The Human Behavior Podcast

Send us Fan Mail Today we are talking about a term called “duty to intervene.” Although this concept is typically discussed in a law enforcement setting it applies at a much larger scale than most people realize and applies in every social setting that you are in. Rather than doing the typical “Monday Morning Quarterback” commentary that you see after a story or video hits the news, we chose to fo...

Send us Fan Mail Today we are talking about a recent supreme court case involving a man who was convicted of stalking and making true threats against a woman. Our discussion for today revolves around the question “what defines a true threat?” For this discussion we bring up a number of legal and behavior related issues including perception, Mens Rea, the subjectiveness of our experiences, intent,...

Send us Fan Mail Today we are talking about manifestos, social leakage, injustice collectors, and how you can determine someone’s intent before, during, and after they commit acts of violence.  During the episode we give several examples of people who went on a killing spree for very different reasons to illustrate how the current analysis of these events don’t always provide a clear understanding...

Send us Fan Mail Today we are talking about diminishing returns in the context of how we respond to novel situations in our environment. For the discussion we used a few recent law enforcement examples to highlight the fact that simply sending more people or spending more money not only doesn’t solve the problem but can actually make the situation worse. During the episode we bring up a few scient...

Send us Fan Mail Today we are talking about the importance of language and the innate human desire to rename things that already exist. During the episode we define terms like situational awareness, situation understanding, attention, cognitive load and we explain what they mean in the context of human behavior, predictive analysis, and decision-making. We give a number of examples that highlight...

Send us Fan Mail Today we are talking about what is commonly referred to as Stress Inoculation training. We start the discussion with an explanation of where this term came from and then we get into the different problems that arise when you take something from a clinical setting to a training environment.   During the episode we talk about the essential elements that are necessary to conduct effe...

Send us Fan Mail Today we are talking about the recent shooting in Texas that left 5 family members dead after they asked their neighbor to stop firing his weapon because their baby was trying to sleep. We are discussing this case because it’s a great example of how society focuses on completely irrelevant details instead of focusing on the root causes of the incidents.  During the episode we talk...

Send us Fan Mail This week we are joined by a very special guest by the name of Todd Fox. Todd has an impressive career in the executive protection industry and has an extensive military, law enforcement, and martial arts background.   We brought Todd on the show to share some of his experiences and to get a sneak peek behind the curtain of an international executive protection agent. During the e...

Send us Fan Mail This week we are talking about the overuse of “culture” as a lens with which to view a person, place, group, or event. As we often say in our training courses, “culture is merely context” and although it may help to understand certain cultural differences, we don’t feel that it’s as important as people make it out to be. During the episode we define what we mean by culture, and we...

Send us Fan Mail Today we are joined by our friend and former guest on the show, Steve Drum. We asked Steve to come back on the show to talk about his new book called “Life On The X: A Navy SEAL’s Guide to Meeting Any Challenge with Courage, Confidence, and Readiness.” During the episode Steve shares a few stories from his time in the SEAL Teams and being “on the x” but what he is really talking a...

Send us Fan Mail Today we are very excited to bring on the show a brilliant cognitive psychologist by the name of Dr. Lia DiBello.  Dr. DiBello is the Chief Science Officer for ACSI Labs, she is a leading expert in the world of accelerated learning and a pioneer in the field of what she calls “strategic rehearsal.”   If you are involved in training and education then you are going to love this epi...

Send us Fan Mail Today we are tying together some of the cases we discussed in the last two episodes by explaining how to plan, prepare, and avoid the catastrophic failures in response that we often see during major events.  During the episode we use a parking lot as both a literal and metaphorical low-calorie, high-fidelity example of “training for the real event”. We explain how many of the prob...

Send us Fan Mail Today’s episode is the second episode in a three-part series where we are explaining how historical events and stories sometimes get “hijacked by history” which results in people changing the significance of the past in order to suit the needs of the present.  In this episode we are talking about how the process in which our memory works will cause us to string together different...

Send us Fan Mail This episode is the first of a three-part series where we are explaining how historical events and stories sometimes get “hijacked by history,” which results in people changing the significance of the past in order to suit the needs of the present.  In this first episode we dive into the history behind the phrase “Beware the Ides of March,” and we talk about how stories from the p...

Send us Fan Mail On today’s episode we are talking about HOW and WHY certain geographic anchor points (like your home) will have a higher likelihood of potentially violent encounters taking place at them. We explain what we mean by a person’s “home” from the psychological and sociological standpoint and why it can be such an emotionally charged location. We also give some considerations to think a...

Send us Fan Mail Today we decided to answer a question that we know a lot of you have been thinking about. That question is: what does Bob Seger, Ethylene Glycol, Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, and the Columbine High School shooting have to do with one another?  Ok, so maybe you’ve never asked that question, but the short answer is either misinformation or disinformation!  On today’s episode we are...

Send us Fan Mail Today is our follow up conversation with Arcadia Cognerati Advisory Board member and previous guest Clark Dever. Clark is an entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience in emerging technology and he is an expert at building products, teams, and successful businesses.  We brought Clark back on the show to discuss how he optimizes the performance of people, and therefore companies...

Send us Fan Mail Today we are talking about the over reliance of training on Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures, or “TTP’s.” Since the primary focus of TTP’s is HOW to do something, what is often not addressed is WHY you are doing it. This type of thinking and training can lead to a number of issues that may outweigh the initial problem you were trying to solve with new TTP’s. We start the show b...

Send us Fan Mail On today’s episode we are joined by our good friend and Arcadia Cognerati advisory board member, Clark Dever.  Clark is an entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience in emerging technology and he is an expert at building products, teams, and successful businesses. We brought Clark on the show today because he wanted to explore human behavior and human performance from a busines...

Send us Fan Mail On today’s episode we are answering a couple of questions that one of our listeners sent us regarding interviews and interrogations. In the specific case we talk about, the suspect called 911 after committing a violent crime, he was then interviewed by investigators but was subsequently released because at the time they felt they did not have enough evidence to detain the individu...

Send us Fan Mail On today’s episode we are talking about the recent charges filed against Alec Baldwin for the shooting death of Halyna Hutchins on the set of the movie “Rust.” We are using this case to have a broader discussion on the meaning and the difference between terms like “duty” and “responsibility.”  During the episode we talk about the contributing factors in this specific case as well...

Send us Fan Mail On today’s episode we are talking about the psychological and sociological attraction that humans have for high profile crimes and we discuss why we think the analysis of those cases don’t really help us to understand them.    Some of the examples we use to highlight our explanation include the recent University of Idaho murders as well as two popular Netflix documentaries called...

Send us Fan Mail On today’s episode we are having a discussion centered around three questions that have been asked by some of our listeners. Those questions are: What drives human behavior and decision-making? How do our past experiences shape our current behavior? And How do social influences shape our behavior? Although you can go into a lot more detail on each of these questions, we chose to d...

Send us Fan Mail On today’s episode we welcome back our previous guest, Bill Edwards, to talk about the rise of commercial drone use and the different security challenges that it creates. We asked Bill to come on the show and discuss this topic because has extensive experience in security design and consulting and has become a leading expert and advocate in the growing security threat that is pose...

Send us Fan Mail On today’s episode we are talking about how our own statements can be used against us and how truth is often stranger than fiction. For this episode we bring up two major examples; one involves comedian Jeff Ross, a death row inmate, and the Supreme Court and the other example is from the trial of NFL football player Aaron Hernandez.  During the show we discuss some of the misunde...