Opinion Science

#115: Raising Color-Conscious Kids with Sylvia Perry

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:00:00 -0400

Sylvia Perry is a social psychologist and Associate Professor at Northwestern University, where she directs the Social Cognition and Social Identity Lab. She studies the psychological mechanisms that shape how people recognize and confront their own biases, as well as how those biases are transmitted across generations.

We talk about her research on racial socialization, specifically focusing on how white parents navigate—or frequently avoid—conversations about race with their children. Sylvia shares insights from her research on facilitating parent-child discussions about race and racism. We discuss why color-conscious messaging is more effective than "colorblind" approaches at reducing children’s implicit biases and how addressing subtle microaggressions can be more impactful for a child’s development than discussing overt prejudice alone.

Along the way, we explore the privilege underlying the freedom to opt out of these difficult conversations and offer practical takeaways for parents looking to foster empathy and a sense of fairness in their own homes.

For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#114: Making Immigration Popular with Alex Kustov

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 00:00:00 -0500

Alex Kustov studies public opinion about immigration—why it’s so durable, why it becomes so politically explosive, and what (if anything) can make it more popular. We talk about the surprisingly stable foundations of immigration attitudes, why only a small fraction of people are categorically opposed, and how partisanship shapes the debate. Alex also explains what he calls the “altruist’s dilemma”: why people who are genuinely altruistic can still be skeptical of immigration, and how policies that are demonstrably beneficial to receiving communities can shift that skepticism. Along the way, we explore what it would mean to design immigration policy not just to be good, but to be visibly and intuitively good to the public.

Dr. Kustov's recent book is In Our Interest: How Democracies Can Make Immigration Popular. He also writes the Substack Popular By Design.

The episode's introduction is from Episode 57: Media, Norms, and Social Change with Sohad Murrar.

Introducing Mind Games

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 -0500

I'm excited to share a preview of a new podcast I think you’d enjoy: Mind Games.

What if you could hypnotize yourself into a better you? Or.... secretly hypnotize others into giving you anything you want? That’s the promise of NLP. Mind Games is an investigation into the world of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP, a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology that has quietly shaped industries, institutions, and belief systems around the world.

Part science experiment, part investigation, part true crime thriller, Mind Games tells the story of NLP and its crazy cast of disciples, including the fake doctor who invented it at a New Age commune, took it to Fortune 500 boardrooms, and whose gruesome murder trial did little to stop its rise.

Find Mind Games on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. New episodes out Tuesdays.

Listen here: swap.fm/l/listen-to-mind-games

#113: Psychology in the Age of AI with Steve Rathje

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 00:00:00 -0500

Steven Rathje is a postdoc at New York University and an incoming assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He studies the psychology of technology, which includes how people engage with a variety of digital tools, especially those with social implications. We talk about his work on what makes content go viral online and the consequences of AI chatbots that are more agreeable than maybe they ought to be. Along the way, we see how basic principles of psychology govern social life in these digital spaces, too.

A few things that come up:

Lack of change in conspiracy beliefs over time (Uscinski et al., 2022)
The psychology of virality (Rathje & Van Bavel, 2025)
Testing the effects of AI sycophancy (Rathje et al., 2025)

#112: Thinking Categorically with Greg Murphy

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 00:00:00 -0500

Greg Murphy studies the psychology of concepts. How do we use language to understand things, and how do we sort the world into categories? In our conversation, we consider what makes a category, why we love them, and where they steer us wrong.

Dr. Murphy released a book on this topic a few years ago: Categories We Live By
How We Classify Everyone and Everything

#111: You Don't Know What You Like with Paul Eastwick & Eli Finkel

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0500

Paul Eastwick and Eli Finkel are two social psychologists who study the gears and levers of romantic relationships. What do people find attractive in a partner? How do relationships evolve over time? And critically, do romantic movies get any of this stuff right?

Paul and Eli host the podcast, Love Factually, which dissects popular romantic films from the standpoint of behavioral science. What do they get wrong? What do they get right?

On the show this month, we talk about the podcast, how scientists can study something like human love, and why people don't quite know what they find attractive until they stumble upon it.

Also, at the end of the episode, I mention my print shop, Indispensable Letterpress. Check out the cards and posters I've been making using old technologies. Maybe even pick something up for a friend this holiday season? Be careful, though--your support will tell me that you approve of my obsession with the antiquated machines that fill my basement.

#110: The Value of Entertainment with Sara Grady

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 00:00:00 -0500

Sara Grady studies the function of entertainment—why we watch, play, and listen to the media that fill our lives. She's an assistant professor of Communication at Ohio State University. In our conversation, we explore what entertainment actually does for us, what it means to connect with fictional characters, and how storytelling shapes our relationships and well-being. Sara also shares her path from film production to media psychology and why understanding stories only deepens their magic.

#109: The Realities of Political Persuasion with David Broockman

Mon, 06 Oct 2025 00:00:00 -0400

David Broockman is a political scientist at UC Berkeley who digs into one of democracy’s core questions: can political messages really change minds? He’s spent his career running careful studies of persuasion, from door-to-door conversations to the effects of cable news, and testing whether the confident claims of political consultants actually hold up.

In our conversation, David shares the path that brought him into political science and the “credibility revolution” that reshaped how researchers study politics. We talk about what persuasion looks like in practice, why it’s so hard to predict which messages will work, and what his research reveals about the gap between political insiders’ instincts and what actually moves the needle.

Source for intro to government shutdowns:

SciComm Summer #26: Lulu Miller on Leading with Story

Mon, 11 Aug 2025 00:00:00 -0400

Lulu Miller has done a lot of things and done them very well. She is currently the co-host of Radiolab and its family-friendly spinoff, Terrestrials. She also co-created Invisibilia with Alix Spiegel and wrote the beautiful book, Why Fish Don't Exist. In our conversation, I try to learn Lulu's secrets when it comes it sharing science across media. I've been a fan of her work for a long time, so it was great to get to talk with her!

(If you're here as a Radiolab fan, you should also check out my chat with Latif Nasser a couple of years ago.)

In the show, I mentioned a run of letterpress prints I did inspired by Lulu's book. You can get a print for yourself here and learn more about how they were made. Any sales feed back into the podcast.

You can find the rest of this summer's science communication podcast series here.

SciComm Summer #25: Sarah McAnulty on Art and Community in Science Communication

Mon, 04 Aug 2025 00:00:00 -0400

Sarah McAnulty is a squid biologist and a science communicator. She's come up with all sorts of creative ways to bring science to the people, especially through local community engagement initiatives.

Learn more about Skype a Scientist: https://www.skypeascientist.com/

You can find the rest of this summer's science communication podcast series here.

SciComm Summer #24: Joe Palca on NPR Science Reporting

Mon, 28 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0400

Joe Palca reported on science for NPR for years. He found his sweet spot, capturing people's interest and filling them in on curious new findings in just a few minutes. His path to this job wasn't all that direct, and in our conversation, he shares how he got there and what he's learned along the way.

Listen to his 2019 story on the "electric dipole moment": Scientists Studying EDM To Find Why Everything In The Universe Exists : NPR

You can find the rest of this summer's science communication podcast series here.

SciComm Summer #23: Alison Fragale on Giving Keynote Talks

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0400

Alison Fragale is an organizational psychologist who gives keynote talks and leads workshops outside academia. She talks frankly about what it takes to book speaking engagements, design powerful talks that make a difference, and juggle a speaking schedule with other commitments. She also just released a book -- Likable Badass: How Women Get the Success They Deserve.

You can find the rest of this summer's science communication podcast series here.

SciComm Summer #22: Alex Dainis on Producing Online Videos

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0400

Alex Dainis is a freelance science communicator and video producer. She's been making science videos on YouTube for years, including recent work for the American Chemical Society. In 2024, she was received an Award for Excellence in Science Communications from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine and the Schmidt Foundation.

We talk about how she started down this road and decided to make it her full-time work after graduate school, including the challenges of freelancing while staying committed to high-quality content.

"Science is About How You Know" prints available here.

You can find the rest of this summer's science communication podcast series here.

