Episodes

Fathers make unique contributions to language development in their children; fathers actually matter more in this sense. When fathers use more words with preschool children during play, children have more advanced language skills a year later. Children whose fathers play with them, read to them, take them on outings, and help care for them have fewer behavioral problems in their early school years and a lesser likelihood of delinquency as adolescents. Tune in a learn what it takes to be a great ...

One of the most prevalent—and damaging—themes in our culture is the need to be right. It's one of those essential memes that we take for granted. It is so deeply embedded in our belief system and in the collective psyche that we never even pause to consider it. It would really serve us to inquire why it is so compelling. Before we begin to look at that, let's just reflect on how it impacts our lives. From the more personal and mundane battles over who said what in the midst of an argument to the...

Psychology has largely focused on the various things that can go wrong with the human mind, including different forms of mental illness and how we react to traumatic events in the world. While positive psychology tries to remedy that by focusing on topics such as happiness and self-fulfillment, the countless research studies exploring what it means to live more fully tend not to be known outside the academic community. Even though the popular media is now bursting with stories and articles descr...

Many of the people I work with tell me they feel restless, knowing there is “something more” to do with their careers and their lives. They also feel a little sad and maybe resentful. Is this you? As you look back on this year, do you feel grateful for what has occurred or relief that it is finally over?Actually, you can feel unfulfilled when life is good and when it isn’t. You can be busy and successful but sense emptiness inside. Or you can be on the other end where you feel nothing is how you...

Unemployment has especially hurt older workers in this recession. Workers 55 years old and older are more likely to be unemployed and spend longer looking for a new job than is the case for younger workers. They also often experience discrimination. This exacerbates the mental stresses associated with unemployment, adding to other health worries in the pandemic and further eroding older workers’ financial security. Unemployment has been more widespread among the oldest workers than among somewha...

Living without passion, positive expectations, or enthusiasm can become painful. But feeling hopeless doesn’t have to be permanent. We all have our own definitions of hope and hopelessness, but the emotions we experience are real and valid. Feeling hopeless may be a natural, universal response to personal and world events that impact our lives. It can also be a symptom of depression, adjustment disorders, and other mental health conditions. Tune in and and learn how to work our way out of hopele...

Politics is something that has become inescapable in our social media focused society. We all know a person that uses a social media platform to start arguments with people they disagree with politically. Often spreading misinformation that will heavily sway other people’s beliefs as well. (Strandberg et al. 2018) This behavior has always been a part of our internet culture as social media allows people to reach a larger audience than ever before. (Nelson, 2018) However, this type of behavior ha...

Gluttony is the over-indulgence and over-consumption of food and drink, and it's something pretty much all of us are guilty of from time to time. We all love to eat, and we especially crave rich, calorie-packed foods. Knowing that we “shouldn’t” often makes little difference. How often has your willpowercollapsed at the sight of a scrumptious chocolate cake? Our drive to eat goes way beyond basic hunger. There is a drive within all of us to eat, eat, and eat some more. What’s worse is that this ...

Don’t reduce Gen Z students to zombies on smartphones. Eighty-three percent prefer face-to-face communication versus texting, phone, or email, but many feel they’ve lacked adequate socialization or training for in-person conversation. They struggle with small talk, and hiding behind their phones is a crutch they turn to when they feel intimidated by the situation. Also, just because they’re comfortable with technology doesn’t necessarily make them tech savvy. Especially germane in this time of r...

Sexual self-esteem influences almost every sexual decision you make, from who you engage with and when to whether you constrain yourself and how. However, very little is known about sexual self-esteem and who has more or less of it. This is particularly important because sexual self-esteem and sexual satisfaction are closely related. Several studies suggest that lower sexual self-esteem negatively impacts sexual satisfaction. Another study reported the results of an experiment to test the effect...

Just as psychology studies pretty much everything a human could ever partake in, it also studies religion. The science of psychology is an attempt to analyze every part of the human experience and behavior. The psychology of religion aims to uncover the impact of relationships in religion in order to predict behaviors. It is meant to connect religious consciousness with religious patterns and behaviors. While many psychologists have defined religion in their own ways throughout the years, it is ...

Psychological warfare involves a mental or emotional type of battle, as opposed to practicing physical combat. Psychological warfare utilizes specific designs, including propaganda and menacing statements, that aim to adversely affect an enemy's rationale and actions. Several intended effects of psychological warfare may include the control, pressure, or weakening of the enemy, in both mind and body. Today our media uses psychological warfare to gaslight America. We live in a dishonest majority ...

