Amy Alkon's Humanlab: The Science Between Us

Amy Alkon's HumanLab -- The Science Between Us, a weekly show with the luminaries of behavioral science and therapy.Whether you're an anger venter or an anger withholder (or something in between), this is a show for you. My guest tonight, therapist Dr. Andrea Brandt, writes that “our culture has a built-in phobia of negative emotions,” which isolates us from each other and has myriad unhealthy and counterproductive effects on us personally.Her goal -- in her book, Mindful Anger: a pathway to emotional freedom, and on this show -- is not to help you get rid of your anger but to help you understand and handle it in healthy and constructive ways. You should, in turn, find that this leads to cascading positive effects in every arena of your life. Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. PT, 10-11 p.m. ET, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.Support my show and improve yourself with a copy of my "science-help" book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts an

Welcome to HumanLab: The Science Between Us, with Amy Alkon interviewing the luminaries of behavioral science.Context is everything, Tufts psychology professor Dr. Sam Sommers explains. What we believe, how we behave, and even how we see ourselves shifts more than we understand, depending on the situation we find ourselves in at a particular moment.For example, contrary to popular belief, context (like whether we're standing in a crowd), and not moral character, will often determine whether people will reach out and help someone in need.On tonight's show, Dr. Sommers will lay out how understsanding the surprisingly powerful impact of context can help us combat our biases in seeing and decision-making -- in turn helping us be more effective at work, with our families, in our friendships and relationships, and out in the world.Sam's book: Situations Matter: Understanding How Context Transforms Your WorldJoin me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. Pacific Time, 10-11 p.m. Eastern Time, at blogta

Welcome to HumanLab: The Science Between Us, with Amy Alkon interviewing the luminaries of behavioral science.Wharton organizational psychologist Dr. Adam Grant talks about his terrific book, "Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success," (now in paperback) which draws from research to explain what makes giving both powerful and dangerous to people's achieving their goals.Paradoxically, it's often those who give without looking for anything in return -- who just want to do good, open the playing field to good people -- who ultimately get the most in return. But, Grant warns, there are caveats to this -- and he lays them out in the book and we'll discuss them as well as giving's many nuances and benefits on the show. Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. Pacific Time, 10-11 p.m. Eastern Time, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.Please support the show by buying my new "science-help" book on the PROCESS of living with confidence, "Unf*ckology: A Field G

HumanLab -- The Science Between Us, a weekly show with the luminaries of behavioral science.Psychologist Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky, who researchest happiness, explains that we are actually very poor predictors of what makes us happy or unhappy. Of course, it doesn’t help that we’ve been stuck with a lot of cultural myths about what things and situations should and shouldn’t.On this show, which focuses mainly on relationships, Dr. Lyubomirsky lays out the realities shown in the research and also give us simple, practical ways to be happier -- as well as practical thinking on how to assess when that’s just not possible and it’s time to get out. Dr. Lyubomirsky's book: The Myths of Happiness: What Should Make You Happy, but Doesn't; What Shouldn't Make You Happy, but Does.Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sun from 7-7:30 pm PT and 10-10:30 pm ET, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.Please support the show by buying my "science-help" book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living w

Welcome to Amy Alkon's HumanLab: The Science Between Us, a weekly show with the luminaries of behavioral science.Tonight’s show is about women and sexual power -- why some women feel like passive participants in their sex lives and why and how other women are able to feel comfortable in their sexual skin.My guest is Penn State researcher Dr. Beth Montemurro, and her book we’re discussing is Deserving Desire: Women’s Stories of Sexual Evolution.Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. PT, 10-11 p.m. ET, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.Please support this show by buying my new science-based and darkly funny book, Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence.

HumanLab -- The Science Between Us: Amy Alkon interviews the luminaries of behavioral science on how their research can help us have the lives we want.On this show is evolutionary psychologist Dr. Geoffrey Miller, who lays out the realities from science of what women really want and how even a regular guy can measure up (as opposed to trying to scam a woman into bed). His new book he'll be discussing on the show, co-authored with Tucker Max, is "Mate: Become the Man Women Want."Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sun from 7-7:30 pm PT and 10-10:30 pm ET, here at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.Please support this show by buying my new science-based and funny book, Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence.

It's Amy Alkon's HumanLab -- The Science Between Us.On this show, exercise trainer and rehab expert Fred Hahn explains why slow-speed strength training, for just a few minutes a week, will make you healthier than that fitness fanatic who spends hours and hours in the gym. (He lays out fascinating and solid evidence throughout the show.)Fred is co-author, with Dr. Michael Eades and Dr. Mary Dan Eades, whom I greatly respect, of The Slow Burn Fitness Revolution: The Slow-Motion Exercise That Will Change Your Body In 30 Minutes A Week.He will debunk all the myths most of us hold about exercise and fitness, and leave you with a plan for exercise that will make you fitter and healthier, and will only eat 12-15 minutes of your week. This is a not-to-be-missed show. This method of exercise has improved my health and my life and I'm hoping you'll follow my lead.Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, from 7-8 pm Pacific and 10-11 pm Eastern, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkonPlease support this show by buying 