SciComm Summer #21: Joel Bervell on Short Form Video

Mon, 07 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0400

Joel Bervell recently graduated from medical school, which is when he gained fame as an influencer helping the public navigate good medical science. He’s out there breaking down myths about medicine, particularly shining a light on racial disparities in health and treatment. He recently won a Peabody award, consults with the White House, has given interviews on various media platforms, and has given talks all over. He hosts the podcast, The Dose. And he developed an animated children’s show for YouTube ("The Doctor is In").

So, I think it’s safe to say Joel knows a thing or two about reaching people with solid science content. I was happy I could catch him in between the 30 things he’s working on to learn more about his story and how he pulls all of this off. So let’s jump right into my chat with Joel Bervell.

You can find the rest of this summer's science communication podcast series here.

SciComm Summer #20: Adam Cole on Making "Howtown"

Mon, 30 Jun 2025 00:00:00 -0400

Kicking off the 3rd season of Hot SciComm Summer is Adam Cole. Adam started at NPR’s Science Desk in 2011 where he started making short videos and radio pieces. In 2014, he launched the YouTube channel Skunk Bear with NPR, which was a venue for fun, quirky, visual forays into science stories big and small. After NPR, he did work for Vox, including their Netflix series, “The Mind, Explained” in 2019.

Most recently, Adam’s work came on my radar again because he’s one half of the new YouTube channel, Howtown. Fans of SciCommSummer will remember my very first guest back in 2022—Joss Fong. Well, Joss is the other half of Howtown. Together, they’ve been doing really excellent work building an independent channel making long-form videos exploring big questions and the methods scientists use to answer them. It’s so good. You need to check it out if you haven’t yet.

Adam shares his story as a science journalist, the makings of Howtown, the value of having a creative partner, and the pros and cons of working for yourself or a more established institution.

Watch Howtown (YouTube) and support their Patreon.

You can find the rest of this summer's science communication podcast series here.

Introducing "SciComm Summer"...Season 3!

Mon, 23 Jun 2025 00:00:00 -0400

You didn't think #HotSciCommSummer was done, did you?

Join me for a whole new season of Hot SciComm summer, a special laid-back podcast series featuring writers, podcast producers, video producers, speakers, and more. Get ready to hear from seven more top-notch science communicators and hear how they got into this area, how they approach their communication, and what you can learn about doing it yourself.

The new season is still aimed at science journalists and scientists interested in sharing scientific research outside of a university setting, but if you’re a curious person wanting to learn more about science media, I’m happy to have you.

This summer welcomes Adam Cole, Joel Bervell, Alex Dainis, Alison Fragale, Joe Palca, Sarah McAnulty, and Lulu Miller!

Join me every week starting next Monday for Hot SciComm Summer!

Listen to the whole series: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/hot-scicomm-summer/

#108: Characters Matter with Matt Grizzard

Mon, 02 Jun 2025 00:00:00 -0400

Matt Grizzard is a communication scholar who studies how people relate to characters in entertainment media as a sign of how much they enjoy one story versus another. A guiding framework behind this work is "affective disposition theory." What is that? Well, listen to the episode! We talk about this theory, how it helps us understand people's reactions to what happens to characters in media, and what it means for the importance of entertainment in our everyday experience.

#107: Showing Open-Mindedness with Mohamed Hussein

Mon, 05 May 2025 00:00:00 -0400

Mohamed Hussein studies how the psychology of persuasion and politics interact. He is an assistant professor of marketing at Columbia Business School. On the podcast, we talk about his work on "receptiveness," or people's openness to hearing out opinions they disagree with. (For more on receptiveness, check out episode 56, Receptiveness to Other Opinions with Julia Minson). But the research we talk about includes studies on how "you" versus "we" language affects how receptive we seem (Hussein & Tormala, 2024) as well as studies showing the costs of being receptive across political party lines (Hussein & Wheeler, 2024).

#106: Moral Outrage with Kurt Gray

Mon, 07 Apr 2025 00:00:00 -0400

Kurt Gray studies our moral minds and how we grapple with everyday ethics. In his new book, Outraged, he explores the deep psychology of human nature and what it means for how we navigate politically divisive times. In our conversation, we do a deep dive into his perspective that morality is fundamentally about our ideas of harm, which conflicts with how other theories talk about morality. We also get into what it means for concepts to shift with time or circumstance.

If you like this conversation, check out other episodes with moral psychologists whose views differ from Kurt's:

#105: Targeted Messaging Online with Sandra Matz

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 00:00:00 -0500

Sandra Matz is a computational social scientist at Columbia Business School. She uses big data to understand people and what motivates them to act. And she has a new book out! It's Mindmasters: The Data-Driven Science of Predicting and Changing Human Behavior, and it's an enjoyable, easy-to-read introduction to what your online data say about who you are and how communicators can use those insights to serve up compelling content--for better or worse.

At the top of the show, I also mention a big new academic book I edited with Richard Petty and Jake Teeny: The Handbook of Personalized Persuasion: Theory and Application.

#104: Posters as Persuasion with Angelina Lippert (ft. Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr.)

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 00:00:00 -0500

Angelina Lippert is the Executive Director and Curator at Poster House in New York City. She is an expert when it comes to the use of posters as a tool for mass communication and persuasion. We talk about what a poster is, the history of posters as a medium, the social effects they have, and why we should still care about posters in the digital age.

At the top of the show, we hear from Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. He's a letterpress printer who puts ink to paper to spread messages about social justice. His beautiful body of work was recently showcased in the book Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr.: Citizen Printer (Letterform Archive, 2024).

For a real crossover, you can check out Angelina's 2020-21 exhibition of Amos' work at Poster House: The Letterpress Posters of Amos Kennedy

#103: Taking Extreme Action with Joe Siev

Mon, 06 Jan 2025 06:00:00 -0500

Joe Siev studies extreme political behavior and its appeal. He's a postdoctoral fellow at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. In our conversation, we talk about his research linking people's sense of ambivalence with their willingness to take extreme action.

#102: Protest with Colin Wayne Leach

Mon, 02 Dec 2024 00:00:00 -0500

*If you downloaded this episode early, the wrong file was uploaded. Sorry! We're all good now.

Colin Wayne Leach is a social psychologist who also wears a bunch of other social science hats. He approaches the social world by appreciating its nature as a system of interconnected parts. He's made strides in a lot of research areas, including emotion, prejudice, and morality.

In our conversation, we focus on his work on protest as a vehicle for social change. He shares how he thinks about protest and the system it's embedded in, and walks us through what protest is and how we can understand it better.

If you're interested to learn more, you can read a great recent summary of Colin's perspective in Group Processes & Intergroup Relations (Leach et al., 2024)

#101: Studying Persuasion with Rich Petty

Mon, 04 Nov 2024 00:00:00 -0500

Dr. Richard Petty is a professor of psychology at Ohio State University. He's probably best known for co-developing the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) of persuasion (but he's done a lot of other stuff, too). He was also my advisor in grad school.

In the last episode of Opinion Science, Rich lent his voice to telling the story of the ELM. Go check that out if you haven't already. But my full conversation with Rich was also great and went in a few directions that just didn't fit into a general intro to the ELM. So, I present that full interview here. It gets a little inside baseball at some points, so be aware of that. But it's an interesting glimpse at the random ride that a career in science can be and the number of lucky moments that can steer the wheel.

#100: A Unified Model of Persuasion

Mon, 21 Oct 2024 00:00:00 -0400

In the 1980s, two social psychologists--Rich Petty and John Cacioppo--devised a new way to make sense of persuasion: the Elaboration Likelihood Model. Their work came on the heels of an era in psychology when people were fed up with persuasion research. The old studies were a mess, and it wasn't clear if it was even possible to understand how persuasion works. In the course of studying for an exam in graduate school, Rich and John started sketching out some ways to make sense of things. Over the next decade or so, those ideas blossomed into a fully formed theory that continues to inspire persuasion research today.

In this episode, I bring you up to speed on the Elaboration Likelihood Models and the incredible stories of happenstance that made it all happen. The foundation of the episode includes an interview with Rich Petty, a psychology professor at Ohio State University. In the latter half of the episode, we hear from Pablo Briñol, psychology professor at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Plus, there are some bonus words from Bob Cialdini.

