Shows / Why We Do What We Do
Why We Do What We Do
We explain popular and weird, little-known ideas in psychology. Whether you are a little curious about psychology, or a student, or even a professional, we have something for everyone.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/why-we-do-what-we-do--3419521/support.
Episodes
Why We Do What We Do188 | Real Fake Medicine
Placebos emerged as a standard pharmaceutical research practice as a way of testing out the efficacy of novel treatments with various illnesses. This made it…
Why We Do What We Do187 | Gaslighting
People have been manipulating one another for most of human history. But the term for this kind of manipulation and abuse is fairly new. Coined in a play…
Why We Do What We Do186 | Translating Reality
Interpretation comes in several forms such as translating between languages, interpreting behavioral phenomena, and analyzing data. While we may believe we’re…
Why We Do What We Do185 | Drunk Tank Pink
Many believe you can manipulate colors to influence thoughts and emotions. This is kind of a little bit true. Mostly because clever PR people can leverage…
Why We Do What We Do184 | Holding Back Tears: How to Resist Crying
Although surveys show that men do tend to cry more than women, that disparity disappears when you examine cultures in which crying is not considered taboo…
Why We Do What We Do183 | Handedness and Personality or Just Handedness
Handedness is both genetic and environmentally determined. Consider that left-handedness was demonized by many cultures, and subsequently, many tools and…
Why We Do What We Do182 | How to Protest Safely
Protests have been a human practice for probably as long as we have had civilized groups. This practice is when a group of people unite to actively force…
Why We Do What We Do181 | The Dead Preserved
The practice of mummifying the dead was a process that was prevalent in ancient Egypt and practiced in various forms in several areas of the world for…
Why We Do What We Do180 | Possessed: Exorcisms
Exorcisms are a dangerous practice that have killed people. We explore the history of exorcisms, how they work, what to expect, and why we should avoid them…
Why We Do What We Do179 | Witch Trials
Mystic healing practices existed in many cultures for a large proportion of human history. But for a few hundred years, people, mostly women, were tortured and…
Why We Do What We Do178 | Afraid of the Dark
There are potential evolutionary reasons for fear of darkness, but our language also plays a role. This specific fear, nyctophobia, is relatively innocuous and…
Why We Do What We Do177 | Why I Am A Green Party Supporter (BONUS!)
Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green Party. For this and the next episode, we sit down and interview everyday citizens who are registered to one of the…
Why We Do What We Do176 | Why I Am A Libertarian
Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green Party. For this and the next episode, we sit down and interview everyday citizens who are registered to one of the…
Why We Do What We Do175 | Why I Am A Republican
Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green Party. For this and the next two episodes, we sit down and interview everyday citizens who are registered to one of…
Why We Do What We Do174 | Why I Am A Democrat
Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green Party. For this and the next three episodes, we sit down and interview everyday citizens who are registered to one of…
Why We Do What We Do173 | Euphemisms: You Know What This Means
Euphemisms act as selected by a given verbal community often as an alternative to a subject that has been regarded as touchy, uncomfortable, or politically…
Why We Do What We Do172 | How to Learn Anything!
It's never too late to learn something new! Learning and teaching are inherently linked, so we spend some time reviewing the best most-evidence based…
Why We Do What We Do171 | Anti-Racism
Black Lives Matter.Special guests Jelisa Scott and Mawule Sevon talk anti-racism and growing up with dark skin in the United States. Links for Today: Check out…
Why We Do What We Do170 | The Hawthorne Effect
Workplace performance, be it group or an individual, is something that has been studied for decades. Nearly 100 years ago, a series of studies on worker…
Why We Do What We Do169 | Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a nebulous concept and can mean many things. It's unlikely we should be afraid of the future of AI, but just in case, we laid…
Why We Do What We Do168 | Syphilis Part 2
There is a very unfortunate history of the science of syphilis. One of our great shames is the Tuskegee experiments. However, we also bust a few myths about…
Why We Do What We Do167 | Syphilis Part 1
Syphilis emerged about 500 years ago as a menacing sexually transmitted disease that quickly transcended cultures and remained a present menace until the 20th…
Why We Do What We Do166 | Stockholme Syndrome
Stockholm Syndrome has been a common area of study for close to 50 years following an infamous 1973 bank robbery incident in Sweden. The widely publicized…
Why We Do What We Do165 | Human Nature
"Human nature" is often used as an excuse, explanation, justification, or assumption for the good and bad things that we do. Although we can make general…
Why We Do What We Do164 | Would a Head Transplant Work?