Welcome to Amy Alkon's HumanLab: The Science Between Us, a weekly show with the luminaries of behavioral science and the therapy world. You can actually improve your mating intelligence -- and your ability to meet, date, and have sex and relationships with partners you want. My guests tonight are evolutionary psychologists Dr. Glenn Geher and Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, discussing their book Mating Intelligence Unleashed: The Role of the Mind in Sex, Dating, and Love. It’s based on a vast body of research, and the book, like tonight’s show, will tell you, for example:•What the research shows men and women really want (which is sometimes different from what they think they want). •How a "nice guy" can make himself more appealing to women.•The physical traits of a guy who probably shouldn't waste his time trying to get casual sex. Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. PT, 10-11 p.m. ET, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.Please support this show by buying my sci

Welcome to Amy Alkon's HumanLab: The Science Between Us, a weekly show with the luminaries of behavioral science and the therapy world. Competition can be seen as ugly and divisive but it’s actually an essential element in driving us to do and be our best. My guest tonight, New York Times best-selling science writer Ashley Merryman, will lay out the science of winning and losing, including how we can figure out the kind of competitor we are (to help ourselves avoid choking), the differences between how men and women compete, and ways to rejigger our thinking so we use competition in ways that serve us instead of defeating us.Her excellent book, co-authored with Po Bronson, that we’ll be discussing tonight, is “Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing.” Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. PT, 10-11 p.m. ET, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.Please support this show by buying my new science-based and darkly funny book, Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Livin

HumanLab: The Science Between Us, with Amy Alkon interviewing the luminaries of behavioral science.Unlike the guests on almost all of my shows, my guest tonight is actually not a scientist -- he's business consultant, public speaker, and best-selling author Mark Sanborn.But this is the second time I've made an exception and had him on the show, because his thinking is so extraordinary, inspiring, and helpful.To bring up that word again -- "extraordinary" -- being extraordinary means being a stand-out person in your work, friendships, and relationships. We tend to think being that is either something you're born with or you're not. But Sanborn will show you tonight that this isn't the case.He'll explain why "extraordinary" is something you can choose to be, and explain how to recalibrate your thinking so you can achieve and maintain that. As for why to do this, his book we'll be discussing — "Fred 2.0: New ideas on how to keep delivering extraordinary results"  — and this show should make very clear that livin

HumanLab: The Science Between Us, with Amy Alkon interviewing the luminaries of behavioral science.This show will help you use the new field of adult attachment science to find love -- or to keep and even vastly improve the relationship you have.My guest is neuroscientist Dr. Amir Levine, co-author with psychologist Rachel S.F. Heller, of Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find -- and Keep -- Love.If you’re seeking a partner, by recognizing which of the three attachment styles you fit into, you can help yourself avoid all the usual troubles you get into while dating.If you're in a relationship, by recognizing which form of attachment you exhibit and which your partner does, you can stop battling each other, behave more lovingly to each other, and better meet each other’s needs.The partner who longs for more closeness can recognize their need and stop always acting so demanding of a partner who needs a little more distance to feel comfortable. At the same time, they can come

Amy Alkon's HumanLab -- The Science Between Us, a weekly show with the luminaries of behavioral science.We have a depression epidemic in this country, now affecting more than 15% of the population, and it’s striking people at younger and younger ages. It seems clear that our current modes of understanding and treating depression just aren’t working.My guest tonight, psychologist Dr. Jonathan Rottenberg, draws on research to show why we are failing to help depression sufferers and turns to our evolutionary roots to offer a nuanced understanding of why we get depressed, explaining why our modern environment’s mismatch with our evolved psychology can drag us depression. All of this leads to insights on how we might help depression sufferers get better, or, at the very least, not lead them to feel defective and broken because they are depressed. His inspiring and scientifically rigorous book we’ll be discussing tonight is The Depths: The Evolutionary Origins of the Depression Epidemic. Join me and all my fascinat

Welcome to Amy Alkon's HumanLab: The Science Between Us, a weekly show with the luminaries of behavioral science.On this show, neuroscientist David Linden takes us on a journey from our fingertips to our funparts and explains how huge an influence touch is in every aspect of our lives. He'll lay out, for example, how touch can improve your success in business and how vital touch is to a child's development and well being and about how much touch a child needs.We'll be discussing his book, Touch: The Science of Heart, Hand, and Mind.Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday (at our new half-hour time), 7-7:30 p.m. Pacific Time, 10-10:30 p.m. Eastern Time, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.Support my show by buying my "science-help" book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of how you can transform to live with confidence, plus countless tips for habit change, productivity, and more.