If you want to dive really deep into the Elaboration Likelihood Model, check out the 1986 chapter in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). For the updated aspect of the model--"self-validation"--you can check out a recent paper by Pablo and Rich (Briñol & Petty, 2022).

#99 The Power of Random Roommates with Sarah Gaither and Analia Albuja

Mon, 17 Jun 2024 00:00:00 -0400

Drs. Sarah Gaither and Analia Albuja study racial identity and how we can overcome racial biases. They just published an important new study on the effects of random roommate assignments on students’ ability to develop diverse social networks.

Our conversation focuses on two key research papers: Gaither & Sommers (2013); Albuja et al. (in press).

And if you haven’t listened to my episode on the Contact Hypothesis (Episode 44), it pairs well with this one!

#98: Deep Canvassing with Dave Fleischer

Mon, 03 Jun 2024 00:00:00 -0400

Dave Fleischer is a political organizer who led the team that pioneered “deep canvassing,” which is a particularly effective form of face-to-face persuasion. It was developed on the ground, but when political scientists put it to a rigorous test, they found that these brief conversations with voters were having a lasting impact (Broockman & Kalla, 2016).

On this episode, Dave shares his background in political campaigns and walks us through an actual example of deep canvassing that made a real difference to someone’s attitudes toward transgender people.

If you want to know more, check out Dave’s Substack, where he’s written a lot of great articles about his team’s approach to persuasion.

Also, doing my due diligence, I’ll link to the movie I mentioned in the intro--“Salesman” (1969)--if you want to dive into classic American cinéma verité.

#97: Opinions and Reputations with Christian Wheeler

Mon, 20 May 2024 00:00:00 -0400

Christian Wheeler studies the intersection of opinions, communication, and personal identity. He’s a professor of management and marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In our conversation, we talk about the quirks of teaching in a business school, the promise of improv exercises for learning life skills, and his new research on the reputational benefits (or not) of being good at self-control and willing to listen to people with diverse viewpoints (Hussein & Wheeler, 2024).

#96: Anti-Science Views with Aviva Philipp-Muller

Mon, 06 May 2024 00:00:00 -0400

Aviva Philipp-Muller studies why people might pass on science. She’s an Assistant Professor of marketing at the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University. We talked about her research on people’s openness to science in consumer products and how they’re marketed. She also shared her perspective on how anti-science views are an issue of persuasion.

Things that come up in this episode:

The public science lecture circuit in 19th-century America (Finnegan, 2016; 2021)
The use of science in advertising consumer products (Philipp-Muller et al., 2023)
Why people are anti-science and what we can do about it (Philipp-Muller et al., 2022)
Aviva’s YouTube Channel
The “Nights with Science” ad from 1863: https://www.ohiohistory.org/science-lectures/

#95: Marketing Across Cultures with Aaron Barnes

Mon, 22 Apr 2024 00:00:00 -0400

Aaron Barnes is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of Louisville College of Business. He studies how persuasion, branding, and consumer–brand relationships differ between cultures. In our conversation, we talk about Aaron's story and some of his research on how the influence of calling a product "top-rated" versus "best-selling" depends on culture (Barnes & Shavitt, 2024).

#94: Bringing Behavioral Science to Government with David Halpern

Mon, 08 Apr 2024 00:00:00 -0400

David Halpern is the President & Founding Director of the Behavioral Insights Team. It started as a "nudge unit" in the British government but has gone on to become its own company with offices around the world. We talked to David in 2021 when we were gathering interviews for our podcast series, They Thought We Were Ridiculous: The Unlikely Story of Behavioral Economics. But he had a lot of great insight on the role of behavioral science in public policy, so I wanted to share our full conversation as a standalone episode.

Several years ago, David wrote a great book about the Behavioral Insights Team and what it's learned about applying behavioral science at scale. That book is: Inside the Nudge Unit: How Small Changes Can Make a Big Difference (and I really enjoyed it).

#93: A Life in Behavioral Science with Daniel Kahneman

Mon, 01 Apr 2024 00:00:00 -0400

Daniel Kahneman was a titan in social science. He transformed our understanding of decision-making, he taught a generation about social psychology, he won a Nobel prize. It's hard to overstate his influence. He passed away last week, and the field is mourning the loss. Along with the hosts of the podcast Behavioral Grooves, I interviewed Kahneman back in 2021, and we used that interview as a foundation of our podcast series, "They Thought We Were Ridiculous: The Unlikely Story of Behavioral Economics."

I had already been considering releasing the full interview as a standalone episode of Opinion Science, and under the circumstances, it felt like sharing it now was a nice tribute to the man who had contributed so much. I hope listening to this is a comforting and warm reminder of his impact on behavioral science.

This isn't a typical Opinion Science episode, though, because the interview was mostly for research and pulling soundbites. We didn't set out for it to be a polished standalone interview. As a result, we go down rabbit holes, get technical, assume shared knowledge, etc. So, I make no promises that you'll follow every moment of the interview if you're not already familiar with Kahneman's work, but it might still be a fun listen anyway.

Thanks again to Danny Kahneman for reminiscing about the early days of his career with us.

#92: Can We Fix Social Media? with Andy Guess

Mon, 25 Mar 2024 00:00:00 -0400

Andy Guess studies how social media platforms shape people’s political views. He’s an assistant professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University. Last summer, he was part of a big team that released four papers on their analyses and experiments in social media all at the same time. The research was in collaboration with Meta, the company responsible for Facebook and Instagram.

Andy and the team were able to dissect how often people on these platforms are exposed to political opinions, particularly from people whose opinions differ from their own. They were also able to conduct experiments on these platforms. By turning some of the knobs and levers, could they influence people’s engagement on these platforms and even change their political views?

The four big research papers that all came out together are:

Guess et al. (2023, Science): How do social media feed algorithms affect attitudes and behavior in an election campaign?
Guess et al. (2023, Science): Reshares on social media amplify political news but do not detectably affect beliefs or opinions
Gonzalez-Bailon et al. (2023, Science): Asymmetric ideological segregation in exposure to political news on Facebook
Nyhan et al. (2023, Nature): Like-minded sources on Facebook are prevalent but not polarizing

#91: Being a Social Science Maverick with Sendhil Mullainathan

Mon, 11 Mar 2024 00:00:00 -0400

Sendhil Mullainathan does a lot of things, and he does them well. He’s a professor of Computation and Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. I originally talked to Sendhil for our podcast series, They Thought We Were Ridiculous. He was well-positioned to give his perspective on a contentious, interdisciplinary field of social science called “behavioral economics.” But nowadays, behavioral economics is mainstream, but Sendhil has continued to study big questions that cut across the typical academic boundaries between disciplines. We talk about AI, economics, and racial bias.

You can listen to our full series on behavioral economics here (Sendhil’s voice pops up in episodes 3 and 4).

Also, the study we discuss testing racial discrimination in hiring practices was first reported in this 2003 paper in American Economic Review.

"...Ridiculous" Ep. 5: The Future!

Mon, 26 Feb 2024 04:00:00 -0500

To look into the future of Behavioral Economics, we talked to three young researchers who are pushing the field further. A new generation of researchers is striving to understand decision-making in the developing world, how brains process economic decisions, and how bigger, more transparent scientific methods can shed light on basic principles of choice.

This is the fifth episode of a special series called: "They Thought We Were Ridiculous: The Unlikely Story of Behavioral Economics."

*Correction: During Rahul Bhui's section of the episode, we mistakenly said that people "don't take as many risks when they're framed as potential losses…even though they're relatively happy to take risks when they're framed as potential gains." We accidentally got this flipped! In truth, research on prospect theory shows that people tend to be risk-seeking in the loss domain but risk-averse in the gain domain.

For more information, check out the Opinion Science webpage for this series: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/they-thought-we-were-ridiculous/

"...Ridiculous" Ep. 4: Behavioral Economics Goes Mainstream

Mon, 26 Feb 2024 03:00:00 -0500

Eventually, Behavioral Economics emerged as an influential perspective. It’s become mainstream in Economics, and it’s helped inform programs and policies that affect real people every day.

