In my November 2011 Psychology Today post “What Maslow Misses,” I argued that Maslow’s popular Hierarchy of Needs pyramid undervalues the role of social connection in human basic survival needs and, therefore, as a driver of behavior. Recently, storytelling and management guru and Forbes contributor Steve Denning picked up this idea in the context of [...]
I get lots of questions about media psychology, such as ‘What is media psychology?’ and ‘What does a media psychologist do?’ A big stumbling block is the common understanding of a media psychologist as a psychologist who appears in the media. That’s the wrong answer. What’s the difference between a Media Psychologist, a Clinical Psychologist [...]
The ethical questions surrounding professionals, particularly mental health professionals like psychologists, who appear in the mass media are emotionally-loaded and subject to much debate. But we also have to realize that there really is no such thing as just ‘mass’ media anymore in the traditional sense of uni-directional broadcast one-to-many media. The information flows are [...]
As I told Carrie Cummings from OMMA (interview excerpted below), I so rarely get asked questions about the positive side of social media or the Internet, it was a joy to talk about the benefits of social media, the Internet, and, yes, even humor. Even the act of smiling has powerful impact on how you feel [...]
Twitter has been teeming with celebrity death hoaxes; the #RIP hashtag has been attached to Tweets about the untimely demise of celebrities from Chris Brown and Cher to Mr. Bean. We often take information for granted because it is plentiful. Plentiful is not the same thing as accurate. On the Internet, information is uncurated and [...]
The loss of someone as young and accomplished as Whitney Houston always gives us pause, no matter what the circumstances. We can see fans, friends, and family try to come to terms with Whitney Houston’s death in the mass media coverage and across the Internet in a cascade of Tweets and emotional tributes. We also [...]
