Amy Alkon's Humanlab: The Science Between Us

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

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 Amy Alkon's HumanLab: The Science Between Us, a weekly show with the luminaries of behavioral science. On this show, Dr. Jonathan Gottschall talks about his foray from bummed out adjunct English professor to the Mixed Marshall Arts world and his big cage fight -- along with the psychology driving violence and the fight rituals that actually contain it. His fascinating book we'll be discussing on the show: The Professor in the Cage: Why Men Fight and Why We Like to Watch. 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 the show by buying my "science-help" book on the PROCESS of living with confidence, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence."

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-based, funny book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Li

HumanLab -- The Science Between Us, a weekly show with the luminaries of behavioral science.Noted social scientist Dr. Adam Galinsky takes on the long-running debate about whether it's best to be self-interested or other-interested--a question Galinsky says misses the mark. Delving into recent research, Galinsky explains why maximizing our potential for success takes doing both -- sometimes cooperating, sometimes competing (and sometimes doing a little of each). He'll also offer some extremely valuable tips on how you can win at work and in many competitive situations through understanding and managing the nuances on cooperating and competing.Galinsky's book, co-authored with Dr. Maurice Schweizer, is Friend & Foe.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-based, 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. This is a show on how the negative can be positive -- on how we actually need the emotions that make us uncomfortable. They make us whole, balancing the "positive" emotions. Dr. Todd Kashdan will lay out the science on how anger, anxiety, and other "negative" feelings can actually be motivating, illuminating, and helpful -- giving us our best shot at success and fulfillment.Dr. Kashdan's myth-busting book he'll be discussing, co-authored with Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener, is “The Upside of Your Dark Side: Why Being Your Whole Self--Not Just Your ‘Good’ Self--Drives Success and Fullfillment.”Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-7:30 p.m. PT, 10-10:30 p.m. ET, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.Please support my show (and increase your confidence and become more productive) by buying my new "science-help" book, Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts

HumanLab: The Science Between Us, with Amy Alkon and Dr. Jennifer Verdolin.Science-based advice columnist and author Amy Alkon and animal behaviorist and author Dr. Jennifer Verdolin lay out science news you can use to solve your relationship problems or just improve your relationships and have a better life. Join us tonight for an enlightening show on flirting. It turns out that flirting is anything but frivolous. In fact, understanding the science of flirting and mastering the most powerful techniques is the way to both get love in your life and have it stick around. Tune in to find out all the moves you'll need.  And don’t forget to buy our science-based and amusing books -- support our show while entertaining yourself and learning a thing or two to improve your life. Amy’s new science-based (and darkly funny) book on the process of living with confidence is "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence," and Jennifer’s science-based safari through the world of animal sex and "dating" is "

Welcome to HumanLab: The Science Between Us, with Amy Alkon interviewing the luminaries of behavioral science and psychotherapy. My guest tonight is psychotherapist Carl Alasko, Ph.D., talking about a topic we can all use some help and insight on -- blame: How ineffective it is, how damaging it is, and how to stop blaming and be constructive in getting ourselves and others to change.Alasko has written a very comprehensive book on blame -- Beyond Blame: Freeing Yourself from the Most Toxic Form of Emotional Bullsh*tListen to tonight's show live at this link at 7pm Pacific, 10pm Eastern, or download the podcast afterward.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. 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 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.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.

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

Welcome to Amy Alkon's HumanLab: The Science Between Us, a weekly show with the luminaries of behavioral science and the therapy world. It turns out that our assumptions about the mindblowing sex we think we are "supposed" to be having is the thing that stops us from the pretty great sex we could be having. Or from having sex at all.This week's guest is therapist and sex therapist Dr. Marty Klein, ripping away widely held myths about sex to help everybody listening improve their sex lives.We discussing his book, Sexual Intelligence: What We Really Want from Sex--and How to Get It. 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 this show by buying my new science-based and 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.

Amy Alkon's HumanLab -- The Science Between Us, a weekly show with the luminaries of behavioral science.Dr. Matthew Lieberman's new book is "Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect," and it's filled with fascinating findings on how surprisingly driven we are by our nature as social beings. For example, there's a finding by his wife and research partner, Naomi Eisenberger and her colleagues that taking acetaminophen (think Tylenol) actually diminished the pain of being socially excluded. Lieberman explains, "Our sensitivity to social rejection is so central to our well-being that our brains" react to social wounds (and ways to heal from them) much like they do physical ones. We'll be discussing many such interesting and unexpected findings on tonight's show, and discussing ways we can each capitalize on what Lieberman has learned from the research.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.Pleas

