This is a re-release of Episode 95, which was recorded in September 2023.

Paul Bloom joins Yoel and Alexa to talk about the glamour and humiliation of teaching psychology at the college level. They discuss how they've changed their approaches to teaching over the years, and whether they've become more skilled or more out of touch (or both). Alexa shares her experiences teaching about morality and evolution to a predominantly Christian student body, Yoel laments the fact that his students aren't more disagreeable, and Paul claims that critical thinking is overrated. In an era of increasing remote instruction, they claim that online courses can't do what they do. But, only Yik Yak knows for sure.

Special Guest: Paul Bloom.

Links:

• Paul Bloom's Teaching Advice
• ClearerThinking.org Podcast | Career science, open science, and inspired science (with Alexa Tullett)
• Teacher (On FIlm) - YouTube

Paul Bloom takes over the show to interview Yoel about loss of faith: when to give up on a theory, and which of his own findings he no longer believes. But it's not all doom and gloom! They also talk about what social psychology findings they think are robust, and what new research they are excited about.

But before all that, they discuss whether Sydney Sweeney's new American Eagle ad campaign is pro-eugenics.

Special Guest: Paul Bloom.

Sponsored By:

• Statistical Horizons: Use the promo code for 20% off any seminar today! Promo Code: BEERS

Links:

• Yes, Sydney Sweeney's Boobs Are Anti-Woke
• Speak Now Regret Later | Michael Inzlicht | Substack
• Psychologists Have Been Wrong About Death For 40 Years
• The Reports of Terror Management Theory’s Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

Yoel is joined by a mysterious pseudonymous duo called Slime Mold Time Mold, who are proposing a new paradigm for psychology based on principles from cybernetics. This means thinking of the behavior as the result of "governors" (think drives) that are trying to reduce the distance between a set point and the state of the world by motivating you to do stuff. So when you are thirsty, you are highly motivated to drink, and when you need to pee, you are highly motivated to find a toilet. Those are simple examples, but can we use the same principles to explain more complex phenomena like emotion, motivation, personality, mental illness, and more? That is what my guests on this episode are proposing.

Special Guest: Slime Mold Time Mold.

Sponsored By:

• Statistical Horizons: Use the promo code for 20% off any seminar today! Promo Code: BEERS

Links:

• Angel's Envy Bourbons - Kentucky Bourbons
• SLIME MOLD TIME MOLD – Mad Science Blogging
• The Mind in the Wheel
• Review of B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior
• A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again - Wikipedia
• I Palindrome I - YouTube

Returning guest Spencer Greenberg joins the show to talk replications, what psychologist think of terror management theory (and other controversial topics), and a machine-learning tool he developed to predict correlations between psychological traits and survey questions.

In this episode, we talk about what Spencer has learned by replicating studies from recent publications in psychology, the decline of p-hacking, and what other threats to validity psychologists should be worried about.

Special Guest: Spencer Greenberg.

Sponsored By:

• Statistical Horizons: Use the promo code for 20% off any seminar today! Promo Code: BEERS

Links:

• Transparent Replications
• PersonalityMap | Explore 1 million human correlations spanning personality, demographics, behaviors, psychology, and beliefs
• AI can outperform humans in predicting correlations between personality items | Communications Psychology
• What do we know for sure about human psychology? (with Simine Vazire) | Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg — the podcast about ideas that matter
• Career science, open science, and inspired science (with Alexa Tullett) | Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg — the podcast about ideas that matter
• Broncho - "Get Gone" (Official Video) - YouTube

It's been a tumultuous time for DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) efforts in higher education. Whether due to political pressure, internal arguments, or both, many prominent institutions are revamping their DEI offices (or even eliminating them altogether) and rethinking DEI policies that once seemed unquestionable. Amori Mikami from the University of British Columbia re-joins the show to talk about the changes and what she thinks universities ought to be doing (as well as what she thinks we can do better).

Along the way, Yoel and Amori talk about the use of race and gender in hiring, diversity statements, October 7 and the Gaza war, and institutional neutrality (in short, this episode touches every third rail imaginable). There's some debate and some agreement, but most importantly we both finish our beers.

Special Guest: Amori Mikami.