Someone suffering from severe muscle-wasting diseases or other muscular or bone-degenerative diseases that aren't neurological might very much like a new body…
Why We Do What We Do163 | Can You Feel Yourself Being Watched?
Many scientists and the general population have wondered for over 100 years if we possess a “sixth sense” that alerts us to when someone is staring at us from…
Why We Do What We Do162 | Why Do We Dream?
Dreams are influenced by environmental stimuli. There are many theories for why we dream, but how we dream is more interesting anyway. Also, there is…
Why We Do What We Do161 | Board Games
Board games are activities with no particular output. Abraham gets passionate about his favorite topic. There are several recommendations for various games…
Why We Do What We Do160 | Why Do We Kiss Each Other?
We support Black Lives Matter. We recorded this well before the protests began, so nothing is related to the current protests in this episode. Nevertheless, we…
Why We Do What We Do159 | Masturbation: The Original DIY
We support Black Lives Matter. We recorded this well before the protests began, so nothing is related to the current protests in this episode. Nevertheless, we…
Why We Do What We Do158 | Distracted Driving
People drive distractedly because we get fluent at it, because it is boring, and because there is little to no adverse consequence for doing so. Our phones are…
Why We Do What We Do157 | Motivated Reasoning
One of our most common biases is our motivation to rationalize our way through contradictory evidence. This might have an evolutionary advantage. However, it…
Why We Do What We Do156 | Why? Our 3-Year Anniversary With Special Guests!
During our live stream event, the whole team got together to discuss human behavior and ask "why?" Why we ask the question why, why we are gross, why we do (or…
Why We Do What We Do155 | Addicted to Social Media Part 2
In the second part of this discussion, we elaborate on variables that motivate engagement with social media. Furthermore, we consider who is accountable to…
Why We Do What We Do154 | Addicted to Social Media
86% of the world’s population use social media daily, from every culture and walk of life imaginable. Social media has offered us a way to keep in touch and…
Why We Do What We Do153 | Triage: The Best Idea Ever?
Triage is a system of sorting people into categories of priority. Although it seems like common-sense, it had to start somewhere and its current form is newer…
Why We Do What We Do152 | Why and How We Grieve
The "stages" of grief that you may have heard of have gotten a bad reputation because there was a misunderstanding that the proposal was that those are the…
Why We Do What We Do151 | Montessori Schooling (Part 2)
In a more thorough analysis of the history of Montessori schools, we uncovered regulations that may have inadvertently forced dilution of the possible…
Why We Do What We Do150 | Montessori Schooling (Part 1)
This episode will walk you through the history and development of Maria Montessori’s method of education. Her pedagogy focuses on two fundamental approaches to…
Why We Do What We Do149 | Understanding Dyslexia
The rise in incidents of dyslexia is likely due to better awareness and diagnostic tools, as well as increased emphasis in schools on reading skills. Although…
Why We Do What We Do148 | False Memories: The Mandela Effect
Is it Jiff Peanut Butter or Jiffy Peanut Butter? Turns out, Vader never said, "Luke, I am your father." Retellings that become popular that incorrectly…
Why We Do What We Do147 | Criminal Profiling
Authority has long tried to narrow the pool of suspects in a crime. Eventually, police turned to psychologists to help understand the person so that they could…
Why We Do What We Do146 | Right and Left Brain Personality
Most people know that the right brain left brain personality attribution is a silly myth. But do you know where it comes from? Largely started out of research…
Why We Do What We Do145 | Imposter Syndrome
