Unmet expectations trigger a threat response in the brain far stronger than the pleasure of getting what we want. Armand DiMele examines how to stay adaptive when life diverges from the plan, drawing on callers dealing with job searching, a father’s death, and a partner’s crack addiction.
More options should mean more happiness, but psychologist Barry Schwartz argues the opposite: abundant choice produces paralysis, regret, and rising expectations that guarantee disappointment. Armand DiMele and Dr. Sherry Siegel, M.D. discuss how committing to a path, rather than endlessly searching for a better one, may be the actual route to fulfillment.
People don’t change after you fall for them, Armand argues, they unveil. The version you first meet is often a desperate, compensating self, and real intimacy gradually strips that mask away. Callers test the theory against their own relationships.
Why does a more expensive pill relieve more pain? Dr. Dan Ariely, behavioral economist and author of ‘Predictably Irrational,’ joins Armand DiMele to explain how expectations shape everything from placebo responses to romantic choices, including why insecurity becomes an aphrodisiac for those driven by fear of abandonment.
Why do people fail to feel what others expect them to feel? Armand DiMele examines the gap between expected and actual emotion, from maternal instinct and monogamy to pride, generosity, and remorse. Callers share their own struggles, including one survivor reconnecting with spirituality after trauma.
The holidays bring the year’s highest rates of despair, and Armand DiMele and Dr. Kent Robert Short dig into why: family expectations, economic inequality, and the grief of absences. Dr. Michael B. Schachter, MD, Author, joins by phone to explain how reduced sunlight depletes vitamin D and disrupts melatonin, and what actually helps.
