POW Podcast
All in the head Podcast
POW – the Psychology of Work – is a podcast series which is well worth a listen.
Recently, the subject was money and our attitudes to it.
Claudia Hammond, who presents All in the Mind for Radio 4 delivered an interesting take on money and the psychology behind our attitudes.
She talked about how, when a friend does a favour like helping you prepare the food for a party, you should never pay them. It changes the dynamic almost immediately. Better to buy a gift.
She talked about how the salary you get when you start a job can affect what you have 20 years on and how you should come right out and name a figure when you are negotiating for a job.
Should we all be more transparent about what we earn? Perhaps if people’s salaries were printed below their name on their work ID badge, we’d all be much clearer and happier about it.
But the fact is that people don’t like to talk about what they earn. The point here, said Hammond is that parents need to talk to their teenage children about what their salaries are and what choices they have made as regards work.
Hammond also talked about a study that showed how people will pay more to eat at a restaurant called Studio 97 then one called Studio 17 – food for thought.
She also touched on how keeping money in your current account makes sense psychologically, if not economically.
On Radio Ulster, Lynette Fay interviewed Paul Doherty, a plumber from Belfast who has set up a mental health podcast called All in the Head.
He was frank about his struggles with anxiety as a child and how he ended up with severe anxiety as a young adult.
He was candid about a breakdown, dropping out of university and his drinking.
But with age, he said he has learned to accept his anxiety and deal with it.
When he first got help, it was, he said, like “somebody lifting a bag of cement off the back of my neck”.
Now he’s opening up the conversation on mental health with people like comedian Paddy Raff - another podcast worth a listen.