This is the fourth episode of a special series called: "They Thought We Were Ridiculous: The Unlikely Story of Behavioral Economics."

For more information, check out the Opinion Science webpage for this series: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/they-thought-we-were-ridiculous/

"...Ridiculous" Ep. 3: Children of Unlikely Parents

Mon, 26 Feb 2024 02:00:00 -0500

Behavioral Economics was using psychology to understand economics, but what did economists and psychologists think about their unexpected marriage? Slowly, this fledgling field weathered a flurry of criticism from both sides as it doggedly held onto data-driven ideas about economic decision-making.

This is the third episode of a special series called: "They Thought We Were Ridiculous: The Unlikely Story of Behavioral Economics."

For more information, check out the Opinion Science webpage for this series: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/they-thought-we-were-ridiculous/

"...Ridiculous" Ep. 2: Importing Psychology

Mon, 26 Feb 2024 01:00:00 -0500

Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky were two psychologists with big ideas about how people made decisions. Their careful research launched a brand new way of understanding people’s choices, and it helped fan the flames of Behavioral Economics.

This is the second episode of a special series called: "They Thought We Were Ridiculous: The Unlikely Story of Behavioral Economics."

For more information, check out the Opinion Science webpage for this series: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/they-thought-we-were-ridiculous/

"...Ridiculous" Ep. 1: Beyond Anomalies

Mon, 26 Feb 2024 00:00:00 -0500

For years, neoclassical economists have made an unusual assumption—that people are rational decision-makers. But a few social scientists have dared to challenge that assumption. They’ve collected observations, analyzed data, and presented their perspective. Their work would usher in a new era of Economics.

This is the first episode of a special series called: "They Thought We Were Ridiculous: The Unlikely Story of Behavioral Economics."

For more information, check out the Opinion Science webpage for this series: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/they-thought-we-were-ridiculous/

Introducing: "They Thought We Were Ridiculous: The Unlikely Story of Behavioral Economics"

Mon, 12 Feb 2024 00:00:00 -0500

Coming February 26th! I team up with the guys at Behavioral Groovesto produce a 5-part podcast series on behavioral economics. We tell the story of how some young social scientists took issue with assumptions that economists were making about how people make decisions, and they ended up transforming the field. Their insights went on to shape governments and businesses around the world.

The whole series will drop on the Opinion Science podcast feed on February 26th. See you then!

#90: How Prejudice Works with Jack Dovidio

Mon, 29 Jan 2024 00:00:00 -0500

Jack Dovidio's work is at the heart of how we currently understand the psychology of prejudice. He's spent his career considering where prejudice comes from, how people express it, how it biases people's judgments and behaviors, and what we could do to address it. He's an emeritus professor at Yale University, and he's also just a really pleasant guy to talk to. In our conversation, we cover his early days as a social psychologist studying when people will help each other out, his research on "aversive racism," and his work studying the effects of racial bias in medical treatment.

The new book out by Jack, Lou Penner, and others is: "Unequal Health: Anti-Black Racism and the Threat to America's Health"

Things that come up in the intro:

Gordon Allport’s “The Nature of Prejudice”
Polling over time on interracial marriage (Gallup) and racial progress (Pew)
Economists sell baseball cards on eBay to learn about racism (Ayres et al., 2015)
A retrospective on The Nature of Prejudice (Dovidio et al., 2005)

#89: Opinions of our Partners with Jim McNulty

Mon, 15 Jan 2024 00:00:00 -0500

Jim McNulty is a professor of psychology at Florida State University. He studies close relationships, and in this episode, we talk about his research on "automatic partner attitudes." When someone sees their romantic partner, their feelings about that person spring automatically to mind. And sometimes those feelings conflict with what they openly SAY they feel about their partner. Jim shares his findings from studies that measure people's feelings toward their partners.

Things that come up in this episode

A longitudinal study of newlyweds shows how automatic attitudes are related to relationship outcomes years later (McNulty et al., 2013)
Automatic evaluations of one's partner are related to relationship satisfaction (Turner & McNulty, 2020)
Interventions that improve people's evaluations of their partners improve relationships outcomes (McNulty et al., 2017)
A recent paper summarizing Jim's work on automatic evaluations of one's partner (Faure et al., 2024)

BONUS: "Best" of Opinion Science (2023)

Tue, 02 Jan 2024 00:00:00 -0500

Happy New Year! For the first time in the show's history, this episode's a day late. Sorry, dear listeners.

So it's 2024, and what better way to kick off the new year than to dive into some nostalgia for 2023 already? As has become tradition around here, I compiled some clips of favorite moments on the podcast from the last year. As I say every year, it’s not truly a “best of” per se because I really am attached to every episode. Instead, I’ve chosen some clips that highlight the kind of show this is, including some of the things that made this year especially special.

If you’re new to the show, this is a great place to start! And if you’ve been listening since the beginning, join me on some fun memories from this year.

-Andy

Featured 2023 episodes:

#88: Studying Happiness with Liz Dunn

Mon, 18 Dec 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Elizabeth Dunn studies the psychology of happiness. One of her major research areas has looked at generosity's effects on well-being. We're happier when we spend money on other people. But studying happiness has its challenges, especially if we want to build strategies that help people feel happier. So, she shared a snapshot of her research on happiness and a new paper with Dunigan Folk looking at how strong the evidence is for different happiness-boosting strategies.

Things that come up in this episode:

A big social experiment through the TED organization to see what people do when they receive $10,000 (Dwyer & Dunn, 2022; Dwyer et al., 2023)
The benefits of generosity for our well-being (see Dunn et al., 2020; also see Episode 23 with Lara Aknin)
Digging deep into the research on happiness to see how strong the evidence is for happiness-boosting strategies (Folk & Dunn, 2023; also Folk & Dunn, 2024)

#87: How Juries Decide with Mikaela Spruill

Mon, 04 Dec 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Mikaela Spruill studies juries and the legal system’s role in sustaining social inequalities. She’s a postdoctoral fellow in criminal justice with SPARQ at Stanford University. In our conversation, Mikaela shares the benefits and drawbacks of juries in the courtroom, how scientists study jury decision-making, and how jurors apply very specific legal standards to interpreting the facts of a case.

Things that come up in this episode

A very brief history of juries (Alschuler & Deiss, 1994; Carey, 1994; Massachusetts Office of Jury Commissioner)
A summary of early research in jury decision-making (Devine et al., 2001) and the University of Chicago Jury Project (Broeder, 1959; Cornwell, 2010)
The quick clip in the intro (“I’m just saying a coincidence is possible”) is from the 1957 film, 12 Angry Men.
A summary of research on jury decision-making (Spruill & Hans, in press)
How jurors apply the “objectively reasonable” standard to interpreting the facts of a case (Spruill & Lewis, 2022; 2023)

#86: Framing Political Issues with James Druckman

Mon, 20 Nov 2023 00:00:00 -0500

James Druckman studies how political messages can shape people's opinions. He is maybe best known for his work on framing issues as a strategic communication strategy. He also has a recent paper on "a framework for the study of persuasion," which organizes the many variables that matter for persuasion.

#85: Having Curious Conversations with Mónica Guzmán

Mon, 06 Nov 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Mónica Guzmán wants us to have better conversation with the people we disagree with. She's the Senior Fellow for Public Practice at Braver Angels, and in 2022, she released her book, "I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times." This year, she launched a brand new podcast called "A Braver Way," which is about how we can disagree about politics without losing heart. We talk about how to have curious conversations, why we would want to do so, and how we can learn from other peoples' example.

#84: Moral Lessons in Media with Lindsay Hahn

Mon, 23 Oct 2023 00:00:00 -0400

Lindsay Hahn studies how entertainment media convey moral messages, especially among children. She's an assistant professor of communication at the University at Buffalo, where she leads the Media Psychology and Morality Lab. We talk about her background, how her team surveys media for the moral lessons they communicate, and how her new work is turning an eye to terrorist propaganda.

