Philosophers Michael Brownstein (CASBS fellow 2019-20) and Dan Kelly (2018-19), two of the coauthors of "Somebody Should Do Something: How Anyone Can Create Social Change," discuss their book's framing and key concepts with Damon Centola (2014-15), an expert in social network dynamics. The book offers a pragmatic guide for connecting individuals to their role as change agents, illuminating the social feedback processes through which structures, individuals, and social movements interact, unlocking the potential for systemic change.

The book is Somebody Should Do Something: How Anyone Can Help Create Social Change (MIT Press, 2025)

Explore the book's website, containing related research, media, more about the authors, and an appendix that provides "A Deeper Dive into Individuals, Structures, and Other Key Concepts"

Michael Brownstein: CUNY Graduate Center webpage | personal webpage | Google Scholar page | CASBS page |

Dan Kelly: Purdue Univ. webpage | personal webpage | Google Scholar page | CASBS page |

Damon Centola: Penn webpage | Network Dynamics Group webpage | Wikipedia page | Google Scholar page | CASBS page |


Other works referenced in this episode:

Alex Madva, Daniel Kelly, Michael Brownstein, "Change the People or Change the Policy? On the Moral Education of Antiracists," Ethical Theory and Moral Practice (2023)

Michael Brownstein, Daniel Kelly, Alex Madva, "Individualism, Structuralism, and Climate Change," Environmental Communication (2021)

C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite (1956) (Wikipedia)

James S. Coleman, Equality of Educational Opportunity (1966), known as The Coleman Report (Wikipedia)

Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (1979 [1984]) (Wikipedia)


Other 2018-19 CASBS fellows who Dan Kelly mentions in this episode: Christopher Bryan, Jennifer Freyd, Ying-hi Hong, Elizabeth Lonsdorf, Ruth Milkman

 

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University

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Human Centered
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel |

Economist Paul Milgrom is celebrated for his Nobel Prize-winning work on auction theory and design. But he has published a wide range of other innovative, influential research throughout his career – including a book and articles emerging from his 1991-92 CASBS fellowship. Gani Aldashev (CASBS fellow, 2024-25) engages Milgrom on highlights of this often-collaborative or cross-disciplinary work on organizational behavior, the institutional roots of trust and cooperation, social choice for environmental policy, and more.

PAUL MILGROM: Stanford faculty page | Personal website | Nobel Prize page | Nobel bio | Wikipedia page| CASBS page |

Gani Aldashev: Georgetown faculty page | CASBS page | Google Scholar page |

PAUL MILGROM WORKS REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE:

Economics, Organization, and Management (Prentice Hall, 1992), coauthored with John Roberts (CASBS fellow, 1991-92)

"Multitask Principal-Agent Analyses: Incentive Contracts, Asset Ownership, and Job Design," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization (1991), coauthored with Bengt Holmstrom

"Complementarities and Fit Strategy, Structure, and Organizational Change in Manufacturing," Journal of Accounting and Economics (1995), coauthored with John Roberts

"Complementarities, Momentum, and the Evolution of Modern Manufacturing," The American Economic Review (1991), coauthored with Yingyi Qian, John Roberts

"Complementarities and Systems: Understanding Japanese Economic Organization," Estudios Economicos (1994), coauthored with John Roberts

"The Role of Institutions in the Revival of Trade: The Law Merchant, Private Judges, and the Champagne Fairs," Economics & Politics (1990), coauthored with Douglass North (CASBS fellow, 1987-88) and Barry Weingast (CASBS fellow, 1993-94)

• Learn about the Champagne Fairs on Wikipedia

"Coordination, Commitment and Enforcement: The Case of the Merchant Guild," Journal of Political Economy (1994), coauthored with Avner Greif (CASBS fellow, 1993-94), Barry Weingast

"Is Sympathy an Economic Value? Philosophy, Economics, and the Contingent Valuation Method," in Contingent Valuation: A Critical Assessment, J.A. Hausman, ed. (Elsevier, 1993)

"Kenneth Arrow's Last Theorem," Journal of Mechanism and Institution Design (2024)

Other works referenced in this episode:

Oliver Williamson, The Economic Institutions of Capitalism: Firms, Markets, Relational Contracting (Mcmillan, 1985). Much of this book was written at CASBS during Williamson's 1977-78 CASBS fellowship.

