Why We Follow Orders: The Neuroscience of Com...

We tend to explain success by looking at what people did right, while overlooking everyone who made the same choices and failed. Philosopher Duncan Pritchard joins Michael Shermer to discuss his book, Tempting Fate: A Philosophical Guide to Risk, Luck, and a Meaningful Life, and ...  Show more

Why does being alive feel like something? Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio argues that the answer begins with the body's need to stay alive. Hunger, thirst, pain, and pleasure tell us how we're doing and push us to act. These basic feelings, he says, are the foundation of conscious ...  Show more

This is the FIFTH episode in a six-part series on "The Science of Success" titled WEAPONS of INFLUENCE and based on the best selling book “Influence” by Robert Cialdini. Each of these weapons of influence are deeply rooted and verified by experimental psychology research (which y ...  Show more

Explore classic social influence psychology experiments that reveal why we conform, obey authority, and how the bystander effect works in everyday life. 

What would you have done? It's one of the most enduring questions in psychology. We all like to think that in a moment of crisis, we'd rise to the occasion and show courage. And yet many of us have had experiences where we followed orders and did what we were told to do ...