Home safety and child welfare
As the heat of summer washes over the country, basic home safety becomes a concern. Sometimes, parents become worried that their messy houses might cause Child Protective Services to view them as unfit parents. A new paper from my research collaborators and I has shown that even in homes with genuine safety concerns, the beauty of a home […]
#BlackLivesMatter, #BlueLivesMatter, and radical empathy
Empathy is a multifaceted beast, and it can get us into trouble when social upheavals strike. There’s a bunch of measures of empathy, but many of them make a distinction between cognitive empathy (being able to think like someone else) and emotional or affective empathy (being able to feel like someone else). Within cognitive empathy, […]
Hannibal, Bates Motel, and trait absorption
In 2013, two remarkable TV shows hit the air- and cable-waves that provide backstories of two of cinema’s most notable villains. Hannibal features a retelling of the story of Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham that surprises even the most die-hard connoisseurs of Thomas Harris’s original novels and the movies that have been made from them. […]
Robin Williams and anhedonia
Warning: Ahead be spoilers for the little-seen movie The Angriest Man in Brooklyn and a frank discussion of suicide. Robin Williams’ death hit me hard when it was first reported. I spent about a week watching his movies, comedy shows, television appearances, and even some old Mork and Mindy episodes to remember the depth and breadth of his […]