Just as definitions of happiness change, so too does our ability to handle adversity. Numerous tales exist of people undergoing tremendous hardships -- cancer, losing a job, a bad breakup -- and finding themselves in the end as happy as or happier than ever. Despite the difficulty in pinning down what happiness is and how to achieve it. Tune in and learn how to boost your happiness!

Parents are intentionally left in the dark about the harmful ideas on gender being peddled to their kids. Gender identity” was once just a fringe concept of postmodern philosophy. Today, it’s regularly causing real-world harm to children and teenagers (particularly girls) across the country in sports, schools, and even youth camps. The blatant promotion of transgenderism has infiltrated schools without parental consent and at the expense of academic learning. Gender-identity school policies and ...

Psychological abuse is common and yet few understand the psychological abuse definition enough to spot it. Without the visible signs of physical abuse, psychological abuse can stay hidden for years. Psychological abuse, though, can be just as devastating as physical abuse. Psychological abuse can affect your inner thoughts and feelings as well as exert control over your life. You may feel uncertain of the world around you and unsafe in your own home. Psychological abuse can destroy intimate rela...

Living alone is a modern phenomenon. For most of history, very few people lived alone. In the U.S., even as recently as 1960, only 7 million people lived alone; they accounted for just 13 percent of all households. By 2020, more than five times as many Americans were living alone, 36.2 million. Of course, the entire population was growing, but even as a proportion of all households, the rate of living alone had more than doubled, to 28 percent. Now, if you were to knock on any door at random in ...

We all make mistakes, and we do so with regularity. Some errors are small, such as, “No, we don’t need to stop at the store; there’s plenty of milk left for breakfast. Some are bigger, such as, “Don’t rush me; we have plenty of time to get to the airport before the flight leaves.” And some are crucial, such as, “I know it was raining and dark, but I’m sure that was the man I saw breaking into the home across the street.” No one enjoys being wrong. It’s an unpleasant emotional experience for all ...

Debates over how to parent are as old as parenting itself. The truth is Good Enough is all we can strive for. In the recent past, we've seen the Tiger Mom, who threatened to burn her daughter's stuffed animals if she didn't play a piano piece correctly. American parents' overindulgence, she said, was why Chinese mothers are superior. Here in the U.S., advocates of attachment parenting recommend co-sleeping and baby-wearing, while others believe babies need to learn how to self-soothe (that is, c...

Sometimes the stressors of the modern world make us just want to scream. The constant bombardment of negative news and our continual connection to our technological devices can make us feel trapped, with a strong desire to escape. Perhaps we just need some time alone to heal and nurture ourselves. When we have this feeling, it might be that our minds and souls are sending us messages. We’re being reminded that it’s time to step away and indulge in some self-care. Tune in and learn healthy and un...

It’s impossible to go through life without causing hurt to those people we love. We may have to do this for their own good—for instance, when we need to be firm with a child who we believe is engaged in destructive behaviours. We may inflict pain on another person when we need to do what is right for us, such as leaving a relationship. Most of us feel bad about inflicting hurt and might stay in situations way too long for fear of hurting our loved ones. But some people go through life causing a ...

Suicide often stems from a deep feeling of hopelessness. The inability to see solutions to problems or to cope with challenging life circumstances may lead people to see taking their own lives as the only solution to what is really a temporary situation, and most survivors of suicide attempts go on to live full, rewarding lives. Depression is a key risk factor for suicide; others include psychiatric disorders, substance use, chronic pain, a family history of suicide, and a prior suicide attempt....

When your marriage is in trouble, you don't have any options without pain or sacrifice. You can divorce, separate, stay in the marriage, or get creative and change the marital rules. Each option has trade-offs. Everyone knows that divorce is extremely difficult on many fronts. Not only is it a tremendous loss (loss of stability, loss of a partner, loss of a dream, loss of a sense of family), but it can be quite challenging financially and socially. This is especially true when the couple has chi...

Because narcissists operate in an ‘all about me’ fashion, the world revolves around them, their needs and desires. They continue to be selfish and expect others, including their children, to cater to them. So, when their child does well, they take credit and brag about the child, and when the child struggles, they blame the child or others for it. They are controlling and they readily induce guilt in their children. They tend not to offer much by way of emotional support and validation, and the ...

Images of child sex abuse have reached a crisis point on the internet, spreading at unprecedented rates in part because tech platforms and law enforcement agencies have failed to keep pace with the problem. But less is understood about the issue underlying it all: What drives people to sexually abuse children? Science in recent years has begun to provide some answers. One thing most pedophiles have in common: They discover, usually as teenagers, that their sexual preferences have not matured lik...