Works emerging from Milgrom's CASBS fellowships

Milgrom's collaborations with, intellectual interactions with, or responses to other Nobel Prize winners in this episode:

• Oliver Williamson (CASBS fellow 1977-78, Nobel Prize 2009)
• Bengt Holmstrom (Nobel Prize 2016)
• Robert Wilson (CASBS fellow 1977-78, Nobel Prize 2020)
• Ronald Coase (CASBS fellow 1958-59, Nobel Prize 1991)
• Douglass North (CASBS fellow 1987-88, Nobel Prize 1993)
• Kenneth Arrow (CASBS fellow 1956-57, Nobel Prize 1972)

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University

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Human Centered
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel |

Edward Said famously wrote most of "Orientalism" during his 1975-76 CASBS fellowship. The book criticized Western worldviews and representations of the East (or 'Orient') and their perpetuation of romanticized or colonial mindsets. A half-century later, "Orientalism" continues to shape scholarship, frame debates, and resonate in disparate regions and contexts. Four 2024-25 CASBS fellows representing different disciplines – A. Shane Dillingham, Thomas Blom Hansen, Camilla Hawthorne, and Shirin Sinnar – discuss the enduring influence and impact of Said and his landmark book.

EDWARD SAID WORKS REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE
Orientalism (Pantheon, 1978)
"The One State Solution," New York Times, 10 January 1999
Representations of the Intellectual (Penguin Random House, 1996)

Other works emerging from Edward Said's CASBS fellowship

EPISODE GUESTS
A. Shane Dillingham: ASU faculty page | Personal website | CASBS page
Camilla Hawthorne: UCSC faculty page | Personal website | CASBS page
Thomas Blom Hansen: Stanford faculty page | CASBS page
Shirin Sinnar: Stanford faculty page | CASBS page

Edward Said on CASBS
In evaluating his CASBS fellowship in 1976, Edward Said noted that "...the Center does not pay enough attention (in its selection of Fellows) to revisionist and/or radical scholars in the humanities and social sciences. There are a great many intellectual developments taking place, many of them because of thinkers whose work departs from (if does not explicitly reject) the conventions of Establishment scholarship."

In addition to this constructive criticism, Said remarked in general that "...the quiet and the absence of immediate pressures were, for me, a very welcome change from past years, when deadlines, a thousand daily commitments, and the mad pressures of teaching in a large university (in a large city) made continuity of work and reflection almost impossible." Said further reported that Orientialism was "exactly four-fifths complete." In accounting for his "extremely valuable and productive year," he wrote: "I do not think I could have done this sort of work anywhere else...the working conditions are...comfortable in the best way for a scholar..."

Of his work on Orientalism, Said further noted: "The other more or less special advantage to this year was to have time to change directions in my work, to move from a highly theoretical kind of speculation to a very concrete historical investigation. Many of my ideas about such matters as the history of traditions, the growth of scientific and disciplinary knowledge, the ideology of scholarship, the relationship between “knowledge” and the imagination took new, concrete forms. Without such a year – and it is impossible to say where else I could have had such a year – I would still be making statements without being sure as their historical and concrete validity. Moreover, I found that I had the time to pursue leads only to prove that they were the wrong ones; the important thing was to have the time to let my work take me where it would, and not be afraid.”

Excerpted from Edward Said, "Evaluation of fellowship year 1975-76," letter to CASBS director Gardner Lindzey, August 19, 1976 (CASBS files)
 

Other works referenced in this episode
Timothy Brennan, Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said (Bloomsbury, 2022)
Stuart Hall, "The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power," in Essential Essays, Vol. 2 (Duke Univ. Press, 2018 [1992])
Camilla Hawthorne, "Mapping Black Geographies," Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers (2024)
Sophia Azeb, "The 'No-State Solution'," The Funambulist (2017)
Sophia Azeb, "Who Will We Be When We are Free?" The Funambulist (2019)

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University

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Human Centered
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel |

An absorbing conversation featuring Colin Camerer (CASBS fellow, 1997-98), among the world's most accomplished scholars in both behavioral economics and neuroeconomics, with economist Stephanie Wang (2024-25). Camerer discusses his groundbreaking work on the neuroeconomics of self-control and habit formation; offers insights on generating ideas for, building, then scaling behavioral models; and explains why neuroscience remains a wide-open field awaiting the contributions of so-far mostly reluctant economists and other social scientists.

COLIN CAMERER: Caltech faculty page | Camerer research group | on Google Scholar | Wikipedia page | bio at the Decision Lab | bio at MacArthur Foundation | 

STEPHANIE WANG: Pitt faculty page | Personal website | on Google Scholar | CASBS bio |

Works discussed or mentioned in this episode:

C. Camerer, Behavioral Game Theory: Experiments in Strategic Interaction. Princeton University Press, 2003.

C. Camerer, "Can Asset Markets Be Manipulated? A Field Experiment with Racetrack Betting," Journal of Political Economy, 1998.

