Is Love Meant to Be Stressful?
All cooperative relationships between two individuals - whether business partnerships, romantic relationships, or political alliances - share the same commitment problem: one business partner may...
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Spiritual Sex
Because of its allegedly pornographic content, D.H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover wasn't published until 33 years after his death, in 1963. But far from being pornographic, the book is about...
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Countdown in the Rat Lab
Below is an excerpt from my book, Memoirs of an Addicted Brain, soon to be released in the US. The excerpt deals with ego fatigue, like the last post...(and the next one). But it doesn't get into the...
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The "Bright Child" vs. the "Gifted Learner": What's the Difference?
A teacher stands before me in the hallway of the school. It's early in the morning, a good twenty minutes before students will come into the rooms, and already she is clearly stressed. She's been...
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Transparency and Intimacy
"I'm kind of loving Adam, but I'm not sure." Alicia said."Tell me more." I suggested.Alicia responded quickly. "He's attentive, good company, and has a sense of humor. He told me he had a great...
View ArticleMeasuring Intrinsic Motivation Scientifically
In an earlier post I compared the Deci-Ryan model and the theory of 16 basic desires on the scientific criterion of construct validity. I observed that mind-body dualism in theology, and the Deci-Ryan...
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A Better Way to Think about "Settling" in Relationships
When I hear people talking about their relationships, all too often they say things like, "he's fine, but I think I could do better," or "am I settling for her?" There are many reasons we think like...
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The Psychopathology of Everything
As the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) has unfolded in recent decades you'll notice that this "psychiatric bible" gets larger and larger with more and more...
View ArticleFear Factor: The Religious Right's Problem With Women
The world has seen the terror and confusion on the porcelain face of eight-year-old Naama Margolese, who was insulted and spat on by ultra-Orthodox men as she walked to school in the Israeli city of...
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Mark Berndt: Profile of Perversion
Los Angeles teacher Mark Berndt was arrested this week for performing lewd acts with children. Photographs of his students being bound, gagged, and tortured both in the classroom and in a basement,...
View ArticlePersonality and Brand Choice: Can Your Favourite Brands Reveal Your EQ?
Although marketeers regularly speak about "brand personality," they rarely profile brands or products with the rigor of psychological tools (especially those used to profile people). Yet it is quite...
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Explaining the Universe vs. Explaining Its Rulers
A New Yorker Cartoon December's Christmas edition of The New Yorker, with the silhouette of Santa and his reindeer scampering under the tracks of an elevated train on the cover,...
View ArticleMeasure Twice, Cut Once!
Carpenters and builders have learned to avoid making mistakes the hard way, thereby ruining valuable and costly material. Cut the wood improperly, and the piece is unusable. So, the little saying about...
View ArticleHow to manage when anxiety manages you
For the past three months, I've been working in a hospital. Surrounded by countless pump-dispensers of medical-grade hand sanitizer, my consciousness about illness has been raised. That's one reason...
View ArticleAcademic Dishonesty: Prevalent But Preventable
Universities around the country are taking various measures to promote academic integrity, amidst studies reporting high rates of self-reported cheating among high school and college students (academic...
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Rewiring Your Brain for Healthy Empathy: Acquiring a Voltmeter
In the scheme of "rewiring your brain for love," one of the benefits of mindfulness practice when it comes to relationships could be thought of as acquiring a voltmeter -- that quality of empathy that...
View Article13 Lessons for Aging Well - Lesson 2
Lesson Two: (Re)Design Your Space - Aging Our WayThis is the second in a 13- post series on living well, adapted from Aging Our Way: Lessons for Living from 85 and BeyondMargaret, like most of us, has...
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The Power of Film as Storyteller: Oscar Nominee “The Help”
Film as Transformative Storytelling We love film, television and other forms of media storytelling in part because our experience with them is very personal. When we watch a film, we are transported...
View ArticleWhy paranormalism?
Several years ago, in an undergraduate course, I expressed skepticism about the efficacy of paranormal powers. After the lecture, a student approached me and rhetorically asked, "But ESP is real--don't...
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Believing Our Own Lies
Leon Festinger was an American social psychologist, responsible for the development of the Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, which suggests that when people are persuaded to say things and to behave in...
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