Kelly connects with The Atlantic journalist Olga Khazan whose new book, “Me, But Better: The Science and Promise of Personality Change,” follows her as she attempts to change her own personality including taking improv classes in order to boost her extroversion. 

“Improv taught me I can rely on others to supply their side of the interaction.”

“Behaving against our natures doesn’t bother us as much as we fear it might.” 

“In improv, as in life, sometimes it helps to just make a choice, weird though it might be.” 

Kelly welcomes Martha Jones back to the podcast. She is the Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and professor of history at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. We spoke to her last about her book “Vanguard.” Her new book is called “The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir.” 

“So much of the historical record was written with silence.” 

“I discovered my faith in the capacity of words to help me know myself and the people who made me.”

“This book is a dialogue with my family. It is also a dialogue with those who write about the past in which my family made its way.” 

Kelly connects with Dannagal Goldthwaite Young, a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Delaware. Her research interests include political media effects, public opinion, political satire and the psychology of political humor. Her books include Irony and Outrage and Wrong. She’s also an improviser. 

“First rule of comedy: know your audience.” 

“We – all of us – are wrong about lots of things.” 

“Confident humility is a corrective lens.” 

Kelly talks to University of Michigan Professor Ethan Kross about his new book: “Shift: Managing Your Emotions – So They Don’t Manage You.”

“Emotions aren’t good or bad; they are just information.” 

“There are things you can control and things you can’t. Emotions are both.” 

“The effect music has on our emotions feels like magic.” 

Kelly goes behind the scenes of Alzheimer’s research with science writer Charles Piller whose new book is called “Doctored: Fraud, Arrogance, and Tragedy in the Quest to Cure Alzheimer’s.” 

“Disproving someone else’s experiment can be a death wish in science.” 

“Most academic bio-scientists depend on the National Institute of Health to keep the lights on.” 

“Eleven of sixteen FDA medical examiners who worked on twenty-eight drug approvals left the agency to become employees or consultants for the companies they recently regulated.”

Kelly hosts a special Valentine’s Day Bonus Pod with professors Eli Finkel and Paul Eastwick who host the “Love Factually” podcast. Eli and Paul are relationship scientists at Northwestern and The University of California, Davis. Their podcast looks at a modern romantic comedy each week through the lens of the science of relationships. 

“Relationship outcomes depend not only on the specific qualities of each partner but also on the unique patterns that emerge when the partners’ qualities intersect.” 

“There isn’t just one true and proper way to love, to relate, to bond, to touch.”

“Motivated reasoning is a cognitive process where people use reason to support their existing beliefs or desires and lay at the heart of ‘When Harry Met Sally.’”

Kelly connects with Dr. Steven J. Heine, Professor of Social and Cultural Psychology at the University of British Columbia. They discuss his new book, “Start Making Sense: How Existential Psychology Can Help Build Meaningful Lives in Absurd Times.”

“The world seems confusing, and people no longer seem to agree on the basic facts of what is happening around them.” 

“In many ways our learning is facilitated through stories.” 

“We risk a lot if we’re unable to weave all the different threads of our self together.”

Kelly talks about workplace fairness with Harvard’s Siri Chilazi, who co-wrote the book “Make Work Fair: Data-Driven Design for Real Results” with Iris Bohnet.

“Very few people are against fairness, but we don’t all agree on what it entails.” 

“The biggest determinant of remote work is education.” 

“Bias from above is complemented by bias from below.” 

Kelly converses with Kalifa Oliver, an international experience coach, executive advisor, keynote speaker, author and expert in building brilliant experiences using people-centered design and analytics. Her new book is called, “I Think I Love My Job: Secrets to Designing a People-Centered Employer Value Proposition (That You Can Actually Boast About.”

“You simply cannot predict the human experience.”

“Your employees are another set of customers.”

“Culture cannot just be shaped from the top. It starts at the bottom.”

Kelly connects with Harvard professor Alison Wood Brooks, who studies the science of conversation. Her new book is called “TALK: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves.” 

“Conversation is an ongoing act of co-creation.” 

“We’re all making it up as we go along.” 

“People who ask more questions are better liked.”