Psychology in Everyday Life: The Psych Files

michael.britt@thepsychfiles.com

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Does Your Cat or Dog Need Closure? Pet Grief and the Psychology of Loss

June 12, 2026

We hear the word "closure" everywhere — in true crime shows, in news coverage of trials, and in the well-meaning advice of friends after a loss. But where did this idea come from, and does the research actually support it? In this episode I trace the surprising history of closure, from the Gestalt psychologists of the 1920s, to Arie Kruglanski's research on the "need for cognitive closure," to its takeover by talk shows, the victims' rights movement, and even the funeral industry in the 1990s...

Home Alone: The Hidden Cost of Remote Work

June 10, 2026

I've worked from home for about fifteen years, and I like it. I'm a writer, I'm fine being on my own, and I've got the cats for company. But there's one thing I miss, those little water-cooler conversations with colleagues, and a new study published in the journal Science speaks to exactly that. Economist Natalia Emanuel and her colleagues at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York set out to answer a deceptively simple question: what does remote work actually do to our mental health? The catch ...

"I'm Getting Old" — And That Thought Might Be Killing You

March 27, 2026

Do you catch yourself saying "I'm getting old" more than you'd like to admit? Turns out, that habit might be doing more damage than you think. Psychologist Becca Levy of Yale has spent decades studying how our aging mindset — the beliefs we hold about what getting older actually means — shapes how we physically and cognitively age. In a study following more than 11,000 older Americans over twelve years, nearly half showed improvement in either cognitive or physical function, a story that gets...