Why do some accomplished people feel insecure about themselves? Turns out the vast majority of people who have achieved fame, success, responsibility, or other…
Why We Do What We Do144 | Default Mode Network of the Brain
Popular neuropsychology has identified that there is increased activity in a particular network of the brain when we are "at rest." The question we ask is…
Why We Do What We Do143 | How to Tell if Someone is Flirting With You | Why We Do What We Do
Turns out we are absolutely abysmal at determining if someone is trying to flirt with us. To begin with, it is important to note that flirting is about the…
Why We Do What We Do142 | Altruism | Why We Do What We Do
Do intentions matter to determine if an action is altruistic? Depends on who you ask. Actually, historical writers on altruism are fraught with subjective…
Why We Do What We Do141 | Are Kids Losing Their Attention Span? | Why We Do What We Do
Yet another generation of fussy adults are concerned about how kids are so distracted these days that they have atomically-sized attention spans, rivaling that…
Why We Do What We Do140 | Sensory Integration Therapy | Why We Do What We Do
Likey to ruffle some feathers, this episode is a discussion about the science of the sensory integration therapy approach. This is NOT an indictment of…
Why We Do What We Do139 | Berserkers | Why We Do What We Do
Berserkers may or may not have been real people. There is evidence to suggest they did exist. But they were elite warriors who belonged to a tribal lifestyle…
Why We Do What We Do138 | Why People Do Stupid Things (Part 2) | Why We Do What We Do
This continues and concludes our discussion on why people do the "stupid" things that they do. Again, mostly they don't. This was particularly challenging…
Why We Do What We Do137 | Why People Do Stupid Things (Part 1) | Why We Do What We Do
Happy New Year! To keep this a fun and easy episode, we simply enumerated some things that people do that appear to be "stupid." In an exercise in…
Why We Do What We Do136 | Psychedelics in Therapy With Stu Law (Part 3) | Why We Do What We Do
Happy Holidays! We didn't mention the holidays when we recorded because I wasn't sure what the publishing schedule was going to be at the time that we recorded…
Why We Do What We Do135 | Psychedelics in Therapy With Stu Law (Part 2) | Why We Do What We Do
We follow our conversation from the previous episode with a discussion more about how psychedelics work on our psychology through our language. This is where…
Why We Do What We Do134 | Psychedelics in Therapy With Stu Law (Part 1) | Why We Do What We Do
Psychedelics have an interesting history in medicinal uses. They have been used for good and for ill. This discussion is both optimistic and cautionary. If we…
Why We Do What We Do133 | Prion Diseases | Why We Do What We Do
Prions are misfolded proteins that mostly occur in the brain. Prions can cause other proteins to misfold, which rots the brain away and results in death…
Why We Do What We Do132 | The Ghosts of Limbs Past: Phantom Limb Pain | Why We Do What We Do
When a limb is lost or removed, most people report feeling a sensation of pain in the area where that body part used to be... even though it's gone! Long…
Why We Do What We Do131 | Lead Poisoning Our Brains | Why We Do What We Do
Lead has been used as cosmetics, sweetener, a contraceptive, and a host of other things. We even discovered it was detrimental to our health, but ramped up…
Why We Do What We Do130 | The Psychology of Humor (Our Funniest Episode Ever!) | Why We Do What We Do
Special guest, Stu Law, has studied humor and comedy as a hobby and somewhat more directly in his career. He has evaluated what makes us laugh and come to the…
Why We Do What We Do129 | Tapping Meridian Points | Why We Do What We Do
Serious psychologists have recommended using tapping meridian points as legitimate psychological therapy. So we decided to explore the history and science of…