Who cares? What's the point?

Many people think that meditation can not only have an impact on stress and illness, but can also improve prosociality. But meditation and prosociality are multi-dimensional constructs: so what exactly are we talking about here?

Listen to my conversation with Dr Ute Kreplin at the School of Psychology, Massey University in New Zealand as we talk about her research examining this link, and how the way stadies are carried out can affect the sorts of results they report and how we need to be careful about how we interpret them.

What is revenge? How can we understand this dark emotion? The sayings, ‘revenge is sweet’ and that ‘revenge is a dish best served cold’ are revealing.

Listen to my conversation with David Chester, Assistant Professor at the Psychology Department of Virginia Commonwealth University, as I talk with him about his programme of research over the past few years looking at dimensions of revenge and how we relate to this complex emotion. We also touch upon the idea of social pain and loneliness, how one of the worst forms of pain for a human is to be ignored, and how films often depict time slowing down when it portrays violence - believe me, its and interesting and wide-ranging conversation!

Welcome to this special conference edition of Who cares? What's the point?

In January 2018, I traveled to Cardiff in Wales, UK for two days to participate in the British Psychological Society's Division of Clinical Psychology Annual Conference. When I was there, I was fortunate enough to talk with three researchers about the fascinating work they were doing. So, this show has not one, but three interviews and research topics.

At some times in our lives, we might want to get support with our mental health and wellbeing. Perhaps we are struggling with a particular issue, or maybe we want to be proactive and take steps to make sure we are adopting healthy practices to keep us on top of things. This days, we have our smartphones with us almost all the time, and this is a natural place for many people to turn to for support or inspiration. But how do you go about choosing a mental health or wellbeing app? And do you know if it is a good one or not?

Listen to my conversation with David Bakker, a doctoral candidate in Clinical Psychology at Monash University in Australia. We talk about his recent research reviewing mental health apps, and some evidence-based recommendations for future app development. Finally, we talk about his involvement in developing some if these apps as part of a team that is working to improve the choices for people using these apps, and the clinicians who might be working with them.

Recent local and world events seem to have triggered, or perhaps have reflected and amplified increasingly polarised views. These views can be expressed online in ways that come across as angry and appear seemingly everywhere - so much so that many websites have turned off their channels for community participation because they have become too difficult to manage.

Against the background of verbal attacks becoming all too frequent online, join me as I talk with Ryan Martin, Psychology Chairperson and Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay in the USA as we talk about his paper exploring the ways that anger is expressed and experienced on the internet, and our conversation about how this might apply to social media and our emotional development and processing.

People usually tend to over-estimate their own capabilities and qualities compared to others. For examples, people tend to believe they are more intelligent, trustworthy, moral and happier than others, as well as making better leaders, and drivers. However, when it comes to thinking about our social lives, what little we know seems to indicate that we think other people have more rich, vibrant and satisfying social lives than we do ourselves.

Join me as I talk with Sebastian Deri - postgraduate researcher at Cornell University in the USA - as we talk about his paper about a series of 11 experiments designed to explore how we compare our social lives to others and where our pessimistic bias might come from.

There are some commonly held misconceptions in the general public about how the brain works and how it affects how we learn - these are often called "neuromyths." We know that the general public can fall prey to these much of the time, but what about our educators? And if teachers believe in these neuromyths, what does it mean for how they teach, or how schools allocate their resources? And can we protect against falling for these neuromyths by better training?

Join me as I talk with Kelly Macdonald - doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at the University of Houston, and Asst Professor Dr Lauren McGrath at the University of Denver - both in the USA - as we talk about their paper exploring belief in neuromyths by educators and the general public, and how we can change things.

For many of you listening to this podcast, taking photos of things and people in our lives has become much more common, as well as documenting our experiences of life. Understanding how the act of taking photos may get in the way of or increase our pleasure in these activities seems like an important topic for research. Implicitly, we may hear the message that we should stop taking so many photos and just be in the moment and enjoy our experiences without trying to record everything. But is this true? Does photography - especially using our smartphones - get in the way?

Join me as I talk with Asst Prof Alixandra Barasch, based in the Stern Business School, New York University, USA.

There has been a lot of recent attention on gender pay equity, the re-emergence of racism in western societies, and how youth mental health has been an increasing concern in recent years. However, the way we talk about older people, and indeed, how older people view and talk about themselves is also revealing of deeper attitudes and biases.

Join me as I talk with Assoc Prof Dr Tracey Gendron, based in the Department of Gerontology in the School of Allied Health Professions at Virginia Commonwealth University, USA.

Most people will experience a relationship break up. They can be hard to get over. One way to manage this is to try to actively decrease the feelings of love you have for your ex-partner? But does this work? Do people believe they can control their feelings of love in this way? Can you actually do this?

