Opinion Science

Two guests! Drs. Eva Pietri and India Johnson stop by to share the important work they’re doing together on the power of role models for underrepresented groups in STEM fields.

Things that come up in this episode:

• Women and racial and ethnic minorities are under-represented in STEM fields (National Science Board, 2020)
• Encouraging identity-safety in STEM among Black (Johnson, Pietri, Fullilove, & Mowrer, 2019; Pietri, Johnson, & Ozgumus, 2018) and Latina women (Pietri, Drawbaugh, Lewis, & Johnson, 2019)
• Using videos to enhance relatability of scientists (Pietri, Johnson, Majid, & Chu, in press)
• Extending these ideas to encourage women to identify with male scientists (Pietri, Drawbaugh, Johnson, & Colvin, in press)

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/intersectional-role-models-in-stem-with-india-johnson-eva-pietri/

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Dr. Eric Hehman studies the geography of bias. Lots of research has looked at the prejudice that lives in an individual person’s head, but Eric looks at the average amount of bias in particular location. On average, some counties have more implicit bias than others, and some states have more bias than others. But what does it mean? That’s what Eric and I talk about this week!

Things we mention in this episode:

• Zippia’s collection of fun maps, including Thanksgiving sides, pickle fandom, and sandwich preferences. 
• Regional implicit biases are related to police use of force against African Americans in that region (Hehman, Flake, & Calanchini, 2018)
• Inspiration for Eric’s focus on regional bias (Motyl et al., 2014; Rae & Olson, 2015; Rentfrow et al., 2013)
• How same-sex marriage legislation affected anti-gay bias one state at a time (Ofosu, Chambers, Chen, & Hehman, 2019)
• Validating region-based measures of bias (Hehman, Calanchini, Flake, & Leitner, 2019)
• Searching for environmental features that relate a region’s level of bias (Hehman, Ofosu, & Calanchini, 2020)
• The “bias of crowds” model of implicit bias (Payne, Vuletich, & Lundberg, 2017)

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/geography-of-bias-with-eric-hehman/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

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Learn more about Opinion Science and catch up on all the episodes at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/.

Melanie Green studies stories. She’s a professor of Communication at University of Buffalo, and for years she’s been looking into whether stories can serve to persuade people. Are stories just entertainment or can they change our minds? In this episode, we talk about stories, her research on persuasion, and the experience of being transported by a story.

Topics that come up in this episode:

• People differ in their “transportability,” which is associated with their receptiveness to narrative persuasion (Mazzocco et al., 2010)
• Narrative persuasion depends on transportation (Green & Brock, 2000)
• Meta-analyses of narrative persuasion studies (Braddock & Dillard, 2016; Oschatz & Marker, 2020; Zebregs et al., 2015)
• Research by Jeff Niederdeppe’s lab on story-telling in health communication
• Stories continue to be persuasive after proven false (Green & Donahue, 2011)
• People make judgments of a person’s warmth or competence depending on whether they tell stories (Clark, Green, & Simons, 2019)

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/persuasion-via-story-telling-with-melanie-green/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Join me over at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/OpinionScience

Learn more about Opinion Science and catch up on all the episodes at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/.

Kristen Soltis Anderson is a pollster and co-founder of Echelon Insights. For five years, she co-hosted the podcast, The Pollsters, she hosts the SiriusXM show, The Trendline, and the Fox Nation show What Are the Odds? She also regularly appears on television to discuss the latest polls.

She’s spent a lot of time looking at polls of Millennials in particular. In 2015, she published her first book, The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America (And How Republicans Can Keep Up), in which she reviews data on millennials’ tendency to vote for Democrats and the unique features of modern life that may be driving this shift.

In this episode, we have a great conversation about her work, what political polling can reveal, and how young voters’ preferences may affect the 2020 U.S. election…and other elections to come.

Some things that come up in this episode:

• Generation Z enjoys mocking Millennials (Buzzfeed)
• The Bennington College study of political attitudes over one’s lifetime (Newcomb, 1943; Alwin, Cohen, & Newcomb, 1992)
• Kristen’s new report on Generation Z and Millennials’ optimism for the future (Walton Family Foundation, 2020)

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/polling-young-voters-with-kristen-soltis-anderson/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

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Learn more about Opinion Science and catch up on all the episodes at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/.

Alex Coppock is an assistant professor of Political Science at Yale University. His research considers what affects people's political beliefs, especially the kinds of messages people regularly encounter--TV ads, lawn signs, Op-Eds, etc. In this episode, he shares the findings of a big, new study that just came out as well as what it means for how persuasion works.
 