Things that come up in this episode:

Mr. Rogers' testimony before a Senate subcommittee.
Content analyses of children's entertainment media (Aley et al., 2021; Hahn, 2022; Hahn et al., 2022a)
Effects of media on children's and adolescents' morality (Hahn et al., 2022b; 2022a)
Analyses of terrorist propaganda (Hahn et al., 2023b)

#83: The Fundamental Nature of Opinion with Russ Fazio

Mon, 09 Oct 2023 00:00:00 -0400

Russ Fazio has spent his career getting to the bottom of how opinions work. From his first study as a college student in 1974 to a leading expert in basically everything, his work has had a deep impact on the field of social psychology (and communication and political science...) His research over the years has included game-changing work on cognitive dissonance, implicit bias, automatic cognition, negativity biases, and the relationship between attitudes and behavior.

How to cover a whole career in one podcast episode!? We stick to a few highlights. Russ shares some of his earliest work that leapt on a real-world challenge to test basic theoretical ideas, how he was able to push the boundaries of technology to examine how opinions spring to mind automatically, and how a creative video game about beans can reveal deep truths about the human condition.

This episode was recorded in person at the WOSU studios! Shout out to them for making the process so easy.

#82: Having Political Conversations with Taylor Carlson

Mon, 25 Sep 2023 00:00:00 -0400

Taylor Carlson studies how people navigate political discussions. She does a bunch of interesting work, but I was most interested in talking with her about book she published with Jaime Settle last year. It’s called What Goes Without Saying: Navigating Political Discussion in America. In it, they report their findings from a variety of surveys and experiments and organize them into a four-step model of political discussion.

I talked to Taylor about how she got interested in this area, how the book makes sense of how people approach talking politics with others, and what the future holds.

#81: Moral Language with Morteza Dehghani

Mon, 11 Sep 2023 00:00:00 -0400

Morteza Dehghani is a psychologist and computer scientist who uses sophisticated analytics to churn through the words we use when we talk to each other. From that, he and his colleagues can get an idea of people’s moral sensibilities and the consequences of letting morality imbue our opinions on important issues. We talk about his origins in the field and the key insights he's come to about people's moral sense.

In the intro, I talk about Toki Pona--the world's smallest language. You can find more at the official Toki Pona website.

I also mentioned interesting work on morality, language, and culture by Emma Buchtel (e.g., Buchtel et al., 2015; Buchtel, 2022).

#80: Don't Get Fooled Again with Dan Simons & Chris Chabris

Mon, 28 Aug 2023 00:00:00 -0400

Dan Simons and Chris Chabris are psychological scientists who care about attention and reasoning. They're probably best known for their groundbreaking experiments on "inattentional blindness" where they built a scenario in which people would look straight at someone in a gorilla costume and not even know it. The point is: for as smart as we are, we miss a lot of stuff. And it's not just gorillas.

Dan and Chris have a new book out on the psychology behind why people fall prey to scams and cons. It's called: Nobody's Fool: Why We Get Taken In and What We Can Do about It. It's a fun read, full of stories of swindlers and cheats and the science behind how we get taken in by them. We talk about how Dan and Chris became partners in science and what they've learned about the psychology of attention and reasoning.

SciComm Summer #19: Latif Nasser on Making "Radiolab"

Mon, 31 Jul 2023 00:00:00 -0400

Latif Nasser is the current co-host of the WNYC show Radiolab. Radiolab is probably the first podcast I was ever really a fan of. I've been listening since 2007 when it was hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich. It's an amazing show that leans on the incredible audio production to convey the wonder of science. The show has branched out to tell all kinds of stories--not just about science--but it's still one of the best science shows out there.

Latif came to Radiolab while working on his Ph.D. in the History of Science at Harvard. He eventually joined the show's team to report stories and occupy the role of Director of Research. In 2020, he joined Lulu Miller as co-host of the show. Also in 2020, he hosted a 6-episode show for Netflix: Connected: The Hidden Science of Everything. And I think I first really learned about Latif through an incredible (although not super science-y) series he produced, The Other Latif. Seriously, you have to check it out.

In our conversation, we talk about the philosophy of science communication, the role of narrative, and how Radiolab works. We also break down an episode that Latif reported in 2021, "Of Bombs and Butterflies."

You can find the rest of this summer's science communication podcast series here.

SciComm Summer #18: Alie Ward on Making "Ologies"

Mon, 24 Jul 2023 00:00:00 -0400

Alie Ward is a lot of things--an actor, illustrator, TV host. But I was especially interested in talking to her about her undeniably popular science podcast, Ologies. Her show shares interviews with all sorts of scientists. It's so delightful and engaging, and Alie puts in the work to fill the listener in behind the scenes on things you wouldn't know if you just listened to the interview. Think you're not interested in indigenous bees? Well, just listen to her interview with a Native Melittologist and think again.

We talk about Alie's backstory, how she approaches Ologies, and what we're trying to do when we share science with a big, public audience.

You can find the rest of this summer's science communication podcast series here.

SciComm Summer #17: Siri Carpenter on The Open Notebook

Mon, 17 Jul 2023 00:00:00 -0400

Siri Carpenter began her science writing journey without a playbook. She was working on a Ph.D. in social psychology and ended up being awarded a AAAS Mass Media Science & Engineering Fellowship where she got critical experience in the field. From there, she took on assignments, pitched stories, and tried to figure out how to do the job of a science journalist.

In trying to figure things out, she talked to experienced writers and thought other people would benefit from what they had to say too. And thus The Open Notebook (TON) was born. It's been a powerful resource for science writers, providing free access to articles and interviews about the craft. The website also includes courses and a "pitch database." In 2020, Siri's edited book "The Craft of Science Writing" was released, featuring new and established articles from TON.

In our conversation, she shares her journey and offers advice for aspiring science journalists.

You can find the rest of this summer's science communication podcast series here.

SciComm Summer #16: Sam Jones on Charting Your Own Path

Mon, 10 Jul 2023 00:00:00 -0400

Sam Jones wears many hats. She's executive producer of the podcast Tiny Matters. She's also worked on other podcast and video projects. She's written about science for The Washington Post, New York Times, Scientific American, and more. She's also the current president of the D.C. Science Writers Association. Oh, and she got her Ph.D. in Biomedical Science at UCSD in 2018. Sam does good work and has to find her own way into science communication as an "alternative" to the more typical academic pathways laid out in grad school. In our conversation, we talk about her journey and what she's learned about doing scicomm her way.

You can find the rest of this summer's science communication podcast series here.

SciComm Summer #15: Adam Mastroainni on Substack (etc.)

Mon, 03 Jul 2023 00:00:00 -0400

Adam Mastroianni is a social psychologist and the author of Experimental History, available on Substack. But what is Substack? And is it a good vehicle for science communication? Adam shares his experiences writing for a non-academic audience and also reflects on the role of "science communication" in the world. Should there be a division between the scientists and the science communicators? What is a scientist's responsibility in keeping in touch with the public?

We also discuss his new article in The Atlantic: "I Ruined Two Birthday Parties and Learned the Limits of Psychology."

You can find the rest of this summer's science communication podcast series here.

SciComm Summer #14: Melinda Wenner Moyer on Science Journalism

Mon, 26 Jun 2023 00:00:00 -0400

Melinda Wenner Moyer is a science journalist and contributing editor at Scientific American magazine. Recently, Melinda received the Excellence in Science Journalism award from The Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the 2019 Bricker Award for Science Writing in Medicine, and her work was featured in the 2020 Best American Science and Nature Writing anthology. But that’s only recently. She’s been writing about science for major outlets for years and doing it really, really well.

In 2021, she released her first book—How to Raise Kids Who Aren’t Assholes, which is a great parenting book that actually cares about evidence from behavioral science.

We talk about how she got started and her new book, but we also do a deep dive on a 2017 feature article she wrote for Scientific American about whether legal access to guns actually deters crime and makes people safer ("More Guns Do Not Stop More Crimes, Evidence Shows"). It’s a really great example of what science journalism can be, and I wanted to know every step of how something like that gets written.

You can find the rest of this summer's science communication podcast series here.

Introducing "SciComm Summer"...Season 2!

Mon, 19 Jun 2023 00:00:00 -0400

(Another) special summer series on science communication! Regular Opinion Science episodes will resume in August.

