With Good Reason

Sew Katie Did / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND Feminists tend to be thought of as “anti-motherhood.” But psychologist (and mom) Miriam Liss (University of Mary Washington) says feminists are actually more likely than non-feminists to be intense mothers who practice parenting techniques like co-sleeping, breastfeeding, and carrying a child in a body sling. Also featured: [...]

Daphne Maxwell Reid (Virginia State University) is perhaps best known for her role as Aunt Viv in the popular 90’s television show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, starring Will Smith. But before Daphne was an actress, she was a number of “firsts,” including the first African American homecoming queen at Northwestern University and the first [...]

In spite of the current state of the economy, the next 25 years will see an unprecedented rise in human wellbeing. That’s the argument Philip Auerswald (George Mason University) makes in his new book The Coming Prosperity. He argues that four centuries of technological change are spreading prosperity to new populations in the world and [...]

In the 18th century it was hard cider, not beer, that was the alcoholic beverage of choice. Even children often drank hard cider with breakfast and dinner because it was safer than the water. So how did this preference for hard cider disappear from the American palate? David Williams (George Mason University) investigates the demise [...]

Brian Ulrich’s (Virginia Commonwealth University) new book Is This Place Great or What is a decade-long photographic study of consumerism in America, post 9-11. His pictures, which were taken across the United States, portray shoppers and employees in “Big Box” stores and small thrift stores. He also documents abandoned shopping malls on the brink of [...]

The fear of public speaking can be debilitating.  For some, it’s the stuff of nightmares.  And so rather than stumble through a speech, many people avoid doing it altogether. But Molly Bishop Shadel (University of Virginia) and Robert N. Sayler (University of Virginia) say oral advocacy is key to a healthy democracy. Effective speeches can [...]

An epidemic of over-consumption is sweeping the United States and the rest of the industrialized world. With Good Reason sat down with PBS documentary producer John De Graaf, among whose best-known shows is Affluenza, for an in-depth discussion of happiness and the economy and how the life/work balance got out of whack for American workers. [...]

The United States gives out roughly 25 billion dollars a year in foreign aid projects. Is that money ending up in the right hands and what is it accomplishing? Michael Tierney (College of William and Mary) and his colleagues have created AidData to allow the public to follow the money. Also featured: Biologists have used game theory to [...]

At the height of its popularity, an estimated 12 million listeners were tuning in to each episode of The Lone Ranger. The success of the radio serial was largely the result of clever marketing and licensing by the show’s creator, George Trendle. In a forthcoming book called Selling the Silver Bullet, media professor Avi Santo [...]

The fear of public speaking can be debilitating.  For some, it’s the stuff of nightmares.  And so rather than stumble through a speech, many people avoid doing it altogether. But Molly Bishop Shadel (University of Virginia) and Robert N. Sayler (University of Virginia) say oral advocacy is key to a healthy democracy. Effective speeches can [...]