Psychgeist of Pop Culture

Over the last few decades, interest in pop psychology has grown faster than most of our Netflix backlogs. With the continued growth of interest in pop psychology, combined with the sheer volume of media content, the discussion of their intersection is becoming more pertinent both within and outside of academia. For example, casual conversations about the psychology of Stranger Things are happening on TikTok as well as in therapy rooms, where pop culture has become a cornerstone of establishing rapport with clients.

However, there remains a lack of consolidated resources that provide overviews of the state of the research when it comes to which psychological mechanisms are at play and how those can be understood to better understand ourselves. This new series, The Psychgiest of Pop Culture, was developed to highlight the iconic pop culture content from television, film, and literature through an examination of the psychological mechanisms that endear us to these stories for a lifetime.