Announcing another season of my special podcast mini-series for the summer focused on science communication. I wanted to talk to a bunch of people who have become experts at communicating research outside of academia through different forms of media.

So whether you’re an academic who wants to communicate your research more widely, a journalist interested in covering more social science topics, or just someone in the world who’s looking to be a better communicator, I think you’ll find a ton to like this series.

Just stay subscribed to Opinion Science to get this summer series. All episodes in the series will also be available online at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/hot-scicomm-summer/

#19 (Updated): Political Humor as Persuasion with Danna Young

Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:00:00 -0400

Dr. Dannagal Young studies political humor. She pulls together psychology, communications, and political science, to understand how political satire works to change minds and expand political knowledge. She also has a new book: Irony and Outrage: The Polarized Landscape of Rage, Fear, and Laughter in the United States, which explores how satire became a tool of political left and outrage media because a tool of the political right.

Update: This episode was replayed on June 5th, 2023 and contains an extra interview at the end about some newer work. Danna's TED talk came out in 2020. She just released a full lecture series on Propaganda and Persuasion through The Great Courses. And later this year, you can read her new book Wrong: How Media, Politics, and Identity Drive our Appetite for Misinformation (out October 17, 2023).

Some things that come up on this episode:

Daily Show viewers were particularly well-informed about the 2004 election (Young, 2004)
Jon Stewart defending the Daily Show on Crossfire (2006)
Jokes lead people to suspend critical thinking about a message (Polk, Young, & Holbert, 2009; Young, 2008)

#79: "Survivor" Bias with Erin O'Mara Kunz

Mon, 22 May 2023 00:00:00 -0400

Erin O’Mara Kunz is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Dayton. We spend the whole episode on her new paper analyzing racial and gender biases in the voting decisions on the reality TV show, Survivor. We dig into how Survivor is a useful test case for understanding discrimination, what the data tell us, and what conclusions we can take away.

Things that come up in this episode:

In the intro, I mention that social scientists are no strangers to analyzing decisions in televised game shows. These include analyses of bets placed on the show Jeopardy! (Metrick, 1995), choices on Deal or No Deal (Post et al., 2008), and bids on The Price is Right (e.g., Berk et al., 1996)
Erin's new paper analyses trends over 40 seasons of Survivor (Kunz et al,. in press)

#78: Our Impressions of Others with Leor Hackel

Mon, 08 May 2023 00:00:00 -0400

Leor Hackel studies how we learn about other people and how we make decisions about them. He’s an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Southern California, and he uses neuroscience, economic games, and computational models to sort out what’s going on in our heads as we’re getting information about other people.

Things that we mention in this episode

Dolf Zillmann's disposition theory (Zillmann & Cantor, 1972; 1996; also see affective disposition theory [Wiki])
The difference between "reward associations" and "trait impressions" in how we learn about other people (Hackel et al., 2020; 2022), including differences in brain processes (Hackel et al., 2015)
People will give more to someone who gave them more, even if that person is just as "generous" a person as someone who gave less (Hackel et al., 2018)
We can form impressions of others is various sorts of "gist" memories (Hackel et al., in press)

Political Persuasion with Alex Coppock (Rebroadcast)

Mon, 24 Apr 2023 00:00:00 -0400

This week, I'm happy to reshare my conversation with political scientist, Alex Coppock. This episode first ran on October 12, 2020, and just a few months ago, Alex published his book, "Persuasion in Parallel: How Information Changes Minds about Politics." The book nicely aligns with our conversation on the podcast, so it seemed like a good reason to reshare the original episode. Enjoy! See you in a couple weeks with a brand new episode.

Original Episode: #22 - Political Persuasion with Alex Coppock

---
Alex Coppock is an assistant professor of Political Science at Yale University. His research considers what affects people's political beliefs, especially the kinds of messages people regularly encounter--TV ads, lawn signs, Op-Eds, etc. In this episode, he shares the findings of a big, new study that just came out as well as what it means for how persuasion works.

Things that came up in this episode:

A new study testing dozens the efficacy of dozens of political ads (Coppock, Hill, & Vavreck, 2020)
The long-lasting effects of newspaper op-eds on public opinion (Coppock, Ekins, & Kirby, 2018)
The effects of lawn signs on vote outcomes (Green, Krasno, Coppock, Farrer, Lenoir, & Zingher, 2016)
Framing effects in persuasion (for an overview, see Chong & Druckman, 2007)
The sleeper effect (see here for an overview)

#77: Opinions in the Brain with Uma Karmarkar

Mon, 10 Apr 2023 00:00:00 -0400

Uma Karmarkar is a decision neuroscientist. She tries to understand how people make decisions when they have too little or too much information, and she uses tools and theories from neuroscience, psychology, and economics. I wanted to get Uma's take on the value of neuroscience in trying to understand consumer behavior. Does looking at brain signals give us anything special when we try to figure out why people buy what they buy, which advertisements are most influential, etc. We talk about the promises and limitations of neuroscience and cover a whole lot of ground in doing so!

Things that come up in this episode:

The opening example of a neural focus group to identify songs that would become hits is from Berns and Moore's (2012) experiment published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology. The other examples were also published studies, including the study on anti-smoking PSAs (Falk et al., 2012) and chocolate brand displays (Kühn et al., 2016).
(By the way, I didn't actually just stumbled across those songs in the intro. As with most of the music in the podcast, they came from Epidemic Sound.)
Uma has two great summary articles on the role of neuroscience in consumer psychology (Karmarkar & Plassmann, 2019; Karmarkar & Yoon, 2016)
And because it came up, I'll plug my one fMRI study on certainty and ambivalence in the brain (Luttrell et al., 2016)

#76: You Can't Tell Me What To Do with Ben Rosenberg

Mon, 27 Mar 2023 00:00:00 -0400

Ben Rosenberg studies how people react to having their freedom threatened. He is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Dominican University of California. In addition to conducting his own studies on this question, he has exhaustively reviewed decades of research on something called "psychological reactance theory." In our conversation, we break down what reactance is, where it comes from, who it applies to, and what questions about it are still unanswered.

Things that come up in this episode:

2022 set new records for attempts to ban books in the United States (Associated Press, 2023)
In the intro, I tell a personal story about book bans in my school district, but don't worry--I have sources (1, 2, 3)
Banning books has been linked to increases in sales (e.g., The Hill, 2022)
Psychology research has found that censorship can change people's attitudes (e.g., Worchel & Arnold, 1973)
Ben and his advisor summarized a long history of research on psychological reactance (Rosenberg & Siegel, 2018)

#75: High-Quality Listening with Guy Itzchakov

Mon, 13 Mar 2023 00:00:00 -0400

Guy Itzchakov knows how to listen. He's an associate professor in the Department of Human Services at the University of Haifa. He studies the markers of high-quality listening. But it's not that he tries to figure out who listens well and who doesn't. Instead, he's focused on how receiving high-quality listening affects us as speakers. He finds, for example, that when someone really, deeply listens to what we have to say, it provides us with a safe opportunity to explore where we really stand, realizing that the world is more nuanced than our simple opinions make them out to be. In our conversation, Guy shares the hallmarks of quality listening and what impact they have on speakers.

Things that come up in this episode:

Psychologist Carl Rogers and his pioneering work on person-centric therapy and empathic listening. Sources for the intro included: Boettcher, Hofmann, and Wu (Noba Textbook); Owen (2022); Rogers and Roethlisberger (1952)
The markers of good listening: attention, comprehension, and positive intention (see Kluger & Itzchakov, 2022)
Being listened to can lead people to openly acknowledge their ambivalence (Itzchakov et al., 2017) while becoming more clear in their views (Itzchakov et al., 2018).
Speakers who experienced high-quality listening became less prejudiced in their views of other groups (Itzchakov et al., 2020)

#74: When a Society Changes its Mind with Tessa Charlesworth

Mon, 27 Feb 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Tessa Charlesworth studies patterns in people’s beliefs and opinions over time, mapping out the minds of a society over decades. She’s currently a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard University. In this episode, she shares her work charting changes in the public’s implicit biases over decades and other research looking at the evolution of language over a couple of centuries to track changes in common stereotypes.

