Emma Levine is a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. One of the main things she studies is the ever-present tension between honesty and kindness. Is it morally right to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Or is it our moral obligation to consider other people’s well-being, which sometimes means lying to protect them from...
On a special bonus episode, we welcome back Dr. Vanessa Bohns, professor of organizational behavior at Cornell University. She recently released her second book, “Should I Say Something?: The Science of What to Share–And What to Keep to Yourself.” This episode is from the series of bonus video podcasts I’ve been doing over at Patreon. But this month, everyone gets the...
Dr. Joshua Conrad Jackson uses a bunch of creative research tools to tackle big questions about psychology, culture, and history. By examining historical records, modern writing, and global surveys (among other things), he and his colleagues can trace the trajectory of cultures over time. In our conversation, he helps me understand what “cultural evolution” means, how cultures have...
Rhia Catapano studies what happens when people think of an opinion in terms of what they support versus what they oppose. It turns out that this simple difference carries important implications. Even if we’re talking about the same basic opinion, something shifts when it’s about support than opposition. In our conversation, Rhia shares her findings and what it means for people who...
Demi Oba is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Harvard Business School. He studies the nature of communication. In our conversation, Demi shares some recent research on the different types of “hedges” people make when expressing uncertainty in a claim. These types of uncertainty matter for how persuasive a person can be. In fact, sometimes, being the right kind of uncertain can be...
Jae-Hee Jung is an assistant professor at Rice University, where she studies party politics, political behavior, and political psychology in Western democracies. Her research focuses on the strategic use of moral rhetoric (i.e., appeals to fundamental notions of right and wrong) and how it shapes political competition and voter psychology. We talk about her work analyzing political manifestos...
Elizabeth Dunn and Jiaying Zhao are professors at the University of British Columbia, where they study social psychology and climate behavioral science, respectively. Together, they explore the intersection of human happiness and environmental action, challenging the traditional “guilt and shame” narratives that dominate climate communication. We talk about their new book: Leave the...
Yamil Velez is an assistant professor of political science at Columbia University, where he studies what makes political opinions hard to shift. He’s been using innovative new methods to test important ideas about how people arrive at their views and what it takes to change them. We talk about the relationship between beliefs and opinions, why correcting misinformation doesn’t necessarily move...
Sylvia Perry is a social psychologist and Associate Professor at Northwestern University, where she directs the Social Cognition and Social Identity Lab. She studies the psychological mechanisms that shape how people recognize and confront their own biases, as well as how those biases are transmitted across generations. We talk about her research on racial socialization, specifically focusing on...
Alex Kustov studies public opinion about immigration—why it’s so durable, why it becomes so politically explosive, and what (if anything) can make it more popular. We talk about the surprisingly stable foundations of immigration attitudes, why only a small fraction of people are categorically opposed, and how partisanship shapes the debate. Alex also explains what he calls the “altruist’s...
I'm a social psychologist.