What happens when philosophers start running experiments? Edouard Machery joins Igor and Charles to explain the principles of experimental philosophy, the surprising geography of wisdom, and why we should be skeptical about trusting science too much. Igor digs into what's universal vs what's local about how we think, Edouard explains why bad habits keep creeping into research, and Charles wonders if philosophy can support wise decisions around ordering another glass of wine when out with friends. Welcome to Episode 62.

Links:

• Edouard Machery's Homepage
• Edouard Machery | University of Pittsburgh
• Geography of Philosophy Project
• Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds | Oxford University Press - Edouard Machery (2017)
• Experimental Philosophy | Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science - Edouard Machery (2024)
• Dimensions of wisdom perception across twelve countries on five continents - Rudnev, M., Barrett, H.C., Buckwalter, W. et al (2024)
• Editorial: Cultural Variation and Cognition | Springer Nature Link - Edouard Machery, Joshua Knobe & Stephen P. Stich (2023)
• Conversations at the Center | Podcast from Center for Philosophy of Science - Hosted by Edouard Machery

Can our political identities get in the way of wise action, even on existential issues like climate change? Leaf Van Boven and David Sherman join Igor and Charles to unpack how we perceive environmental policy through the lenses of group identity and social norms, revealing how misperceptions fuel inaction. Igor considers how group beliefs can override personal values, Leaf explores the power of asking, “What if I’m wrong?”, David suggests we may be following louder voices over wiser ones, and Charles wonders if we’re wired to stick to our “tribe” or if we can really think beyond our social bubbles. Welcome to Episode 61.

Special Guests: David Sherman and Leaf Van Boven.

Links:

• Leaf Van Boven | University of Colorado Boulder
• Environment, Decision, Judgment, and Identity Lab (EDJI) | University of Colorado Boulder
• David Sherman | UC Santa Barbara
• Sherman Lab | UC Santa Barbara
• Social Science Climate Lab
• The connections—and misconnections—between the public and politicians over climate policy: A social psychological perspective - Sherman, Van Boven (2024)
• Social norms explain prioritization of climate policy - Cole, Ehret, Sherman, Van Boven (2022)
• Politicians polarize and experts depolarize public support for COVID-19 management policies across countries - Flores, A., Cole J. C., Dickert S., Eom K., Jiga-Boy G. M., Kogut T., Loria R., Mayorga M., Pedersen E. J., Pereira B., Rubaltelli E., Sherman D. K., Slovic P., Vastfjall D., & Van Boven L. (2022)

Why do we have such a hard time figuring out what we’re feeling? Alan Fiske joins Igor and Charles to unravel the mystery of emotions, revealing why your gut feeling might not be as clear-cut as you think. Drawing from his research into Kama Muta—a heartwarming rush of connection—and his critiques of how we label emotions, Alan sheds light on why most of us are pretty terrible at naming what we feel. Igor tackles the complexities of universal emotions, Alan shares why cultural differences make this even trickier, and Charles wonders if anyone truly knows what’s going on inside their head. Welcome to Episode 60.

Special Guest: Alan Fiske.

Links:

• Alan Fiske's page | UCLA
• The lexical fallacy in emotion research: Mistaking vernacular words for psychological entities - Fiske (2020)
• Ways of Knowing Emotion, and What You Don't Know about Your Own Emotions: The Case of Kama Muta - Fiske (2020)
• Seeking Communal Emotions in Social Practices That Culturally Evolved to Evoke Emotions: Worship, Kitten Videos, Memorials, Narratives of Love, and More - Fiske, Schubert, Seibt (2024)
• Moral psychology is relationship regulation: moral motives for unity, hierarchy, equality, and proportionality - Rai & Fiske (2011)
• The four elementary forms of sociality: Framework for a unified theory of social relations - Fiske (1992)
• Kama Muta Lab | Research on social emotions

Can our expectations about ourselves and others reshape our lives? Science writer David Robson returns to explore how our expectations don’t just change personal outcomes—they influence how we connect with others. Drawing from his books The Laws of Connection and The Expectation Effect, David reveals the hidden psychology behind social interactions and how our misconceptions about what others think can hold us back. Igor delves into how expectations can foster or hinder meaningful relationships, David explains how small mindset shifts can help overcome social anxiety, and Charles reflects on why connecting with strangers can be easier (and more rewarding) than we think. Welcome to Episode 59.

Special Guest: David Robson.

