PsyberSpace® - we help you understand your world

Dr. Leslie Poston, Research Psychologist: Applied Psychology, Media Psychology, Organizational Psychology
  • 5.0 (5)
  • Social Sciences
  • Updated Weekly

PsyberSpace® is a weekly psychology podcast for curious people who want to understand why the world feels the way it does, online and offline. The show helps you name what you’re seeing and feeling, understand the science behind it, and figure out what to do next. If you've ever wondered what makes "reply guys" tick, why we fall for emotionally manipulative language in politics, why meetings suck, why comfort can keep us stuck, why limerence hits so hard, or how music and media reshape your brain, you’re in the right place. New episodes drop every Monday to help you understand your world a little better each week. PsyberSpace looks at how psychology, media, and big systems shape everyday life. Some weeks it’s algorithms, AI, and social platforms; other weeks it’s work culture, gender and power, climate anxiety, grief, or the way capitalism sets the baseline for what “normal” looks like. Each episode breaks down how these patterns show up in real people’s bodies and minds—and what you can do to respond with more clarity, care, and agency in your own life, work, and community. 2025 Webby Award Honoree 2026 Women in Podcasting Award Nominee 2025 Women in Podcasting Award Nominee 2024 Women in Podcasting Award Nominee

  1. 3d ago

    Why You're Stuck: The Stories We Tell Ourselves

    Why Some People Bounce Back: Narrative Identity, Redemption Stories, and Getting Unstuck PARTICIPATE IN MY POST DOC RESEARCH! CLICK HERE. Dr. Leslie Poston explains that resilience after hard experiences often depends less on toughness or event severity and more on the narrative people construct about what happened. Drawing on 30+ years of narrative identity research from researchers like Dan McAdams, she contrasts “redemption sequences” (negative-to-positive meaning) with “contamination sequences” (positive overtaken by negative), noting links to well-being and depression. She cites evidence that narrative is an active ingredient: long-term sobriety predicts redemption framing of the last drink, increases in narrative agency precede mental health gains in therapy, and expressive writing improves outcomes when it creates coherent story structure. She discusses developmental roots in parent-child elaborative reminiscing, the risk of event centrality in PTSD/CPTSD and collective trauma (e.g., post-9/11 America), and how cultural “master narratives” shape which stories feel possible, with cross-cultural differences. Practical takeaways include therapy, structured writing, supportive listening, and reframing adversity as a chapter, plus a note about upcoming paid courses and no ads. SIGN UP FOR PSYBERSPACE® COURSE LAUNCH HERE 00:00 Why We Get Stuck01:28 Narrative Identity Basics02:20 Redemption vs Contamination03:47 Stories Change Outcomes06:56 How Kids Learn Stories09:49 When Trauma Becomes Identity11:35 Collective Trauma Filters13:21 Culture and Master Narratives14:39 When Redemption Doesn’t Fit17:12 Practical Tools to Reframe21:24 Closing and Housekeeping ★ Support this podcast ★

  2. Aug 21

    Specimen in a Petri Dish Part Two: Body Control as Political Power

    Body Policing as Authoritarian Power: From Fascist Propaganda to TikTok Pipelines In Part One, we asked who gets to decide what a woman's body should look like. In Part Two, Dr. Leslie Poston follows that question into political history, tracing a line from Mussolini's propaganda offices to the fashion industry to TikTok's algorithm. The distance between fascist body archetypes and a teenage girl's feed in 2026 is shorter than you'd think. Drawing on the work of Sabrina Strings, Da'Shaun Harrison, and Lois Shearing, this episode examines how and why body control has functioned as a tool of authoritarian power, and what makes it so effective at recruiting women and girls today. PARTICIPATE IN MY POST DOC RESEARCH! CLICK HERE. 00:00 Part Two Setup01:16 Fascist Body Archetypes03:49 Fear and Conformity05:03 Racial Origins of Fatphobia07:11 Modern Body Fascism09:33 Fashion Industry Data12:38 Ariana Grande Case Study13:36 Skinny Talk Pipeline17:09 Why It Works Psychologically21:34 Closing Resources ★ Support this podcast ★

