The Psych Files - Michael Britt

Latest Episodes:

Ep 261: Which of These Scientific Terms Are You Using Incorrectly? Jul 11, 2016

Show notes

Do you think you're using the words "control group" correctly? You're probably not. In fact, you're probably also getting these terms wrong as well: "truth serum", "lie detector", "bystander apathy", "personality type", Oxytocin, "closure" and even the "scientific method"? In this episode I review some of the points made by Scott Lilienfeld and his colleagues regarding scientific terms that you're probably using incorrectly.

Ep 260: We Can't Put Our Phones Down - How You Can Feel Better About That Jun 22, 2016

Show notes

Cell phones: they're here and they're not going away. So now it's time to "stop worrying and learn to love them". If you're upset about how much time teens spend on their phones I'll give you a few ideas that, hopefully, will make you feel better. After all, cellphones aren't going away. Quite the opposite. They're only going to get more powerful and more ubiquitous. The "pull" of the phone is irresistible. In this follow-up to episode 258 I want to talk about how adults and parents can feel less distressed by a teen's behavior. I hope the ideas in this episode help.

Ep 259: How Could You Have Missed That? May 27, 2016

Show notes

What is change blindness? How could you miss some of the most obvious things that change right in front of you? Millions of people watch a video of kids playing basketball and they miss the fact that a gorilla walks right through the scene. A gorilla? And people missed it? Yup. We often miss lots of things that happen right in front of us because our attention spans work in strange ways. And because what happened isn't what we expected to happen. Let's learn about change blindness.

Ep: 258 - 5 Reasons Why You Can't Put Your Phone Down and What to do About it Apr 27, 2016

Show notes

Why do we find it so hard to put down our phones? I'll give you 5 reasons drawn directly from psychological theories on how we learn, how teenagers are strongly affected by reward and how we are all drawn in by mystery. There is of course no easy answer for how to get teens to put down their phones but I'll share what I'm doing with my teenagers.
--------------- Want to master the tricks to a great memory? As you know, I’m a huge fan of mnemonics and how useful they can be, so I’ve brought all of my episodes on this topic together, as well as created brand new episodes, to put together a course on how to use memory techniques to improve your memory. Whether you use the info to improve grades on your next exam, improve your ability to remember names (my personal pet peeve) or if you just want to learn more about how memory works, I believe you’re going to find this course really interesting. There are even episodes on how to recall those great jokes you keep forgetting. Check it out here. http://bit.ly/hippos-llamas-aliens

Ep 257: What IS in Baloney Anyway? Let's Find Out Why You Eat What You Eat Apr 14, 2016

Show notes

I grew up eating baloney without ever giving a thought to where it came from. But psychology is all reflecting on who you are, why you think the way you do and why you do what you do. So let's explore our eating behavior: why do we think it's weird or wrong when we hear that in some cultures people eat cat meat or insects or bats. Is it really that different from eating cows and pigs? How are we influenced to think that some foods are okay while others aren't...?

Ep 256 (Audio Only): Study Psychology On The Go with the Clammr App Apr 04, 2016

Show notes

What if you could study for your psychology test in 24 second sound bytes on your iPhone? Now you can. I recently contacted Parviv - the founder of an app called Clammr. Typically, people use Clammr to stay on top of the news, listen to podcasts or "top tweets" and other humorous audio clips. I thought it would make a great test prep tool. So check it out: download Clammr on your iPhone and search for Psych Fest Prep. You can choose from 7 major psychology topics and start studying!

Ep 255: London Has a Problem and It's a Job for a Psychologist Feb 12, 2016

Show notes

London needs help and only a person trained in psychology can fix this. There are just too many Londoners using their subway (the "tube") and instead of standing side by side as they go up the escalator, people are doing what they always do - they stand single file on the right of the escalator so that people in a hurry can pass on the left. That's a fine social norm when there aren't that many people, but if London transport is going to be usable as the population grows they're going to have to get people to behave differently.

How can we break such a strong norm? It's not just London's problem. When you go up the stairs which side do you stand on? The right of course, and you expect the people coming down the stairs to stay to their right. When someone doesn't follow the norm we can get pretty annoyed.

So what can we do to create a wide scale change in behavior? We have to apply a little social psychology.

Ep 254: How to Create Great Ways for Seniors to Live Jan 20, 2016

Show notes

What comes to mind when you think "nursing home"? Not so good, right? Let's change that. Let's use what we learn from psychology to create exciting places for seniors to live. We've got the tools provided by Maslow's Hierarchy and by the Self Determination theory. Here's one way we could revolutionize the "senior years".

Ep 253: How to Prevent Violence in Your Neighborhood Jan 11, 2016

Show notes

Passengers on an airplane spring to action when a stewardess needs help - but a neighborhood in New York City does very little when a woman is attacked. What's different? How can we take what we learn from the airplane and apply it to the attack? Lecturing the neighborhood residents probably won't help. Can we do anything to the way the neighborhood is laid out to encourage interaction among residents and a greater sense of interdependency among them? That's what we explore in this episode of The Psych Files.

Ep 252: How Psychology Gets You To Slow Down While Driving Dec 29, 2015

Show notes

How can we use a little psychology to get you to slow down when you're driving? You'd be surprised. Very often road signs like "Slow" or a posted speed limit of, say 20 mph does not work. Drivers go past these signs and nothing bad happens so after a while they're ignored. We try to make it more personal with signs say, "Drive as if your kids live here", but often that doesn't work. How about something trickier: what if we enlisted the help of those 3D sidewalk artists? What could they possibly do? You'll find out.

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