From political psychology to ethical porn to sports psychology to therapy to race issues to mindsets for coping during a global pandemic and having success in one’s life, The Psychology Podcast had you covered in 2020. Here’s a sampling of some of the top podcast episodes from this year. Caroline Webb || How to Have a […]

“We must understand love; we must be able to teach it, to create it, to predict it, or else the world is lost to hostility and to suspicion.” – Abraham Maslow, The Psychology of Being In his article “Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person“, the philosopher Alain de Botton noted that “choosing whom to commit […]

A lot has been written about assholes over the years (for example, see Bob Sutton’s terrific book on surviving assholes in the workplace). But what is an asshole, really? What are the traits and characteristics of those whom we typically deem “asshole” in polite society? How do we differentiate between different asshole types? Who are not assholes? In this post, I’ll […]

“My main point is that [IQ tests] leave out the unconscious, the depths, the inner principle. They leave out the impulse-life, the emotions, the intuitions, the wisdom of the unconscious, the poetic and esthetic, the values… the wisdom of the heart… It is certainly useful to have intelligence tests… they… can be quite useful. But […]

Do you get excited and energized by the possibility of learning something new and complex? Do you get turned on by nuance? Do you get really stimulated by new ideas and imaginative scenarios?  You may have an influx of dopamine in your synapses, but not where we traditionally think of the dopamine flowing. In general, […]

Quick: Rate how much you agree with each of these items on a scale of 1 (“not me at all”) to 5 (“this is so me”): It is important to me that people who hurt me acknowledge that an injustice has been done to me. I think I am much more conscientious and moral in […]

Many of you have heard of the “dark triad” of personality traits: narcissism (exaggerated sense of entitlement, superiority, and grandiosity), Machiavellianism (exploitation and manipulation), and psychopathy (cynicism, callousness, thrill seeking). Also, many of you have heard of the “empath“, those who automatically feel the emotions of others and who get overwhelmed with too much stimulation, intimacy, […]

The humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow was deeply interested in how the suppression of healthy ambition can stunt self-actualization, and the tendency for people to fear growth. In an unpublished essay from 1966, Maslow noted that in our society we learn “to put on a chameleon-like cloak of false modesty or humility.” Maslow argued that in order to avoid punishment […]

The psychologist Anders Ericsson passed away on June 17th at the age of 73. This passing of a legend in the field has deeply emotionally affected a lot of people in the field (for instance, see these beautiful obituaries by David Epstein and Nick Byrd). I had prior drafts of this obituary, but decided to […]

I consider myself a deeply spiritual person. I also consider myself an intellectual. Sometimes the two sides of myself don’t understand each other. And as much as my intellectual side can reason itself into believing it is right, my spiritual side sometimes just feels right. I’ve lately been using my intellectual side to think through […]