In the 1980s, two social psychologists–Rich Petty and John Cacioppo–devised a new way to make sense of persuasion: the Elaboration Likelihood Model. Their work came on the heels of an era in psychology when people were fed up with persuasion research. The old studies were a mess, and it wasn’t clear if it was even possible to understand how persuasion works. In the course of...
Episode 99: The Power of Random Roommates with Sarah Gaither and Analia Albuja
Drs. Sarah Gaither and Analia Albuja study racial identity and how we can overcome racial biases. They just published an important new study on the effects of random roommate assignments on students’ ability to develop diverse social networks. Our conversation focuses on two key research papers: Gaither & Sommers (2013); Albuja et al. (in press). And if you haven’t...
Episode 98: Deep Canvassing with Dave Fleischer
Dave Fleischer is a political organizer who led the team that pioneered “deep canvassing,” which is a particularly effective form of face-to-face persuasion. It was developed on the ground, but when political scientists put it to a rigorous test, they found that these brief conversations with voters were having a lasting impact (Broockman & Kalla, 2016). On this episode, Dave shares his...
Episode 97: Opinions and Reputations with Christian Wheeler
Christian Wheeler studies the intersection of opinions, communication, and personal identity. He’s a professor of management and marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In our conversation, we talk about the quirks of teaching in a business school, the promise of improv exercises for learning life skills, and his new research on the reputational benefits (or not) of being good at...
Episode 96: Anti-Science Views with Aviva Philipp-Muller
Aviva Philipp-Muller studies why people might pass on science. She’s an Assistant Professor of marketing at the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University. We talked about her research on people’s openness to science in consumer products and how they’re marketed. She also shared her perspective on how anti-science views are an issue of persuasion. Things that come up in this episode:...
Episode 95: Marketing Across Cultures with Aaron Barnes
Aaron Barnes is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of Louisville College of Business. He studies how persuasion, branding, and consumer–brand relationships differ between cultures. In our conversation, we talk about Aaron’s story and some of his research on how the influence of calling a product “top-rated” versus “best-selling” depends on culture...
Episode 94: Bringing Behavioral Science to Government with David Halpern
David Halpern is the President & Founding Director of the Behavioral Insights Team. It started as a “nudge unit” in the British government but has gone on to become its own company with offices around the world. We talked to David in 2021 when we were gathering interviews for our podcast series, They Thought We Were Ridiculous: The Unlikely Story of Behavioral Economics. But he...
Episode 93: A Life in Behavioral Science with Daniel Kahneman
Daniel Kahneman was a titan in social science. He transformed our understanding of decision-making, he taught a generation about social psychology, he won a Nobel prize. It’s hard to overstate his influence. He passed away last week, and the field is mourning the loss. Along with the hosts of the podcast Behavioral Grooves, I interviewed Kahneman back in 2021, and we...
Episode 92: Can We Fix Social Media? with Andy Guess
Andy Guess studies how social media platforms shape people’s political views. He’s an assistant professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University. Last summer, he was part of a big team that released four papers on their analyses and experiments in social media all at the same time. The research was in collaboration with Meta, the company responsible for Facebook and Instagram...
Episode 91: Being a Social Science Maverick with Sendhil Mullainathan
Sendhil Mullainathan does a lot of things, and he does them well. He’s a professor of Computation and Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. I originally talked to Sendhil for our podcast series, They Thought We Were Ridiculous. He was well-positioned to give his perspective on a contentious, interdisciplinary field of social science called “behavioral...