Amy Alkon's Humanlab: The Science Between Us

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science. Context is everything, Tufts psychology professor Dr. Sam Sommers explains. What we believe, how we behave, and even how we see ourselves shifts more than we understand, depending on the situation we find ourselves in at a particular moment.For example, contrary to popular belief, context (like whether we're standing in a crowd), and not moral character, will often determine whether people will reach out and help someone in need.On tonight's show, Dr. Sommers will lay out how understsanding the surprisingly powerful impact of context can help us combat our biases in seeing and decision-making -- in turn helping us be more effective at work, with our families, in our friendships and relationships, and out in the world.Sam's book: Situations Matter: Understanding How Context Transforms Your WorldJoin me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. Pacific Time, 10-11 p.m. Eastern Time, at blogtalkradio.c

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science. *This show is a "Best Of" replay. New live shows coming soon -- we've renamed the show and are just waiting for the new art and music.It turns out that our assumptions about the mindblowing sex we think we are "supposed" to be having is the thing that stops us from the pretty great sex we could be having. Or from having sex at all.This week's guest is therapist and sex therapist Dr. Marty Klein, ripping away widely held myths about sex to help everybody listening improve their sex lives.We'll be discussing his book, Sexual Intelligence: What We Really Want from Sex--and How to Get It. Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. Pacific Time, 10-11 p.m. Eastern Time, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.Please support this show by buying my science-based and funny book about why people are rude and how we can all act less counterproductively, "Good Manners for Nice P

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science.This week's show explains why advice to "lean in" is totally unrealistic and other ways evolved male/female sex differences shape who we are.My guest this week is psychology professor Dr. Joyce Benenson, discussing her fantastic new book, "Warriors and Worriers: The Survival of the Sexes." This is really solid science that will open your eyes to so much about male and female behavior, including male-male and female-female friendships and competition, and will give you some much-needed realism you can use to inform how you relate socially and at work.Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. PT, 10-11 p.m. ET, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.Please buy my book, the science-based and funny "Good Manners For Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck," here. It helps support me and the work I put into this show.  And an even better reason: Library Journal just gave it a

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science.*NOTE: "Best Of" replay. New live shows in September -- under a brand new show name we'll announce soon.Adorably, we humans see ourselves as rational animals. Research shows us to be anything but.We are swayed in ways we wouldn’t expect in both our decision-making and how well we stick to our plans. The good news is, the research also shows that our going off track happens in predictable ways. My guest tonight, Harvard Business School professor, Dr. Francesca Gino, will both lay out the forces that sidetrack us as we’re trying to accomplish our goals and offer guidelines that we can use to keep ourselves on track. Dr. Gino will be discussing her recently-published book, Sidetracked: Why Our Decisions Get Derailed, and How We Can Stick to the Plan. Join us tonight and have your eyes opened about the psychological, social, and environmental stumbling blocks that keep us from getting where we want to go.Join me an

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science.A very helpful "Best Of" replay tonight. Dr. Barbara Oakley has written an incredibly helpful book on learning how to learn math and science. But, yoohoo, math-loathers, this book -- and this show -- are about much more than that. Both the book and tonight’s show are about techniques you can start employing immediately that will show you how to do your work and your creative work more efficiently and ultimately more successfully and satisfyingly. The proof that these techniques work? Dr. Oakley herself used these techniques to transform from a girl who flunked every math and science course in high school into a tenured professor of engineering. And she currently uses them to curb procrastination, to learn and retain difficult material better and faster, and to increase her creativity in problem-solving and writing. Dr. Oakley’s excellent book we’ll be discussing is A Mind For Numbers: How to excel at math and s

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science.NOTE: "Best Of" replay today -- new live shows starting in September!We aren’t the independent thinkers we like to believe ourselves to be.Psychologist and researcher Dr. Adam Alter shows in his fascinating book, Drunk Tank Pink, that a host of forces -- internal, social, and environmental -- drive our thinking and beliefs, and in turn, our actions.On tonight’s show, he’ll lay out the ways we are influenced, sometimes causing substantial changes in our behavior that make the difference between success and failure in our endeavors. Knowing these influences is the best way to avoid being swept away by them, so don’t miss this show.Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. Pacific Time, 10-11 p.m. Eastern Time, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.Please buy my book, the science-based and funny "Good Manners For Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck," here. (St. Martin's

Welcome to "Science News You Can Use" from Amy Alkon and Dr. Jennifer Verdolin.*Best of Replay (in book crunch mode -- will have new live shows again in the next few weeks!)Welcome to a very special every-other-week show with science-based advice columnist and author Amy Alkon and animal behaviorist and author Dr. Jennifer Verdolin laying out science news you can use to solve your relationship problems or just improve your relationships and have a better life. Join us tonight for an enlightening show on flirting. It turns out that flirting is anything but frivolous. In fact, understanding the science of flirting and mastering the most powerful techniques is the way to both get love in your life and have it stick around. Tune in to find out all the moves you'll need.  And don’t forget to buy our science-based and amusing books -- support our show while entertaining yourself and learning a thing or two to improve your life. Amy’s new book is "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck" and Jennifer’s i

