Dr. Mozelle Martin
Bio
Behavioral analyst and investigative writer examining how people, institutions, and narratives behave under pressure—and what remains when systems fail.
Stories (110)
Filter by community
The False Safety of FDIC Insurance
I was 17 when I first noticed the gap between what banking customers believe and what a financial institution can actually promise. It was 1981. I had a summer job in a regional bank that felt serious and orderly. The brochures around the lobby promised safety through a familiar phrase: “the security of FDIC insurance.” Customers repeated that line when they opened accounts. They treated it as a guarantee. Inside the employee lounge, the conversations carried a different tone. FDIC insurance was protection with limits, shaped by statutes, not a full shield.
By Dr. Mozelle Martin2 months ago in Trader
The Identifiable Victim Effect:
Most people think their compassion scales with the size of a tragedy. In practice, the opposite shows up again and again. One injured dog will pull more donations than a barn full of starving animals. One missing child will draw more public outrage than a report about hundreds of children living in the same conditions.
By Dr. Mozelle Martin2 months ago in Humans
Why Yellowstone Hits Me Wrong
I have spent most of my adult life inside work that does not leave much room for shock. Forensics, behavioral analysis, trauma therapy, law-enforcement training, criminal psychology, and animal-cruelty investigations expose you to the kind of decisions people make when they believe they are cornered, justified, or invisible. You see what violence looks like without lighting or sound design. You also learn that real danger does not need theatrics. It announces itself in quieter ways. That background shapes how I respond to media. It also explains why I cannot sit through “Yellowstone,” even though many people assume I would be the perfect audience for it.
By Dr. Mozelle Martin2 months ago in Critique
Why Dogs Target Certain Cars
Dogs have a way of noticing things humans have conditioned themselves to overlook. People hear an engine and register transportation. A dog hears the same engine and registers information. Not a brand, not a make or model, but a sensory fingerprint that gets filed in the oldest part of the nervous system. The part that never stops scanning, never clocks out, and never cares that humans prefer to interpret the world through language instead of instinct. When a dog barks at one specific car or truck yet ignores the rest of the traffic, the dog isn’t malfunctioning. The dog is retrieving a stored pattern and responding to it with the same precision it uses when assessing footsteps, body weight shifts, or the emotional temperature of a room.
By Dr. Mozelle Martin2 months ago in Petlife
The Winter Creature People Misjudge
There is a predictable pattern that shows up whenever old cultural traditions resurface in modern conversation. If the costumes are loud, or the symbols unfamiliar, someone will insist it carries a demonic core. The Alpine Krampuslauf festival is a perfect example of this kind of misplaced certainty.
By Dr. Mozelle Martin2 months ago in History
When Shelter Dogs Choose You
If you watch this video, you will noticed that it's likely AI. The lighting is too perfect, the timing too cinematic. It does not feel like a normal shelter afternoon. The scenario, however, is real. It has happened in kennels and adoption rooms for years. It just does not trend very often.
By Dr. Mozelle Martin2 months ago in Petlife
My Senior Dog Who Came Back
Zeus will be 12 years old in two weeks, a large American Pitbull Staffordshire Terrier ("pit mix") with the kind of gentle loyalty that caused me to underestimate his pain for far too long. For 9 months, he was quietly falling apart. The changes crept in so slowly that each one looked like simple aging, and the pattern only started to make sense when viewed in hindsight.
By Dr. Mozelle Martin2 months ago in Petlife
The Standards of Buffalo Wild Wings Has Collapsed
Buffalo Wild Wings once held a steady identity. Families filled the booths without hesitation. Older couples made Tuesday nights routine. Amish households treated the place as a small weekly destination. Pastors used it as neutral ground for conversation.
By Dr. Mozelle Martin2 months ago in Feast
475 Years for Dog Fighting
Dog fighting has never been a fringe issue. It has functioned for decades as an organized subculture built on pain, secrecy, and profit. The 2023 sentencing of Vincent Lemark Burrell in Georgia forced that reality into daylight in a way courts rarely achieve. He received 475 years, a number that looks theatrical until the details are examined one by one.
By Dr. Mozelle Martin2 months ago in Criminal
The Christmas Card Study That Stunned Psychology
In the winter of 1974 a sociologist named Philip Kunz dropped hundreds of Christmas cards into the mail. He sent them to people he had never met. The names and addresses were pulled from directories. The cards looked personal. They included a photograph of his family, a handwritten signature, and all the small cues that signal genuine warmth. He waited to see what would happen.
By Dr. Mozelle Martin2 months ago in Humans
Why Highway Stops Feel Harsher
I have taught law-enforcement classes since 1987. In classrooms and ride-alongs, a pattern kept showing up in story after story. Drivers say highway patrol feels brusque, sheriffs’ deputies feel more human, and city police land somewhere in the middle. The truth isn’t personality. It is structure. Change the mission, the boss, and the metric, and you change the roadside script.
By Dr. Mozelle Martin2 months ago in Humans
