psychology

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How Smartphones Could Keep Psychology From Getting Too WEIRD

In 2004, I was a lab rat for about 15 minutes. A psychology professor at Juniata College, where I spent my freshman year, was conducting an experiment. I don’t remember what exactly he was studying, but it involved video games. He put up posters around campus and gathered a bunch of volunteers in a campus building basement to frag each other in several rounds of Unreal Tournament. I lost pretty quickly, but did my part. I think I got a game store gift card for my time. Now ideally, if you want to... READ ON

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A Woman With Number/Color Synesthesia Explains Her Brain

Alex Dainis has grapheme to color synesthesia, meaning that within her brain, numbers have strong associations with colors -- "each number has its own color, or personality," she explains. We've covered synesthesia previously, but this is the first time I've seen a synesthete sit down and describe concretely, in a non-artsy-fartsy way, what's going on in her brain. It's really interesting how Dainis tries to explain the logic behind the number-coloring. This logic isn't entirely consistent, it just... READ ON

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Why Online Comments are So Polarized

In this five-minute video, Ze Frank posits a theory about why online comments are so overwhelmingly positive or negative. Ze is a guy who has done tons of work online (primarily video, but also interactive group projects), and is currently posting videos several times a week, many of which receive lots of feedback...and most of that feedback is hyper-polarized, loving or hating, to the point that one commenter recently suggested he'd like to punch Ze in the face because Ze's voice is so annoying. As a... READ ON

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The Late Movies: Merlin Mann's Greatest Hits

If you don't know Merlin Mann, you're in for a treat. In the most recent edition of his Bulk Bag Newsletter, Merlin ran down five of his favorite talks, all available in handy online video format. I have rearranged the videos in chronological order (Merlin put them in order of awesomeness), so you can get a better sense of Merlin's public progression from "tips and tricks guy" through "realizing the entire internet has somehow become a tips and tricks guy" to his current position of "heart-on-his-sleeve... READ ON

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Ze Frank on Getting Happy (ft. Chris Higgins)

Ze Frank has been making awesome internet videos since before that was a thing. Today, I have the honor to appear briefly* in his show Chase That Happy, which is concerned with how we get happy when we aren't. While the goal of life isn't to be happy all the time, perhaps it is to watch Ze Frank and hope that maybe, someday, he will blink. Representative quote: "For example I discovered Happy Typing, where you type like a Crazy Secretary in a silent film. [Frank types crazily]" Content note:... READ ON

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Rory Sutherland on Perceived Value

Rory Sutherland is one of my favorite TED Talkers (ahem, "Speakers"). He's a former advertising executive who is concerned with psychology -- specifically, how people perceive what is valuable, and how that perception can actually become tangible value. This makes for some interesting quotations, like from this talk: “Where economists make the fundamental mistake is they think that money is money.” Sutherland is talking about how it matters to us where the money we spend is going: if we spend... READ ON

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Lectures for a New Year: What Motivates Us, Aside from Money

In this RSA Animate video, author and former Al Gore speechwriter Dan Pink discusses a series of studies about what motivates people -- and more practically, what motivates workers. He takes apart the simplistic notion that monetary rewards result in better performance; such rewards do improve performance for purely mechanical tasks, but when you get into knowledge work, it's not just about the money. In this talk, Pink lays out a simple set of guidelines that will help any worker or employer understand... READ ON

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Lectures for a New Year: Is Time on Your Side?

In this brilliant talk, Professor Philip Zimbardo discusses different ways human minds focus on time. Do you focus on the past? If so, are you "Past Positive" (focusing on the good times) or "Past Negative" (focusing on failures)? Do you focus on the present? If so, are you hedonistic or do you just feel it doesn't pay to plan? As Zimbardo says, "Most of us are here because we're future-oriented. We have learned to work, rather than play -- to resist temptation. But there's another way to be... READ ON

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Lectures for a New Year: The Divided Brain

In this eleven-minute animation, psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist explains how our notion of the hemispheres of the brain being ultra-separate is a drastic oversimplification, and has had consequences for how we think about our behavior, our culture, and our society. This talk complements Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor's talk (posted in this series two weeks back), in which she discusses the profoundly different minds present in her own hemispheres -- and how she experienced the world differently during and after her... READ ON

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Is Your Name to Blame for All Your Problems?

Name tag image via Shutterstock As Juliet bemoans the grudge her family has against Romeo's based on their names, she says, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Apparently, there's a lot more in a name than Juliet thought—especially if your name is Mandy or Kevin. A study finds that people with these names—and other "bad" names—are unpopular on dating sites and tend to have poorer self esteem, are lonelier, are less intelligent, and even smoke... READ ON