Personality: Episode 12 of the General Psychology Lectures!

This episode of the lectures is on personality – theories and measurements of personality.

Subscribe to the podcast using this link (if you have iTunes).

If you’re iTunes-deficient, subscribe to the feed using this link (although you will be missing the slides if you don’t use iTunes).

This is an enhanced podcast, so be sure to open the Artwork Viewer to see the slides and any links to internet resources.

Modifying your spouse’s behavior using operant conditioning!

We’re talking about operant conditioning in our class tomorrow, so it’s timely that I find this article in the New York Times…

What Shamu Taught Me About A Happy Marriage

Through the hoop!I began thanking Scott if he threw one dirty shirt into the hamper. If he threw in two, I’d kiss him. Meanwhile, I would step over any soiled clothes on the floor without one sharp word, though I did sometimes kick them under the bed. But as he basked in my appreciation, the piles became smaller.

I was using what trainers call “approximations,” rewarding the small steps toward learning a whole new behavior. You can’t expect a baboon to learn to flip on command in one session, just as you can’t expect an American husband to begin regularly picking up his dirty socks by praising him once for picking up a single sock. With the baboon you first reward a hop, then a bigger hop, then an even bigger hop. With Scott the husband, I began to praise every small act every time: if he drove just a mile an hour slower, tossed one pair of shorts into the hamper, or was on time for anything.

Emotion and Dreams

In General Psychology (the day section), we’re covering sleep and dreams. In a happy coincidence, the ever-excellent Mind Hacks covers an ABC (that’s AUSTRALIAN Broadcasting Corp to non-aussies!) radio show about dreams, and some ways to empirically investigate them. You can go directly to the ABC site here.

One interesting finding is that the emotional theme of a dream may be more influenced by the average emotional experience during the past week, rather than just the day before.

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Sex! Food! Good Times! Episode 11 of the General Psychology Podcast is here!

This episode is a lecture covering the biological and psychological bases of motivations, specifically hunger and sex.

Subscribe to the podcast using this link (if you have iTunes).

If you’re iTunes-deficient, subscribe to the feed using this link (although you will be missing the slides if you don’t use iTunes).

This is an enhanced podcast, so be sure to open the Artwork Viewer to see the slides and any links to internet resources.

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Lecture Podcast Episode 10

This lecture covers Intelligence and Language Acquisition. Theories of Galton, Binet, Terman, Spearman, Gardner, Sternberg. Skinner vs. Chomsky, animal language, Pinker.

Ya gotta love psychology to listen to this stuff!

Subscribe to the podcast using this link (if you have iTunes).

If you’re iTunes-deficient, subscribe to the feed using this link (although you will be missing the slides if you don’t use iTunes).

This is an enhanced podcast, so be sure to open the Artwork Viewer to see the slides and any links to internet resources.

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Psychology Lecture podcast episode 9

Development! Kohlberg! Erikson! Cognition! Whoo Whoo!

It’s a lecture and it’s psychology and it’s a podcast. What more could you ask for?

Subscribe to the podcast using this link (if you have iTunes).

If you’re iTunes-deficient, subscribe to the feed using this link (although you will be missing the slides if you don’t use iTunes).

This is an enhanced podcast, so be sure to open the Artwork Viewer to see the slides and any links to internet resources.

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