Why do manners exist, who gets to have them, and what happens when the brain can no longer enforce them? Armand DiMele and Dr. Sherry Siegel, M.D. trace etiquette from dementia and autism to class inequality and road rage, arguing that good manners are ultimately a function of time, neurological capacity, and self-awareness.
Is constant digital connectivity replacing real human contact? Armand DiMele sits down with a 17-year-old student, his tech-savvy cousin Giullian Gioiello, and therapist Stephanie D’Ambra, LCSW to examine how Facebook, texting, and smartphones are reshaping how young people relate, feel lonely, and find (or lose) silence.
The overlooked generation between boomers and Gen X gets its due. Armand DiMele and Catherine Altieri, LCSW, along with Cynthia Levchenko, map how shared experiences like the AIDS crisis, political assassinations, and 1960s pop culture shaped a pragmatic, self-reliant cohort whose identity was long misread.
Crowd violence and panic are far rarer than we assume, and heavy-handed control often causes the very chaos it aims to prevent. Armand DiMele surveys research on crowd psychology to argue that people in groups default toward cooperation and mutual care, not irrationality.
What makes the Mayo Clinic work after 140 years? Marketing professor Leonard Berry argues it comes down to hiring for values, practicing team medicine, and treating organizational culture as a living thing rather than a slogan. Armand DiMele draws the lessons out toward any workplace or institution.
Why do smart people fall for scams, bubbles, and collective delusions? Armand DiMele and Dr. Bernard Starr, PhD, Psychologist, trace the psychology of gullibility from the Dutch tulip mania and the South Sea Company to the dot-com crash and Bernie Madoff, examining how situation, cognition, emotion, and social pressure leave us all vulnerable.
Is greed a moral failing or simply the human condition? Armand DiMele and Dr. Bernard Starr, PhD, Psychologist, examine greed as a near-narcotic drive rooted in survival, comparing Wall Street excess and the Madoff scandal to universal human hunger for more health, love, and meaning.
When a whole society swings from irrational exuberance to despair, a collective numbness sets in. Armand DiMele maps the symptoms of this shared depression and explores how people seek relief through crisis, romance, aggression, music, and nature, drawing on caller stories to illustrate what genuinely lifts the spirit.
What if the post-boom economic collapse is a form of societal manic depression? Armand DiMele tests this hypothesis with Dr. Bernard Starr, PhD and psychiatrist and author Dr. Ronald Fieve, examining cortisol, testosterone, double depression, and why telling a depressed person to “buck up” never works.
The morning after Barack Obama’s 2008 election, Armand DiMele and Dr. Bernard Starr, PhD, Psychologist, unpack the jubilation in the streets and what it means when politically disengaged people suddenly wake up. Callers share tears, renewed patriotism, and one listener’s struggle as a single-issue voter who lost.