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science."Best Of" replay. Assertiveness isn't about "building a good disguise," Dr. Randy Paterson explains. "It's about the courage to take the disguise off." It's "about being THERE."Paterson, a clinical psychologist, is the author of the excellent book I've recommended in my column, "The Assertiveness Workbook: How To Express Your Ideas and Stand Up for Yourself at Work and in Relationships," and that's exactly what he and I will be laying out on tonight's show.Paterson takes a very rational, behavioral approach and gives extremely practical tips for how to change, and this show should help even already-assertive people notice and shore up areas where they could do better.Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. Pacific Time, 10-11 p.m. Eastern Time, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.Please support this show by buying my science-based but funny book about why people

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science."Best Of" replay.Great aspirations…sucky follow-through.This describes life for a lot of us -- sometimes, despite our best intentions. Best-selling author and psychologist Art Markman is going to help us out of this rut. His book we’ll be discussing on this show is Smart Change: Five Tools to Create Sustainable Habits in Yourself and Others.As in the book, on tonight’s show, he’ll turn to behavioral science to help us understand our brain’s motivational systems so we can short-circuit negative behaviors and create positive ones with staying power.Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. PT, 10-11 p.m. ET, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.Order my book, the science-based and funny "Good Manners For Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck," here. 

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in therapy and research. *"Best Of" replayWhat do men want? In bed and out? What do women want? How does this all tie together? (And who’s getting tied up?)These are just a few of the questions I’ll be asking and sex therapist Dr. Brandy Engler will be answering on tonight’s show. Dr. Engler is unique in that she opened a sex therapy practice for women -- expecting to slowly get some clients -- and quickly amassed a full list of clients: all men. Engler and New York Times best-selling biographer David Rensin have just published a fascinating book about her sessions and her insights, The Men On My Couch: True Stories of Sex, Love, and Psychotherapy. This is your chance to go inside her sessions -- to see into the erotic minds of men. And not pervos or deviants, but regular guys. Men we all know.  Beyond the men, we will also see into the minds of the women having sex with these men -- or refusing to -- and find out why, an

Welcome to "Science News You Can Use" from Amy Alkon and Dr. Jennifer Verdolin.Welcome to a very special every-other-week show with science-based advice columnist and author Amy Alkon and animal behaviorist and author Dr. Jennifer Verdolin laying out science news you can use to solve your relationship problems or just improve your relationships and have a better life. Join us tonight for an enlightening show laying out the science on why Mean Girls are so mean, why "Lean In" is advice that can backfire on a woman, and how women can succeed in love, friendships, and careers.And don’t forget to buy our science-based and amusing books -- support our show while entertaining yourself and learning a thing or two to improve your life. Amy’s new book is "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck" and Jennifer’s is "Wild Connection: What Animal Courtship and Mating Tell Us about Human Relationships."Listen to this show every Sun, 7-7:30 pm PT, 10-10:30 pm ET, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTu

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science.*This show won Third Place for best documentary radio in the June 26, 2015, Southern California Journalism awards, beating finalists from NPR powerhouse KCRW.Saturated fat is your friend. Really. It turns out everything we've been told about eating fat is wrong. On tonight's show, meticulous journalist Nina Teichholz will lay out the scientific errors, bias, and dangerous misrepresentations that have underpinned the dietary dogma of the past 60 years.She'll also lay out the findings of solid science -- why eating more dietary fat will lead us to better health and fitness. Join us as she discusses all of this and more from her brand new book, "The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat & Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet." Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. PT, 10-11 p.m. ET, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.My show's sponsor is Audible.com. Get a free audi

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science.*NOTE: "Best Of" replay. Live shows again starting in July!Competition can be seen as ugly and divisive but it’s actually an essential element in driving us to do and be our best. My guest tonight, New York Times best-selling science writer Ashley Merryman, will lay out the science of winning and losing, including how we can figure out the kind of competitor we are (to help ourselves avoid choking), the differences between how men and women compete, and ways to rejigger our thinking so we use competition in ways that serve us instead of defeating us.Her excellent book, co-authored with Po Bronson, that we’ll be discussing tonight, is “Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing.” Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. PT, 10-11 p.m. ET, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.My show's sponsor is Audible.com. Get a free audiobook download and support this show finan

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science.*"Best Of" replay. On tonight’s show, science gets together with ancient Chinese philosophy, and it likes what it finds. Dr. Edward Slingerland, an internationally renowned Chinese philosophy expert, draws on both cutting-edge science and ancient Chinese strategies to show how our modern Western approach of striving our guts out doesn’t seem to lead to success or happiness.In fact, he observes, it seems that getting practiced enough in something that it comes naturally is the way to avoid forcing things in the moment (which is actually counterproductive to succeeding).Dr. Slingerland will talk about this, how achieving that sort of effortlessness is the way to personal charisma, and much more on tonight’s show. His book he’ll be discussing is “Trying Not To Try: The Art And Science of Spontaneity.” Join us and see how we can better our work, relationships, and lives -- if we can just get out of our own way.Join