C. Camerer, et al., "The Golden Age of Social Science," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2021.

C. Camerer, et al., "A Neural Autopilot Theory of Habit: Evidence from Consumer Purchases and Social Media Use," Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 2024.

S. Wang, C. Camerer, et al., "Looming Large or Seeming Small? Attitudes Toward Losses in a Representative Sample," Review of Economic Studies, 2025.

F. Ramsey, "Truth and Probability" (1926), published in F. Ramsey, The Foundations of Mathematics and Other Logical Essays (1931)

U. Malmendier, S. Nagel, "Depression Babies: Do Macroeconomic Experiences Affect Risk Taking?" Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2011.

M. Cobb, The Idea of the Brain: The Past and Future of Neuroscience, Basic Books, 2020.

M. Gaetani, "CASBS in the History of Behavioral Economics," CASBS website, 2018.


Also of interest:

S. Wang, et al., eds., "Mindful Economics: A Special Issue in Honor of Colin Camerer," Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, forthcoming.

 

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University

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Human Centered
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel |

For decades, Alejandro Portes (CASBS fellow 1980-81) has been among our most distinguished scholars elucidating the causes and consequences of immigration and assimilation. René D. Flores (CASBS fellow 2023-24) engages Portes in a conversation spanning large swaths of Portes's formidable intellectual biography, including his personal journey from Cuba and its influence on his academic trajectory, as well as his approach to social science inquiry and its delivery of insights leading to some of his most celebrated and consequential works.

ALEJANDRO PORTES: Princeton faculty page | CV | Univ. of Miami faculty page | Wikipedia page | on Google Scholar | 

Biographical sketches of Portes: American Sociological Association | National Academy of Education | Princeton | National Institutes of Health | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | 

Robert K. Merton's full quote about Alejandro Portes is contained in the September/October 1998 issue of Footnotes, a publication of the American Sociological Association. Access the full text. 
 

Works referenced in this episode

Alejandro Portes, "Rationality in the Slum: An Essay on Interpretive Sociology," Comparative Studies in Society and History, v13 n3, June 1972.

Alejandro Portes, "Dilemmas of a Golden Exile: Integration of Cuban Refugee Families in Milwaukee," American Sociological Review, v34 n4, August 1969.

Alejandro Portes and Robert Bach, Latin Journey: Cuban and Mexican Immigrants in the United States. Univ. of California Press, 1985.

Alejandro Portes and Min Zhou, "The New Second Generation: Segmented Assimilation and its Variants," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, November 1993.

Alejandro Portes and Ruben Rumbaut, Immigrant America: A Portrait, Univ. of California Press, 2024 (fifth ed.)

Alejandro Portes and Ruben Rumbaut, Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation, Univ. of California Press, 2001.

Jennifer Lee and Min Zhou, The Asian American Achievement Paradox, Russell Sage Foundation, 2015. (Notably, Jennifer Lee was a CASBS fellow in 2002-03; Min Zhou was a CASBS fellow in 2006-06.)

Bonus: 2019-20 CASBS fellow Catherine Ramírez discusses the influence of Alejandro Portes in "What Does Assimilation Mean?" Public Books, Feb. 27, 2020. The essay was written as part of CASBS's partnership with Public Books. Ramírez writes, "By showing that there are many strata in society into which people assimilate, and many outcomes of assimilation, Portes and his coauthors have enriched our understanding of the processes by which people become American, however precarious that status may be.” 

René D. Flores: Univ. of Chicago faculty page | CASBS page | on Google Scholar | Personal website | 

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University

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Human Centered
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel |

Generative AI tools built on large language models are increasingly "intelligent" yet lack a baby's common sense – the ability to non-verbally generalize to novel situations without additional training. What can developmental science contribute to AI? Tech journalist and former CASBS fellow John Markoff chats with 2023-24 CASBS fellow David Moore, a developmental scientist with expertise in infant cognition, on evaluating the efforts of DARPA's Machine Common Sense program as well as prospects and concerns associated with creating AIs with common sense.

DAVID MOORE: Personal website | Claremont Infant Study Center | Wikipedia page | 

DARPA Machine Common Sense program

Related resource:

David Moore, et al. "Leveraging Developmental Psychology to Evaluate Artificial Intelligence," 2022 IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL), Nov. 2022. DOI: 10.1109/ICDL53763.2022.9962183

Recommended by David Moore:

Esther Thelen and Linda B. Smith. A Dynamic Systems Approach to the Development of Cognition and Action. MIT Press, 1994.
 

