Psychology for human rights
I recently had the pleasure of appearing on the Bottom Up Radio Show hosted by Rob Kall of OpEdNews. Rob and I spent an hour in a wide-ranging discussion about my new book, POLITICAL MIND GAMES: How the 1% Manipulate Our Understanding of What’s Happening, What’s Right, and What’s Possible. I’ve posted the YouTube video …
Continue reading “POLITICAL MIND GAMES: My Appearance on Rob Kall’s Bottom Up Radio Show”
Giant corporations are raking in record profits, while millions of Americans remain scarred by the Great Recession and a recovery that has left them behind. Mammoth defense contractors push for more of everything military, while programs for the poor are on life support. Global polluters are blocking effective responses to climate change, while the disenfranchised …
School children and teachers in Newtown, Connecticut; parishioners in Charleston, South Carolina; co-workers in San Bernardino, California; nightclub attendees in Orlando, Florida; and now concertgoers in Las Vegas, Nevada. Each time, the horror of yet another mass shooting leaves us stunned, grief-stricken, and desperate for answers. But always lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce, …
Continue reading “Fear, the NRA and Gun Industry’s Deadliest Weapon”
The season premiere of BBC America’s Planet Earth II includes remarkable footage from the desolate Galapagos Islands. In one striking scene, baby marine iguanas race across the sand, desperately trying to elude dozens of snakes eager for their next meal. Although such stark life-or-death struggles are difficult to watch, it helps to remember that they reflect nature’s …
In recent days President Trump has, yet again, asserted that millions of people illegally voted against him last November. Lies of such magnitude and consequence from the White House certainly deserve the attention and scorn they’ve received. After all, once we move beyond the realm of “alternative facts,” the real evidence shows that a person is more …
Continue reading “Bait and Switch: Psychology and Trump’s Voter Fraud”
Smooth-talking con artists are familiar figures in American folklore. The well-dressed hustler arrives in an unsuspecting town. He pitches some miracle cure or get-rich-quick scheme, door-to-door or from atop a soapbox. Then before his customers realize they’ve been duped, he steals away in search of his next mark. It’s a risky vocation, one that demands …
Continue reading “Resisting the Mind Games of Donald Trump and the One Percent”
Every day we face decisions that help determine what tomorrow will look like — for ourselves and for others as well. In my work as a clinical, social, and political psychologist, I’ve found that the decisions we make are powerfully influenced by five core concerns. These concerns revolve around issues of vulnerability, injustice, distrust, superiority, …
Continue reading “Imperfect Guides to Living: Our Five Core Concerns”
Stocks plummet on Wall Street. Home foreclosures mount across the country. Shameless finger pointing and disavowals swirl in the nation’s capital. And a recent Gallup poll finds that a record-low 9% of Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in the United States. The frightening numbers and front-page headlines certainly cry out for …
Many of us view the calendar’s turn from 2007 to 2008 as an opportunity to start anew and to improve upon the year just past. But despite this resolve, it’s easy to predict that 2008 will be another year filled with small slips and large blunders. As a psychologist whose work focuses on five core …
In the mid-1970s the TV sitcom The Jeffersons portrayed the rags-to-riches story of a black entrepreneur living the American Dream. The pugnacious and overbearing George Jefferson (former neighbor of All in the Family’s Archie Bunker) becomes a dry cleaning magnate and leaves blue-collar Queens for swanky Manhattan. As the show’s theme song recounts: “Well we’re …