Shows / Why We Do What We Do
Why We Do What We Do
We explain popular and weird, little-known ideas in psychology. Whether you are a little curious about psychology, or a student, or even a professional, we have something for everyone.
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Episodes
- Why We Do What We Do
True-ish Crime: Bloodstain Pattern Analysis
Not the BPA that is commonly advertised as being not in our water bottles (at least I don't think so...), bloodstain pattern analysis is an investigative tool…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: High Dive Into a Tiny Pool
We plunge into the perilous yet enthralling world of stunt diving into shallow pools—a practice in which the stakes are as high as the platforms. From the…
- Why We Do What We Do
Adrenaline Junkies
Think adrenaline junkies are just chasing the thrill? Think again. From BASE jumping to bull riding, the real high might not be what you think. Join us as we…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: Why Are Wedding Veils a Thing?
Ever stop to think about how strange it is that women wear fabric over their entire faces during wedding ceremonies? We did, and so we looked into the history…
- Why We Do What We Do
Bullying
Bullies are all around us. What drives these proto-criminals to be the jerks that they are? It's complicated. A tragedy of errors the drives people to be the…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: Watching Zits Pop
Some of us have a nearly irresistable fascination with watching sores, boils, pustules, and zits be drained of their viscous contents. Some of us are repulsed…
- Why We Do What We Do
Why We Love Competition
Why do we love to compete? From Olympic games to trivia nights, competition is everywhere—but what drives us to strive, push, and sometimes obsess over being…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: Stop Looking at Me, Swan!
Being stared at can be disconcerting the piont of sparking violent conflict. But why? Do other animals similarlty react to staring? We explore what it is about…
- Why We Do What We Do
Stendhal Syndrome
What is Stendhal Syndrome? Also known as an “Art Attack,” this is a psychosomatic experience triggered by overwhelming encounters with art. Learn how stress…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: How Science Names Things
Why is that every animals as a latin "sciency" name? How are these names created? This is the area of the esoterically named binomial nomenclature. These are…
- Why We Do What We Do
Welcome to the Big Ivy League
The ivy league school club is enduringly exclusive. We trace the origins of the term "ivy league," the history of those schols, and the factors that perpetuate…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: Student to Teacher Ratio
Start with: What is the purpose of education? If the answer is to produce intelligent, competent individuals, that means we care about how effective education…
- Why We Do What We Do
The Good Old Days
We got to 400 episodes! Let's take a look back into the past... not really, but we'll stalk about nostalgia—what it is, how it works, and why it’s more than…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: The Tongue Map
The tongue map neatly divides taste into salty, sweet, sour, and bitter zones on which we can taste only those specific flavors. Turns out, it’s wrong. In this…
- Why We Do What We Do
Goodbye 2024
It's Christmas! Let's finish out the year with a chill retrospective on the year we are leaving behind. We recap our year as podcast, movies and TV we watched…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: Musings and Prognostications Continued (Immigration)
Another continuation of our discussion about the fall-out of the recent US election. In this discussion, we consider the implications for immigration on the…
- Why We Do What We Do
What the Economy Is (and Isn't)
What is the economy, really? In this episode, we discuss the intricate maneuvering of goods, services, and decisions that shape our world. We'll unravel the…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: Musings and Prognostications Continued (Censorship)
This discussion is a brief follow up to our episode reacting to the recent, 2024 US election (likely a series of minis we will continue as things unfold). We…
- Why We Do What We Do
Vasectomies: Snip Snip, Hooray!
Cutting to the chase... we discuss vasectomies: what they are, why they work, and why some folks say they’re the best thing since sliced… tubes. With…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: I'm Sorry, But...
Some people have a real problem with buts. Many of the popular airmchair psychologists love to delivery quick, simple heuristics as panacea and life-coaching…
- Why We Do What We Do
Musings and Prognostications
Welcome to the new dictatorship! In this discussion, we reflect on the recent US election and the factors that contributed to the surprising shift in the…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: (Not) The Definition of Insanity
A lot of people like to share what they believe is the definition of insanity. What the definition of insanity is NOT is doing the same thing over and over…
- Why We Do What We Do
The Kuleshov Effect
How do filmmakers manipulate our emotions and perceptions with just a few cuts? This episode unpacks the Kuleshov Effect, a groundbreaking discovery that…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: How Many Books Can You Read in Your Life?
