The Black Goat

By Sanjay Srivastava, Alexa Tullett, and Simine Vazire

Social Sciences

What's The Black Goat about?

Three psychologists talk about doing science. With Sanjay Srivastava, Alexa Tullett, and Simine Vazire.

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The Black Goat episodes:

10.30.2020
You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth
In 2012, Rink Hoekstra received two emails on the same day. One was from a journal editor, telling him that a manuscript was being rejected based on the recommendations of two reviewers. The other was from one of those reviewers,...
09.23.2020
They Give You This, But You Pay For That
Academics are under enormous stress right now, raising the possibility of a rising rate of burnout. Longtime structural trends in higher education have increased pressures for demonstrable productivity. On top of that are a global pandemic, resistance and backlash to...
09.09.2020
An Award-Winning Episode
Academics love awards. We give out career awards, mid-career awards, early-career awards. We give out awards for the best paper, the best theory, the best teaching, the best service. But what function do all those awards serve? And are we...
08.26.2020
Contact Sport
The contact hypothesis is an old idea in social psychology. It posits that under the right circumstances, bringing people from different groups together can reduce prejudice. In this episode, we discuss a new field experiment by Salma Mousa testing whether...
08.13.2020
Does Not Compute
Scientific journal articles have a lot of numbers. Scientists are smart people with even smarter computers, so an outsider might think that, if nothing else, you can count on the math checking out. But modern data analysis is complicated, and...
07.29.2020
Objective Unknown
How does psychology's response to the replication crisis fit into a broader history of science? In this episode we discuss a paper by sociologists Jeremy Freese and David Peterson that takes on that question. Are "epistemic activists" in psychology redefining...
07.15.2020
The Impending Fall of Academia
The upcoming academic term will be unusual, to say the least. The global pandemic led to emergency shutdowns in March, and it is likely that many colleges and universities will continue teaching partially or wholly online. And protests against anti-Black...
04.30.2020
Inexact Science
Scientific knowledge is always contingent and uncertain, even when it's the best we have. Should that factor into how we communicate science to the public, and if so, how? We discuss a recent article about the effects of communicating uncertainty...
04.15.2020
COVID Operations
The COVID-19 pandemic is creating major and serious disruptions to just about everything, and higher education is no exception. In this episode we talk about how our work has been affected by measures to slow down the coronavirus. How have...
04.01.2020
Joe Public, Will You Marry Me?
In recent years there has been a lot of talk about public trust in science - how much there is, in what ways, whether we deserve it or not. In this episode, we discuss an article by historian and philosopher...
03.21.2020
Just Be Cause
Many important questions about cause and effect are impractical to answer with a randomized experiment. What should we do instead? In this episode we talk about doing causal inference with observational data. Has psychology's historical obsession with internal validity led...
02.12.2020
Auxiliary Turtles All the Way Down
The path from theory to study consists of a thousand decisions, big and small. How and how much do these decisions matter? We discuss a recent crowdsourced meta-study that tried to find out. Fifteen teams of researchers were given 5...
01.29.2020
The Expertise of Death
How important is expertise in conducting replications? Many Labs 4 was a large, multi-lab effort that brought together 21 labs, running 2,220 subjects, to study that question. The goal was to compare replications with and without the involvement of the...
01.17.2020
Going Off the Record
The Graduate Record Exam - the GRE - is widely used in graduate school admissions. In recent years however, a number of graduate programs, including a few in psychology, have stopped requiring it in a movement that has been dubbed...
12.26.2019
The Year 2019 in Review
In our annual end-of-year episode, we talk about noteworthy reflections and events from the year that just passed. Alexa reflects on breakups, and wonders why we don't take them more seriously as a significant disruption to other people's lives. Sanjay...
12.12.2019
Letting Loose Your Inner Reviewer Two
Peer review is a major part of how science works today. In this episode we talk about how we approach doing peer reviews. How do you distinguish between differences in approach or preference - "I would have done it a...
11.29.2019
Doctorpiece Theater
To get your PhD you have to do a dissertation. For some this is an important product that demonstrates your ability to produce original research. To others, it's a vestigial ritual and a waste of time on the way to...
11.13.2019
The Last Straw
Speaking up about injustice and bad behavior in a professional setting - as a witness, or as the target of it - is hard. It's uncomfortable, it's difficult, and it can generate backlash and other risks for yourself and your...
10.30.2019
Talk the Talk
Academics give a lot of talks. Job talks, conference talks, colloquium talks, brownbag talks, pub talks. In this episode we talk about talks. How do you approach different audiences and formats? How do you manage a format or audience where...
10.16.2019
Everybody Act Normal
Scientists have to follow a lot of rules. We have IRB rules, journal submission rules, university rules - lots of rules. But some of the most important rules in science aren't rules at all - they are norms. Guiding principles...
10.03.2019
For the Lulz
In a previous episode we talked about making small talk in academic life and in general. In this episode we continue the theme, taking a break from our usual Very Serious Topics to answer the ultimate small-talk question: What do...
09.18.2019
Who Do You Serve?
The three pillars of academic work are research, teaching, and service - in that order. But service is incredibly important for universities and professions to function well and for academics to contribute to their communities. In this episode we talk...
09.04.2019
Axe Grinders Begone
In the past decade, scientists in psychology and elsewhere have changed a lot in how we evaluate what makes research replicable, robust, and credible. New theories and findings in metascience and methodology - and repopularization of old ones - have...
07.24.2019
A Friend You Haven't Met
Part of academic life means talking to new people about yourself and your work - whether it's on a job interview, at a conference, or casual conversations outside of academic settings. In this episode we talk about talking to strangers....
07.03.2019
Simine Flips Out
Editors of scientific journals have a lot of power. For one thing, journals are the main way that scientific work is distributed, so editors' decisions control the flow of information among scientists and to the public. For another, publications are...
