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PODCAST

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.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/why-we-do-what-we-do--3419521/support.

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All Episodes

13:12

Mini: Skin Idioms

Why We Do What We Do ·

2024/05/13

We did an episode on idioms a while back. During that discussion, we ended up having to cut a lot of the content we had prepared. In particular, there was a surprisingly large number of idioms just around skin! So, we decided we'd do a mini just about that!Referencehttps://www.mentalfloss.com/article/81624/origins-19-skin-expressionsCovering just five todayBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/why-we-do-what-we-do--3419521/support.

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49:26

Gambling pt. 1

Why We Do What We Do ·

2024/05/08

One behavioral addiction of the "inessential" variety is gambling. This is an issue that has ruined many lives and pumped a lot of money into the city of Las Vegas. Do our brains make us gamble? Does gambling simply expoit a loophole in human psychology? We'll talk about how gambling got started, how it keeps you playing, and treatments that have been used to support people recovering from gambling addiction. Recommendations next time!Links and

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13:51

Mini: Burning Books

Why We Do What We Do ·

2024/05/07

Book burning has been used both to destroy cultures or just symbolically send a message. Either way, it is a pretty juvenile temper tantrum thing to do. Don't silence your opponents, be better than them. Here is the history and motives behind some large book burning

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61:17

Sex Addiction

Why We Do What We Do ·

2024/05/01

You've seen the title of this episode, so now that we have your attention: sex addiction! What are the psychometric criteria by which sex becomes an addiction? Further, who does this impact? The answers to this are both not what you might think. Turns out, there is a lot of history of "puritan"-like stigmatization around the "appropriate" amount of sex and with whom. Links and

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10:11

Mini: Shampoo

Why We Do What We Do ·

2024/04/29

Humans haven't had shampoo for very long in our relative history. What about our ancestors, what did they do without shampoo? Animals don't seem to require shampoo. What is this weird practice and what would happen if we gave it up? This mini investigates Big Shampoo!Links and Referenceshttps://books.google.com/books/about/An_Uncommon_History_of_Common_Things.html?id=bcaXzXPP8ooChttps://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/319848#takeawayBecome a supporter of this podcast:

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77:52

Harm Reduction

Why We Do What We Do ·

2024/04/24

Humans have been engineering strategies to reduce the risks of life for as long as humans have been engineering everything. As it relates to addiction, harm reduction is a stragegy that emerged to help prevent the spread of disease and has been successfully applied to supporting people with chemical dependency. We explore the criticisms, concerns, and science behind harm reduction. RecommendationsAbraham: Cocaine Bear (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14209916/)Shane: Charles Bukowski - Hollywood

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16:15

Mini: Why We Lottery

Why We Do What We Do ·

2024/04/22

Welcome to our new episode format, the mini! Although this is our second one, we are still excited to be exploring this new way of doing episodes. This discusion explores how lotteries came to be and why we pursue them with such vigor.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/why-we-do-what-we-do--3419521/support.

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67:15

War on Drugs

Why We Do What We Do ·

2024/04/17

The saga continues as we explore the historical policy blunder that was the "War on Drugs." What lead to the development of this idea? We review the distinction between what was stated and what actually happened, and, of course, who won the war? spoiler it was drugs. RecommendationsAbraham: Speechify App (https://speechify.com/?source=fb-for-mobile&via=nguyen-linh-nam&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwiMmwBhDmARIsABeQ7xRZ-vEPaqs8c7IAr7jeYUXdDNtP0Wgtf92Chyk99jyGJIJ9V8rSv1QaAtWbEALw_wcB)Shane:

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9:32

Mini: Clapping

Why We Do What We Do ·

2024/04/15

Welcome to our first ever new episode format that we are trying out. These miniature episodes will be supplemental, additional episodes that we release every week alongside our normal full-length episodes. This first installment is exploring the weird tradition of people slapping peices of our flesh together to show appreciation. We started recording these quite a while ago, so, apologies if there are some somewhat dated references...

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63:28

The Disease Model of Addiction

Why We Do What We Do ·

2024/04/10

The disease model of addiction is a popular philosophical approach to dependency. The idea is to remove fault and blame from the addicted individual. Further, there are a lot of parallels between addiction and illness. However, there are some drawbacks to conceptualizing addiction as a disease. We talk through the benefits and our reservations about using the disease framework for understanding disease. RecommendationsAbraham: Cutco Knives (https://www.cutco.com/)Shane: Godzilla x Kong: New Empire

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75:17

Alcoholics Anonymous

Why We Do What We Do ·

2024/04/03

Alcohol dependency is a complicated condition that has killed a staggering number of people. Fortinuately, many people have banded together to support one another through behavior changes to reinvent their life without this dependency. One such program truly dominates the known landscape of addiction interventions: Alcoholics Anonymous. Yet, the effectiveness of the AA program and the "active ingredient" in its method have remained shrouded in ambiguity for nearly a century. Recent scientific

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64:49

Addiction: The Beginning

Why We Do What We Do ·

2024/03/27

Most people are only one or two nodes away from someone who has struggled with some sort of addiction, or may struggle themselves. But what is this phenomenon? The definition has been tricky to pin down because addiction can span chemicals to behaviors, can go undetected or be overt, and can have seemingly creep up out of nowhere. But what all addiction has in common is harm to the user. We are embarking on an odyssey of episodes to explore the many facets of addiction from philosophy to

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70:05

In the Event of The Apocalypse

Why We Do What We Do ·

2024/03/20

Have you thought about what you'll do if a significant disaster destroys most of humankind? Perhaps you've prepared for the zombie apocalypse or a nuclear winter. What will humans do if we are faced with end times? We look through the history of extinction-level natural disasters that nearly killed off all humans and how we somehow pulled through... and what this tells us about what to expect if we are faced with yet another world-ending catastrophe. RecommendationsAbraham: Apiary

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83:45

Nostalgia: Aphantasia (Thinking Without Pictures)

Why We Do What We Do ·

2024/03/13

This re-run updates a previous episode on our musings about what aphantasia is, and the purpose of diagnoses. This condition describes people who can't see with their mind's eye. But, what does that mean? How would you know? Do we have aphantasia? Do you? We'll never know.RecommendationsAbraham? Project Ironside (https://ironsidegametable.com/)Shane: Electric Shark Tattoo (https://electricsharktattoo.com/)Links and References Arcangeli, M. Aphantasia demystified. Synthese 201, 31 (2023).

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52:30

Mind-Body, Problem?

Why We Do What We Do ·

2024/03/06

Psychologists and philosophers speculated for centuries trying to understand how the conscious experience of the mind relates to the physical substrate of the body. Is the mind just the process of our gooey brains, or something more? It's our brains. But we'll unpack it all. RecommendationsAbraham: The Fox Experiment (https://pandasaurusgames.com/products/the-fox-experiment) Shane: Black House by Stephen King and Peter Straub (https://stephenking.com/works/novel/black-house.html)Become a supporter

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175 results

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