psychology

#777 Gil Greengross: The (Evolutionary) Psychology of Humor, Laughter, and Comedians

May 4, 2023

Dr. Gil Greengross is a Lecturer in Psychology at Aberystwyth University. He is an evolutionary psychologist, studying the evolutionary roots of everyday behaviors and emotions. His main area of research focuses on the evolution of humor and laughter, what makes people laugh, and how humor is used in mating and mate choice. He also has a strong interest in studying people with extreme creative abilities, such as stand-up comedians, magicians, and other artists. More»
#775 Charles Fernyhough: Inner Speech, Imaginary Companions, and Auditory Hallucinations

Apr 28, 2023

Dr. Charles Fernyhough is a Professor of Psychology at Durham University, where he is also Director of the Centre for Research into Inner Experience. He has contributed to the understanding of how language and thought are related in child development and beyond. The focus of his recent scientific work has been in applying ideas from mainstream developmental psychology to the study of psychosis, particularly the phenomenon of voice-hearing. He is the author of books like Pieces of Light: The New Science of Memory, and The Voices Within: The History and Science of How We Talk to Ourselves. More»
#772 Joseph Uscinski: The Politics and Psychology of Conspiracy Theories

Apr 21, 2023

Dr. Joseph Uscinski is Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami. He studies public opinion and mass media, with a focus on conspiracy theories and related misinformation. He is co-author of American Conspiracy Theories (Oxford, 2014) and editor of Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them (Oxford, 2018). His textbook on conspiracy theories is Conspiracy Theories: A Primer. More»
#768 Laurence Kirmayer - Cultural Consultation: Encountering the Other in Mental Health Care

Apr 13, 2023

Dr. Laurence Kirmayer is James McGill Professor and Director of the Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry at McGill University, and editor-in-chief emeritus of Transcultural Psychiatry. He directs the Culture & Mental Health Research Unit at the Jewish General Hospital where he conducts research on the mental health of Aboriginal peoples, mental health services for immigrants and refugees, and the cultural basis of psychiatric theory and practice. For 2021-2023, he is the President of the Society for Psychological Anthropology. He is the editor of Cultural Consultation: Encountering the Other in Mental Health Care. More»
#767 Belén López-Pérez: Emotion Regulation, Emotion Goals, Happiness, and Empathy

Apr 10, 2023

Dr. Belén López-Pérez is a Lecturer in Psychology at The University of Manchester. She concluded her PhD in Social psychology at Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in 2012, and her Postdoctoral research in Social and Developmental Psychology in the School of Psychology at Plymouth University. Her research interests include empathy and interpersonal emotion regulation across the lifespan, as well as happiness and well-being. More»
#764 Alessandra Cassar: Female Competitiveness, Cooperative Breeding, and Market Development

Apr 3, 2023

Dr. Alessandra Cassar is a Professor of Economics at the University of San Francisco. She is the Vice-President for North America of the Economic Science Association. Her current research concentrates on the under-studied areas of female competitiveness; the consequences of conflict and disaster victimization for altruism, trust, religiosity, risk, and time preferences; and the role of social networks for economic outcomes. More»
#763 Mitch Brown: Pathogen Avoidance, Mate Preferences for Facial Features, and Humor

Mar 31, 2023

Dr. Mitch Brown is an instructor and researcher in Psychology at the University of Arkansas. His research uses complementary social and evolutionary perspectives in understanding how fundamental social motives shape social perceptions and interpersonal preferences. This work primarily considers (1) the tradeoffs people invoke to avoid disease and belong to groups, (2) the prioritization of physical features and behaviors in shaping preferences for short-term and long-term mates, and (3) how inferences of men’s formidability inform stereotypes of personality and social functions. From an increasingly applied standpoint, his research considers how evolutionary motives impede fair treatment of individuals under the U.S. Constitution. More»
#757 Quentin Atkinson: Comparing Cultures, Climate Change, and Religion

Mar 17, 2023

Dr. Quentin Atkinson is a Professor in Psychology at the University of Auckland, where he runs the Language, Cognition and Culture Lab, and co-Director of the University of Auckland Behavioural Insights Exchange (UoABIX). He uses lab and field experiments, computer modelling and evolutionary theory to shed light on the evolution of human culture and cognition. This work answers questions including the origins of linguistic diversity, the function of religion, the psychology of climate change, how evolved cognitive biases shape our social behavior and why political systems vary the way they do around the globe. More»
#756 Donald Hoffman: The Case Against Reality, and the Interface Theory of Perception

Mar 16, 2023

Dr. Donald Hoffman is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Hoffman studies consciousness, visual perception and evolutionary psychology using mathematical models and psychophysical experiments. He is the author of The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes. More»
#754 Jerome Wakefield: What is a Mental Disorder?; Depression, and Anxiety

Mar 10, 2023

Dr. Jerome Wakefield is a Professor at NYU Silver as well as an NYU University Professor with multidisciplinary appointments, particularly affiliate faculty in Philosophy and affiliate faculty in Bioethics. Dr. Wakefield’s scholarly specialty is the conceptual foundations of clinical theory. Much of his recent work has concerned the concept of mental disorder, especially how normal negative responses to a problematic social environment can be distinguished from mental disorder and how DSM diagnostic criteria fail to adequately draw this distinction. He’s the author of several books, including The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow into Depressive Disorder, and All We Have to Fear: Psychiatry’s Transformation of Natural Anxieties into Mental Disorders. More»