Amy Alkon's HumanLab --The Science Between Us, a weekly show with the luminaries of behavioral science. We aren’t the independent thinkers we like to believe ourselves to be.Psychologist and researcher Dr. Adam Alter shows in his fascinating book, Drunk Tank Pink, that a host of forces -- internal, social, and environmental -- drive our thinking and beliefs, and in turn, our actions.On tonight’s show, he’ll lay out the ways we are influenced, sometimes causing substantial changes in our behavior that make the difference between success and failure in our endeavors. Knowing these influences is the best way to avoid being swept away by them, so don’t miss this show.Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. Pacific Time, 10-11 p.m. Eastern Time, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.Support my show by buying my "science-help" book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence." It lays out the PROCESS of how you can transform to live with confidence

HumanLab -- The Science Between Us: Amy Alkon interviews the luminaries of behavioral science.Dr. Jesse Bering’s book, “Perv,” is subtitled “The Sexual Deviant in All of Us.” This is a book about weird sex but it’s also a book about all of the ways that even “normal” people fall along the spectrum of “perversions.”  Tonight’s show, like Bering’s book, will be a fascinating inside look into how our specific sexual desires seem to be shaped in childhood, how sexually not “normal” some of the most seemingly normal people are, and how human psychology leads us to find others’ sex practices upsetting and creepy instead of just different from our own.As Bering writes, “Humans aren’t the only sex deviants in the animal kingdom. But we are the only ones to stigmatize each other as disgusting perverts.”Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. Pacific Time, 10-11 p.m. Eastern Time, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.Support my show by buying my "science-help" book, "Unf

Welcome to HumanLab: The Science Between Us, with Amy Alkon interviewing the luminaries of behavioral science.Cognitive psychologist Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman lays out why intelligence tests currently used are far too limiting in determining a student’s true potential. Kaufman is a rigorous researcher whose work I know and respect, but his new book, UNGIFTED: Intelligence Redefined, offers much more than science. It offers inspiration in Kaufman’s own story as a “late listener” (due to a spate of ear infections) who was put into learning disabled classes. And then, in 9th grade, through sheer determination, pushed his way into a gifted kids’ class -- ultimately going on to Yale, getting a Ph.D., then going on to become a young professor at NYU.On this show, we’ll discuss the limitations of current testing and a host of other things that matter in whether a child succeeds and how Scott thinks we would better assess talent, creativity, and “the many paths to greatness.”Join me and all my fascinating guests every

Welcome to HumanLab: The Science Between Us, with Amy Alkon interviewing the luminaries of behavioral science.My guest is social psychologist Dr. Carol Tavris, on how to admit mistakes instead of continuing to make them. She talks about common ways we make errors in reasoning and judgment that mess up our lives, and how to avoid them.Her terrific book, co-authored with Dr. Elliot Aronson, is one of my favorites: Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts.Join me and my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. Pacific Time, 10-11 p.m. Eastern Time, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.Please support this show by buying my new science-based and darkly funny book, Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence.

Welcome to Amy Alkon's HumanLab: The Science Between Us, a weekly show with the luminaries of behavioral science.We like to believe our decisions are rationally driven and make sense. But constantly, our perception and decision-making are clouded by illusions we aren't even aware we have. Some of these include illusions of accuracy in our attention, memory, confidence, and knowledge. These illusions can lead us to make costly - and even deadly - errors.The good news is, by understanding what these illusions are and how we fall prey to them, we can avoid doing it (or do it far less), make more rationally-based decisions, and live smarter overall.To help us do that, my guest tonight, psychologist and researcher Dr. Christopher Chabris is half of the team (with psychologist and researcher Dan Simons) who did the famous and hilarious "invisible gorilla experiment." It's also the title of their fascinating book, "The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us."Tonight, we'll be discussing this experiment and

Welcome to HumanLab: The Science Between Us, with Amy Alkon interviewing the luminaries of therapy and behavioral science.This is not just a show for and about men but a show for anyone who cares about equal rights and fairness for all.Tonight's guest is psychologist Dr. Helen Smith talking about how, in America, it's become permissible -- and even fashionable -- to be anti-male and what men can (and must) do to start changing this. What men have been doing is going on strike -- dropping out of college, leaving the workforce, and avoiding marriage and fatherhood in droves. There are countless articles sneering at the man who is more man-child than grownup, but Smith, in her book, Men on Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream - and Why It Matters, contends that men aren't dropping out because they're stuck in arrested development; they are responding rationally to the lack of incentive they see in becoming fathers, husbands, and providers. On this show, Smith will lay out t

Amy Alkon's HumanLab -- The Science Between Us, a weekly show with the luminaries of behavioral science.On tonight's show, noted sociologist Dr. Eric Klinenberg discusses why remaining unmarried and living alone have increasing appeal and what the problems of living solo tend to be -- and how we might solve them.We'll touch both on living solo as a younger person (whether romantically single or "living apart together" with a partner), and how we can live alone as we age.Dr. Klineberg's book is Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone.Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday from 7-8 pm Pacific and 10-11 pm Eastern, here at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.And please support the show by buying my science-based book, Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence. (St. Martin's Griffin, 2018.)"Unf*ckology" was serialized in the Feb. 2018 Psychology Today. It's one of Quillette's 10 book picks for 2018 along with Steven Pinker'