Amy Alkon's HumanLab -- The Science Between Us, featuring the luminaries of behavioral science.On tonight’s show, science gets together with ancient Chinese philosophy, and it likes what it finds. Dr. Edward Slingerland, an internationally renowned Chinese philosophy expert, draws on both cutting-edge science and ancient Chinese strategies to show how our modern Western approach of striving our guts out doesn’t seem to lead to success or happiness.In fact, he observes, it seems that getting practiced enough in something that it comes naturally is the way to avoid forcing things in the moment (which is actually counterproductive to succeeding).Dr. Slingerland will talk about this, how achieving that sort of effortlessness is the way to personal charisma, and much more on tonight’s show. His book he’ll be discussing is “Trying Not To Try: The Art And Science of Spontaneity.” Join us and see how we can better our work, relationships, and lives -- if we can just get out of our own way.Join me and all my fascinati

Welcome to Amy Alkon's HumanLab: The Science Between Us, interviewing the luminaries of behavioral science.Adorably, we humans see ourselves as rational animals. Research shows us to be anything but.We are swayed in ways we wouldn’t expect in both our decision-making and how well we stick to our plans. The good news is, the research also shows that our going off track happens in predictable ways. My guest tonight, Harvard Business School professor, Dr. Francesca Gino, will both lay out the forces that sidetrack us as we’re trying to accomplish our goals and offer guidelines that we can use to keep ourselves on track. Dr. Gino will be discussing her recently-published book, Sidetracked: Why Our Decisions Get Derailed, and How We Can Stick to the Plan. Join us tonight and have your eyes opened about the psychological, social, and environmental stumbling blocks that keep us from getting where we want to go.Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. Pacific Time, 10-11 p.m. Eastern Time, at blog

Welcome to Amy Alkon's HumanLab: The Science Between Us, interviewing the luminaries of behavioral science.Assertiveness isn't about "building a good disguise," Dr. Randy Paterson explains. "It's about the courage to take the disguise off." It's "about being THERE."Paterson, a clinical psychologist, is the author of the excellent book I've recommended in my column, "The Assertiveness Workbook: How To Express Your Ideas and Stand Up for Yourself at Work and in Relationships," and that's exactly what he and I will be laying out on tonight's show.Paterson takes a very rational, behavioral approach and gives extremely practical tips for how to change, and this show should help even already-assertive people notice and shore up areas where they could do better.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 this show by buying my new science-based and funny book, Unf*ckology: A Field G

HumanLab -- The Science Between Us: Amy Alkon interviews the luminaries of behavioral science.Tonight's show will help you improve your sex life and diminish sexual anxiety with the latest research on sex.We'll talk about orgasms, fantasies, hooking up, what's changed about oral sex, how people can make Internet dating work better for them, how the proliferation of p0rn really affects the average person's sex life, and whether you can be better in bed -- and how -- among other topics.My guest tonight is Kinsey Institute researcher and evolutionary biologist Dr. Justin Garcia, co-author with Dr. Peter B. Gray of the encyclopedic new book, Evolution and Human Sexual Behavior.Garcia has done fascinating studies on sex and will debunk some widely held myths with straight talk about who's doing what to whom, how things have changed, and how we can do better with a few shifts in our thinking in various areas.Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. Pacific Time, 10-11 p.m. Eastern Time, at blogt

Welcome to Amy Alkon's HumanLab: The Science Between Us, interviewing the luminaries of behavioral science.Developmental psychologist Dr. Peter Gray explainswhy our current educational system is actually counterproductive to educating kids. Our way of schooling kids ignores our evolved psychology and how children actually learn, and removes children’s natural joy of learning from them in the process. It turns out that schooling based on the principles of a democracy -- applied to children -- is highly effective schooling for keeping kids engaged, helping them develop self-control, and helping them develop to their fullest and become highly productive adults living meaningful lives.Peter’s fascinating book: Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life. 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 supp

Welcome to Amy Alkon's HumanLab: The Science Between Us, interviewing the luminaries of behavioral science.There have been two major schools on negotiating -- Ury, Fisher and Patton's "win-win"/"relationships are everything" approach and Roger Cohen's "nail 'em to the wall" hardball approach. Harvard Business School professor Michael Wheeler finds that these rigid, one-size-fits-all strategies often clash with the real-world realities of negotiating. Drawing on his and his colleagues' research, he finds that the most successful negotiating techniques are born of an ability to adapt while negotiating, and use agility, creativity, and wise preparation. He'll advise us all on how to adapt (and do all the rest) in order to win in negotiation, the subject of his book we'll be discussing on the show, "The Art of Negotiation: How to Improvise Agreement in a Chaotic World."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