06.26.2019
Bring the Pain
Research methods and statistics are a part of nearly every undergraduate psychology curriculum. They get dedicated courses of their own as well as coverage within other courses. In this episode we step back and reflect on how they should fit...
06.13.2019
This is How We Do It
Many academics have flexibility in when, where, and how they get work done. In this episode we talk about the work habits we've developed to be productive, and the ones we've tried on that didn't fit. What are the differences...
05.29.2019
Who's Down with OPG?
Most doctoral training in psychology follows an apprentice model: Grad students affiliate with a primary advisor and lab, and do most of their training under that one person. But what happens when grad students and professors develop professional relationships outside...
05.15.2019
library(blackgoatpod)
To users of R, it is more than just another way to analyze data - it goes along with a different mindset about the centrality of coding in doing science, a way of thinking about openness and reproducibility, an intersecting...
05.01.2019
Don't Be Told What You Want, Don't Be Told What You Need
What if there were no journals? Would academic life be barren and empty, noisy and chaotic, happy and egalitarian, or something else entirely? In this episode we conduct an extended thought experiment about life without journals, in order to probe...
04.17.2019
Don't Say Integrity
What is the connection between methodology and ethics? In the early days of the twenty-teens, some people referred to the changes afoot in psychology as a "scientific integrity movement," but that term quickly faded. In this episode, we explore the...
03.20.2019
Oh, Behave!
Psychology calls itself a behavioral science, but how often do we measure actual behavior? In this episode we discuss what is involved in measuring realistic, meaningful behavior in psychology research - not just self-reports and response times. What counts as...
03.06.2019
13/10 Would Criticize Again
If you are a scientist, criticizing science is a part of the job. We write peer reviews of papers and grants; after talks we ask questions, make comments, and ask questions that are more of a comment; and sometimes we...
02.20.2019
Our Best Episode Ever
Self-promotion: the idea makes some people cringe and others salivate. In this episode, we talk about self-promotion in academic science. What amount - and maybe more importantly, what kind - is right? Why do some people shy away from it...
02.06.2019
Conference Talk
Love them or hate them, conferences are a big part of academic life. In this episode we talk about getting the most out of a conference experience. How do you meet people (the dreaded "networking") and make the transition from...
01.23.2019
Back From The Future
Whether you call it a crisis, a renaissance, a revolution, or something else, there is no doubt that psychology is in the middle of a period of great change. How will future historians, scientists, and others look back on this...
01.09.2019
Self-Help Helps Those Who Self-Help Themselves
Go to the "Psychology" section in a bookstore and chances are it will be full of self-help books. In this episode we talk about self-help and its relationship to academic psychology. What is the difference between a scientist and a...
12.26.2018
The Year 2018 In Review
Continuing an annual tradition, for our last episode of 2018 we talk about noteworthy events and reflections from our lives in the past year. Alexa finds that she's growing more sentimental with age. Alexa and Sanjay commune over rediscovering reading...
12.12.2018
Body Talk
Many psychologists study the brain or the body in relation to the mind. Alexa once thought psychophysiology and neuroscience would become a central part of her research; Sanjay flirted with the idea; Simine never seriously considered it. In this episode,...
11.28.2018
This Time Could Be Different (with Fiona Fidler)
The open science movement is not the first time psychology has tried to reform itself. Why do some scientific reform movements succeed and others fizzle out? In this episode we talk with Fiona Fidler, a philosopher and historian of science...
11.14.2018
Relevant To Your Interests
Scientists, like all humans, care about more than one thing in life. Scientists want to discover true or useful things about the world. But we are not indifferent to money, prestige, loyalty to friends and family, or other important things....
10.31.2018
Testing 1-2-3
Personality tests are perennially popular - good ones and bad ones alike. In this episode we talk about personality testing in the public sphere. What do we think accounts for their popularity. What do people get out of taking them?...
10.17.2018
Our Most Significant Episode Ever
p-values. Love them or hate them, they are everywhere in science. In this episode we talk about some of our thoughts and feelings about this ubiquitous statistics. What are the drawbacks and benefits to dichotomizing results into "significant" and "nonsignificant"?...
10.03.2018
Don't Trust Me, I'm A Doctor
"Public trust in science is declining" is a common refrain - but it turns out that it isn't true, or at best it's complicated. In this episode we discuss whether, when, and why the public should trust science. Why is...
09.19.2018
What Comes Next?
Getting tenure and being promoted to associate or full professor are huge milestones in an academic career path. In this episode we talk about what comes afterward. What does it feel like and how long does that last? Do you...
09.05.2018
Nobody Goes There Anymore, It's Too Crowded
Conferences are expensive, carbon-belching, superficial prestige-fests. At least, that's what some people will tell you. In this episode we consider some of the arguments against academic conferences. Are they really worth the costs to the individual and to the planet? Can you...
08.22.2018
Being Different
In this episode we tell personal stories about being different, and we reflect on how our identities and experiences - in life and in professional spheres - have been shaped by that. Sanjay talks about growing up multiracial and trying to...
08.08.2018
Psychological Science Is Made Out Of People
We aren't analyzing you right now, we can't help you with your problems, and regardless of whether your Uncle Horace would make a great case study we aren't interested in meeting him. So what are these psychology degrees good for...
07.11.2018
Because Reasons (with Ellen Evers)
On today's episode we are joined by Ellen Evers, an assistant professor of marketing at the Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley. We talk with Ellen about working at a business school, and how it is similar and different...
06.27.2018
Situation Normal
In this episode we talk about situationism in psychology. What are some of the different definitions of situationism? Is it a theory? An agenda? An ideology? We talk about the evidence for various assumptions or predictions of situationism, the historical...

