Tag: psychology

Political irrationality

[podcast]https://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2011/04/Political-Irrationality.mp3[/podcast] This week, in honour of the Canadian federal election coming up May 2, I’m revisiting a column from a few years ago that seems apropos. It’s all about political irrationality, and if you read that phrase and immediately assume it’s referring to the obvious irrationality of the political beliefs of those who plan to …

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An epic tale of self-control

You may have seen this news item recently about how a toddler’s self-control at the age of three can predict his or her health and wealth once grown. This study has been running through my mind for a week because I have, I think, demonstrated a tremendous amount of self-control over the past few days, …

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Red means stop, green means go, yellow means…?

[podcast]https://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2010/06/The-Yellow-Light-Dilemma.mp3[/podcast] I went through a yellow light today. I’d glanced away at the wrong moment, looked up to see the light had gone yellow, and realized I couldn’t stop without slamming on the brakes and probably skidding into the intersection. Later, I was crossing a street downtown when a van went through the yellow in …

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The ebb and flow of curvy cars

[podcast]https://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2010/04/Curvy-Cars.mp3[/podcast] In the 1940s and 1950s, cars had curves. From the 1960s through the 1980s, they tended to have sharp angles. But since then, they’ve tended more toward the curvy again…although I’m seeing signs of angularity one more. Have you ever wondered why? A German researcher at the University of Bamberg with the unlikely-yet-oddly-appropriate name …

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Morally malignant magnets

[podcast]https://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2010/03/Morally-Malignant-Magnets.mp3[/podcast] One of the things that distinguishes humans from animals is moral judgment, our ability to judge other people’s actions in terms of our own sense of right and wrong. Our moral judgment feels so integral to who we are, so much a part of our personality, that it’s a bit disturbing to discover, as …

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Boredom

Everyone is bored sometimes. You find yourself at loose ends, with nothing to read, nobody to talk to, and maybe not even anything interesting to look at…driving alone from Regina to Saskatoon, for example. Yet science has carried out relatively little research on boredom. About four years ago, Richard Ralley, a lecturer in psychology at …

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Social contagions

[podcast]https://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2010/01/Social-Contagions.mp3[/podcast] Parents (I don’t think I’m giving away any parental secrets here) worry about peer pressure–not least because parents remember how much their behavior was influenced by peers when they were young. The fact is, we’re all influenced by the people around us…and we often think of that influence as a bad thing. As the …

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Why I’m not Stephenie Meyer

[podcast]https://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2010/01/Why-Im-Not-Stephanie-Meyer.mp3[/podcast] I’m a full-time writer, but not, alas, a fabulously wealthy and/or successful one. James Cameron isn’t bugging me about film rights; Oprah isn’t plugging me on TV; fans aren’t lugging great stacks of my books around, chasing me for autographs. It’s easy, when you’re one of the little guys in any creative field, be …

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The scientific case for live music

[podcast]https://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2010/01/The-Scientific-Case-for-Live-Music.mp3[/podcast] Music today is ubiquitous, both in public spaces like malls, elevators and offices and in the very private space between an individual’s ears, courtesy of personal music players. But that’s all recorded music. Live music remains far rarer. Live musicians may occasionally show up in a public space, but you generally have to seek …

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Blame your brain for overeating

[podcast]https://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/12/Why-We-Overeat.mp3[/podcast] Put on a few extra pounds over Christmas? Wonder why you feel compelled to eat half a box of chocolates half an hour after finishing your second plate of turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy? Feel a little guilty? Well, new research offers clues to one of the most baffling aspects of the eternal …

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Why men and women shop the way they do

[podcast]https://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/12/Shopping-and-Gender.mp3[/podcast] They shuffle along with blank faces and dead eyes, unseeing, unthinking, lost in some private hell that you as passerby can only pray never similarly engulfs you. You scuttle by, eyes averted, as though they have some horrible contagion against which neither face masks, Tamiflu nor vaccination can defend…and yet the odds are that …

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The thrill of victory depends on the fear of the agony of defeat

[podcast]https://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/11/Sports-Emotions.mp3[/podcast] The Saskatchewan Roughriders play the Calgary Stampeders in the Canadian Football League’s Western Final this Sunday. That simple declarative sentence contains a novel’s worth of angst for fans of the Riders (and possibly for fans the Stampeders, too, but I can’t speak about that, not being one of those LOSERS!…oops, sorry, did I type …

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