Why behaviour is shaped long before persuasion begins

Is your partner actually working late? Is that salesperson telling you the truth? Or are you being played? Research suggests you are lied to anywhere from 10 to 200 times a day. The scary part? You probably missed 99% of them. In this episode, we turn you into a Human Lie Detector. We strip away the myths (no, looking left doesn't always mean they are lying) and dive into the hard science used by FBI interrogators and behavioral psychologists to crack the code of deception. We explore how the human brain struggles under the massive cognitive load of maintaining a lie, causing "glitches" in reality that you can spot—if you know where to look. We decode the hidden signals: - The Baseline Shift: Why knowing a person's "normal" is the only way to spot their "abnormal." - Micro-Expressions: The split-second facial ticks that reveal true emotion before the mask goes up. - Cognitive Load: Why liars use "distancing language" (saying "that woman" instead of her name) and why their hand gestures often freeze when their brain is busy inventing a story. - The Body vs. The Mouth: How to spot when words say "yes" but the body screams "no." Stop guessing and start seeing the truth. Whether it's a poker game, a job interview, or a difficult conversation, these tools will change how you see everyone around you. 🎧 Press play to unlock the truth. Did this episode help you spot a liar in your life? Hit Follow/Subscribe and share this with a friend (unless you’re trying to hide something from them)! Top 3 Signs of a Lie: - Incongruence: Shaking head "no" while saying "yes." - Freezing: Sudden lack of hand gestures due to high cognitive load. - Distancing: Using formal language ("I did not have relations") instead of contractions ("I didn't").

It starts with a small exception, a harmless tweak. Then someone says, if we allow this today, what will we say no to tomorrow? Few arguments travel faster in politics than the slippery slope, and few are as polarizing. A new wave of research claims conservatives are more likely than liberals to find such arguments logically sound, attributing the gap to reliance on intuitive thinking.

Why do we see red, feel blue, or turn green with envy? Join a one-day workshop with Dr Domicele Jonauskaite (Univ. of Lausanne) that synthesizes a systematic review and large-scale empirical work across 73 countries to unpack universalities and cultural specificities in colour–emotion correspondences. Designed for PhD students, post‑docs, professors and research professionals, the seminar covers the latest evidence, statistical and conceptual frameworks for cross‑cultural inference, mechanistic tests (including data from colour‑blind and blind participants), and best practices for reproducible, open, and quantitatively rigorous cross‑cultural affective research. All sessions are livestreamed via Zoom with recordings and materials available for 30 days, a monitored Q&A forum for follow‑up, and a certificate of completion (ECTS equivalent where shown). Learn more and register to deepen your methodological toolkit and explore collaborative avenues in affective colour psychology. #AffectiveScience #CognitivePsychology #CulturalStudies #Psychology #QuantitativeMethods #Statistics #Anthropology #Linguistics #CognitiveScience #Research #ResearchTraining #Instats

Experts weigh in on whether tech poses threat to critical thinking, pointing to cautionary tales in use of other cognitive labor tools.

A 2025 psychological audit revealing why AI excels at knowledge but fails at true generalisation and human-like reasoning.

Have you ever felt socially awkward at a party, jumped between five topics in a single conversation, or been told you have a "silly" sense of humor? What if those aren't character flaws, but the secret hallmarks of a highly intelligent mind? Welcome to the podcast that flips the script on what it means to be smart. We're tearing down the stereotype of the perfect, know-it-all genius and revealing the eight "negative" behaviors that are actually powerful signs of intelligence. Join us as we explore the fascinating psychology behind why true brilliance is often messy. We'll uncover why saying "I don't know" is a power move of intellectual humility, how constantly changing your mind is a sign of elite Bayesian thinking, and why your tendency to daydream is a mark of profound creative thinking. From the misunderstood power of social awkwardness to the genius of associative thinking, this podcast is a celebration of the quirky, counterintuitive cognitive styles that define the world's most innovative minds. It's time to stop second-guessing your "weird" habits and start recognizing them as your greatest intellectual assets. Ready to discover that you might be a secret genius? Hit follow now, and share this episode with that one brilliantly weird friend you know this will resonate with.

What if your most traumatic, life-altering memory was a complete lie, implanted in your mind without you ever knowing? This isn't a sci-fi plot; it's the chilling reality of False Memory Syndrome, and it explains more than you could ever imagine—from claims of alien abduction to verdicts in our highest courts. Join us as we pull back the curtain on the shocking malleability of human memory. We'll dive deep into the work of legendary cognitive psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, the controversial scientist who first proved the misinformation effect and has since testified in the explosive cases of Harvey Weinstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Discover how easily memories can be planted, warped, and rewritten by suggestion. We'll then journey into the heart of one of the most bizarre phenomena of our time: the detailed, terrifying accounts of UFO abductions. According to the Psychosocial Hypothesis, these aren't close encounters, but terrifying episodes of sleep paralysis combined with a powerful cultural narrative. We'll explore how our brains can construct elaborate, convincing fictions. But the stakes get even higher when we enter the real-life legal battlefield of the recovered memory debate. We'll tackle the incredibly sensitive topic of memories of abuse, the role of suggestive therapy, and the stories of "retractors" who later recant their own vivid testimonies. This episode is a thrilling, shareable, and deeply human investigation that will make you question the very nature of your own past. Subscribe now to arm yourself with the truth about the most unreliable narrator of all: your own memory.

This book is one of very few which cover the intersection between modern academic psychology and military history. It uses the rapidly developing fields of Theory of Mind and Cognitive Biases to…