Gresham College provides outstanding educational talks and videos for the public free of charge. There are over 2,500 videos available on our website. Your support will help us to encourage people's love of learning for many years to come.
For nearly seventy years, what might be called ‘the canon’ of greatest films has been arbitrated by an international poll of critics delivering a ‘ten best’ list every decade, published in the BFI’s Sight & Sound.
Sound investment decisions are critical for our long-term financial future. But psychological biases can lead investors to make costly mistakes – overconfidence can cause them to trade too much, and the reluctance to take a loss can encourage them to throw good money after bad.
China’s media provide a window into the Chinese mind, as the country asserts itself in the world as a great power. What do Chinese people think is the purpose of life? What matters most to them? In what do they believe? How do officials and journalists explain their responsibilities?
Psychological studies show that humans overweight tangible factors and underweight intangible ones when making decisions. This talk shows how these biases affect the stock market – it focuses excessively on short-term profit, but ignores environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors.
The Efficient Market Hypothesis argues that stock markets are rational – they take into account all relevant information, and incorporate it in an unbiased way. This talk will present evidence that stock prices are instead driven by human psychology.
In 1920, Nellie Melba’s singing was transmitted to Europe and Newfoundland via the wireless. In 1922 the BBC began broadcasting, and from the outset sponsored new music and relayed outside broadcasts to the nation (and from 1932, to the world).
The COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating. But one silver lining has been the tremendous responses from businesses and individual citizens, as we’ve realised how even small actions can have a substantial effect on society.
This talk will explore the “growth mindset”, the evidence-based view that talents are developed rather than genetic. It provides practical tips on how to develop new skills with limited time, and highlights the importance of pushing yourself outside your comfort zone.
This talk will explain how to discern what and who to trust, how to know whether evidence is causation or just a correlation, and how to overcome the temptation to accept views that we agree with.