Rachel chats with Moshe Hoffman, a Lecturer and Independent Scholar at Harvard’s Department of Economics. Moshe uses game theory to explore the evolutionary bases of human behavior, from altruistic donations to our taste in music. His recent book, co-authored with Dr. Erez Yoeli, is “Hidden Games: The Surprising power of Game Theory to Explain Irrational Human Behavior.”

In this episode, Rachel and Moshe discuss how incentives shape empathy, how saying "I love you" enables social coordination, and why we appreciate the music of rapper MF Doom.

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Links:

"Hidden Games: The Surprising power of Game Theory to Explain Irrational Human Behavior" 

"An Evolutionary Explanation for Ineffective Altruism" Bethany Burum, Martin Nowak, Moshe Hoffman (Appendix), Nature Human Behavior (2020)

Twitter: @Moshe_Hoffman

Website: https://sites.google.com/site/hoffmanmoshe/ 

Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPod

Podcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/

Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) [email protected]

Eric chats with Paul van Lange, Professor of Psychology at the Free University of Amsterdam and Distinguished Research Fellow at Oxford. He is well known for his vast work on trust, cooperation, and morality, applying these themes to everything from Covid to climate change. He has published multiple handbooks and edited volumes on these topics.

In this chat, Eric and Paul talk about the psychological barriers that stop people from fighting climate change. What do trust and cynicism have to do with it? What are barriers to cooperation more generally? Why do selfish people often believe others are selfish too, but kind people don’t think everyone is kind? Might most strangers actually be nice, despite all the stranger danger we always hear about? Finally, Paul shares if all his work on trust and cooperation has changed how he looks at the world and compares research in psychology in Europe to the US.

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If you found this episode interesting at all, consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but will allow us to reach more people and make them excited about psychology.

Links:

Paul's paper on climate change
Paul's website
Paul's Twitter @PaulvanLange

Eric's website
Eric's Twitter @EricNeumannPsy

Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPod
Podcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/

Let us know what you think of this episode, or of the podcast! :) [email protected]

Anjie chats with Dr.Casey Lew-Williams.  Casey is a Professor at Princeton University, where he also directs the Princeton Baby Lab. He studies how babies learn, with a particular focus on language and communication. In this episode, we chat about a recent preprint he co-authored with Dr. Jessica Kosie titled "Infant-Directed Communication: Examining the multimodal dynamics of infants’ everyday interactions with caregivers". Casey shares his thoughts on why it is important to study and how to study infant-directed communication. 

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Links:

Casey's paper: https://osf.io/hyqp2/

Casey’s lab website: http://babylab.princeton.edu/

 Anjie’s: website: anjiecao.github.io

Anjie’s Twitter @anjie_cao

Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPod

Podcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/

Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) [email protected]

Eric chats with Elliot Aronson, Professor Emeritus at UC Santa Cruz. Elliot is one of the 100 most influential psychologists of the 20th century. He is known for his work on cognitive dissonance, where people do crazy things but not for crazy reasons, as he puts it, and the Jigsaw Classroom, intended to establish cooperation in competitive environments. He is the only person ever to receive all major awards from the American Psychological Association: for writing, research, and teaching.

In this chat, Eric and Elliot go into a deep dive into the history of psychology and Elliot’s role in it. What was it like working with the influential psychologists Abraham Maslow and Leon Festinger? Why did these two people dislike each other so much? How did racial segregation motivate Elliot’s research? How can research ever address big social problems? Why are the 2010s the “decade of dissonance”?

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Links:

Elliot's book on dissonance and self-justification
Elliot's book introducing social psychology

Eric's website
Eric's Twitter @EricNeumannPsy

Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPod
Podcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/

Let us know what you think of this episode, or of the podcast! :) [email protected]

This week, we revisit one of our favorite episodes from last year (with improved audio quality!).  In this episode, Anjie chats with Edouard Machery, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. He is also the Director of the Center for Philosophy of Science. Edouard's main research focuses on the intersection between cognitive science and philosophy. In this episode, Edouard shares his recent work on a topic that is extremely important for psychology today: replication. In an era of the replication crisis, it is more important than ever to understand the concept of replication. What are we really talking about when we are talking about replication? Is preregistration the cure-all magic for the crisis? Why is scientific reform so difficult? These are the questions Edouard ponders. You can learn more about his research on his personal website.

Paper: Machery, E. (2020). What is a replication?. Philosophy of Science, 87(4), 545-567.