Links:

• Amori Mikami - UBC Department of Psychology — Associate Head, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
• The rise of citational justice: how scholars are making references fairer
• Los Macuanos - Pasado y Presente ft. Lucrecia Dalt (Official Music Video) - YouTube

Arguably, the last 25 years of moral psychology have been about people's judgments of "purity violations"--ostensibly harmless acts that "are disgusting or degrading to one’s spiritual nature." From sex with (dead) chickens to pet-eating to baby Jesus buttplugs, moral psychologists have been fascinated by purity transgressions. Moral psychologist and purity expert David Pizarro joins the show to talk about the concept of purity and recent critiques arguing that it's a concept too broad to be useful. Along the way, we also discuss how often to shower, getting into bed in your outside clothes, and ritualistically washing your dad's feet.

Special Guest: David Pizarro.

Links:

• How disgust affects social judgments - ScienceDirect
• The Problem of Purity in Moral Psychology - Kurt Gray, Nicholas DiMaggio, Chelsea Schein, Frank Kachanoff, 2023
• Two Psychologists Four Beers Episode 90: Freelance Kinkology (with Aella)
• Very Bad Wizards podcast

On-again off-again co-host Mickey Inzlicht joins the show to debrief about the recent SPSP (Society for Personality and Social Psychology) conference. We then dissect a new paper purporting to show working memory deficits in heavy cannabis users, including a deep dive into the preregistration. Finally, we discuss a recent Op-Ed in the Guardian that argues that research on AI empathy is fatally flawed.

Links:

• Brain Function Outcomes of Recent and Lifetime Cannabis Use | Child Development | JAMA Network Open | JAMA Network
• OSF Registries | Verbal Memory and Language Processing in Young Adults who Use Cannabis: An Analysis of the Human Connectome Project
• AI is ‘beating’ humans at empathy and creativity. But these games are rigged | MJ Crockett | The Guardian
• Tunde Adebimpe - Magnetic (Official Video) - YouTube

Cultural and developmental psychologist and open science advocate Moin Syed joins the show to talk what he thinks people get wrong about ideology, diversity, and open science. We talk about what role, if any, researchers' ideology should play in their science, and what it means when people describe psychological research as "ideological." In the second half of the show, we talk about what people get wrong about preregistration, and why it seems some misconceptions just won't die. We also talk about Moin's attempt to correct some misinformation (it did not go that well), and some local beer history.

Special Guest: Moin Syed.

Links:

• You Also Have an Ideology
• So Useful as a Good Theory? The Practicality Crisis in (Social) Psychological Theory - Elliot T. Berkman, Sylas M. Wilson, 2021
• Two Psychologists Four Beers Episode 100: What Happened at Perspectives on Psychological Science?
• Preregistration: More Promises than Pitfalls
• Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race: Tatum, Beverly Daniel: 9780465060689: Amazon.com: Books
• A Brief Note on Intellectual Sloth; or, Are 70% of U.S. Faculty Really Adjuncts?
• Hinds - En Forma - YouTube

Occasional co-host Mickey Inzlicht joins the show to talk about the 2024 election, Bluesky, and his crusade against yard signs. We discuss prediction markets, Democratic declines with non-college voters, and whether Bluesky is a political bubble (and if so, if there's anything wrong with that). Also, Mickey explains his problem with yard signs and defends his beer snobbery.

Links:

• How the Trump Polymarket Whale Correctly Called the Election, and Made Nearly $50 Million - WSJ
• Yard Wars - by Michael Inzlicht - Speak Now Regret Later
• Melenas - Bang (Official Video) - YouTube

Paul Bloom joins the show to talk about a recent paper in which he argues that much of developmental psychology is not worth doing. We also talk about where he thinks psychology has succeeded, and whether we should be more skeptical of progressive-friendly social science findings. Plus: is it ever a good idea to tell your friend that the person they're dating is bad for them?

Special Guest: Paul Bloom.

Links:

• Non-Zero Podcast (Post-Election Reflection with Paul Bloom)
• Much of developmental psychology is not worth doing | Theory and Society
• Psychology is ok - by Paul Bloom - Small Potatoes
• Progressives should worry more about their favorite scientific findings
• Psych: The Story of the Human Mind: Bloom, Paul: 9780063096363: Amazon.com: Books
• International Music - Im Sommer bin ich dein König - YouTube