Discovering Psychology: The Power of the Situation In the early 1970s, Craig Haney, Curt Banks, Carlo Prescott, and Philip Zimbardo conducted a landmark situational study at Stanford University. The experiment tested the fundamental attribution error: our tendency to attribute causes of behavior to personal factors, underestimating the influence of situational conditions. For this study, a small group of college students volunteered to be subjects and were carefully tested for sound psychological and physical health. Half of the students were randomly selected to act as prisoners, the other half to act as guards. Once the study subjects entered the simulated jail, uniforms, rules, and other details distinguished the two groups from each other, and blurred the line between the reality of the study and life in prison. What happened during the study, originally planned to last two weeks, was more dramatic than anyone had anticipated, even the researchers themselves. Watch the full documentary now -
Derren Brown: The System The System, a Channel 4 special in which Brown shared his 100 percent guaranteed method for winning on the horses. The show was based around the idea that a system could be developed to guarantee a winner of horse races. Cameras followed a member of the public, Khadisha, as Brown anonymously sent her correct predictions of five races in a row, before encouraging her to place as much money as she could on the sixth race. To demonstrate the system to the viewer, Brown tossed a coin showing ten heads in a row to prove it was not impossible, just highly improbable. After Brown had placed a bet of £4,000 of Khadisha's money on a horse in the final race, he explained that The System did not really exist. Brown expressed the opinion that the principle behind The System (essentially confirmation bias or survivorship bias) is what is behind belief in spiritualism or homeopathic and alternative medicine. Watch the full documentary now
The Primacy of Consciousness The fundamental nature of reality is actually consciousness. In his documentary Peter Russell explores the reasons why consciousness may be the fundamental essence of the Universe. Many have made such claims from metaphysical perspectives, but the possibility has always been ignored by the scientific community. In this talk, he discusses the problems the materialist scientific world view has with consciousness and proposes an alternative world view which, rather than contradicting science, makes new sense of much of modern physics. He presents a reasoned argument that shows how they are pointing towards the one thing science has always avoided considering - the primary nature of consciousness. This documentary basically seeks answers for these questions: What is consciousness? Watch the full documentary now
The Secret Life of Your Bodyclock Why are you more likely to have a heart attack at eight o'clock in the morning or crash your car on the motorway at two o'clock in the afternoon? Can taking your medication at the right time of day really save your life? And have you ever wondered why teenagers will not get out of bed in the morning? The answers to these questions lie in the secret world of the biological clock. The general message of The Secret Life of Your Body Clock was that a large number of ticking clocks exist in our organs, and that we ignore them at our peril. The chronobiologists took us through their own 24-hour personal organizer in order to show how we have honed an entire working culture fully dedicated to cocking a gigantic snook at our own body clocks. We stick to rigid working hours when some of us are pre-programmed larks and some owls. We work night shifts when a whole slew of pathologies are more common from overnight exertion (and between 2.00-4.00am is when most people die).
Human Instinct Every one of us possesses an armory of instincts which keep us alive. We are often barely aware of them, but they act every day to protect us from danger and keep us fit and healthy. In the first programme of the Human Instinct series we explore how this most basic of instincts means we're all born to survive. The instinct to have sex is one of the most potent we possess. We’re always competing, even when we least expect it. A 200,000 year old jawbone tells the story of an elderly woman who was kept alive thanks to the kindness of her companions. From this first known example of human compassion to modern day heroes, the final programme in the Human Instinct series explores the most complex of instincts. Watch the full documentary now (playlist - )
The Secret You With the help of a hammer-wielding scientist, Jennifer Aniston and a general anaesthetic, Professor Marcus du Sautoy goes in search of answers to one of science's greatest mysteries: how do we know who we are? While the thoughts that make us feel as though we know ourselves are easy to experience, they are notoriously difficult to explain. So, in order to find out where they come from, Marcus subjects himself to a series of probing experiments. He learns at what age our self-awareness emerges and whether other species share this trait. Having survived that ordeal, Marcus is given an out-of-body experience in a bid to locate his true self. Finally, he takes part in a mind-reading experiment that both helps explain and radically alters his understanding of who he is. Watch the full documentary now
A Brilliant Madness: John Nash A Brilliant Madness is the story of a mathematical genius whose career was cut short by a descent into madness. At the age of 30, John Nash, a stunningly original and famously eccentric MIT mathematician, suddenly began claiming that aliens were communicating with him and that he was a special messenger. Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, Nash spent the next three decades in and out of mental hospitals, all but forgotten. Go beyond the Oscar-winning drama "A Beautiful Mind" and learn more about the life of troubled mathematician and Nobel Prize-winner John Nash and his struggle with mental illness in this PBS "American Experience" documentary. Watch the full documentary now -
Discovering Psychology Highlighting major new developments in the field, this updated edition of Discovering Psychology offers high school and college students, and teachers of psychology at all levels, an overview of historic and current theories of human behavior. Stanford University professor and author Philip Zimbardo narrates as leading researchers, practitioners, and theorists probe the mysteries of the mind and body. Based on extensive investigation and authoritative scholarship, this introductory course in psychology features demonstrations, classic experiments and simulations, current research, documentary footage, and computer animation. Watch the full documentary now (26 parts, each 25 minutes long) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.