Also, we mention a previous episode of the show that’s worth checking out: Episode 16: Implicit Bias with Mahzarin Banaji

Things that come up in this episode:

Tessa has a series of papers on the changes in implicit biases over time (Charlesworth & Banaji, 2019, 2021a, 2021b, 2022)
Decoding gender stereotypes though language analysis (Charlesworth et al., 2021)
Tracking stereotypes revealed by the words in books over centuries (Charlesworth et al., 2022)

#73: Navigating Diversity with Maureen Craig

Mon, 13 Feb 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Maureen Craig studies how we navigate a diverse social world. She's an associate professor of psychology at New York University. In our conversation, she shares her work looking at people's reactions to the ever-increasing diversity of their social environments. How do people react to the news that one day, less than half of the U.S. population will be White? She also shares her other work on who tends to advocate for whom. What makes an "ally"? When do members of one minority group stand up for another minority group?

Things that come up in this episode:

People often implicitly associate “American” with “White” (see Devos & Mohamed, 2014)
According to the U.S. Census, less than half of Americans under 18 are White (AP News, 2021) and less than half of White Americans live in predominantly White neighborhoods (Washington Post, 2022)
For a summary of the work on people’s reactions to increasing racial diversity, see Craig et al. (2018)
For a summary of the work on solidarity and allyship, check out Craig et al. (2020)
People assume that certain racial groups are aligned on specific social and political issues (Craig et al., 2022)
Framing inequality in terms of the disadvantaged group prompts more support for action than framing it in terms of the advantaged group (Dietze & Craig, 2021)

#72: Fighting Against Misinformation with Sander van der Linden

Mon, 30 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Sander van der Linden studies the psychology of misinformation. He and his lab have conducted studies to understand why people believe false information, and they've also leveraged the psychology of "inoculation" to build tools that help people avoid falling prey to misinformation. He describes this work and more in his new book, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects Our Minds and How to Build Immunity.

You can play the video game that Sander's lab built to inoculate people against misinformation. The game is called Bad News.

At the beginning of the episode, I share the story of the first bit of fake news in American media. In tracing the arc of the story and getting the critical details, I turned primarily to Andie Tucher's recent book, Not Exactly Lying: Fake News and Fake Journalism in American History. Other details thanks to an interview Tucher did, a story in The Saturday Evening Post, and an article by Emmanuel Paraschos.

#71: "Person" = "Man"? with April Bailey

Mon, 16 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0500

April Bailey is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of New Hampshire, and she studies the psychology of androcentrism—people’s tendency to think of men as a stand-in for all people and treating women’s experiences as the outlier. We talk about exactly what androcentrism is, the kinds of evidence we have for it, and what it means for the future of how we think about gender.

Things that come up in this episode:

The history of the genderless pronoun "thon," including a question in The Straight Dope (see Baron, 2018; Converse, 1884; Merriam-Webster)
An overview of the psychology of androcentrism (Bailey et al., 2019)
Androcentrism reflected in the order in which people are listed (Hegarty et al., 2011)
Billions of words on the internet highlight everyday androcentrism (Bailey et al., 2022)

BONUS: "Best" of Opinion Science (2022)

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Another year in the books! I don't think I ever really mastered writing the year as "2022," and now I have to write "2023." I'll figure it out one of these days.

But another year meant another year of Opinion Science! This year saw even more new listeners, amazing guests, and an ambitious series of episodes over the summer. Your support has meant a lot.

So even though I'm (again) a week or so behind on this, I wanted put together another "best of" episode, featuring notable moments from the podcast in 2022. As I say every year, it’s not truly a “best of” per se because I really am attached to every episode. Instead, I’ve chosen some clips that highlight the kind of show this is, including some of the things that made this year especially special.

If you’re new to the show, this is a great place to start! And if you’ve been listening since the beginning, join me on some fun memories from this year.

-Andy

Featured 2022 episodes:

#70: A "Mixed" Bag with Geoff Durso

Mon, 02 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Geoff Durso studies what happens when we face mixed information. When people do good things and bad things. When a product has positive and negative qualities. Geoff's an assistant professor of marketing at DePaul University. He's also an old friend of mine. We met up at a conference and caught up, chatting about some of the cool work Geoff has done on the nature of ambivalence.

(As I mention in the intro, you can also check out Episode 35 with Iris Schneider for more on ambivalence.)

Things that come up in this episode:

Geoff's early work on ambivalence (Rydell & Durso, 2012)
The effects of expecting ambivalence (Durso et al., 2021)
How psychological power makes us delay making decisions when we're ambivalent (Durso et al., 2016)

#69: Directing Attention (and Other Lessons from the Science of Magic) with Anthony Barnhart (ft. Erik Tait)

Mon, 19 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -0500

Tony Barnhart is Associate Professor of Psychological Science at Carthage College. But just as notably, he's a magician. As a result of this dual identity, he has the unique distinction of being an expert in the psychology of magic. Magicians have long prided themselves on understanding and exploiting human psychology, but Tony actually brings a scientific perspective. He's on the committee for the Science of Magic Association and played a central role in the book Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Our Everyday Deceptions. Today on the podcast, Tony shares his work on the psychology of attention, what we can learn from magicians' expertise in "misdirection," and what science can give back to magic.

Opening the show is a chat with my buddy Erik Tait. Erik has the unique honor of recently placing third in card magic at F.I.S.M., the Olympics of magic. You can watch his winning act below. Erik shares his story of training for the big competition and what he's learned about the psychology of directing attention.

Things that come up in this episode:

We mention the "Invisible Gorilla" experiment a few times. You can learn more and see a video here.
For a nice overview of Tony's research on the psychology of magic, check out his 15-minute keynote address for the 2020 American Psychological Association virtual meeting (video)
Tracking people's attention by recording their eye movements while watching magic tricks (Barnhart & Goldinger, 2014)
"Microsaccades" (tiny eye movements) reveal whether people are fooled by a magic trick (Barnhart et al., 2019)
How auditory rhythms can direct visual attention (Barnhart et al., 2018)
Using "tactical blinking" as misdirection (Barnhart et al., 2022)

#68: Intellectual Humility with Tenelle Porter

Mon, 05 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -0500

Tenelle Porter is a new colleague of mine at Ball State University. She's an educational psychologist, and one of the things she studies is intellectual humility, which is people's awareness of the limits of their knowledge and the fallibility of their reasoning. Intellectual humility offers a variety of handy benefits even though there has been some disagreement about what it is, exactly. I was excited to sit down with Tenelle and get her take on intellectual humility, what it does for people, and when we ought to have more or less of it.

Things that come up in this episode:

For a nice summary of a lot of the things we discuss, check out Tenelle's new review article in Nature Reviews Psychology (Porter et al., 2022a)
Surveying different definitions of "intellectual humility" to clarify the content of this idea (Porter et al., 2022b)
Intellectual humility promotes openness to other opinions (Porter & Schumann, 2018)
Intellectual humility promotes mastery in learning (Porter et al., 2020)
Classroom environments can shape students' intellectual humility (Porter et al., 2022c)

#67: Confronting Prejudice with Margo Monteith

Mon, 21 Nov 2022 00:00:00 -0500

Margo Monteith is a Distinguished Professor of Psychological Sciences at Purdue University. She studies how we can reduce prejudice in the world by confronting those biases head-on. One way we can confront prejudice is to keep ourselves in check, paying attention to the ways in which we might say or do something biased. Another way we can confront prejudice is to call out other people when they say or do something biased. In our conversation, Margo gives a big overview of her work in these areas and highlights the importance of keeping these biases under control.

For big, up-to-date overviews of the research we talk about in this episode, you can check out a new chapter in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Monteith et al., 2022) and Margo's 2019 book with Robyn Mallet: Confronting Prejudice and Discrimination.