  3. Aug 14

    Specimen in a Petri Dish: The Psychology of Public Body Policing

    Why Society Feels Entitled to Comment on Women’s Bodies, and the Harm It Causes Jenna Ortega sat down to talk about her career. Within a day, the internet was only talking about her body. Dr. Leslie Poston traces this pattern across decades of public scrutiny aimed at women in the spotlight, examines the psychology behind why people feel entitled to comment on women's bodies at all, and looks at what the research says those comments actually do. Part one of a two-part series.PARTICIPATE IN MY POST DOC RESEARCH! CLICK HERE. 00:00 Welcome and Setup01:55 Jenna Ortega Scrutiny03:43 Ariana Grande Pattern04:58 2000s Tabloid Era07:11 Why Commentary Persists09:57 Concern Trolling Explained11:28 Parasocial Entitlement12:58 Research on Harm15:21 Stress and Health Effects16:52 Ozempic Culture Shift19:51 Coping and Bigger Question20:52 Wrap Up and Part Two For those who asked about reading my dissertation, I made it open access for you.  ★ Support this podcast ★

  4. Aug 6

    Be Cringe, Be Free: The Psychology of Refusing to Perform

    Be Cringe, Be Free: Authenticity, Shame, and the Cost of Performing the Self "Be cringe, be free" sounds like a joke about dancing badly in public. Dr. Leslie Poston makes the case that it's actually a question psychology has been thinking about for decades: why does being yourself in public feel so dangerous, and can dropping the performance actually change anything beyond your own life? This episode draws on Goffman's front stage and back stage selves, Winnicott's true self and false self, Brehm's reactance theory, Gilbert's social rank theory, Tangney's research on shame and guilt, Gilovich's spotlight effect, Meyer's minority stress theory, Keltner's work on embarrassment, and Deci, Ryan, and Neff on autonomy and self-compassion, to ask what it actually costs to keep performing, and what it takes to stop. 00:00 Be Cringe Be Free01:07 Life as Theater02:48 True vs False Self04:37 Reactance and Pushback06:14 Where Cringe Fear Comes From08:04 Spotlight Effect Reality Check09:03 Minority Stress and Real Risk10:23 Embarrassment vs Defiance11:57 Autonomy and Self Compassion13:57 Freedom as Collective Change14:33 Outro and Research Invite LINK TO PARTICIPATE IN DR. POSTON'S NEXT RESEARCH STUDY: https://bit.ly/4fCx52d (linked form will deactivate when study is full) ★ Support this podcast ★

  5. Jul 30

    Gotcha Culture: Why Catching an AI Cheater Feels So Good

    The Psychology Behind AI Call-Outs and False Certainty Dr. Leslie Poston examines why people react with such gleeful certainty when an AI detector flags someone's writing, even though these tools are wrong often enough to falsely implicate one in five students in a single class. The satisfaction people feel rarely tracks whether the accusation is true. It tracks something else entirely, and this episode breaks down five distinct psychological motives hiding underneath that feeling, from protecting a shaky self-image to genuine hypocrisy to anger that belongs somewhere else altogether. Along the way: why detectors fail the way they do, what several centuries of public exposure rituals have in common with a modern callout post, and how to catch yourself doing this before you hit send. 00:00 Why AI Callouts Feel Good01:08 Schadenfreude and Deservingness03:10 Algorithms Reward Accusations04:19 Five Motives Behind Callouts04:27 Downward Comparison Relief05:31 Imposter Syndrome Trigger06:28 Secret Users and Hypocrisy08:08 Moral Grandstanding Performance09:00 Misdirected Anger at AI10:03 Why Detectors Fail12:12 Historical Parallels and Exposures14:33 How to Respond Responsibly17:06 Closing and Subscribe ★ Support this podcast ★

  6. Jul 23

    Coded to Exhaustion: The Hidden Cost of Outsmarting the Algorithm

    Algospeak and the Cost of Speaking Under Algorithmic Suppression When millions of creators have to say 'unalive' instead of suicide and use a grape emoji instead of talking about rape, something has gone wrong. In this episode, Dr. Leslie Poston discusses her dissertation research on the psychological impact of algospeak, the deliberate language modifications social media creators use to evade algorithmic content moderation, where those strategies actually come from, what happens when they spread, and what it costs the people who need them most. Portions of this research are currently being prepared for peer-reviewed journal publication. Poston, L.E. (2026) Speaking at a Cost: Algorithmic Suppression, Appropriated Resistance, and the Psychological Burden of Linguistic Evasion on Social Media (Dissertation) Fielding Graduate University. 00:00 Welcome and Setup00:44 What Is Algospeak02:40 Origins and Raciolinguistics04:13 Why I Studied This05:28 Methods and Dataset07:03 Emotional Toll08:54 Cognitive Load12:50 "Neutralization Lifecycle"15:11 Beyond Algorithms Harassment16:10 What Needs to Change17:53 What Changed Since Study19:31 Key Takeaways and Sign Off Note: had some trouble with the audio leveling this week on a word or two, if I have time I'll re-record and replace those segments this weekend. ★ Support this podcast ★

