Opinion Science

Mikaela Spruill studies juries and the legal system’s role in sustaining social inequalities. She’s a postdoctoral fellow in criminal justice with SPARQ at Stanford University. In our conversation, Mikaela shares the benefits and drawbacks of juries in the courtroom, how scientists study jury decision-making, and how jurors apply very specific legal standards to interpreting the facts of a case.

Things that come up in this episode

• A very brief history of juries (Alschuler & Deiss, 1994; Carey, 1994; Massachusetts Office of Jury Commissioner)
• A summary of early research in jury decision-making (Devine et al., 2001) and the University of Chicago Jury Project (Broeder, 1959; Cornwell, 2010)
• The quick clip in the intro (“I’m just saying a coincidence is possible”) is from the 1957 film, 12 Angry Men.
• A summary of research on jury decision-making (Spruill & Hans, in press)
• How jurors apply the “objectively reasonable” standard to interpreting the facts of a case (Spruill & Lewis, 2022; 2023)

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James Druckman studies how political messages can shape people's opinions. He is maybe best known for his work on framing issues as a strategic communication strategy. He also has a recent paper on "a framework for the study of persuasion," which organizes the many variables that matter for persuasion.

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

Mónica Guzmán wants us to have better conversation with the people we disagree with. She's the Senior Fellow for Public Practice at Braver Angels, and in 2022, she released her book, "I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times." This year, she launched a brand new podcast called "A Braver Way," which is about how we can disagree about politics without losing heart. We talk about how to have curious conversations, why we would want to do so, and how we can learn from other peoples' example. 

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

Lindsay Hahn studies how entertainment media convey moral messages, especially among children. She's an assistant professor of communication at the University at Buffalo, where she leads the Media Psychology and Morality Lab. We talk about her background, how her team surveys media for the moral lessons they communicate, and how her new work is turning an eye to terrorist propaganda.

Things that come up in this episode:

• Mr. Rogers' testimony before a Senate subcommittee.
• Content analyses of children's entertainment media (Aley et al., 2021; Hahn, 2022; Hahn et al., 2022a)
• Effects of media on children's and adolescents' morality (Hahn et al., 2022b; 2022a)
• Analyses of terrorist propaganda (Hahn et al., 2023b)

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

Russ Fazio has spent his career getting to the bottom of how opinions work. From his first study as a college student in 1974 to a leading expert in basically everything, his work has had a deep impact on the field of social psychology (and communication and political science...) His research over the years has included game-changing work on cognitive dissonance, implicit bias, automatic cognition, negativity biases, and the relationship between attitudes and behavior.

How to cover a whole career in one podcast episode!? We stick to a few highlights. Russ shares some of his earliest work that leapt on a real-world challenge to test basic theoretical ideas, how he was able to push the boundaries of technology to examine how opinions spring to mind automatically, and how a creative video game about beans can reveal deep truths about the human condition.

This episode was recorded in person at the WOSU studios! Shout out to them for making the process so easy.

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

Taylor Carlson studies how people navigate political discussions. She does a bunch of interesting work, but I was most interested in talking with her about book she published with Jaime Settle last year. It’s called What Goes Without Saying: Navigating Political Discussion in America. In it, they report their findings from a variety of surveys and experiments and organize them into a four-step model of political discussion. 

I talked to Taylor about how she got interested in this area, how the book makes sense of how people approach talking politics with others, and what the future holds.

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

Morteza Dehghani is a psychologist and computer scientist who uses sophisticated analytics to churn through the words we use when we talk to each other. From that, he and his colleagues can get an idea of people’s moral sensibilities and the consequences of letting morality imbue our opinions on important issues. We talk about his origins in the field and the key insights he's come to about people's moral sense.

In the intro, I talk about Toki Pona--the world's smallest language. You can find more at the official Toki Pona website. 

I also mentioned interesting work on morality, language, and culture by Emma Buchtel (e.g., Buchtel et al., 2015; Buchtel, 2022).

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

Dan Simons and Chris Chabris are psychological scientists who care about attention and reasoning. They're probably best known for their groundbreaking experiments on "inattentional blindness" where they built a scenario in which people would look straight at someone in a gorilla costume and not even know it. The point is: for as smart as we are, we miss a lot of stuff. And it's not just gorillas. 

Dan and Chris have a new book out on the psychology behind why people fall prey to scams and cons. It's called: Nobody's Fool: Why We Get Taken In and What We Can Do about It. It's a fun read, full of stories of swindlers and cheats and the science behind how we get taken in by them. We talk about how Dan and Chris became partners in science and what they've learned about the psychology of attention and reasoning.

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

Latif Nasser is the current co-host of the WNYC show Radiolab. Radiolab is probably the first podcast I was ever really a fan of. I've been listening since 2007 when it was hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich. It's an amazing show that leans on the incredible audio production to convey the wonder of science. The show has branched out to tell all kinds of stories--not just about science--but it's still one of the best science shows out there.

Latif came to Radiolab while working on his Ph.D. in the History of Science at Harvard. He eventually joined the show's team to report stories and occupy the role of Director of Research. In 2020, he joined Lulu Miller as co-host of the show. Also in 2020, he hosted a 6-episode show for Netflix: Connected: The Hidden Science of Everything. And I think I first really learned about Latif through an incredible (although not super science-y) series he produced, The Other Latif. Seriously, you have to check it out.

In our conversation, we talk about the philosophy of science communication, the role of narrative, and how Radiolab works. We also break down an episode that Latif reported in 2021, "Of Bombs and Butterflies."

You can find the rest of this summer's science communication podcast series here.

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/.

Alie Ward is a lot of things--an actor, illustrator, TV host. But I was especially interested in talking to her about her undeniably popular science podcast, Ologies. Her show shares interviews with all sorts of scientists. It's so delightful and engaging, and Alie puts in the work to fill the listener in behind the scenes on things you wouldn't know if you just listened to the interview. Think you're not interested in indigenous bees? Well, just listen to her interview with a Native Melittologist and think again.

We talk about Alie's backstory, how she approaches Ologies, and what we're trying to do when we share science with a big, public audience.

You can find the rest of this summer's science communication podcast series here.

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/.