The Science of Hatred
A Bosnian social psychologist who studies guilt and responsibility in the collective memory (and denial) of Sreberbica, which is “among the most scientifically documented mass killings in history.”
A Bosnian social psychologist who studies guilt and responsibility in the collective memory (and denial) of Sreberbica, which is “among the most scientifically documented mass killings in history.”
Tom Bartlett The Chronicle of Higher Education Nov 2013 25min Permalink
What the popular game says about our subconscious.
Linda Rodriguez McRobbie Smithsonian Oct 2013 1h30min Permalink
What good can come of tragedy.
Mark Obbie Pacific Standard Jun 2013 15min Permalink
Marketing research,the pre-Facebook history of ‘likeability,’ and why there will never be a ‘dislike’ button.
Robert W. Gehl The New Inquiry Mar 2013 Permalink
New research upends ideas about culture’s impact on how our brains our wired.
Ethan Watters Pacific Standard Feb 2013 20min Permalink
On Julian Jaynes, a Princeton psychologist who told the story of how humans learned to think.
Rachel Aviv n+1 Mar 2013 10min Permalink
Why psychologists love “priming.”
Tom Bartlett The Chronicle of Higher Education Jan 2013 20min Permalink
A profile of the man behind the “7 Habits.”
Timothy K. Smith Fortune Dec 1994 20min Permalink
The story of one man’s descent into lies and illegal activity – and why it could so easily happen to any of us.
Alix Spiegel, Chana Joffe-Walt NPR May 2012 15min Permalink
Margaret Profet, evolutionary biologist and MacArthur grant recipient, disappeared in 2005. She has neither been seen nor heard from since.
Mike Martin Psychology Today May 2012 Permalink
On a pair of Israeli psychologists who between 1971 and 1984 “published a series of quirky papers exploring the ways human judgment may be distorted when we are making decisions in conditions of uncertainty.”
Michael Lewis Vanity Fair Dec 2011 Permalink
The misconception? You do nice things for the people you like and bad things to the people you hate.
The truth? You grow to like people for whom you do nice things and hate people you harm.
David McRaney You're Not So Smart Oct 2011 20min Permalink
In 1959, a social psychologist in Michigan brought together three institutionalized patients for an experiment:
[W]hat would happen, he wondered, if he made three men meet and live closely side by side over a period of time, each of whom believed himself to be the one and only Jesus Christ?
Jenny Diski London Review of Books Sep 2011 20min Permalink
A profile of a serial sex offender:
This is a story about how hard it is to be good—or, rather, how hard it is to be good once you’ve been bad; how hard it is to be fixed once you’ve been broken; how hard it is to be straight once you’ve been bent. It is about a scary man who is trying very hard not to be scary anymore and yet who still manages to scare not only the people who have good reason to be afraid of him but even occasionally himself. It is about sex, and how little we know about its mysteries; about the human heart, and how futilely we have responded—with silence, with therapy, with the law and even with the sacred Constitution—to its dark challenge. It is about what happens when we, as a society, no longer trust our futile responses and admit that we have no idea what to do with a guy like Mitchell Gaff.
An essay on poetry and madness.
People still think of poets as an odd bunch, as you’ll know if you’ve been introduced as one at a wedding. Some poets spotlight this conception by saying otherworldly things, playing up afflictions and dramas, and otherwise hinting that they might be visionaries. In the past few centuries, of course, the standard picture of psychopathology has changed a great deal. But as it’s often invoked, the idea of the mad poet preserves, in fossil form, a stubbornly outdated and incomplete image of madness. Modern psychiatry and neuroscience have supplanted this image almost everywhere else.
Joshua Mehigan Poetry Jul 2011 20min Permalink
A two-part breakdown of how mental illness is diagnosed and treated.
Marcia Angell New York Review of Books Jul 2011 35min Permalink
The story of a high school quarterback’s descent into madness, and its tragic end.
Elizabeth Dwoskin Village Voice May 2011 20min Permalink
Barry Michels is Hollywood’s most successful therapist cum motivation coach with an approach that combines Jungian psychology, encouraging patients to embrace their dark side, and “three-by-five index cards inscribed with Delphic pronouncements like THE HIERARCHY WILL NEVER BE CLEAR.”
Dana Goodyear New Yorker Mar 2011 20min Permalink
The bizarre tale–and unlikely turnaround–of an NHL player who tried to have his youth coach murdered.
L. Jon Wertheim Sports Illustrated Feb 2011 Permalink
Is long-term solitary confinement torture?
Atul Gawande New Yorker Mar 2009 35min Permalink
Anxiety, weight, general well-being—how the first nine months determine the rest of your life.
Annie Murphy Paul Time Sep 2010 15min Permalink
What we can learn from procrastination.
James Surowiecki New Yorker Oct 2010 15min Permalink
If the fittest survive, why are so many people still depressed? An evolutionary theory on the benefits of painful rumination.
Jonah Lehrer New York Times Magazine Feb 2010 Permalink
Thirty years ago, few people had ever heard of ADD. ‘Early onset depression’ might become a common diagnosis long before 2040.
Pamela Paul New York Times Magazine Aug 2010 Permalink
A psychological theory emerges to explain why young Americans are taking a while to grow up.