It's these silly little questions that we don't think about, but are curious to hear the answer. We can estimate how many books someone reads by figuring out…
- Why We Do What We Do
Bad Arguments
Some arguments are so bad that if even they were right, they'd be wrong. In this discussion, we unpack a specific example of criminally poor arguments. We take…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: Revolving Doors
What is the deal with revolving doors? How are they trying to control us? Who's behind the cabal of big revolving doors? Just kidding :) There are some very…
- Why We Do What We Do
Public Speaking
Public speaking is some people's number one fear. For most people, it is not preferred and can be difficult to master. There is a lot research about public…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: Sensory Friendly Vaccine Kits
Special guest, Dr. Lauren Brown, BCBA-D, LBA joins us in our first-ever guest-hosted mini to discuss a collaborative effort between behavior analysts and…
- Why We Do What We Do
Why We Lead the Cheer
Humans have not universally hired performers to entertain the crowd during professional sports throughout all of human history... which means that it had to…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: PIC-NIC
A useful, informal template for beginning to understand human behavior is consider a couple of features of the consequences for behavior: the longterm and…
- Why We Do What We Do
Ghosts
What are ghosts? Why are ghosts? How are ghosts? Pretend, for fun, and they aren't, in that order. Ghosts exist in the space of low resolution and little…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: Microphobia
Our last and least mini of the Halloween season: The fear of small things! We'll cap off our series of minis with our smallest episode. We'll talk about the…
- Why We Do What We Do
The Plausibility of Cryptids
What makes people prone to believing in cryptids and why do some cryptids seem more plausible than others? We explore the various culture, language, and…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: Hippo... phobia
The fear of long words has 36 letters, making it one of the longest words in the English language: Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia. Also called simply…
- Why We Do What We Do
Scared to Death
Is it possible to die of fright? Turns out, yes, sort of. How this works is interesting in its own right, but the "why" invites a fascinating inquiry. We…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: Phobophobia
Phobophobia is fear of fear. This is so esoteric, it has to be an episode that we'd cover! This is not unlike generalized anxiety disorder. Also, we manage to…
- Why We Do What We Do
Skinwalkers
Halloween-month 2024 continues! Sort of a misinterpretation of Navajo traditions, Skinwalkers are similar to the cocept of werewolves or other…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: Coulrophobia
For Halloween month this year we are focusing on specific phobias for our minis. This week's selection is on the fear of clowns. What is it? Why is it? We will…
- Why We Do What We Do
Fear
Happy Halloween month! It's October, the time we spend celebrating the spookier side of psychological topics. What we haven't done thorughly, yet, is the most…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: That's Just How My Brain Works
A common refrain in acknowledging, justifying, or explaining behavior is "that's just how my brain works." For some people, this is the case. For others, it is…
- Why We Do What We Do
Imitation Imitation
It is easy to dismiss some behaviors as "just" imitation. However, this is a crucial developmental skill that we rely on throughout our lifetimes. We explore…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism is a a name that might be misleading. It is not "liberal" as in left-wing politics. We will describe what neoliberalism is and offer our own…
- Why We Do What We Do
Why Did We Ever Have Royalty?
Why did humans to raise some people or allow them to raise themselves above even the highest "classes" of society? We trace the history of royalty, the…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: Porn
This is less of a "why" or the inner workings of the industry and more of a definition unpacking. This is largely in response to the "I can't define it, but I…
- Why We Do What We Do
Nostalgia: The Dunning-Kruger Effect
We revisit this classic episode in a discussion about how lack of experience leads to a false-sense of competence, or maybe there is something else going on?…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: Duh
Another exploration of the weird things we say. The word "duh" is an interesting one with more recent roots than you might think. Enjoy our quick dive into…
- Why We Do What We Do
Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is the vaccine against misinformation. If you learn nothing else, learn to question your own beliefs. We discuss the importance of criical…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: Temporary Insanity
One defense that lawyers have successfuly used is the supposition that people can become temporarily unable to tell the difference between right and wrong…
- Why We Do What We Do
The Electoral College pt. 2
This discussion expands on the first episode, which covered the history of the electoral college, by explaining the arguments for and against this system…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: How's My Driving?
Did you ever notice those stickers on commercial vehicles that ask "How is my driving?" with a corresponding phone number? We were curious, what is the purpose…
- Why We Do What We Do
The Electoral College pt. 1
The electoral college is a strange system in the United States by which the president is "chosen" by a slate of people who represent the will of the voters…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: Weird Blue Chart
In the small field of Behavior Analysis, there is a smaller subset of practitioners who champion the use of a particular data graphing display called the…
- Why We Do What We Do
Empathy pt. 2
This discussion concludes by exploring how empathy develops. This can result in people with extremely high empathy and extremely low empathy. Where do you fall…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: Expressions That Died
These are the things we cut our teeth on... Did you know what a "trick cyclist" was? We didn't. Some sayings stick around in the lexicon, some seem to fade…
- Why We Do What We Do
Empathy pt. 1
Empathy is a common term that has an elusive definition and nebulous parameters. In this first episode, we set out to walk through definitions of empathy and…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: Toilet Paper
Today, wiping our anuses after defectating seems so natural as to be just a part of being human. But, most animals do not wipe their anuses. And, toilet paper…
- Why We Do What We Do
Universal Basic Income pt. 2
The second part of this discussion explores that actual attempts at implementing some version of UBI in various parts of the world. It sounds good, but would…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: The Value of Human Life
How much money is your life worth? In the transactional scheme of our modern world, some people have taken on the somewhat macabre task of assigning a dollar…
- Why We Do What We Do
Universal Basic Income pt. 1
Universal Basic Income is a policy proposal to provide everyone in a closed system with a no-strings-attached cash infusion on a regular schedule such as every…
- Why We Do What We Do
Mini: Middle of the Road
Another quick review of a a logical fallacy. This time, we dive into the Middle of the Road logical fallacy, which many people inadvertently fall prey to. Of…