Description: Is it accurate? Does it plagiarize? Does it lie? Is it dangerous? Can people use t to cheat? Is it alive? Is it sentient? Is it human? Based on these questions, what am I thinking and writing about? I am thinking about ChatGPT and other “bots” that answer questions and write essays in response… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Persuasion
Digital Fentanyl? Hmmmm….
Description: You cannot have missed the increasing level of discussion and concern regarding the possible impacts of social media use on the mental health of teens and youth in recent years. The available new coverage of this topic ranges widely from articles that seek out and dive into recent, population level research on social media… Read more »
Life and Health Are Collective Endeavors
Description: I was not intending to post three conceptually focused pieces (another one, a third one) when I sat down at my computer this week. By conceptual, I mean looking at articles that ask us if we are looking at or thinking about some aspect of human psychological functioning properly or whether a different conceptual… Read more »
Is “How Happy Are You” The Right Question?
Description: How happy are you? If you are not as happy as you would like to be what can you do to fix that? Is how happy you are an important question? If not, what else should we be thinking about or working on? These questions started out simple and then got fuzzier and more… Read more »
Our Minds On Cryptocurreny
Description: I will freely admit that I am completely unable to understand (and frankly not very interested in) crypto currency. That said, I AM rather interested in how it was that so many people got deeply into things like FTX (Google it and Ponzi schemes). There is a lot of talk from the perspective of… Read more »
Looking Beyond Political Affiliation to Predict Engagement With Conspiracy Theories
Description: Maybe you are not interested in having another look at the question of why it might be that some people are more receptive to the conspiracy theories proffered by the QAnon bunch but, despite their seeming aversion to it, science can help us understand them a bit better. So, take a moment and consider… Read more »
The Myth of Holiday Suicides
Description: Be honest, have you heard or think you heard from somewhere or someone that suicide rates jump up during the holiday season? It seems to make sense doesn’t it that people at risk for suicide might be more at risk during the time a year that focusses upon things like family connections (good or… Read more »
More Corner Cutting: Cheating These Days
Description: Did you hear about the two men who were caught trying to cheat t win a fishing tournament by stuffing their catch with lead weights? How many other examples of people cheating at sports, at chess, financially, have you run across recently? Is there more of it going on these days or are we… Read more »
Aging and Fake News: A Big Deal?
Description: Who is most susceptible to fake news? Children? Young adults? Middle aged adults? The elderly? Let’s leave children out of the question for now as their fake news exposures and uptakes are, at least to some extent, their parents’ concern. What about the elderly? ON the one hand they have less access to the… Read more »
Leader Personality and War: Any Help?
Description: A few years back there was a bit of speculation in the press and around and about regarding the mental state and personality of the then president of the United States, Donald Trump. At the time there was discussion of what is referred to as the Goldwater rule which is part of section 7… Read more »
Books for Success!
