Is the very field that studies groupthink falling victim to it?

Today on Heterodox Out Loud, Smriti Mehta, researcher at UC Berkeley and co-founder of the Heterodox Academy campus community, joins John Tomasi to examine a striking paradox at the heart of modern academia: the disciplines designed to study bias and conformity may themselves be shaped by it.

Drawing on her experience as a graduate student navigating pressure to conform—and her work building communities for open inquiry—Mehta explores how intellectual homogeneity can influence what questions get asked, what findings get published, and which ideas are considered legitimate.

From the politics of social psychology to the challenges of free speech at Berkeley, this conversation investigates how groupthink can quietly take hold—even in fields committed to studying it—and why viewpoint diversity is essential for maintaining the integrity of research.

Offering an insider’s perspective, the discussion explores how universities can foster genuine intellectual diversity without sacrificing rigor, and why teaching students to engage critically with ideas may matter more than enforcing consensus.

In This Episode:

💥 How social psychology can fall into the trap of groupthink

💥 Why viewpoint diversity is often misunderstood

💥 The hidden pressures shaping academic research

💥 What makes certain topics “radioactive” in universities

💥 The tension between conformity and innovation in science

💥 Free speech, protest culture, and the heckler’s veto

💥 How students experience intellectual pressure on campus

💥 Why open inquiry is essential for truth-seeking

Whether you’re a student, faculty member, or simply interested in the future of higher education, this episode offers a candid and thought-provoking look at how even the most self-aware disciplines can lose their way—and how they might recover.

About Smriti Mehta:

Smriti Mehta, PhD is a researcher at the Department of Education at the University of California, Berkeley, affiliated with the BEAR Center (Berkeley Evaluation & Assessment Research). Her research spans social-psychological factors in education, psychometrics, open science practices, and meta-science. She is co-author of the SAFE Model (State Authenticity as Fit to Environment), published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, which demonstrates that people experience authenticity as a function of self-concept fit, goal fit, and social fit to their environment. Her related work on social status and authenticity finds that those with lower status are less likely to feel they can be themselves, providing a psychological mechanism for why holding a minority viewpoint in academia suppresses not just speech but identity. She completed her PhD in Psychology at UC Berkeley. Beyond research, Mehta co-founded and co-chairs the HxA Campus Community at UC Berkeley. She was previously involved with the Berkeley Liberty Initiative, which funds faculty grants to redesign undergraduate courses around open exchange of ideas. She co-hosts Nullius in Verba, a biweekly podcast with Daniël Lakens (Eindhoven University of Technology) covering miscitation, scientism, incentive structures in science, and the philosophy of scientific practice.

Follow Smriti: https://x.com/smreeteemehta

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