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Can the Mind Understand Itself? | The Psychology of Psychology

Can the Mind Understand Itself? | The Psychology of Psychology

Published 1 week, 3 days ago
Description
Can the mind understand itself?

Settle into The Psychology of Psychology, a thoughtful sleep story about how psychology learned to question its own methods, assumptions and ways of understanding the human mind.

William James finishes a founding textbook and wonders whether psychology is a science at all. Researchers discover that their expectations can find their way into an experiment. Volunteers keep adding numbers and tearing up the answers, convinced that the task must have a purpose.

Tonight we follow psychology as it learns to question itself.

From Wilhelm Wundt's laboratory to Martin Orne's "other chair," from the limits of introspection to the replication crisis, we explore how the questions researchers ask, the people they study and the answers they hope for can shape what they find.

Along the way, the story travels beyond Western laboratories to Japanese and Filipino ideas about the self and our relationships with other people.

It ends with the patient work of looking again, and an empty testing room where nothing needs measuring tonight.

There's no test to pass. Let the story keep you company as you settle down to rest.

This sleep story is told slowly and gently for sleep, relaxation and quiet late-night listening.

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Sleep well. 🌙

Stories to fall asleep to. Ideas worth waking up with.
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