Links:

• David Robson's Website
• How your expectations can transform your life | BBC Radio 4 (article)
• The Laws of Connection: 13 Social Strategies That Will Transform Your Life | Book
• The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Change Your World | Book
• David Robson's Column | The New Scientist

Can we create wise robots? Kerstin Dautenhahn joins Igor and Charles to dive into the intriguing world of social robots, the finer points of “Robotiquette,” and the potential role such robots can play in supporting therapeutic treatments. Igor reflects on the limits of robot-based wisdom, Kerstin reveals the potential of Generative AI like ChatGPT to generate false information about her own professional identity, and Charles considers the perils of socially awkward machines. Welcome to Episode 58.

Special Guest: Kerstin Dautenhahn.

Links:

• Kerstin Dautenhahn's page | University of Waterloo
• Social and Intelligent Robotics Research Laboratory (SIRRL)
• Robots are not human, even if we want them to be | Kerstin Dautenhahn | TEDxEastEnd
• Socially intelligent robots: dimensions of human–robot interaction - Dautenhahn (2007)
• Potential Applications of Social Robots in Robot-Assisted Interventions for Social Anxiety - S Rasouli, G Gupta, E Nilsen, K Dautenhahn (2022)
• User Evaluation of Social Robots as a Tool in One-to-One Instructional Settings for Students with Learning Disabilities - N Azizi , S Chandra, M Gray, J Fane, M Sager, K Dautenhahn (2023)
• Opportunities for social robots in the stuttering clinic: A review and proposed scenarios - S Chandra, G Gupta, T Loucks, K Dautenhahn (2022)

Can we ever really know ourselves, or are we destined to always make overly optimistic self-assessments? David Dunning joins Igor and Charles to discuss the Dunning-Kruger effect, the importance of asking the right questions, why arriving at an accurate view of ourselves is so challenging, and the implications for teaching, medicine, and even scientific research. Igor explores the possible reemergence of group assessments in education as a result of advances in AI, David shares why conversations with smart people often end up as competitions to ask the most questions, and Charles reflects on the wisdom-enhancing experience of jury service. Welcome to Episode 57.

Special Guest: David Dunning.

Links:

• Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments - J Kruger, D Dunning (1999)
• The association between objective and subjective financial literacy: Failure to observe the Dunning-Kruger effect - Gilles E. Gignac (2022)
• Flawed Self-Assessment: Implications for Health, Education, and the Workplace - David Dunning Chip Heath Jerry M. Suls (2004)
• Feeling "Holier Than Thou": Are Self-Serving Assessments Produced by Errors in Self- or Social Prediction? - Nicholas Epley, David Dunning (2000)
• Why People Fail to Recognize Their Own Incompetence - David Dunning1. Kerri Johnson Joyce Ehrlinger Justin Kruger (2003)
• The Dunning–Kruger Effect: On Being Ignorant of One's Own Ignorance | Book Chapter - David Dunning (2011)

Have we overlooked a major source of awe, right under our collective noses? Dacher Keltner returns to the On Wisdom studio to discuss his new book "Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life", the power of moral beauty, the desire for connection, and the importance of wandering. Igor suggest that awe can also entail feelings of terror, Dacher reflects on the perils of awe being used against us, and Charles shares his experience of an awe walk-around-the-bloc. Welcome to Episode 56.

Special Guest: Dacher Keltner.

Links:

• Dacher Keltner | UC Psych
• Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life
• Greater Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life
• Berkeley Social Interaction Laboratory
• Dacher Keltner: Why Awe Is Such an Important Emotion - YouTube
• The Science of Happiness Podcast | Greater Good
• Awe as a scientific emotion - Gottlieb, Keltner, Lombrozo (2018)
• Self-Transcendent Awe as a Moral Grounding of Wisdom - Dacher Keltner, Paul K. Piff (2020)
• Awe and humility. - PubMed - NCBI - Stellar, gordon, Anderson, Piff, McNeil, Keltner (2018)
• Why Do We Feel Awe? | Greater Good
• Why Does Awe Have Prosocial Effects? New Perspectives on Awe and the Small Self - Joshua D. Perlin, Leon Li (2020)
• Awe Motivates Authentic-Self Pursuit via Self-Transcendence: Implications for Prosociality - Tonglin Jiang, Constantine Sedikides (2021)

How can we make AI wiser? And could AI make us wiser in return? Sina Fazelpour joins Igor and Charles to discuss the problem of bias in algorithms, how we might make machine learning systems more diverse, and the thorny challenge of alignment. Igor considers whether interacting with AIs might help us achieve higher levels of understanding, Sina suggests that setting up AIs to promote certain values may be problematic in a pluralistic society, and Charles is intrigued to learn about the opportunities offered by teaming up with our machine friends. Welcome to Episode 55.

