PsychCrunch

This is Episode 37 of PsychCrunch, the podcast of the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest, sponsored by Routledge Psychology.

[Content warning: This episode centres around cancer. As such, it makes references to medical events and themes that some listeners may find disturbin...

This is Episode 36 of PsychCrunch, the podcast of the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest, sponsored by Routledge Psychology.

Why do we dream? And what business does a good dream have turning into a nightmare?

I...

This is Episode 35 of PsychCrunch, the podcast of the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest, sponsored by Routledge Psychology.

From haunted houses to scary movies, many of us find a thrill in a good scare. But… isn’t that a bit counter-intuitive?

In this episode, we ask why so many of us are drawn to things that should make us run a mile, and whether we can use fear to help us better cope with day-to-day anxiety. Host El...

This is Episode 34 of PsychCrunch, the podcast of the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest, sponsored by Routledge Psychology.

Despite it bei...

Have you ever had the feeling that there was someone – or something – nearby? Perhaps you were in bed falling asleep when you suddenly became convinced that a person was standing next to you, even though you couldn’t actually ‘see’ or ‘hear’ anyone at all. Or maybe you were out in the wilderness, with no-one for miles around, and couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was following you.

In this episode, Dr Jon Sutton, editor of Th...

Grief is a universal experience, but one which affects every individual differently. A grieving person might feel guilty, listless, frightened, or angry. And at a time when they most need support, the bereaved may find other people turning away from them, not really knowing how to talk to them about their feelings and the person they’ve lost. So how can we learn to better cope with grief in ourselves and in others?

In this episode,...

We’ve lived side-by-side with domestic cats for thousands of years, yet they maintain an aura of mystery and a reputation for aloofness and even outright disdain for humans. But are cats really so enigmatic – or are we only just beginning to understand them?

In this episode, Ella Rhodes, journalist for The Psychologist, speaks to two experts who are working to help us to understand cats. They discuss research on cat cognition and i...

From carefully avoiding cracks in the pavement to saluting every magpie that you meet, superstitious behaviour is really common. But why do we have superstitions? Where do they come from? And are they helpful or harmful? 

To find out, our presenter Ginny Smith talks to Stuart Vyse, former professor of psychology at Connecticut College and author of Believing in Magi...

Why do people share false information? In this episode, our presenters Ginny Smith and Jon Sutton explore the psychology of misinformation. They hear about the factors that make people more or less likely to share misinformation, discuss strategies to correct false information, and learn how to talk to someone who is promoting conspiracy theories.

Our guests, in ord...

Why do some songs get stuck in our heads? In this episode, our presenter Ginny Smith explores the psychology of earworms. Ginny hears about the possible evolutionary reasons for why we experience the phenomenon, learns what earworms can teach us about memory — and finds out how to get rid of them.

Our guests, in order of appearance, are Kelly Jakubowski, assistant p...

This is Episode 27 of PsychCrunch, the podcast from the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest, sponsored by Routledge Psychology.

At Latitude Festival in Suffolk in July, The Psychologist Editor Dr Jon Sutton hosted a conversation in The Listening Post with Greta Defeyter, Professor of Developmental Psychology and founder and Director of the "Healthy Living" Lab at Northumbria University. An expert on food insecurity, so...

This is Episode 26 of PsychCrunch, the podcast from the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest, sponsored by Routledge Psychology. 

What impact has the pandemic had on people’s mental health? In this episode, our presenter Ginny Smith talks to researchers who have been conducting work throughout the pandemic to understand the toll that it has taken on our wellbeing. Ginny learns about the different factors that can make us...

This is Episode 25 of PsychCrunch, the podcast from the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest, sponsored by Routledge Psychology.

Are our personalities set in stone, or can we choose to change them? In this bonus episode, Matthew Warren talks to former Research Digest editor Christian Jarrett about his new book Be Who You Want: Unlocking the Science of Personality Change. Christian discusses the evidence-based methods you...

This is Episode 24 of PsychCrunch, the podcast from the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest, sponsored by Routledge Psychology.

What role does play have in child development? In this episode, our presenter Ginny Smith talks to some top play researchers to find out how children learn new skills and concepts through play, and explores what teachers and parents can do to encourage this kind of learning. Ginny also discover...

This is Episode 23 of PsychCrunch, the podcast from the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest.

In this episode, Emily Reynolds, staff writer at Research Digest, explores modern psychology’s relationship with race and representation. It’s well-known that psychology has a generalisability problem, with studies overwhelmingly using so-called “WEIRD” participants: those who are Western and educated and from industrialised, ri...