Open Culture » Psychology

When the Dalai Lama Meets the Neuroscientists

Dan Colman — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 05:37:21 +0000

More and more, the Dalai Lama has been developing an interest in what modern science has to say about human emotion — or, more particularly, how neuroscience makes sense of meditation and compassion. Partly as a result, Stanford University has launched The Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, which is delving deeper into these questions. The clip above features Daniel Goleman, the bestselling science journalist (Emotional Intelligence and Destructive Emotions), talking about the Dalai Lama’s work on this front. You can find the full conversation with Goleman at Bigthink.com, a good resource for thought-provoking video.

When the Dalai Lama Meets the Neuroscientists is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

Why You Share

Dan Colman — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 05:44:08 +0000

A team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania spent a good six months studying The New York Times list of most-e-mailed articles, hoping to figure out what articles get shared, and why. And here’s what they essentially found:

People preferred e-mailing articles with positive rather than negative themes, and they liked to send long articles on intellectually challenging topics… Perhaps most of all, readers wanted to share articles that inspired awe, an emotion that the researchers investigated after noticing how many science articles made the list.

This goes a long way toward explaining why 3.4 million people have watched The Known Universe since mid December. And, as Bill Rankin rightly suggested to me, it says something good about online culture, and what makes Open Culture work as a site. Each day, we try to give you a little awe and challenge. And for our next post: 10,000 Galaxies in 3D.

Why You Share is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

Sapolsky Breaks Down Depression

Dan Colman — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:30:00 +0000

Robert Sapolsky, a Stanford biologist, is currently one of the most publicly accessible science writers in the country, perhaps best known for his book on stress, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. In the lecture above, Sapolsky takes a hard look at depression. The topic is a little heavy. I’ll grant that. But, it’s also important. As Sapolsky is quick to point out, depression is pervasive and getting worse. Currently, it’s the 4th greatest cause of disability worldwide, and it will soon become the 2nd. For Sapolsky, depression is deeply biological; it is rooted in biology, just like, say, diabetes. Here, you will see how depression changes the body. When depressed, our brains function differently while sleeping, our stress response goes way up 24/7, our biochemistry levels change, etc. Given the pervasiveness of depression, this video is well worth a watch.

Sapolsky Breaks Down Depression is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

Freud in One Yale Hour

Dan Colman — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:04:10 +0000

Freudianism may no longer be in vogue. But, even so, Sigmund Freud remains one of the most envelope-pushing thinkers of the past century, someone still worth getting to know. In this lecture, Yale psychology professor Paul Bloom offers a primer on Freud and Freudian thought. The lecture is part of a larger free course (20 lectures in total) called “Introduction to Psychology.” You can access the course via the Yale Open Course web site, YouTube and iTunesU.

Freud in One Yale Hour is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

Pico Iyer on “The Joy of Less”

Dan Colman — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:50:57 +0000

Pico Iyer, the British-born essayist, has a nice reality check in today’s New York Times, and it’s now the most emailed article of the day. Here are a few key passages:

“I’m not sure how much outward details or accomplishments ever really make us happy deep down. The millionaires I know seem desperate to become multimillionaires, and spend more time with their lawyers and their bankers than with their friends (whose motivations they are no longer sure of). And I remember how, in the corporate world, I always knew there was some higher position I could attain, which meant that, like Zeno’s arrow, I was guaranteed never to arrive and always to remain dissatisfied…”

“…my two-room apartment in nowhere Japan seems more abundant than the big house that burned down [in Santa Barbara, CA]. I have time to read the new John le Carre, while nibbling at sweet tangerines in the sun. When a Sigur Ros album comes out, it fills my days and nights, resplendent. And then it seems that happiness, like peace or passion, comes most freely when it isn’t pursued.”

On a related note, you might want to check out this piece in the The Atlantic, What Makes Us Happy?, which takes a look at Harvard’s long effort to answer that question.

Pico Iyer on “The Joy of Less” is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

Malcolm Gladwell: What We Can Learn from Spaghetti Sauce

Dan Colman — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 08:26:36 +0000

Speaking at the TED conference in 2007, Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point, Blink, and now Outliers: The Story of Success) introduces you to the food industry’s pursuit of the perfect spaghetti sauce, which ultimately tells you something essential about human choice and happiness.

Malcolm Gladwell: What We Can Learn from Spaghetti Sauce is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

The Science of Happiness

Dan Colman — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 07:50:37 +0000

As we’re all wishing one another a “Happy New Year,” it seems like a good time to dwell on the whole concept of happiness. Is happiness hardwired? Does it depend on circumstance? Or on us? Can we will ourselves to happiness? And just what is happiness? Aired right after Christmas, this interview features Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (the famed psychology professor who wrote Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience) and Sonja Lyubomirsky, also a psych professor and author of The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want. We’ve embedded the radio interview immediately below, or you can get it via mp3 or iTunes.

The Science of Happiness is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

The New Psychology of Time

Dan Colman — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 06:45:20 +0000

The Time Paradox, a new book by Philip Zimbardo & John Boyd, puts forth an intriguing argument — our attitudes toward time, often unconscious ones, can strongly shape our personalities and the kind of lives we lead. They can contribute to our happiness and success, or our unhappiness and depression.

The argument goes something like this: Not entirely knowingly, we all focus on the past, present or future. And, in moderation, each focus can have some net good. Future-oriented people tend to be ambitious and successful; present-oriented people tend to have friends and fun; and past-oriented people often have close family relationships. But when we associate too strongly with one of these “time zones” (again often without realizing it), we run into problems. When we’re too strongly focused on the future, we sacrifice friends, family and fun. When we’re too present-oriented, we leave ourselves open to hedonism and addictions. And when we cling to the past, we simply get stuck in the past, and depression usually follows. The upshot then is that we need to find a “temporal balance,” and this applies not just to individuals, but to nations, religious groups and social classes as well. According to Zimbardo and Boyd, larger social groups can tend toward distorted senses of time. The American financial crisis boils down to an extreme focus on the present, or a lack of concern for future consequences. That’s essentially what the big credit giveaway was all about.

You may recognize Philip Zimbardo’s name. He’s a widely recognized psychology professor who was behind the famous Stanford Prison Experiment (1971). He has served as the president of the American Psychological Association. And, last year, he published The Lucifer Effect, a New York Times bestseller.

To delve a bit more deeply into The Time Paradox, you should watch (below) the engrossing presentation that Zimbardo gave at Google’s HQ last month. Or you can listen to this radio interview that aired recently in New York City (iTunes Feed MP3). Lastly, you can take a survey on The Time Paradox web site and learn more about your temporal balance.

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The New Psychology of Time is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

Creativity, Flow and the Source of Happiness

Dan Colman — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 05:49:09 +0000

Speaking at the TED Conference, famed psychologist Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi asks what’s the source of happiness? And his answer comes down to this: Beyond a certain point (and it’s not very far), money doesn’t affect happiness too much. Rather, as his research shows, we tend to be most happy when we get immersed, almost lost in, being creative and performing at our best. It’s an ecstatic state that he calls “flow.” The video runs about 19 minutes, and is well worth your time. Some book titles worth checking out include: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience or Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life.

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Creativity, Flow and the Source of Happiness is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com