What causes some people to become convinced their skin or bodies are infested with crawling critters?
from www.shutterstock.com
Some people have terrifying delusions they are infested with insects, spiders or even small animals. But help is available.
Helping others.
twitter.com/mattwi1s0n/Flickr
It's important to strike a balance between helping others and looking after yourself.
There’s got to be a perfectly logical explanation for this.
Shutterstock
Millions of people claim to have had encounters with aliens, but most can be explained by psychology rather than UFOs.
shutterstock.com
Three stories about researchers who have dabbled in self-experimentation – with varying results.
To complete a short survey about the podcast, please click here https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/QR7WVMF
Does gold go to the best divers or the ones with the best place in the order?
AP Photo/Matt Dunham
Whether it's items in a shop, potential speed-dating matches or athletes competing one after another, the order in which they're presented affects our judgments.
Arman Zhenikeyev / Shutterstock.com
Virginia Woolf's archive can be seen as a serious resource for research into the experience of hearing voices.
Illness anxiety disorder is a serious mental health condition. But it can be treated.
from www.shutterstock.com/jevelin
When does a healthy concern about your health tip over into illness anxiety?
Pexels
Old habits die hard.
Health professionals needs to be skilled in understanding what the other person is going through, so they can respond appropriately.
from shutterstock.com
With more demand on doctors and nurses and a push for quicker consultations, clinical empathy is being dwarfed by the need for efficiency.
Being understanding of where your partner is coming from can be both good and bad in a relationship.
from shutterstock.com
For over two decades, psychologists and communication scholars have been seriously studying the degree a person is able to correctly understand another’s unsaid thoughts or feelings.
Yeah, I’m not hearing that.
Woman picture via www.shutterstock.com.
Quirks of human psychology can pose problems for science communicators trying to cover controversial topics. Recognizing what cognitive science knows about how we deal with new information could help.
Researchers have examined whether it is possible to increase empathy through formal training.
from shutterstock.com
Some people are good at understanding the emotions of others but not at feeling them or commenting on them. So can we teach people the parts they lack?
Many animals might show signs of mimicry or emotional contagion to another animal in pain.
Fenix_21/Flickr
While we need empathic skills to relate to others sometimes, too much empathy can be a bad thing.
Most whites would say they’re okay with diversity. But is there a threshold?
'Map' via www.shutterstock.com
Wittingly or not, Donald Trump may have exploited group threat to turn people's fears into votes.
Trump supporters celebrating.
Michael Reynolds/EPA
The more we have to defend our choice to others, the more certain we become that we are right. So what can we do about it?
Hands off – but do we trust the car?
AP Photo/Eric Risberg
The ethics and psychology of trust suggest ways we might learn to understand self-driving cars, but also show why doing so might be more challenging than we expect.
If you want your New Year’s resolutions to last longer than the party, you need to create new habits. But how?
from www.shutterstock.com
If you want to stick to your New Year's resolutions, a behaviourist's approach might help you create and keep new, healthy habits.
Our friends may not like when we don’t drink because it reflects their own drinking practices.
from www.shutterstock.com.au
If your friends undermine your decision not to drink, don't be offended. They’re probably just dealing with their own insecurity about their drinking.
Shutterstock
Kids as young as seven have a good enough sense of logic to work out the truth and why it can be better to lie.
If you can’t taste the difference, why the backlash against recycled water?
Water image from www.shutterstock.com
In light of climate change and a growing population, water authorities around the world are looking to recycled water.