They Did What to What?

Martin and Cristina
  • 4.9 (8)
  • Science
  • Updated Semiweekly

Every episode, we read a classic study in psychology to learn the wild origin stories of how we think about how we think.

  1. Aug 30

    S3E6 Behavioral Sink: What was John Calhoun doing up there?

    In the Season 3 finale, Cristina tells Martin about the bizarre and surreal experiments of John Calhoun. Calhoun set up entire self-contained worlds for rats and mice, confirming societal fears about crowding, overpopulation, and weak-willed mice-men.

  2. Aug 15

    S3E5 Thinking: Would men rather shock themselves than think their own thoughts?

    In this episode, Cristina tells Martin about a relatively recent article published in Science claiming that humans would rather do anything in the world, including shock themselves, than sit in a room and think their own thoughts.

  3. Jul 31

    S3E4 Conformity: Why do punks all have the same haircut?

    Cristina covers work by Solomon Asch, an early teacher of Stanley Milgram, and his examination of conformity and the forces that induce somebody to either follow a crowd or break free from it.

  4. Jul 19

    S3E3 Tourette Syndrome: A pleasant, likable, and attractive lady.

    In this episode, Martin talks about a pivotal paper from 1968 that fundamentally changed how people think about and treat Tourette syndrome. Haloperidol was newly introduced, tics were reduced, and researchers proposed that Tourette syndrome could be a neurological disorder rather than a moral failing.

  5. Jul 3

    S3E2 The Marshmallow Study: What would you do for a pretzel stick?

    In this episode, Martin and Cristina cover the famous Marshmallow Study, a study of delayed gratification in children. Since it's rise in popularity, the Marshmallow Study has been touted as a predictive test that could accurately categorize people into low and high achievers, people willing to delay their own gratification for long term gain and impulsive people unwilling to wait for bigger rewards. What were the parameters of the original study? What was going on at Stanford University in the 1970s?

  6. Jun 19

    S3E1B Pseudopatient Study: Liar liar pants on fire

    This is part 2 of 2 of the pseudopatient study conducted by Rosenhan in the 1970s. In this episode, Martin and Cristina talk about the recently released book and paper both documenting the scientific fraud underlying "On Being Sane in Insane Places."

  7. Jun 5

    S3E1A Pseudopatient Study: You can't make this up

    Season 3 Episode 1! We start with the famous pseudopatient study, titled "On Being Sane in Insane Places," conducted by David Rosenhan, published in Science on Jan 19, 1973. In this study, Rosenhan asked questions about psychiatric diagnosis and the real differences between normal and abnormal people. His work was a part of and bolstered the growing anti-psychiatry movement, ushering in a complete revision of the DSM and conversations about mental health treatment in America. If sanity and insanity exist, how shall we know them?

  8. 01/31/2025

    S2E7 Stanford Prison Experiment: A priest, a lawyer, and a professor walk into a prison.

    Part 2/2 of our miniseries on the Stanford Prison Experiment conducted by Zimbardo in 1971.

See All (20)

Ratings & Reviews

4.9
out of 5
8 Ratings

About

Every episode, we read a classic study in psychology to learn the wild origin stories of how we think about how we think.

Information

  • Creator
    Martin and Cristina
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    20
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Martin Law and Cristina Peterson 2023
  • Show Website
    They Did What to What?