Read John Markoff's latest book, Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand  (Penguin Random House, 2022)

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University

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Human Centered
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel |

Given deeply polarized domestic politics and insufficient international commitment to the Paris Accord, can we reduce greenhouse gas emissions and avert some of the worst effects of climate change before it's too late? It's an elemental question that warrants despair, yes, but plenty of hope too. Political scientist Leigh Raymond, a 2021-22 CASBS fellow, explores the implicated issues through a conversation about "Into the Clear Blue Sky: The Path to Restoring Our Atmosphere" with its author, sustainability scientist Rob Jackson. Jackson launched the book project as a 2019-20 CASBS fellow.

ROB JACKSON: Faculty page | Stanford profile | CASBS profile | Jackson on Google Scholar | Global Carbon Project | 

Publisher page for Into the Clear Blue Sky: The Path to Restoring Our Atmosphere (Simon & Schuster, 2024)

Media related to Into the Clear Blue Sky: KQED Forum | The Times | Scientific American | Aeon | Wired | Times Literary Supplement | The Conversation | Chemical & Engineering News | Civil Eats | more Scientific American | Literary Hub | Heatmap | Environmental Health News | Orion | Fast Company | Inside Climate News | The Wall Street Journal | Atmos | ACS Publications |

LEIGH RAYMOND: Faculty page | on Google Scholar | 

Publisher page for Reclaiming the Atmospheric Commons: The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and a New Model of Emissions Trading (MIT Press, 2016) | 2017 book award announcement |

"What Climate Policies do Americans Want from Their Legislatures?" Good Authority (July 5, 2022)

"Building Support for Carbon Pricing - Lessons from Cap-and-trade Policies," Energy Policy 134 (2019)

"Framing Market-Based Versus Regulatory Climate Policies: A Comparative Analysis," Review of Policy Research (2022)

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University

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Human Centered
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel |

Two-time CASBS fellow and renowned anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann discusses her past and current work as an anthropologist of the mind, both in religious and psychological contexts, in conversation with 2023-24 CASBS fellow Erica Robles-Anderson. Luhrmann's award-winning work investigates visions, voices, psychosis, the supernatural, and other unusual sensory experiences and phenomena, found often at the borderlands of spirit, culture, and the mind.

TANYA LUHRMANN: Stanford faculty page | Stanford profile page | Personal website | Wikipedia page | on Google Scholar | CV |

Luhrmann, Of Two Minds. Winner of: the Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing, the Bryce Boyer Prize for Psychological Anthropology, the Gradiva Award from the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis

Luhrmann, When God Talks Back. Winner of the Grawemeyer Prize in Religion and the Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year.

Luhrmann, "A life in books," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (2020)

Luhrmann, et al. "Sensing the presence of gods and spirits across cultures and faiths," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2021)

ERICA ROBLES-ANDERSON: NYU faculty page | CASBS page | on Google Scholar |

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University

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Human Centered
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel |

There never will be enough independent fact checking of online political advertising and their ecosystems. Can we develop methods and tools to demonetize or at least disincentivize the behaviors of disinformation producers as well as the ad firms and content providers in business with them? 2023-24 CASBS fellow Ceren Budak navigates the disinformation marketplace and illuminates pathways for better design of online communities and platforms in conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning tech journalist and former CASBS fellow John Markoff.
 

CEREN BUDAK: Faculty webpage | Personal website | 

Referenced in this episode:

"Misunderstanding the harms of online misinformation." Nature 630, 45–53 (2024)

The Prosocial Ranking Challenge (Center for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence)

"Intermedia agenda setting during the 2016 and 2020 U.S. presidential elections." Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 18(1), 254-275. 

Lawrence Lessig's Pathetic Dot Theory (Wikipedia)

----

Read John Markoff's latest book, Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand  (Penguin Random House, 2022)

 

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University

Explore CASBS: website | Bluesky | X | YouTube  |LinkedIn | podcast  |latest newsletter | signup | outreach​

Human Centered
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel |

Are jobs requiring high levels of human interaction worth preserving in the age of automation? Can we design machines to achieve something profound – the mutual recognition that occurs when human beings truly "see" each other? CASBS faculty fellow Mitchell Stevens explores these questions with Allison Pugh, author of the 2024 book The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World. Pugh launched work on the book as a 2016-17 CASBS fellow.

ALLISON PUGH
 website | Google Scholar page | Interview with Allison Pugh on building a society of connection (CASBS in partnership with Public Books) |

Princeton University Press page for The Last Human Job
 

MITCHELL STEVENS
Stanford GSE faculty page |  Stanford profile |  CASBS page | Google Scholar page |
 

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University

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Human Centered
Producer: Mike Gaetani | Audio engineer & co-producer: Joe Monzel |