#745 Christopher Ferguson - Catastrophe!; Why Good People Make Bad Situations Worse
RECORDED ON FEBRUARY 6th 2023.
Dr. Christopher J. Ferguson is professor of psychology at Stetson University. He is interested in media violence and, in particular, video games. He’s the author of Catastrophe!: How Psychology Explains Why Good People Make Bad Situations Worse.
In this episode, we focus on “Catastrophe!”. We talk about the cognitive biases that people have during emergencies. We get into topics like trends in suicide rates and blaming social media for it, views on relationships between races in the US. We discuss if the idea of the “madness of crowds” is useful, and availability cascades and social contagion. We talk about how the COVID-19 pandemic became another culture war. We also get into terrorism statistics and how people overreact to it, and the causes of violence and its link to mental disorder. We discuss why it is so hard to tackle climate change. Finally, we talk about how we can manage crises better.
Time Links:
Intro
How people react to catastrophe: cognitive biases during catastrophe
Trends in suicide rates, and why they have gone up in the US
Blaming social media. Is it really causing mental health issues?
Views on relationships between races in the US
Is the idea of the “madness of crowds” useful?
Availability cascades and social contagion
What can we do during an availability cascade?
How did the COVID-19 pandemic turn into another culture war?
Terrorism statistics
The causes of violence, and the link with mental disorder
Why is it so hard to tackle climate change?
How we can manage crises better
Most people are reasonable
Follow Dr. Ferguson’s work!
Follow Dr. Ferguson’s work:
Our first interview: https://youtu.be/1G0tKXPWl_I
Faculty page: https://bit.ly/2FEmghC
Website: https://bit.ly/2ZBxNFz
Psychology Today blog: https://bit.ly/2Fw6Rjo
Catastrophe!: https://bit.ly/3VLi0ih
Twitter handle: @CJFerguson1111