New Books in Psychology

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.

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Science
1101
Karen Neander, “A Mark of the Mental: In Defens...
The two biggest problems of understanding the mind are consciousness and intentionality. The first doesn’t require introduction. The latter is the problem of how we can have thoughts and perceptions that about other things for example,
60 min
1102
Howard I. Kushner, “On the Other Hand: Left Han...
In the early twentieth century, Robert Hertz, a French anthropologist, and Cesare Lombroso, the Italian criminologist, debated the causes and consequences of left-handedness. According to Lombroso, left-handed individuals were more likely to be crimina...
47 min
1103
Ty Tashiro, “Awkward: The Science of Why We’re ...
Some people can’t help but be ‘awkward’ despite their lifelong efforts to blend in. They feel ashamed of their social ineptitude and end up shying away from social situations, yet research offers insights that could help. In his new book,
52 min
1104
Robert Meyer and Howard Kunreuther, “The Ostric...
In The Ostrich Paradox: Why We Underprepare for Disasters (Wharton Digital Press, 2017), Robert Meyer and Howard Kunreuther summarize six major cognitive biases that explain why humans fail to adequately prepare for potential disasters.
55 min
1105
Erika Dyck and Alex Deighton, “Managing Madness...
Embracing a multi-perspectival authorial voice, Managing Madness: Weyburn Mental Hospital and the Transformation of Psychiatric Care in Canada (University of Manitoba Press, 2017), tells the story of the “last and largest” asylum in the British Commonw...
53 min
1106
Roger Frie, “Not in My Family: German Memory an...
What if you suddenly discovered a cherished member of your family was a Nazi? How would you make sense of the code of silence that had kept an uncomfortable reality at bay? How would you resolve the wartime suffering of your family with their moral cul...
64 min
1107
Mark S. Hamm and Ramon Spaaij, “The Age of Lone...
The Age of Lone Wolf Terrorism (Columbia University Press, 2017), by Mark S. Hamm and Ramon Spaaij, identifies patterns among individuals that commit acts of terror outside of a group or network. Hamm and Spaaij follow these individuals,
43 min
1108
Christian B. Miller, “The Character Gap: How Go...
Are we good people? Or do we just think we are? In his new book The Character Gap: How Good Are We? (Oxford University Press, 2017), author Christian B. Miller tackles these questions and more, breaking down what character is, how to measure it,
54 min
1109
Jason Lillis, “The Diet Trap” (New Harbinger Pu...
Obesity and weight loss are notoriously challenging areas of research and intervention. Traditional behavioral psychology methods for weight loss are known to be ineffective in the long-term for many people.
45 min
1110
Kieran Setiya, “Midlife: A Philosophical Guide”...
Middle-agedness is a curious phenomenon. In many ways, one is at one’s peak and also at the early stages of decline. There is much to do, but also dozens of paths irretrievably untaken. Successes, but also regrets.
63 min
1111
Mario Luis Small, “Someone to Talk To” (Oxford ...
Who do people turn to when they want to talk about serious issues in their life? Do they end up confiding in people they list as confidants? In his new book, Someone to Talk To (Oxford University Press, 2017),
54 min
1112
Owen Flanagan, “The Geography of Morals: Variet...
What is it to be moral, to lead an ethically good life? From a naturalistic perspective, any answer to this question begins from an understanding of what humans are like that is deeply informed by psychology, anthropology,
64 min
1113
Margot Esther Borden, “Psychology in the Light ...
Psychology and spirituality have a complicated relationship. Dating back to ancient times, we see them treated as sister disciplines which inform and enhance one another. But at some point in the last century,
45 min
1114
Daniel R. DeNicola, “Understanding Ignorance: T...
Epistemology is the area of philosophy that examines the phenomena of and related to knowledge. Traditional core questions include: How is knowledge different from lucky guessing? Can knowledge be innate? Is skepticism a threat, and if so,
60 min
1115
Mindy Fried, “Caring for Red: A Daughter’s Memo...
In her new book, Caring for Red: A Daughter’s Memoir (Vanderbilt University Press, 2016), Mindy Fried shares her experiences with providing care for her father at the end of his life. With rich stories and memories of her father,
49 min
1116
Jean Kazez, “The Philosophical Parent: Asking t...
We all recognize that parenting involves a seemingly endless succession of choices, beginning perhaps with the choice to become a parent, through a sequence of decisions concerning the care, upbringing, acculturation, and education of a child.
52 min
1117
Julia Beltsiou, “Immigration in Psychoanalysis:...
Immigrant experiences are complex and varied. People who leave their home countries for a new one often feel torn between two identities and struggle to feel at home in either place. Dr. Julia Beltsiou, my guest for this episode,
43 min
1118
Debra L. Safer, “Dialectical Behavior Therapy f...
For many people who binge eat, strong emotions can be a cue that leads to a pattern of maladaptive eating behaviors. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is an evidence-based psychotherapy approach to treating binge eating (and other disorders),
54 min
1119
Ron Mallon, “The Construction of Human Kinds” (...
Social constructionists hold that the world is determined at least in part by our ways of representing it. Recent debates regarding social construction have focused on categories that play important roles in the human social world,
62 min
1120
Leigh Straw, “After the War: Returned Soldiers ...
In her new book, After the War: Returned Soldiers and the Mental and Physical Scars of World War I (UWA Publishing, 2017), Leigh Straw, a Senior Lecturer in Aboriginal Studies and History at the University of Notre Dame,
14 min
1121
Deborah Parker and Mark L. Parker, “Sucking Up:...
Ever since Donald Trump was elected President, he’s created a non-stop torrent of news, so much so that members of the media regularly claim that he’s effectively trashed the traditional news cycle. Whether that’s true or not,
40 min
1122
Nina Savelle-Rocklin, “Food for Thought: Perspe...
The psychology of eating disorders is poorly understood. Recent trends in research and treatment focus near-exclusively on behaviors around food and weight without sufficiently attending to their psychic undercurrents. Yet evidence shows that,
51 min
1123
Robert Wright, “Why Buddhism is True: The Scien...
All “true believers” believe their beliefs are true. This is particularly true of true religious believers: for Christians, Christianity is the true religion, for Jews, Judaism is the true religion, for for Muslims, Islam is the true religion.
55 min
1124
Kristina Musholt, “Thinking About Oneself: From...
When Descartes famously concluded “I think, therefore I am”, he took for granted his ability to use the first person pronoun to refer to himself. But how do we come to have this capacity for self-conscious thought? We aren’t born with it,
63 min
1125
Patricia Gherovici, “Transgender Psychoanalysis...
Psychoanalysis is transitioning. Its history of pathologizing deviant sexuality is giving way to curiosity about the universal complexities and contradictions inherent in sex and gender. Yet it could use some pushing along,
50 min