History of Israel's Intelligence Community. His most recent book about Israeli security and espionage, also co-authored with Yossi Melman, is Spies Against Armageddon: Inside Israel's Secret Wars. He is based in Washington, DC. You can hear his weekly podcast, THE MOSSAD FILES.

On YouTube and other platforms featuring video podcasts, you can find video versions of THE QUEST FOR SIGNIFICANCE PODCAST. Please do.

To purchase our book, we suggest: www.amazon.com/Quest-Significance-Harnessing-Makes-World/dp/103253169X ... or ... (with...

A powerful half-hour discussion of the universal need that we humans have -- to quest for Significance: to make our lives matter, to gain dignity and respect, and certainly to avoid losing the all-important sense of Significance. 

In this episode, Dr. Sophia Moskalenko -- an expert on the psychology of radicalism and terrorism, teaching at Georgia State University and affiliated with other academic institutions -- displays her other special knowledge: on socialization driven by narratives. She tells of the huge impact that fairy tales for children may have. Stories of monsters, villains, and heroes reveal a lot about an era and a society, as Dr. Moskalenko relates in conversation with Professor Arie W. Kruglanski and Dan Raviv, the co-authors of THE QUEST FOR SIGNIFICANCE: HARNESSING THE NEED THAT MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND.

To buy the book, we suggest: https://amzn.to/3Y2cawj ... or the website of the publisher, Routledge: http://bit.ly/3RFdwtn .

This podcast series is based on a book by Dr. Arie Kruglanski and Dan Raviv, The Quest for Significance: Harnessing the Need that Makes the World Go Round, published in 2025 by Routledge.

Arie Kruglanski is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland and author of countless books, articles, and studies that have made him one of the world's leading experts on human motivation. He has been honored by the American Psychological Association for distinguished scientific contributions, and received a Lifetime Achievement award from the Association for Psychological Science. One of his most recent books is Uncertain: How to Turn Your Biggest Fear Into Your Greatest Power.

Dan Raviv was a CBS News correspondent, covering big stories worldwide for more than 40 years. He co-authored a national best selling book, Every Spy a Prince: The Complete History of Israel's Intelligence Community. His most recent book about Israeli security and espionage, also co-authored with Yossi Melman, is Spies Against Armageddon: Inside Israel's Secret Wars. He is based in Washington, DC. You can hear his weekly podcast, THE MOSSAD FILES.

On YouTube and other platforms featuring video podcasts, you can find video versions of THE QUEST FOR SIGNIFICANCE PODCAST. Please do.

To purchase our book, we suggest: www.amazon.com/Quest-Significance-Harnessing-Makes-World/dp/103253169X ... or ... (with...

In their book, THE QUEST FOR SIGNIFICANCE: Harnessing the Need that Makes the World Go Round, Professor Arie Kruglanski and journalist Dan Raviv find that from the beginning of human activity on Earth, everyone has tried to make their life matter -- but how? It isn't always about money or fancy titles or political power.

Dan Rothstein, co-founder of the Right Question Institute -- based in the Boston area -- helped create a strategy for formulating questions: the Question Formation Technique. Students in more than 150 countries are using QFT to deepen their learning; and people in a wide range of communities use it to advocate for themselves, their families, and their neighbors. 

Rothstein is now working on a variety of democracy-building projects, and he is an adjunct lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. In this podcast, he chats with Kruglanski and Raviv about how using a tool such as the Question Formulation Technique can help people acquire Significance.

Among Rothstein's books is Make Just One Change: Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions.

Kruglanski and Raviv's book, THE QUEST FOR SIGNIFICANCE, can be purchased where you buy books, including Amazon: ⁠https://amzn.to/3Y2cawj

This podcast series is based on a book by Dr. Arie Kruglanski and Dan Raviv, The Quest for Significance: Harnessing the Need that Makes the World Go Round, published in 2025 by Routledge.

Arie Kruglanski is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland and author of countless books, articles, and studies that have made him one of the world's leading experts on human motivation. He has been honored by the American Psychological Association for distinguished scientific contributions, and received a Lifetime Achievement award from the Association for Psychological Science. One of his most recent books is Uncertain: How to Turn Your Biggest Fear Into Your Greatest Power.

Dan Raviv was a CBS News correspondent, covering big stories worldwide for more than 40 years. He co-authored a national best selling book, Every Spy a Prince: The Complete History of Israel's Intelligence Community. His most recent book about Israeli security and espionage, also co-authored with Yossi Melman, is Spies Against Armageddon: Inside Israel's Secret Wars. He is based in Washington, DC. You can hear his weekly podcast, THE MOSSAD FILES.

On YouTube and other platforms featuring video podcasts, you can find video versions of THE QUEST FOR SIGNIFICANCE PODCAST. Please do.

