Brain Briefs: Answers to the Most (and Least) Pressing Questions about Your Mind

240 Pages·2016·1.94 MB·English

by  Art Markman

Brain Briefs
ANSWERS TO THE MOST (AND LEAST)
PRESSING QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR MIND
Art Markman, PhD and Bob Duke, PhD
Hosts of the Two Guys on Your Head Podcast
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© 2016 by Art Markman and Robert A. Duke
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ISBN 978-1-45492503-3
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Design by Philip Buchanan
To Rebecca, without whom there would be no Guys.
Contents
Preface
1. Does being open to experience lead to success?
2. Can we really make ourselves happy?
3. How do we catch a liar?
4. Should we play brain games?
5. Do stories help us remember?
6. Is pain open to interpretation?
7. Do schools teach the way children learn?
8. Why do tongue twisters work?
9. Do we get more done when we multitask?
10. Can we be conscientious and creative?
11. Is it true that we only use 10 percent of our brains?
12. Is our memory doomed to fail?
13. Why are continuity errors in movies difficult to catch?
14. Are all narcissists alike?
15. Does time speed up as we get older?
16. Why is forgiveness so powerful?
17. Is our thinking ever coherent?
18. Are our beliefs consistent with one another?
19. Why is it hard to learn a new language?
20. Is our right brain different from our left brain?
21. How do we overcome writer’s block?
22. Is failure necessary?
23. How much of what we see is real?
24. Does punishment work?
25. Why are comparisons so helpful?
26. Why do people choke under pressure?
27. How do we decide what to buy?
28. What is the best way to brainstorm?
29. Why is online communication so ineffective?
30. Is it possible to remember something that didn’t happen?
31. Is prejudice avoidable?
32. What’s the best way to deal with life’s endless litany of nuisances?
33. Is mind reading a necessary skill?
34. What are brains for, anyway?
35. Does listening to Mozart make us smarter?
36. Why are other people such slackers?
37. Can delusion be a good thing?
38. Why do we call a dog a “dog”?
39. Why do we love kitten videos so much?
40. Is nostalgia good or bad?
References
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
When we first started thinking about writing a book related to our radio
show/podcast Two Guys on Your Head, it seemed like a daunting task to try to
capture the spirit of a conversation in a book. On the one hand, the format of the
show (as a seven-and-a-half-minute segment) is a natural fit with short chapters
on different topics. On the other hand, while the two of us sound alike, we have
very different (complementary) outlooks, insights, and dispositions. (Plus, it is
not always easy to be funny in print—the timing and intonation that help to sell a
joke are often missing on the page.)
Fortunately, we think we’ve captured, in book form, the essence of our
personalities and perspectives as we tackle an array of interesting, head-
scratching quandaries about human behavior. But first, we want to say a few
words about the arrangement to get you oriented.
Like the episodes of the show, the book is in no particular order. You could
choose to read it straight through from beginning to end. Or you may want to
skip around. While we have a lot of strong opinions—we’re college professors,
after all—we endeavored to make each conversation as deeply research-based as
possible. At the end of the book, you’ll find a list of publications that inspired
our discussions for each chapter. Those readings are a great place to start for
people interested in further study of various topics in the field of psychology.
We know that we have not done justice to all of the subtlety in the areas we
write about. This book is meant to give you a flavor of the latest research
occurring across a broad spectrum of the field. We hope that, at minimum, you
will find the book to be a source of entertainment, one that piques your curiosity,
prompts conversation with friends, and perhaps provides a few nuggets of
insight. Even better if you can apply what you learn to your own life or find
yourself wanting to dig deeper into the study of human nature.
And with that, we invite you to dive in. Welcome to what we both believe is
the vastly interesting world of the human mind, and to Two Guys on Your Head.
We’re glad you’re here.
Does being open to experience lead to success?
Academics love to talk to other academics. We meet at conferences and share
our research, reveling in conversations that we’re pretty sure only twenty-five
other people on the face of the planet would care about. We are with “our
people.” Of course, we also gossip about other academics and complain about
aspects of our jobs. We are human, after all. But we love to share what our
research has revealed to us about the nature of human thinking and behavior.
The closest that most academics get to discussions of our work with nonexperts
is in the classes we teach.
But psychology is a discipline that cries out for scientists to engage with
people beyond the walls of academia. Just about everyone we know has a mind,
and almost nobody knows very much about how it actually works. And that’s
really too bad. We would never let someone build a bridge without learning
some physics, or practice medicine without learning biology, would we? So
wouldn’t it be to everyone’s advantage to know a bit more about how brains
actually function before we develop an opinion, make a tough decision, or
design a curriculum? Shouldn’t we first explore what leads us to think and feel
and behave the way we do?
And so we opened ourselves up to opportunities to talk to regular people
about the human mind. Art began blogging for Psychology Today. Bob started
working with educators to teach them about how students learn effectively. This
outreach has kept us busy: At least once a week we end up speaking to an