Category: Emotions & Inner Life

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Pleasure in Other People’s Misfortune March 7, 2006

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, The Mind & Neuroscience

Why do we slow down at accidents, follow celebrity scandals, and buy newspapers with tragic headlines? Armand DiMele examines schadenfreude, the universal tendency to feel pleasure at others’ misfortune, drawing on neuroscience showing the brain’s reward centers light up in response to tragedy and arguing this impulse is far more widespread than most people admit.

Limerence and the Blindness of Falling in Love February 9, 2006

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Stephanie D'Ambra
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Love & Romantic Relationships

Why do we go blind when we fall for someone? Armand DiMele and Stephanie D’Ambra, LCSW, break down lust, lovesickness, and limerence, the infatuation state coined by Dorothy Tenov, arguing that romantic blindness may be biologically wired and that mature love requires accepting people as they actually are.

The Psychology of Umami January 24, 2006

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Love & Romantic Relationships

What if the mysterious quality that makes a person or relationship feel just right is the psychological equivalent of umami? Armand DiMele maps the five taste sensations onto human personality types and romantic chemistry, arguing that savory wholeness, not sweetness or intensity alone, is what makes love and life satisfying.

Personal Space and Human Behavior January 18, 2006

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Roberta Maria Atti
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Society, Culture & Current Events

Why do children huddle in the center of a yard when fences are removed? Armand DiMele and co-host Roberta Maria Atti dig into proxemics, the science of how humans claim, defend, and respond to space, covering personal bubbles, gender differences in seating preferences, crowding and cooperation, and the neuroscience of spatial memory.

The Psychology of Chronic Worry December 28, 2005

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Anxiety & Fear, Emotions & Inner Life

Chronic worriers aren’t weak or dramatic; their brains are locked in a primitive survival reflex they cannot simply switch off. Armand DiMele defends the chronic worrier against dismissive “pathologically positive” people, traces worry’s roots in fragility and future-thinking, and shows how it can paradoxically drive away the very support worriers need.

Your Three Survival Instincts December 27, 2005

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Identity & The Self

Self-preservation, social belonging, and the drive for intense one-to-one connection are the three instincts shaping every personality. Armand DiMele maps how each type behaves at a party, in a relationship, and under stress, arguing that your weakest instinct is where your life breaks down. Callers test the framework live.

Personality Types Under Crisis December 20, 2005

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Society, Culture & Current Events

A transit strike hits New York and Armand DiMele uses the chaos as a live laboratory, walking through how obsessive, narcissistic, sociopathic, and explosive personality types each respond to sudden disruption. Callers share raw feelings about getting to work, managing depression, and solidarity with striking workers.

Holiday Blues and Gift Giving December 13, 2005

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Depression & Mood, Emotions & Inner Life

Holiday cheer masks real pain, and Armand DiMele digs into why. He traces seasonal depression and Scrooge-like bitterness to absent or cold fathers, unpacks the hidden psychology of gift giving and receiving, and takes calls from listeners carrying loneliness, loss, and family estrangement into the season.

Why We Have Uncomfortable Emotions December 7, 2005

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Roberta Maria Atti
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, The Mind & Neuroscience

Uncomfortable feelings like jealousy, disgust, and schadenfreude exist because they once helped us survive. Armand DiMele and co-host Roberta Maria Atti apply evolutionary psychology to seven “deadly sentiments,” showing how emotions override rational thought to shift behavior instantly in the face of unforeseen threats or losses.

Why Humans Sing and Dance November 30, 2005

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Roberta Maria Atti
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, The Mind & Neuroscience

Emotions did not arrive randomly but were shaped by evolution, starting with mate selection in lush early environments. Armand DiMele and co-host Roberta trace how song and dance triggered the first feelings of love, expanded the human brain, and gave way to speech, testosterone, and the emotional complexity we carry today.