Have you ever been in a classroom or a business meeting or a conference  and had a question or been confused by the presentation, and when the person running the show asked, “Does anyone have any questions?” or, “Does anyone not understand?” or, “Is anyone confused?” you looked around, saw no one else raising their hands, and then chose to pass on the opportunity to clear up your confusion?

If so, then, first of all, you are a normal, fully functioning human being with a normal, fully functioning brain, because not only is this common and predictable, there’s a psychological term for why most people don’t speak up in situations like these. It’s called pluralistic ignorance.

On this episode we learn about the history of the exclamation point, the question mark, and the semicolon (among many other aspects of language) with Florence Hazrat, a scholar of punctuation, who, to my great surprise, informed me that while a lot of language is the result of a slow evolution, a gradual ever-changing process, punctuation in the English language is often an exception to this – for instance, a single person invented the semicolon; they woke up and the semicolon didn’t exist, and then went to bed that night, and it did!

Temple Grandin was born at a time when words like neurodivergent and neurotypical had yet to enter the lexicon and autism was not well understood. Since she didn’t develop speech until much later than most children, she might have led a much different life if it hadn’t been for people around her who worked very hard to open up a space for her to thrive and explore her talents and abilities. In this episode we discuss all that as well as her latest book, Visual Thinking, all about three distinct ways that human brains create human minds to make sense of the world outside of their skulls. 

In this episode David McRaney is interviewed by Andrea Chalupa about the psychological research covered in How Minds Change that could help if you expect to spend time with a family member this holiday who can’t wait to pull you into an argument about politics, a wedge issue, or something else buzzing in the zeitgeist over which they’d love to start a fight. But, also, this is good stuff to know before ANY contentious conversation you might have in the future with someone who is quick to aggression and ready to get angry over how your opinion isn’t their opinion.

How likely is the fungal infection in The Last of Us? The one that takes over human brains and brings humanity to the brink of extinction, could something like that really happen?

In this episode we sit down with Emily Monosson, an expert on deadly fungal infections, and discuss the handful of fungi (we know of) that are today, right now, causing catastrophic declines in wildlife, eradicating trees, destroying crops, and increasingly impacting humans.

Monsoon explains that many in the field worry that fungi are an underestimated threat and that our actions are causing an increase in invasive and deadly fungal epidemics. We explore what is at stake, why this is happening now, and what we can do to prevent future outbreaks.

In this episode we sit down with Greg Satell, a communication expert whose book, Cascades, details how rapid, widespread change can sweep across groups of people big and small, and how understanding the psychological mechanisms at play in such moments can help anyone looking to create change in a family, institution, or even nation, prepare for the inevitable resistance they will face.