Anjie chats with Dr. Christina Barbieri.  Christina is an Assistant Professor at the University of Delaware’s School of Education within the Educational Statistics and Research Methods Ph.D. program and the Learning Sciences specializations. Her work focuses on applying and evaluating the effectiveness of instructional strategies and materials based on principles of learning from cognitive and learning sciences on improving mathematical competencies.  In this episode, they chat about her recent paper, A Meta-analysis of the Worked Examples Effect on Mathematics Performance. She talks about how worked examples could help students learn maths, and how sometimes they might fail. 

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Links:

Christina’s paper: https://tinyurl.com/BarbieriEtal

Christina’s twitter: @c_barbieri_d

Christina’s website: https://sites.udel.edu/barbieri/

Anjie’s: website: anjiecao.github.io

Anjie’s Twitter @anjie_cao

Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPod

Podcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/

Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) [email protected]

Eric chats with Marilynn Brewer, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Ohio State University. Marilynn is one of the world’s leading scholars on social identity, intergroup relations, and social cognition. She has been president of various psychological associations and former Director of the Institute for Social Science Research at UCLA.

In this episode, Eric and Marilynn talk about why people care so much about belonging to a group. How do people balance belonging to a group and being a unique individual at the same time? Does love for the ingroup really always lead to hatred of the outgroup? How can we overcome intergroup conflict? Finally, Marilynn shares how she stumbled into psychology and what she loves about the field of social psychology.

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If you found this episode interesting at all, consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but will allow us to reach more people and make them excited about psychology.

Links:

Marilynn's paper on ingroup love and outgroup hatred
Marilynn's paper on the social self

Eric's website
Eric's Twitter @EricNeumannPsy

Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPod
Podcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/

Let us know what you think of this episode, or of the podcast! :) [email protected]

Bella chats with professor Cameron Ellis.

Cameron is an assistant professor in the psychology department at Stanford University, where he leads the Scaffolding of Cognition Team. Cameron’s research focuses on understanding the infrastructure of human cognition and how it’s constructed during infancy. In other words, what is it like to be an infant? To study this, Cameron and his team use neuroscience and cognitive science methods such as fMRI.

In this episode, Cameron discussed his research in studying infants’ memory and attention, how he overcame the challenges when doing infant fMRI, and directions for his newly formed lab at Stanford. Later on, Cameron also shared personal stories about his background and journey in academia.

If you find this episode interesting, please subscribe to our Substack and leave us a good review on your podcast platform! It only takes a few minutes, but it will allow our podcast to reach more people and hopefully get them excited about psychology and brain sciences.

Links:

Cameron’s lab: http://soc.stanford.edu/

Cameron’s Twitter: @CameronTEllis

Bella's website: https://bellafascendini.github.io/

Bella's Twitter: @BellaFascendini

Podcast Twitter: @StanfordPsyPod

Podcast Substack: https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/

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Anjie chats with Dr. Wayne Wu. Wanye is an associate professor at the Department of Philosophy and the Neuroscience Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. He works on attention, perception, action, and schizophrenia at the interface between philosophy and cognitive science. In this episode, Wayne shares his recent work “On Attention and Norms: An Opinionated Review of Recent Work”. He also talks about attention in real life – for example, how do we thrive in a world where social media algorithms constantly fight for our attention? Finally, Wayne also shares a preview of his upcoming book Movements of the Mind,  which explores topics related to mental actions. 

If you found this episode interesting at all, subscribe on our Substack and consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but will allow us to reach more people and make them excited about psychology.

Links:

Wayne’s paper: https://psyarxiv.com/83qva/

Wayne’s twitter: @attninaction

Wayne’s website:https://www.waynewu.net/

Anjie’s: website: anjiecao.github.io

Anjie’s Twitter @anjie_cao

Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPod

Podcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/

Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) [email protected]

Eric chats with Martha Nussbaum, Distinguished Service Professor in law and philosophy at the University of Chicago. She is one of the most influential philosophers alive and has written about various topics such as Roman philosophy, existentialism, feminism, and emotions. She has won more awards than could be listed here, including the prestigious Berggruen Prize and Holberg Prize. Most recently, she is the author of “Justice for Animals.”

In this chat, Eric asks Martha about what it means to be just to animals. Should we be just to all animals equally? Why can people be so cruel to animals? What do wonder, anger, compassion, and hope have to with animal justice? Can people be too compassionate? Martha talks about Avatar’s role in promoting compassion for animals and gives recommendations for documentaries. Finally, she shares what a day in her life looks like and how she stays so productive.

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If you found this episode interesting at all, consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but will allow us to reach more people and make them excited about psychology.

Links:

Martha's new book
Martha's faculty page

Eric's website
Eric's Twitter @EricNeumannPsy

Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPod
Podcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/

Let us know what you think of this episode, or of the podcast! :) [email protected]