Join me as I talk with Asst Prof Dr Sandra Langeslag, based at the Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri - St Louis. We talk about how she tested three strategies for regulating love feelings after a break-up and how successful they were, using brain activity and self-report data as her measures.

You might be familiar with the often quoted statistic that 1 in 4 or 1 in 5 people experience mental health difficulties. What you might not be aware of is that is the answer if people are answering about what they are experiencing at that particular point in time. Long-term studies following the same people over time show that more than 4 out of 5 people (actually 87%) have experienced a mental health disorder by the time they reach age 38. This radically changes our understanding, meaning that mental health disorders are far more widely experienced than previously thought. In this show, I talk with Jonathan Schaefer at the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University in the USA, and his work looking at the data generated by New Zealand's Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study and that research team. We talk about the idea of enduring mental health: that is, what is it about the 13% of people that defines those that do not experience a mental health disorder by age 38, and what this might mean for 'social investment' approaches and universal mental health care provision, amongst a range of other topics.

In July 2011, Anders Breivik killed 77 adults and children in a bombing in Oslo and a subsequent shooting on a nearby island where the Norwegian Labor Party's youth organisation was having their summer camp. I talk with Dr Bertel Hansen of the Department of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark about the impact of that event in Norway on the incidence of trauma- and stressor-related disorders in the neighbouring country of Denmark, and discuss this with respect to of the impact on that same population of the 9/11 attacks. We discuss the impacts of geographical proximity, cultural similarity, and the possible influence of the news media on the incidence of disorders following terrorist attacks.

Learning to drive has been a rite of passage in many societies for decades. For many, it is a central part of their everyday lives, especially if they live in rural areas, or where other alternatives aren't as practical or appealing. But what happens if we become anxious about driving? How might that shape our lives and wellbeing?

In this show I speak with Dr Joanne Taylor, Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology at Massey University in New Zealand.

Consciousness is a curious and complex phenomenon. There are many ideas about what consciousness means and how it comes about, but I came across a compelling and relatively simple argument when I attended TEDFest this year - where the TED2017 conference was livestreamed for TEDx conference organisers from around the world, all convened in New York.

In this show I speak with Dr Anil Seth, Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex in the UK. He is also Co-Director at the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science. We talk about how the brain tries to make sense of the world outside, but also integrates information coming from inside the body to help us perceive the world and our place in relation to it. We talk about the origin of emotions, mindfulness, mental illness and possible applications for the framework he proposes.

Worrying can be described as the process of unpleasant thoughts that keep coming back and cause us to be anxious or distressed. Although it's certainly true that worrying is often seen as a problem, there is increasing evidence that it can also be seen in positive ways too.

In this show I speak with Associate Professor Kate Sweeny from the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside in the USA.

If you drink coffee and buy that in a shop, the barista might call out your name - which may be written on your disposable cup - when it's ready. Does the fact that your name is written on the cup have an influence on whether you choose to recycle it or not? Even if they spelled your name wrong?

About 1 in 9 adult New Zealanders receive a prescription for antidepressants each year. Although we think they are generally helpful for people, we know surprisingly little about what it might be like to take them. This week I speak with Associate Professor Dr Kerry Gibson from the School of Psychology at the University of Auckland in New Zealand to find out more.

'Near-death experiences' come up often in films and novels - the idea of a 'white light' or experiencing meeting loved ones from years before. But are there common aspects to these experiences? And what sorts of consequences might they have once you have them? This week I speak with Dr Natasha Tassell-Matamua, Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology at Massey University, New Zealand to find out more.

It is pretty well established that the experience of marital; separation and divorce is a risk for a range of poor health outcomes, even many years after the event. But how are these events linked? Although the association is established, the pathway between the two is not well understood. In this episode, I talk with Professor David Sbarra, in the Department of Psychology at the University of Arizona in the USA, where he is also the Director of Clinical Training in the Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology. In this conversation, we focus on David's work looking close relationships and health.

When you think about climate change- psychology and mental health may not be the first thing that you think of. However, the two are very much connected. As well as possible mental health disorders such as anxiety or depression, psychological responses to climate change such as fatalism, fear, helplessness and resignation are growing. These responses might be keeping us from addressing the core causes of and developing solutions for our changing climates and the consequences of this, as well as building and supporting psychological resiliency. Join me as I discuss this with one of the authors of a new report from the American Psychological Association; Susan Clayton, Professor of Psychology at the College of Wooster in Ohio, USA.

Have you played hide and seek with a small child and found them in seconds as they sit in the middle of the room with their eyes covered, convinced that you can't see them? In this episode, I talk with Asst Professor Henrike Moll, in the Department of Psychology at the University of Southern California in the USA. In this conversation, we focus on Henrike's work looking at the social-cognitive development of pre-schoolers and how they appear to apply a principle of bidirectional social interaction, or "I can't see you, unless you can see me", and vice versa.

