psychology

#383 Daniel Kruger: Life History Theory, Time Perspective, and Health

Oct 26, 2020

Dr. Daniel Kruger is Research Investigator in the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan. He applies evolutionary principles to advance the understanding of a wide range of human psychology and behavior. Much of his work is founded on Life History Theory, which provides a powerful framework for understanding individual variation. He pursues both basic research to advance theory as well as applied projects that leverage the most powerful theoretical framework in the life sciences to promote human well-being and sustainability. More»
#381 Virgil Zeigler-Hill: Self-Esteem, Narcissism, and Romantic Love Styles

Oct 22, 2020

Dr. Virgil Zeigler-Hill is Professor of Psychology and Director of Graduate Training at Oakland University. He is a social-personality psychologist with primary research interests in four interrelated areas: (1) self-esteem, (2) narcissism, (3) cognitive representations of the self, and (4) interpersonal relationships. His research concerning self-esteem has largely focused on the potential causes and consequences of fragile high self-esteem. More recently, his research in this area has led to the development of the status-signaling model of self-esteem. His research concerning narcissism has examined the feelings of self-worth possessed by individuals with narcissistic personality features. His work in the area of cognitive representations of the self has examined the association between features of the self-concept (i.e., content and structure) and psychological adjustment. Finally, in the area of interpersonal relationships, he examines how beliefs about the self and one’s partner influence intimacy, relationship satisfaction, and longevity in close relationships. More»
#380 Gordon Pennycook: Analytic Thinking, Reasoning, and Fake News

Oct 19, 2020

Dr. Gordon Pennycook is Assistant Professor of Behavioural Science at University of Regina’s Hill/Levene Schools of Business. He’s also an Associate Member of the Department of Psychology. He’s a member of the editorial board for Thinking & Reasoning and a consulting editor for Judgment and Decision Making. His research focus is on reasoning and decision-making, broadly defined. He investigates the distinction between intuitive processes (“gut feelings”) and more deliberative (“analytic”) reasoning processes and is principally interested in the causes (a) and consequences (b) of analytic thinking. Dr. Pennycook has published on religious belief, sleep paralysis, morality, creativity, smartphone use, health beliefs (e.g., homeopathy), language use among climate change deniers, pseudo-profound bullshit, delusional ideation, fake news (and disinformation more broadly), political ideology, and science beliefs. He’s also interested in the methodological and theoretical issues that pertain to the measurement of cognitive reflection and motivated reasoning. More»
#379 Paul Eastwick: Close Relationships and Evolutionary Psychology

Oct 16, 2020

Dr. Paul Eastwick is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis. Dr. Eastwick’s research investigates how people initiate romantic relationships and the psychological mechanisms that help romantic partners to remain committed and attached. One of his research programs examines how the qualities that people say are critically important to them in a romantic partner—their ideal partner preferences—direct romantic partner selection and retention. He is also interested in exploring how close relationships research can inform evolutionary psychological approaches (and vice versa), especially with respect to the way that relationships grow and develop over time. More»
#376 Russell Warne: Standardized Tests, Critical Thinking and Creativity

Oct 9, 2020

Dr. Russell T. Warne is Associate Professor of Psychology at Utah Valley University. Dr. Warne is the associate editor for the Journal for the Education of the Gifted and serves on the editorial boards for Intelligence, the Journal of School Psychology, Gifted Child Quarterly, and the Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment. Dr. Warne has published over 55 scholarly articles in peer reviewed journals and is the author of the acclaimed undergraduate statistics textbook Statistics for the Social Sciences: A General Linear Model Approach. His next book is In the Know: Debunking 35 Myths About Human Intelligence. More»
#370 Martie Haselton - Hormonal: The Hidden Intelligence of Hormones

Sep 25, 2020

Dr. Martie Haselton is Professor in the Departments of Psychology and Communication as well as the ISG (Institute for Society and Genetics) at UCLA. Her research focuses on evolution and human behavior, social psychology, interpersonal communication, and social endocrinology. Her empirical work explores intimate relationships, sexuality, olfactory communication, psychological sex differences, social inference, evolution and health, and the effects of reproductive hormones on human behavior. She’s the author of the book Hormonal: The Hidden Intelligence of Hormones -- How They Drive Desire, Shape Relationships, Influence Our Choices, and Make Us Wiser. More»
#369 Alberto Acerbi: Cultural Evolution in the Digital Age

Sep 24, 2020

Dr. Alberto Acerbi is a Lecturer in Psychology in the Centre for Culture and Evolution at Brunel University London. He is a cognitive/evolutionary anthropologist with a particular interest in computational science. The main question that drives his research is: is it possible to find some general factors determining why some cultural traits succeed and others do not? He is interested in particular in contemporary cultural phenomena, and he uses a naturalistic, quantitative, and evolutionary approach with different methodologies, especially individual-based models and quantitative analysis of large-scale data. He published a book recently, Cultural Evolution in the Digital Age. More»
#365 Dan McAdams: The Psychology of Donald Trump

Sep 14, 2020

Dr. Dan P. McAdams is the Henry Wade Rogers Professor of Psychology and professor of human development and social policy at Northwestern University. Dr. McAdams is most well-known for formulating a life-story theory of human identity, which argues that modern adults provide their lives with a sense of unity and purpose by constructing and internalizing self-defining life stories or “personal myths.” He’s a leader in the recent emergence within the social sciences of narrative approaches to studying human lives – approaches that place stories and storytelling at the center of human personality. His theoretical and empirical writings focus on concepts of self and identity in contemporary American society and on themes of power, intimacy, redemption, and generativity across the adult life course. He’s also the author of nearly 300 scientific articles and chapters, numerous edited volumes, and seven books, including “The Strange Case of Donald J. Trump: A Psychological Reckoning”. More»
#364 Limor Raviv: Psycholinguistics, Child Development, and Language Acquisition

Sep 11, 2020

Dr. Limor Raviv is a research associate at the University of Madison, Wisconsin. Her research focuses on the cultural evolution of languages in different social environments. Specifically, she studies how the social structure of the environment affects the grammatical structure of languages. More»
#362 Manvir Singh: Shamanism, Witchcraft, Religion, and Music

Sep 7, 2020

Dr. Manvir Singh just graduated with a PhD in human evolutionary biology from Harvard University, with a focus on cognitive and evolutionary anthropology. His research program aims to explain why societies develop complex, recurrent traditions such as shamanism, witchcraft, origin myths, property rights, sharing norms, lullabies, dance, music, and gods, as these have appeared in all types of societies across the globe, from nomadic hunter-gatherer bands to complex, industrial, mega-urbanized states. More»