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science."Best Of" replay this week (doing a few of these this summer while working on my next book). New live shows in the next few weeks! Tonight’s show is about women and sexual power -- why some women feel like passive participants in their sex lives and why and how other women are able to feel comfortable in their sexual skin.My guest is Penn State researcher Dr. Beth Montemurro, and her book we’re discussing is Deserving Desire: Women’s Stories of Sexual Evolution.Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. PT, 10-11 p.m. ET, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.Please buy my book, the science-based and funny "Good Manners For Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck," here. (St. Martin's Griffin, 2014.) 

It's "Science News You Can Use" radio, with Amy Alkon and Dr. Jennifer Verdolin.*"Best Of" replay (because Dr. Jenn is somewhere in the jungle for a few weeks).Join us tonight for a fun look at the science of attraction, and learn how to look hot to the people you want -- without becoming the indentured servant of some plastic surgeon until you’re 90.About the show: This is a very special every-other-Sunday-night show with science-based advice columnist and author Amy Alkon and animal behaviorist and author Dr. Jennifer Verdolin laying out science news you can use to solve your relationship problems or just improve your relationships and have a better life. And don’t forget to buy our science-based and amusing books -- support our show while entertaining yourself and learning a thing or two to improve your life. Amy’s new book is "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck" and Jennifer’s is "Wild Connection: What Animal Courtship and Mating Tell Us about Human Relationships."Listen to this show ever

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science."Best Of" replay.Whether you're an anger venter or an anger withholder (or something in between), this is a show for you. My guest tonight, therapist Dr. Andrea Brandt, writes that “our culture has a built-in phobia of negative emotions,” which isolates us from each other and has myriad unhealthy and counterproductive effects on us personally.Her goal -- in her book, Mindful Anger: a pathway to emotional freedom, and on this show -- is not to help you get rid of your anger but to help you understand and handle it in healthy and constructive ways. You should, in turn, find that this leads to cascading positive effects in every arena of your life. Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. PT, 10-11 p.m. ET, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.My show's sponsor is Audible.com. Get a free audiobook download and support this show financially at no cost to you by signin

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science.*"Best Of" replay for Memorial Day in the US.This is a show on how the negative can be positive -- on how we actually need the emotions that make us uncomfortable. They make us whole, balancing the "positive" emotions. Dr. Todd Kashdan will lay out the science on how anger, anxiety, and other "negative" feelings can actually be motivating, illuminating, and helpful -- giving us our best shot at success and fulfillment.Dr. Kashdan's myth-busting book he'll be discussing, co-authored with Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener, is “The Upside of Your Dark Side: Why Being Your Whole Self--Not Just Your ‘Good’ Self--Drives Success and Fullfillment.”Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-8 p.m. PT, 10-11 p.m. ET, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.Please order my new book, the science-based and funny "Good Manners For Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck" -- only $10.90 at Amazon. Orders

Welcome to "Science News You Can Use" from Amy Alkon and Dr. Jennifer Verdolin.Welcome to a very special every-other-week show with science-based advice columnist and author Amy Alkon and animal behaviorist and author Dr. Jennifer Verdolin laying out science news you can use to solve your relationship problems or just improve your relationships and have a better life. Join us tonight for an enlightening show laying out the science on casual sex and multiple partners, and how to manage in this sexual Wild West.And don’t forget to buy our science-based and amusing books -- support our show while entertaining yourself and learning a thing or two to improve your life. Amy’s new book is "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck" and Jennifer’s is "Wild Connection: What Animal Courtship and Mating Tell Us about Human Relationships."Listen to this show every Sun, 7-7:30 pm PT, 10-10:30 pm ET, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.

Amy Alkon's Advice Goddess Radio: "Nerd Your Way To A Better Life!" with the best brains in science.Dr. Jennifer Jacquet turns to science to explain and rehabilitate shame -- an essential tool for stopping freeloaders and exploiters and cultivating better behavior, even in a society of strangers. Her book we'll be discussing is "Is Shame Necessary? New Uses for an Old Tool." Join me and all my fascinating guests every Sunday, 7-7:30 p.m. PT, 10-10:30 p.m. ET, at blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon or subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher.My show's sponsor is Audible.com. Get a free audiobook download and support this show financially at no cost to you by signing up for a free 30-day trial at audibletrial.com/amya (It's $14.95 after 30 days, but you can cancel before then and have it cost you nothing.)Please buy my new book, the science-based and funny "Good Manners For Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck," here. It helps support me and the work I put into this show. Also, Library Journal just gave it a starred review and cal