In November 1941, two warships from Australia and Germany clashed off the coast of western Australia. Both sank. Despite extensive search efforts during and after World War II, the ships weren’t found until 2008, after a team of psychologists analyzed the statements given by the surviving German crew members.
http://www.npr.org/2011/09/27/140816037/how-psychology-solved-a-wwii-shipwreck-mystery
Life can be very exciting. It can also be boring.
Ancient Greeks knew it. Romans knew it. Monks in the desert knew it.
And on long summer days or Sunday afternoons, in lines waiting, or lecture halls wilting, anyone can know boredom.
We avoid it. But sometimes we may just need it. To escape the clamor and rush of modern life.
We’ll talk with classicist Peter Toohey today about the history and value of boredom. With movie critic A.O. Scott about long boring movies. And with Jonah Leher about boredom as the door to dreams.
This hour On Point: what’s interesting about boredom.
Tagged with boredom psychology book:author=jonah lehrer
Keith Stanovich talks about the implications of universal Darwinism. Can natural selection explain just about anything? Pretty much.
Leonard Mlodinow, of the California Institute of Technology is the author of The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives. His lecture on the subject of randomness was presented by the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario on May 6th, 2009.
We all have a hard time admitting that we’re wrong, but according to a new book about human psychology, it’s not entirely our fault. Social psychologist Elliot Aronson says our brains work hard to make us think we are doing the right thing, even in the face of sometimes overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Elliot Aronson, co-author, Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me); social psychologist; professor emeritus, psychology, University of California Santa Cruz.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12125926