  7. Jul 16

    What We Lose When Knowledge Has to Pay Rent

    Education’s Value Beyond Jobs: Critical Thinking, Humanities, and the Real Jobs Crisis Host Dr. Leslie Poston argues that education’s value is not defined by whether it leads directly to a job, criticizing the “elite overproduction” framing that treats employment outcomes as the only metric and shift systemic economic failures onto individuals. She emphasizes that a good education builds durable capacities like critical thinking, tolerance for ambiguity, and empathy (traits tied to better judgment in civic life, relationships, and work) supported by research on intrinsic motivation, liberal arts outcomes, and longitudinal gains in reflective learning and need for cognition. In medicine, humanities-linked interventions measurably improve empathy and uncertainty tolerance, reducing unnecessary tests and stress. She cites evidence that employers inflated degree requirements as a screening filter, worsening credential gaps, and explains cultural bias toward individual-blame narratives. She concludes that labor-market reform and valuing knowledge should be treated as separate fixes. 00:00 Education Beyond Jobs01:16 The ROI Framing Trap03:27 Critical Thinking Core05:57 Intrinsic Motivation Wins07:24 Medicine Needs Humanities09:27 AI Ethics Training Gap11:51 Who Caused Credential Creep13:36 Bias Toward Blame14:56 Two Problems Two Fixes16:57 Closing Values Call ★ Support this podcast ★

  8. Jul 10

    Love Languages Were Never Scientific

    Why Love Languages Went Viral Without the Science to Support Them Millions of people can name their love language. Almost none of them know the man who invented the concept wasn't a psychologist, never ran a study, and built the whole thing from his own irritation with how his wife loaded the dishwasher. Host Leslie Poston traces "The Five Love Languages" back to its actual origins, checks Gary Chapman's core claims against three decades of relationship research, and asks a harder question: who benefits when a framework this thin gets treated as settled science, and who ends up doing the work of proving it. 00:00 Love Languages Phenomenon 01:18 Who Is Gary Chapman 02:47 Pastoral Origins Story 04:13 Brand Expansion Machine 04:59 Putting The Theory To Test 05:40 What The Research Finds 07:15 Why It Still Spreads 09:19 A Closer Look At Who Does The Work 11:43 The Physical Touch Question 13:04 When It Becomes A Shield 16:27 What Holds Up Instead 18:38 Closing Thoughts And Sign Off **Note: We had some technical difficulties during recording this week. If there is a problem with your audio, please let us know** ★ Support this podcast ★

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About

PsyberSpace® is a weekly psychology podcast for curious people who want to understand why the world feels the way it does, online and offline. The show helps you name what you’re seeing and feeling, understand the science behind it, and figure out what to do next. If you've ever wondered what makes "reply guys" tick, why we fall for emotionally manipulative language in politics, why meetings suck, why comfort can keep us stuck, why limerence hits so hard, or how music and media reshape your brain, you’re in the right place. New episodes drop every Monday to help you understand your world a little better each week. PsyberSpace looks at how psychology, media, and big systems shape everyday life. Some weeks it’s algorithms, AI, and social platforms; other weeks it’s work culture, gender and power, climate anxiety, grief, or the way capitalism sets the baseline for what “normal” looks like. Each episode breaks down how these patterns show up in real people’s bodies and minds—and what you can do to respond with more clarity, care, and agency in your own life, work, and community. 2025 Webby Award Honoree 2026 Women in Podcasting Award Nominee 2025 Women in Podcasting Award Nominee 2024 Women in Podcasting Award Nominee

Information

  • Creator
    Dr. Leslie Poston, Research Psychologist: Applied Psychology, Media Psychology, Organizational Psychology
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    127
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Leslie Poston, All Rights Reserved
  • Show Website
    PsyberSpace® - we help you understand your world

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