Knowtex

Stupidity can look a whole lot like creativity. In fact, one of the risks of being incredibly creative is that you will spend the vast majority of your life being unbelievably stupid. To understand why, let’s look at the cycle of stupidity and how it works.

Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, challenges the idea that we’ll be miserable if we don’t get what we want. Our "psychological immune system" lets us feel truly happy even when things don’t go as planned.

"I'n not convinced it's as bad as the experts make out... Even if I turn down my thermostat, it will make no difference." The list of reasons for not acting to combat global warming goes on and on. Insights from marketing and psychology can encourage us all to do our bit to combat global warming.

Researchers found that people with a rare variation of the mu-opoid receptor gene, OPRM1, were more sensitive to rejection and experience more distress than those with the more common form.

If you have ever felt fear when stuck in a crowded lift or on an aircraft flying through turbulence, you might have been responding to other people's fear.

People who think they are vulnerable to temptation are least likely to give into it, because they are more vigilant about keeping it at bay.

Rather than encouraging indulgence, appetising images of junk food may actually encourage dieters to eat more healthily.

Many people with the disorder do not spontaneously attempt to read the mental states of others--but can when asked. Many adults with the disorder lead highly functional lives, leaving researchers to wonder how their brains differ from those of neurologically normal adults and children

Most people get happier as they grow older, studies on people aged up to their mid-90s suggest. Despite worries about ill health, income, changes in social status and bereavements, later life tends to be a golden age, according to psychologists.

For decades researchers ranging from economists to psychologists to neuroscientists have tried to understand how people make decisions, both mundane and major. Guest host Paul Raeburn and guests look at what happens in the mind of "the decider" when there's a choice to be made.