Do we become more religious when we think about our own death. Or at least, less religiously skeptical? In this episode, I talk with Dr. Jonathan Jong, currently a Research Fellow at Coventry University, and Deputy Director of the Brain, Belief and Behaviour group there. He is also the Research Coordinator of the Institute for Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Oxford. In this conversation, we focus on Jonathan's PhD work - in New Zealand - on understanding the link between death anxiety and religious belief.

In this episode, I talk with Mark Schurgin, Graduate Fellow based in the Visual Thinking Lab at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA. We talk about Mark's work combining his experience and knowledge of vision research memory, investigating how basic knowledge that we have about how the world works - our 'core knowledge' supports our memory about objects. We talk more about how Mark discovered this, and implications for processes such as machine learning for autonomous self-driving vehicles, devices such as Alexa or Siri, facial recognition software.

In this episode, I talk with Dr. Sarah Gaither, Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University in the USA. In this conversation, we focus on Sarah's work on understanding multiracial identities and the costs and benefits of navigating that social terrain.

In this episode, I talk with Dr Joshua Swift, Assistant Professor in Psychology, based at Idaho State University in the USA. In this conversation, we focus on Joshua's work with his colleagues on treatment refusal and premature termination in psychotherapy, pharmacotherapy, and their combination.

In this episode, I talk with Professor Sally Ferguson, based at the Appleton Institute in Adelaide, Australia, and Deputy Dean of Research in the School of Human Health and Social Sciences at Central Queensland University. In this conversation, we focus on Sally's work on the effects of restricted sleep on performance for people who are on-call.

In this episode, I talk with Dr Ute Kreplin who is based at Massey University's School of Psychology in New Zealand. In this conversation, we focus on Ute's work on the Centre Stage effect.

In this episode, I talk with Rebecca Webster who is based at King's College in the University of London, UK. In this conversation, we focus on Rebecca's work on s systematic review on the 'nocebo effect' - what it is and how it might work. We also talk about what researchers mean when they talk about a systematic review.

In this episode, I talk with Emeritus Professor Michael Corballis, who is based at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. Professor Corballis is an internationally acclaimed scholar and one of his most recent accolades is the ward of the Rutherford Medal by the Royal Society of New Zealand. In this conversation, we focus particular on Michael's ideas about how gestures may have been the precursors for spoken language development in humans.

In this episode, I talk with Dr Toby Mundel of the School of Sport and Exercise Science at Massey University in New Zealand. We talk about his recent work investigating the relationship between people's hydration levels and their experience of pain.

In this episode, I talk with Dr Bertel Teilfeldt Hansen of the Department of Political Science at Copenhagen University in Denmark. We talk about his involvement in this project looking at the impact of clock changes in winter-time on the incidence in depression, and how he got involved in the research.

In this episode, I talk with Dr Eva Neely, Lecturer at the School of Public Health at Massey University, here in Wellington, New Zealand.

We find it difficult to tell the difference between fake and real news. We create 'bubbles' and echo chambers on our computers and smartphones, which make it even more difficult. Listen to how we can start breaking that down so we can get less biased information, and become more aware of our blindspots.

In this episode, I talk with Laurie Parma of The Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge in the UK. We talk about her involvement in development if the NatureBuzz app - a citizen science / crowdsourcing endeavor.

In this episode, I talk with Associate Professor Brian Sharpless of the American School of Professional Psychology, Argosy University, Washington DC, USA. We talk about his recent work understanding and developing treatment recommendations for sleep paralysis - a surprisingly common but little-understood phenomenon

In this episode, I talk with Dr Michael Philipp of the School of Psychology, Massey University in New Zealand. We talk about his recent study on emoji and emoticons in computer-based communications.

In this episode, I talk with Professor Frank McAndrew of Knox College, a liberal arts college in Illinois, USA. We talk about his recent study trying to get a grip on how people understand the concept of creepiness.

Despite numerous studies on parenting stress suggesting negative influences on parent–child interactions and children's development, the majority of these studies focus on mothers' parenting stress with little or no acknowledgement of fathers. Using data from the National Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project, this study examined (i) the effects of fathers' parenting stress during toddlerhood on children's language and cognitive outcomes when children are 3 years old (ii) whether the effects of fathers' parenting stress on children's language and cognitive development vary by child gender? Results from mixed linear models showed fathers' parenting stress predicted children's lower cognitive scores, but there were no gender differences in the effects of fathers' parenting stress on children's cognitive outcomes. In the language domain, boys, not girls, were found to be more susceptible to the effects of fathers' parenting stress. These findings indicated that fathers, in addition to mothers, should be included in early parenting research and interventions.

In this episode, I talk with Dr Matt Williams, Lecturer in Psychology at Massey University here in New Zealand.