How Will We Remember Kobe Bryant

Weekly Grooves is the podcast where we explore topical issues through the lens of behavioral science. Tim Houlihan and Kurt Nelson, PhD have worked in the world of behavioral interventions for more than 20 years and we each run our own consultancies. In Weekly Grooves, we view the headlines through the lenses of behavioral science.

This week, we were struck by the way people were talking about Kobe Bryant after his sudden death in a helicopter crash in which he and eight other people perished, including his 13-year old daughter, Gianna. Kobe was only 41 years old.

And while his life is abundant with great accomplishments, both on and off the basketball court, he spent some time in the headlines for not-so-nice things. And what Kurt and I want to look at today is how we remember them after they’ve died or how we think of people as they grow old.

© 2020 Weekly Grooves

Kurt Nelson, PhD: @whatmotivates

Tim Houlihan: @THoulihan

Links

Kobe Bryant Achievements: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_career_achievements_by_Kobe_Bryant

Kobe Bryant Sexual Assault Case: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobe_Bryant_sexual_assault_case

Human Memory, a book by Gabriel A. Radvansky. Third edition published in 2016. https://books.google.com/books/about/Human_Memory.html?id=AjglDwAAQBAJ

“Chapter 17 - The Amygdala and Emotional Arousal Effects on Object Recognition Memory” by Benno Roozendaal, Areg Barsegyan, Yanfen Chen. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128120125000173

 “Praise is Fleeting, but Brickbats We Recall,” by Alina Tugend, The New York Times, March 23, 2012. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/24/your-money/why-people-remember-negative-events-more-than-positive-ones.html