Video blog: Can a marshmallow tell you how successful you will be? What do you think? Here is an amusing look at what the experiment was like:
©2010 – 2025 Peter McGraw. All rights reserved.
Peter McGraw
I host solo.
Is good comedy a conspiracy? Matt Kirshen tells why.
I saw that Matt Kirshen (@mattkirshen) was performing at Denver’s Comedy Works. I cornered him in the alley and asked him: Is good comedy a conspiracy? Matt’s observation reminds me of the “minimal groups paradigm” in the psychology literature. Basically, you can take a bunch of strangers and arbitrarily create two groups (e.g., by having […]
Peculiar (and definitely funny) questions: Part 2
One of my more irreverent posts. If you haven’t already seen it, check out Part 1. A few years ago I asked my students some peculiar questions as part of a voluntary anonymous survey. Besides getting their yes/no agreement, I also asked if the questions were funny (yes/no) and offensive (yes/no): Last week, I posted […]
Peculiar (and perhaps funny) questions: Part 1
Please don’t take today’s post too seriously. A few years ago I was wondering how pervasive the use of Adderall was among my students. To do so, as part of a class demonstration, I set up a voluntary survey at the end of the semester. To ensure anonymity I asked students to seal the survey […]
The Humor Code grills Neal Brennan, Co-creator of “Chappelle’s Show”
As part of my global expedition that explores what makes things funny, Joel Warner and I are grilling humorists about the science behind scoring laughs. “Co-creator of Chappelle’s Show.” With a credit like that, it would’ve been easy for Neal Brennan to quietly retire among the comedy gods once the celebrated sketch-comedy show (not to […]
Will a luxury car make you happy?
A lot of research has considered an important question: What makes you happy? From the research one could glean a few commonly-accepted principles that you should consider before spending money some something you think will make you happy. – You adapt to (good or bad) experiences a lot faster than we think we will (i.e., […]
My first video blog: Planned obsolescence
I will be posting video blogs on occasion. My video examines how marketers want their products to fail: x As always, I welcome feedback. ———————————————————————— More information about planned obsolescence: Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America Planned Obsolescence: 8 Products Designed to Fail Is Apple Guilty of Planned Obsolescence?
Take the guilty pleasure test
“Guilty pleasure” …Something pleasurable that induces a usually minor feeling of guilt. – Merriam-Webster …Something that you shouldn’t like, but like anyway. – Urban Dictionary . These definitions focus on emotional and cognitive elements (e.g., feelings of guilt, pleasurable, shouldn’t like, like), but they overlook the behaviors associated with guilty pleasures. In short, when you […]