Apes, babies, and people everywhere (with the possible exception of Switzerland) enjoy humor. But why is humor so prevalent? And why is it so pleasurable? Why do we seek spouses, friends, books, movies, television programs, websites, and LOL cat photographs that make us laugh? Most likely, humor is ubiquitous and
Comedian, actor, writer, and producer, Louis C.K, recently performed his stand-up act at the Paramount Theater in Denver, CO. I pulled a few strings and managed to speak with him before his performance. How Louis C.K. felt about my questions. . In previous posts (here and here) I addressed why
I recently wrote a post about a market research company, NeuroFocus, that specializes in neuromarketing techniques. I questioned the strength of the methodology they used to support a claim that neuoro-imaging helped improved the sales of a magazine. Well, not to pick on NeuroFocus, but I wonder if they are
Co-authored with Dan Bartels A small Church in Gainesville, FL recently planned to burn Qurans as part of a protest against “the radical element of Islam.” The burning was to be conducted on September 11, 2010. In response to public and government outcry, the Church’s Pastor called off the protest.
Before TEDxBoulder, I had a chance to conduct a brief interview with David Thomas, co-editor of the Videogame Journalism Style Guide and Reference Manual. He also blogs on occasion: www.buzzcut.com I asked him, “What makes a place fun?,” which happened to be the title of his talk. His complete TEDxBoulder
The Takeaway is in Denver for a few days. I woke up early this morning (4:15 am MST) to appear in studio with the lovely Celeste Headlee. The Takeaway is a national morning news program produced in partnership with The New York Times, the BBC World Service, WNYC, Public Radio International
As I mentioned in a previous post, I believe that neuromarketing can provide empirically valuable (albeit financially costly) insights about consumer preferences. A caveat before I begin: I recognize that my approach as an academic to the topic of neuromarketing is likely to be different than a firm that is
Below I introduce the benign violation theory and discuss a paper, Benign violations: Making immoral behavior funny, that Caleb Warren and I recently published in the August 2010 volume of Psychological Science. The benign violation theory builds on work by Tom Veatch and integrates existing humor theories to propose that
Welcome back to another episode of “Aging Single,” where Peter McGraw explores the intricacies of aging, retiring, and dying solo. This time, in episode
Welcome to the final episode of I’M NOT JOKING. Comedian JD Lopez returns from Episode 1 to debrief and reflect on Peter’s experience building
