In the early ’60s psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted his "obedience" experiments, showing that most people will do what an authority figure tells them to do. Psychology professor Thomas Blass details Milgram’s life and work in his book "The Man Who Shocked the World."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105310424
I had to listen to this one twice — lots of excellent insight for interaction and service designers. Top take-away for me: avoid pushing choices onto people, especially when they are less qualified to make them than you (or your system) are.
Psychologist Susan Blackmore investigates how we are outsourcing the memory of our lives to digital devices and asks whether that is changing the nature of human memory. She hears from a ‘lifelogger’ who is recording every detail of his daily life - and from an academic who has taped 220,000 hours of audio and video of his infant son. She asks whether we will all end up doing the same and how this will affect the way we remember our own lives.
Say what you mean. That’s difficult, if you don’t know what you’re thinking. But the neuromarketers do, and they’ll be happy to tell Madison Avenue what’s on your mind. Discover why this marketing strategy is wired for success.
Also, Steven Pinker on how language reveals private thoughts as well as why the big-brained Homo neanderthalensis couldn’t out-compete Homo sapiens. And, we tease your gray matter with the "Monty Hall Problem." Guests:
* Steven Pinker - Psychologist, Harvard University and author, most recently, of The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature
* A. K. Pradeep - Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Neurofocus in Berkeley, California
* Quentin Baldwin - Client Services Engineer at Neurofocus
* Richard Klein - Paleoanthropologist at Stanford University
* Deborah Bennett - Mathematician at New Jersey City University
Tagged with seti people:psychologist=steven pinker language
Tagged with choice radiolab people:psychologist=barry schwartz