Episode 6 – John Cacioppo

Welcome to Episode 6, where Professor JOHN CACIOPPO and I talk about inferring causal associations between mind and body, and how to be human is to care for others. John is the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor, and the founder and director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience, at the University of Chicago John’s contributions to the fields of Social Psychology, Psychophysiology, Social Neuroscience (an entire field he helped create more or less from scratch), research methodology, philosophy of science…on and on…would be hard or impossible to overstate. He is a quasi-religious figure to me in that I’ve been reading his methodological critiques and recommendations about mind-body research, as well as his work on the Elaboration Likelihood Model, Electromyography, and Loneliness, for my entire career. I’ve described his groundbreaking book, PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY (later, the HANDBOOK OF PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY) as the holy text of my scholarly origin story, and I mean it. It was published in 1990, right about the time I went back to college as a nervous 21-year-old, and soon after going to work in John Gottman’s lab. There, the book was literally required reading. As I moved through graduate school and well into my career, John has been a guide to the work I do, conceptually, methodologically, and philosophically, and the same can be said of a relatively unknown ocean of researchers all across the globe. John’s recent popular book, LONELINESS, covers decades of work he and others have done documenting the cost of social isolation, whether “objective” isolation (as he calls it) or perceived. It turns out that perceived isolation may be the most harmful of the two kinds, and in any case, isolation kills. We are not a species that relies on our own resources to survive just long enough to reproduce. We are a species that cares for others, and that expects to be cared for. At any rate, I hope you enjoy this chance to spend a little time with one of psychology’s most prolific and restless minds. I know I did. * * * As always, remember that this podcast is brought to you by VQR and the Center for Media and Citizenship. Plus, we're a member of the TEEJ.FM podcast network. AND... The music of CIRCLE OF WILLIS was composed and performed by Tom Stauffer, Gene Ruley and their band THE NEW DRAKES. You can purchase this music at their Amazon page.