The Top Ten Myths of Behaviour Change

- A Communications Specialist with Metro Vancouver talks about what drives behaviour change, in the context of increasing recycling, at the Recycling Council of British Columbia’s 2011 annual conference. He lists ten myths and breaks them down into anecdotes and references to studies on things like financial incentives.

For example, a daycare instituted fines for parents who picked up their kids late, but lateness increased because people felt like they’d bought a service.

After discussing myths, he talks about how we can change behaviours and develop new habits, drawing on knowledge from psychology, behavioural economics, marketing, neuroscience, sociology, social media, and more.

As an avid recycler who wants to help the environment however I can, new ways to promote recycling using social proof and other smart tactics sound very promising.

Perspective is Everything

- Perspective is essential to happiness, says Rory Sutherland. He gives examples of applied perspective and argues that the element of choice is what makes a situation more tolerable. Psychological factors should be added to mechanistic ideas in cost-benefit analyses. Things like train arrival clocks and traffic light timers have improved lives because they address human anxieties.

People believe that a company that only sells one type of product is better than a company that sells a wide array of products, which means “Google is as much a psychological success as it is a financial one.” Economics and advertising often fail to understand that what something is, has value, he asserts. An interesting intellectual TEDxAthens Talk.

Laughter: Love, Joy, and Language

- What happens during laughter? It has to do with breathing, as neuroscientist Sophie Scott explains, as well as emotions, and the voice. Studying the mechanisms of laughter, she discovered it’s a social, universal expression not just in humans but even chimpanzees and rats. Brain scans revealed the areas of the brain active during laughter (interestingly, similar to yawning, another socially contagious expression). Her lab also examined polite, posed laughter vs. uncontrollable mirth, and revealed how we tell the difference.

Brené Brown: Listening to shame

- After her awesome 2010 TEDxHouston talk on vulnerability went viral, with close to 4 million views, Brown was invited to speak at the main TED conference in Long Beach this year. With warm humour she describes what happened in her life after becoming famous, while quick to point out she must “dance with the one you came with” and continue to talk about her research on shame, which led to conclusions on vulnerability, authenticity, and courage. A very quotable talk filled with nuggets of wisdom. For example: “Vulnerability is not weakness, and that myth is profoundly dangerous.” “Vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage.” Features an interactive transcript, and English subtitles.

Using fMRI to investigate the effects of psilocybin on brain activation and blood flow

- A neuropsychologist talks about neuroimaging studies of psychedelic drugs including psylocybin and ketamine. The merger of psychoanalysis and neuropsychology using neuroimaging to map key constructs is part of the work involving psychedelic drugs. Carhart-Harris completed a pilot study using intravenous psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) in an fMRI scanner. He shares details of how the experiment was set up, and data from the initial study, and others, to investigate how the drugs affect the brain. Mo Costandi discusses the implications of his talk in a great blog post at Neurophilosophy.

Neurons as Will and Representation: Recordings from the Human Brain

A fascinating neuroscience talk about observations made during single cell recordings during neurosurgery, and how the brain processes conscious representation. He concludes by discussing free will – after demonstrating that decisions can be changed by a single neuron before someone is consciously aware of it, how much are we really in control?

Myths of Madness: Media Representations of Mental Illness, Part 6 of 7

A clip from the Q&A after a panel presentation about mental illness in the media, discussing how people can share stories with public speaking to fight stigma. A women with bipolar disorder asks how people like her can contribute, and the reply describes a consumer who told her personal stories that were negative, and how they were resolved, and that sharing what worked for her was powerful. Another person in the audience talks about his experience with a speaker’s bureau and the importance of training and support for that work.

2011 Gloria Neidorf Memorial Lecture on Bipolar Disorder

The controversial link between sensitivities to foods including milk casein, wheat, and gluten, and effects on psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. A young investigator presents her ideas in the The Gloria Neidorf Memorial Lecture for 2011 at the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation Annual Symposium in New York City. Brief presentation followed by a Q&A with the public.

Wendy Suzuki – Exercise and the Brain

A cognitive neuroscientist gives a rousing talk about the benefits of exercise on memory. She describes being inspired to teach after learning about the brain’s ability to adapt, and experimenting with aerobic exercise, becoming an IntenSati fitness instructor to teach her neuroscience students. She designed a classroom experiment that combined lectures with workouts, and found students were not only more engaged but their cognitive skills improved over time. Mentioning animal models that showed growth in the brain after exercise, as well as research with exercise and Alzheimer’s (see this video), she makes a compelling case to visit the gym.

Analogy as the Core of Cognition

Douglas Hofstadter demonstrates numerous analogies and talks about how analogy is at the core of cognition, in this high profile Presidential Lecture from the Stanford archives.