About this podcast
Every episode, we read a classic study in psychology to learn the wild origin stories of how we think about how we think.
Episodes
- S3E6 Behavioral Sink: What was John Calhoun doing up there? · 1 h 58 min · Season 3 Episode 7In the Season 3 finale, Cristina tells Martin about the bizarre and surreal experiments of John Calhoun. Calhoun set up entire self-contained worlds for rats and mice, confirming…
- S3E5 Thinking: Would men rather shock themselves than think their own thoughts? · 2 h 15 min · Season 3 Episode 6In this episode, Cristina tells Martin about a relatively recent article published in Science claiming that humans would rather do anything in the world, including shock…
- S3E4 Conformity: Why do punks all have the same haircut? · 1 h 48 min · Season 3 Episode 5Cristina covers work by Solomon Asch, an early teacher of Stanley Milgram, and his examination of conformity and the forces that induce somebody to either follow a crowd or break…
- S3E3 Tourette Syndrome: A pleasant, likable, and attractive lady. · 1 h 48 min · Season 3 Episode 4In this episode, Martin talks about a pivotal paper from 1968 that fundamentally changed how people think about and treat Tourette syndrome. Haloperidol was newly introduced…
- S3E2 The Marshmallow Study: What would you do for a pretzel stick? · 1 h 48 min · Season 3 Episode 3In this episode, Martin and Cristina cover the famous Marshmallow Study, a study of delayed gratification in children. Since it's rise in popularity, the Marshmallow Study has…
- S3E1B Pseudopatient Study: Liar liar pants on fire · 45 min · Season 3 Episode 2This is part 2 of 2 of the pseudopatient study conducted by Rosenhan in the 1970s. In this episode, Martin and Cristina talk about the recently released book and paper both…
- S3E1A Pseudopatient Study: You can't make this up · 1 h 30 min · Season 3 Episode 1Season 3 Episode 1! We start with the famous pseudopatient study, titled "On Being Sane in Insane Places," conducted by David Rosenhan, published in Science on Jan 19, 1973. In…
- S2E7 Stanford Prison Experiment: A priest, a lawyer, and a professor walk into a prison. · 1 h 22 min · Season 2 Episode 7Part 2/2 of our miniseries on the Stanford Prison Experiment conducted by Zimbardo in 1971.
- S2E6 Stanford Prison Experiment: Let's go bestie, we're building a prison. · 1 h 7 min · Season 2 Episode 6Martin and Cristina talk about the famous Stanford Prison Experiment conducted by Zimbardo in 1971. Part 1 of 2.
- S2E5 Spinal Anesthesia: August and August have a date. · 1 h 50 min · Season 2 Episode 5In this episode, Cristina covers an early paper on spinal anesthesia in which two German men inject cocaine into each others spinal columns.
- S2E4 Loftus Memory Studies: Do you remember your car crash? · 1 h 13 min · Season 2 Episode 4Cristina presents the original Loftus memory study of car crashes, taught to every intro to psychology class since 1974. The study is often cited as proof that witness testimony…
- S2E3 The Bystander Effect: TV made us zombies · 2 h 3 min · Season 2 Episode 3In this episode, Cristina presents the history behind the bystander effect and how the murder of Kitty Genovese led to studies of prosocial behavior.
- S2E2 Dale Spender: Hiding in Bushes with Recorders · 1 h 42 min · Season 2 Episode 2In this episode, Cristina and Martin try to find the original study that found men think women are speaking an equal amount when women speak 15% of the time and men think women…
- S2E1 Pavlov: No Bell Nobel · 1 h 30 min · Season 2 Episode 1In this episode, Martin and Cristina talk about the very famous conditioning studies of Ivan Petrovich Pavlov. Every student who has ever opened their psychology textbook has…
- S1E6 Milgram's Shock Study: 40 Men from New Haven · 1 h 39 min · Season 1 Episode 6In the Season 1 finale, Cristina and Martin discuss the famous shock experiments from Stanley Milgram, contemporary and recent criticisms of his work, and William Shatner for…
- S1E5 The Dunning-Kruger Effect: Al Frankin has Jokes · 1 h 46 min · Season 1 Episode 5Martin takes over the research in this episode and shares the paper introducing the Dunning-Kruger effect examining incompetency and competency assessment. It's quartiles all the…
- S1E4 Kiki and Bouba: Brush up on your German · 1 h 20 min · Season 1 Episode 4Cristina shares papers across hundreds of years to try and find the origin point of the Kiki/Bouba phenomenon, involving blob fanfic and 1800s academic German
- S1E3 Harry Harlow: What are mothers made of? · 1 h 15 min · Season 1 Episode 3Cristina and Martin read The Nature of Love, a study by Harry Harlow famous for generating many pictures of sad baby monkeys and introducing us all to the concept of wire mothers.
- Little Albert: Noise Metal for Babies · 1 h 24 min · Season 1 Episode 2In the second episode, Martin and Cristina read the study of Little Albert, a paper regarded as the foundation of behaviorism and an early demonstration of classical conditioning…
- Phineas Gage - Half a Teacup of Brains · 58 min · Season 1 Episode 1In the inaugural episode, Martin and Cristina read the primary literature written about Phineas Gage, a railroad worker who miraculously survived an iron rod passing through his…