What's The Black Goat about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

The Black Goat episodes:

You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth

They Give You This, But You Pay For That

An Award-Winning Episode

Contact Sport

Does Not Compute

Objective Unknown

The Impending Fall of Academia

Inexact Science

COVID Operations

Joe Public, Will You Marry Me?

Just Be Cause

Auxiliary Turtles All the Way Down

The Expertise of Death

Going Off the Record

The Year 2019 in Review

Letting Loose Your Inner Reviewer Two

Doctorpiece Theater

The Last Straw

Talk the Talk

Everybody Act Normal

For the Lulz

Who Do You Serve?

Axe Grinders Begone

A Friend You Haven't Met

Simine Flips Out

Bring the Pain

This is How We Do It

Who's Down with OPG?

library(blackgoatpod)

Don't Be Told What You Want, Don't Be Told What You Need

Don't Say Integrity

Oh, Behave!

13/10 Would Criticize Again

Our Best Episode Ever

Conference Talk

Back From The Future

Self-Help Helps Those Who Self-Help Themselves

The Year 2018 In Review

Body Talk

This Time Could Be Different (with Fiona Fidler)

Relevant To Your Interests

Testing 1-2-3

Our Most Significant Episode Ever

Don't Trust Me, I'm A Doctor

What Comes Next?

Nobody Goes There Anymore, It's Too Crowded

Being Different

Psychological Science Is Made Out Of People

Because Reasons (with Ellen Evers)

Situation Normal