Things that came up in this episode:

• A new study testing dozens the efficacy of dozens of political ads (Coppock, Hill, & Vavreck, 2020)
• The long-lasting effects of newspaper op-eds on public opinion (Coppock, Ekins, & Kirby, 2018)
• The effects of lawn signs on vote outcomes (Green, Krasno, Coppock, Farrer, Lenoir, & Zingher, 2016)
• Framing effects in persuasion (for an overview, see Chong & Druckman, 2007)
• The sleeper effect (see here for an overview)

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/political-persuasion-with-alex-coppock/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

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Learn more about Opinion Science and catch up on all the episodes at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/.

Vanessa Bohns studies the difference between how much influence people have and how influence they think they have. On the podcast, we talk about her studies, why people underestimate their influence, and whether this means we should try asking for more than we do now.

If you sit tight until next year, Dr. Bohns has a book coming out called You Have More Influence than You Think.

A few things that come up in our conversation:

• For a general overview of Dr. Bohns’ research on this topic, you can check out this article in Harvard Business Review or her review in Current Directions in Psychological Science.
• People underestimate how many people they have to ask in order to get someone to agree to do something (Flynn & Bohns, 2008).
• People even underestimate their influence in getting people to do ethically questionable things (Bohns, Roghanizad, & Xu, 2014).
• We don’t realize how uncomfortable it is for people to say no to requests (Bohns & Flynn, 2010).
• The influence process is different between in-person versus emailed requests (Roghanizad & Bohns, 2017).
• People’s biases about influence even extend to how they think about unwanted romantic advances (Bohns & DeVincent, 2019).
• We break down the difference between the “spotlight effect” and the “invisibility cloak” bias.
• Tory Higgins’ “saying is believing” effect shows how much power audiences have (Higgins & Rholes, 1978).

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

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Learn more about Opinion Science and catch up on all the episodes at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/.

Just a quick word about new episodes on the way and a switch to biweekly shows.

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

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Learn more about Opinion Science and catch up on all the episodes at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/.

Elliot Aronson has seen a long and influential career in social psychology. Aronson got his PhD in 1959 from Stanford University, working with Leon Festinger on some of the first experiments testing dissonance theory. He authored a celebrated social psychology textbook, now in its twelfth edition, and he pioneered the research on the jigsaw classroom--"a cooperative learning technique that reduces racial conflict among school children, promotes better learning, improves student motivation, and increases enjoyment of the learning experience."

Two weeks ago, I released a big episode on cognitive dissonance (check it out!), which pulled together interviews with several people who are experts in the field. Elliot Aronson was one of those experts, and I'm excited to share our full conversation with you this week. We talk dissonance but Elliot also shares how he became a social psychologist and what it takes to run a high-impact experiment.

Check out Elliot's writing:

• The Role of Cognitive Dissonance in the Pandemic: A recent article in the Atlantic by Elliot Aronson and Carol Tavris
• The Social Animal: Elliot's social psychology textbook
• Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me): A popular book about cognitive dissonance and other biases.
• Not By Chance Alone: Elliot's autobiography
• Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion

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Learn more about Opinion Science and catch up on all the episodes at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/.

Last week's special episode on cognitive dissonance pulled together interviews with several people who are experts in the field. Joel Cooper is one of those experts! When I first started getting interested in the social psychology of cognitive dissonance, Joel's book (Cognitive Dissonance: 50 Years of a Classic Theory) was so useful.

You heard snippets of this interview in last week's episode, but I want to share it all on its own for anyone interested in more about Joel's story. We get into plenty of things that didn't fit into last week's show, including Joel's perspective on what made dissonance theory so influential, how dissonance can be felt vicariously, and why he used to use odd measurement scales.

For a transcript of this show, visit the episode's webpage: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/cognitive-dissonance-with-joel-cooper

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

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Learn more about Opinion Science and catch up on all the episodes at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/.

In 1957, Leon Festinger published A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Along with a collection of compelling experiments, Festinger changed the landscape of social psychology. The theory, now referenced constantly both in and outside of academic circles, has taken on a life of its own. And it’s still informing new research and analysis more than 60 years later.

For the grand 20th episode of Opinion Science, I want to give you an insider’s look at the theory–its inspiration, the people involved, the classic studies, and the remaining controversies.

Throughout the show you’ll hear from people who have studied cognitive dissonance and who knew the infamous Leon Festinger: Elliot Aronson, Joel Cooper, Jeff Stone, April McGrath, and Mike Gazzaniga.

To learn more about cognitive dissonance, check out these two books written by two of our guests: Cognitive Dissonance: 50 Years of Classic Theory and Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me).

For a transcript of this show, visit the episode's webpage: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/cognitive-dissonance/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Join me over at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/OpinionScience

Learn more about Opinion Science and catch up on all the episodes at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/.