To purchase our book, we suggest: www.amazon.com/Quest-Significance-Harnessing-Makes-World/dp/103253169X ... or ... (with...

Our guest in this THE QUEST FOR SIGNIFICANCE episode is Aaron David Miller. He was a U.S. mediator for peace in the Middle East for 25 years, and among his 5 books is The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace. He is now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, focused on American foreign policy.

Miller also wrote The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President (published in 2014), and he engages with Arie and Dan in a lively discussion of the Significance aspects of his findings -- that no one these days can match Washington, Lincoln, and FDR.

Miller and the hosts of the podcast, Kruglanski and Raviv, all reside in the Washington DC area and consider whether that uniquely competitive and combative environment needs greater understanding of the Quest for Sigificance: just as we all can succeed if we recognize our own values and needs, and observe and listen to everyone around us to understand theirs.

Give your workmates, neighbors, and everyone in your family and in your community a measure of Significance (based on what they value), and you will likely enjoy respect and dignity reflected back upon you!

Our book is available wherever you buy books, including Amazon: https://amzn.to/3Y2cawj    And please tell your friends about our video and audio discussions -- THE QUEST FOR SIGNIFICANCE PODCAST -- on all the podcast platforms.

This podcast series is based on a book by Dr. Arie Kruglanski and Dan Raviv, The Quest for Significance: Harnessing the Need that Makes the World Go Round, published in 2025 by Routledge.

Arie Kruglanski is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland and author of countless books, articles, and studies that have made him one of the world's leading experts on human motivation. He has been honored by the American Psychological Association for distinguished scientific contributions, and received a Lifetime Achievement award from the Association for Psychological Science. One of his most recent books is Uncertain: How to Turn Your Biggest Fear Into Your Greatest Power.

Dan Raviv was a CBS News correspondent, covering big stories worldwide for more than 40 years. He co-authored a national best selling book, Every Spy a Prince: The Complete History of Israel's Intelligence Community. His most recent book about Israeli security and espionage, also co-authored with Yossi Melman, is Spies Against Armageddon: Inside Israel's Secret Wars. He is based in Washington, DC. You can hear his weekly podcast, THE MOSSAD FILES.

On YouTube and other platforms featuring video podcasts, you can find video versions of THE QUEST FOR SIGNIFICANCE PODCAST. Please do.

To purchase our book, we suggest: www.amazon.com/Quest-Significance-Harnessing-Makes-World/dp/103253169X ... or ... (with...

In our study of how all people have a need for Significance, we encountered one of the negotiators who succeeded in reaching an agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization -- the famous Oslo Accords of 1993. Joel Singer, who later would be a successful attorney in Washington DC, represented Israel at secret talks in the Norwegian capital. 

On this episode of the QUEST FOR SIGNIFICANCE PODCAST, Joel Singer tells Arie and Dan how he realized that a partner in any negotiation -- even when it is the sworn enemy of your country -- needs to be accorded dignity and respect. 

By granting a sense of Significance to the people around you, you are highly likely to receive respect in return. That is the basic need that humans have had since time immemorial, to feel that their lives matter: their interests, their values, their priorities, and their goals. Joel Singer says the goal was and is a "win-win" outcome. 

Our book is available wherever you buy books, including Amazon: https://amzn.to/3Y2cawj     And please tell your friends about our video and audio discussions -- THE QUEST FOR SIGNIFICANCE PODCAST -- on all the podcast platforms.

This podcast series is based on a book by Dr. Arie Kruglanski and Dan Raviv, The Quest for Significance: Harnessing the Need that Makes the World Go Round, published in 2025 by Routledge.

Arie Kruglanski is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland and author of countless books, articles, and studies that have made him one of the world's leading experts on human motivation. He has been honored by the American Psychological Association for distinguished scientific contributions, and received a Lifetime Achievement award from the Association for Psychological Science. One of his most recent books is Uncertain: How to Turn Your Biggest Fear Into Your Greatest Power.

Dan Raviv was a CBS News correspondent, covering big stories worldwide for more than 40 years. He co-authored a national best selling book, Every Spy a Prince: The Complete History of Israel's Intelligence Community. His most recent book about Israeli security and espionage, also co-authored with Yossi Melman, is Spies Against Armageddon: Inside Israel's Secret Wars. He is based in Washington, DC. You can hear his weekly podcast, THE MOSSAD FILES.

On YouTube and other platforms featuring video podcasts, you can find video versions of THE QUEST FOR SIGNIFICANCE PODCAST. Please do.

To purchase our book, we suggest: www.amazon.com/Quest-Significance-Harnessing-Makes-World/dp/103253169X ... or ... (with...