Special Guest: Sina Fazelpour.

Links:

• Sina Fazelpour's Website
• AI and the transformation of social science research | Science - Igor Grossmann, Matthew Feinberg, Dawn C. Parker, Nicholas A. Christakis, Philip E. Tetlock, Willian A. Cunningham (2023)
• Algorithmic Fairness from a Non-ideal Perspective - Sina Fazelpour, ZacharyC.Lipton (2020
• Diversity in sociotechnical machine learning systems - Sina Fazelpour, Maria De-Arteaga (2022)
• Picking on the Same Person: Does Algorithmic Monoculture lead to Outcome Homogenization? - Rishi Bommasani, Kathleen A. Creel, Ananya Kumar, Dan Jurafsky, Percy Liang (2022)
• Algorithmic bias: Senses, sources, solutions - Sina Fazelpour, David Danks (2021)
• Constitutional AI: Harmlessness from AI Feedback - Yuntao Bai et al (2022)
• Taxonomy of Risks posed by Language Models - Laura Weidinger at Al (2022)
• Large pre-trained language models contain human-like biases of what is right and wrong to do - Patrick Schramowski, Cigdem Turan, Nico Andersen, Constantin A. Rothkopf & Kristian Kersting (2022)
• On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? - Emily M. Bender , Timnit Gebru , Angelina McMillan-Major , Shmargaret Shmitchell (2021)
• In Two Moves, AlphaGo and Lee Sedol Redefined the Future | Wired Magazine (2016)

What actually are “emotions” and how are they made? Lisa Feldman Barrett joins Igor and Charles to discuss what we’ve got right and what we’ve got completely wrong about the nature of our emotional lives. Igor grapples with the idea that red apples aren’t necessarily red, Lisa shares that anger doesn’t always look like anger, and Charles learns that a racing heartbeat can be interpreted in fundamentally different ways. Welcome to Episode 54.

Special Guest: Lisa Feldman Barrett.

Links:

• Lisa Feldman Barrett's Website (Public)
• Interdisciplinary Affective Science Laboratory
• You Aren't at The Mercy of Your Emotions - Your Brain Creates Them | TED Talk (Jan 2018)
• Cultivating Wisdom: The Power Of Mood | TED Talk (May 2018)
• The theory of constructed emotion: An active inference account of interoception and categorization - Barrett, L. F. (2017)
• How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain | Book (2017)
• Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain | Book (2020)
• Context Reconsidered: Complex Signal Ensembles, Relational Meaning, and Population Thinking in Psychological Science - Lisa Feldman Barrett (2022)

How can you persuade someone who disagrees with you on everything? In this episode, we discover the secrets of political persuasion with Robb Willer, a leading expert on political persuasion and moral reframing. Igor grills Robb on the ethics of activism in social science, Robb defends his mission to make a difference in the world, and Charles is amazed to find out that he can fix his misperceptions with a few simple tricks. Don’t miss this inspiring and ground-breaking conversation that will transform how you communicate with others. Tune in to Episode 53 now!

Special Guest: Robb Willer.

Links:

• Robb Willer's Website
• How to Have Better Political Conversations | Ted Talk (2017)
• The Key to Political Persuasion | New York Times
• From Gulf to Bridge: When Do Moral Arguments Facilitate Political Influence? - Matthew Feinberg, Robb Willer (2015)
• Correcting inaccurate metaperceptions reduces Americans’ support for partisan violence - Joseph S. Mernyk, Sophia L. Pink, James N. Druckman, Robb Willer (2022)
• Interventions to reduce partisan animosity - Rachel Hartman, Will Blakey, Jake Womick, Chris Bail, Eli J. Finkel, Hahrie Han, John Sarrouf, Juliana Schroeder, Paschal Sheeran, Jay J. Van Bavel, Robb Willer & Kurt Gray (2022)
• The activist’s dilemma: Extreme protest actions reduce popular support for social movements - Matthew Feinberg, Robb Willer, Chloe Kovacheff (2020)