#66: Your Language Shapes Your Opinions with Efrén Pérez

Mon, 07 Nov 2022 00:00:00 -0500

Efrén Pérez is a professor is a professor of Political Science and Psychology at UCLA. He studies political attitudes and behaviors among various racial and ethnic groups in the United States. With Margit Tavits, he recently co-wrote the book Voicing Politics: How Language Shapes Public Opinion. The book is a fascinating summary of research they have conducted testing how the unique characteristics of the language your speak can shape your political opinions. Languages around the world differ in their emphasis on gender or on the future, which shapes how speakers think in those terms. Languages also carry meaning as to their status in society, which can also affect people's opinions about race and ethnicity.

In our conversation, Efrén shares how he got interested in language, what they've found in this research, and what questions they're tackling now.

Some things that come up in our conversation

How a language organizes its words for color can shape color perception (Roberson et al., 2005)
Language and opinion toward gender and LGBT equality (Perez & Tavits, 2019a; Tavits & Perez, 2019)
Language's use of future tense and opinions of distant dilemmas (Perez & Tavits, 2017)
Language status and the salience of ethnic divisions (Perez & Tavits, 2019b)
The value of "Latinx" (Vicuña & Pérez, in press)

Systemic Racism with Phia Salter (Rebroadcast)

Mon, 24 Oct 2022 00:00:00 -0400

This week, I'm out with COVID, so I'm re-sharing an early Opinion Science episode that has remained one of the most downloaded episodes of the show. I also took the opportunity to very slightly remaster it. See you in a couple weeks with a new episode!

Phia Salter takes a cultural psychology approach to studying racism. She’s an associate professor of Psychology at Davidson College, and in this episode she draws a contrast between thinking of racism as an individual bias versus thinking of it as systemic. She talks about her research on the “Marley hypothesis” and the ways in which our environments’ discussion of racial issues shapes our own views.

For more resources on understanding racism in the U.S., you can start by checking out Smithsonian magazine's Resources to Understand Racism in America.

Things we mention in this episode:

Dr. Salter's summary of research related to systemic racism (Salter, Adams, & Perez, 2018)
The "Marley Hypothesis": Historical knowledge associated with recognizing contemporary racism (Nelson, Adams, & Salter, 2013)
Research on preferences for different Black History Month materials (Salter & Adams, 2016)
Writings of Derrick Bell on Critical Race Theory (For an overview of the movement, Dr. Salter recommends Delgado and Stefancic's introductory book)
George Lipsitz's "The Possessive Investment in Whiteness"

#65: Language is for Doing with Thomas Holtgraves

Mon, 10 Oct 2022 00:00:00 -0400

Tom Holtgraves studies how language helps us do things. We use words to inquire, to instruct, to command, and to persuade. Words are social. He's currently a Professor of Psychological Science at Ball State University (just down the hall from me!), and his lab studies how people use language and other symbols (e.g., emoji) to successfully or unsuccessfully communicate with one another.

He edited the Oxford Handbook of Language and Social Psychology and authored Language as Social Action: Social Psychology and Language Use. In our conversation, Tom introduces me to Speech Act Theory and what his own work tells us about how we can get our intentions across through language.

Some things that come up in this episode:

J. L. Austin's book "How to Do Things with Words"
How we communicate uncertainty (Holtgraves, 2014; Holtgraves & Perdew, 2016)
How emoji are used to convey indirect meaning (Holtgraves & Robinson, 2020)
Politeness in conversational arguments (Holtgraves, 1997)

#64: Saving Democracy with Robb Willer

Mon, 26 Sep 2022 00:00:00 -0400

Robb Willer studies social and political divides, and maybe more importantly, he tries to find ways to overcome them. In our conversation, he shares his personal background, unpacks persuasion strategies that cut across political lines, and reveals the results of a major new study in his lab that tested a bunch of strategies for reducing political animosity and encouraging people to value democracy over other political attitudes.

Some things that come up in the episode:

How moral values can be used in persuasion to appeal to audiences across the political spectrum (Feinberg & Willer, 2019; also see this New York Times article)
The value of correcting "meta-perceptions" as a way to curb political prejudice (Mernyk, Pink, Druckman, & Willer, 2022)
A "mega-study" testing 25 interventions to address political animosity and democratic attitudes (Voelkel et al., working paper)

Audio for the opening of the show from BBC, CBC, and CNN.

SciComm Summer #13: John Sides - Contributing to Political Discussion

Mon, 29 Aug 2022 00:00:00 -0400

John Sides is a political scientist at Vanderbilt University and co-founded The Monkey Cage, which is a popular political science blog now available at the Washington Post. The blog gives academic social scientists a platform to use their expertise to help the public understand political news. In our conversation, John talks about the origins of TMC, the kinds of articles that are successful, and how (and why!) to write well for a public audience.

This episode is the final episode in a special podcast series on science communication. You can find more info and episodes here: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/hot-scicomm-summer/

Video going over key ideas from the scicomm series: https://youtu.be/Fbx2Xj4KcU0

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

SciComm Summer #12: Steve Rathje - Social Science on TikTok

Mon, 22 Aug 2022 00:00:00 -0400

Steve Rathje has managed to rack up more than a million followers on TikTok (@stevepsychology) while pursuing a PhD in social psychology (and doing some very cool research). He shares quick videos about key insights from psychological science that are reaching an entirely new audience. In our conversation, he fills me in on the finer points of TikTok as a platform, why it's uniquely suited to science communication, and how Steve approaches each video to bring insights from social science to a largely untapped audience.

This episode is part of a special podcast series on science communication. You can find more info and episodes here: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/hot-scicomm-summer/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

SciComm Summer #11: Alie and Micah Caldwell - Building an Independent YouTube Channel

Mon, 15 Aug 2022 00:00:00 -0400

Alie and Micah Caldwell produce the YouTube channel, Neuro Transmissions. Their videos present the basics of neuroscience and psychology in an accessible, engaging way. Alie is a neuroscientist and senior science writer at the University of Chicago Medicine. Micah is a licensed professional clinical counselor. In our conversation, we talk about the origins of Neuro Transmissions, their philosophy of science communication, and their new book.

(This episode is a rebroadcast of Opinion Science #40: "Explaining Brains".)

This episode is part of a special podcast series on science communication. You can find more info and episodes here: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/hot-scicomm-summer/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

SciComm Summer #10: Tim Houlihan & Kurt Nelson - Interviewing Behavioral Scientists

Mon, 08 Aug 2022 00:00:00 -0400

Tim Houlihan and Kurt Nelson are the hosts of Behavioral Grooves, which is a wonderful weekly podcast featuring interviews with behavioral scientists and practitioners. For #HotSciCommSummer, I wanted to learn more about how they started their podcast journey, what advice they have for budding podcasters, and what advice they have for academics who are going to be interviewed about their work.

This episode is part of a special podcast series on science communication. You can find more info and episodes here: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/hot-scicomm-summer/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

SciComm Summer #9: Jesse Thorn - Interviewing

Mon, 01 Aug 2022 00:00:00 -0400

Jesse Thorn hosts the show "Bullseye" on NPR where he interviews people in arts and culture. A few years ago, he interviewed a bunch of incredible interviewers for his podcast, "The Turnaround." He's just the guy to talk to about the craft of interviewing people of note, which is a skill that's called for in lots of science communication efforts. So I was excited to meet Jesse and get his take on interviewing, including some really great tangible tips.

This episode is part of a special podcast series on science communication. You can find more info and episodes here: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/hot-scicomm-summer/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

SciComm Summer #8: Vanessa Bohns - Writing Books as an Academic

Mon, 25 Jul 2022 00:00:00 -0400

Vanessa Bohns is a social psychologist at Cornell University, and last year she release a book for the public: You Have More Influence Than You Think. It's a great book about a program of research she's been working on for year. I wanted to talk to Vanessa about what it was like to translate her research into a format that would be useful and digestible for non-academic audiences. We also talk about why a full-time researcher would take on a project like this, how to actually accomplish it, and then what happens when the book is out there in the world.

Vanessa was a previous guest on Opinion Science (Ep. 19: More Influence Than You Realize with Vanessa Bohns), and it was great to have her back on for this summer's science communication series.

This episode is part of a special podcast series on science communication. You can find more info and episodes here: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/hot-scicomm-summer/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

SciComm Summer #7: Dan Pink - Writing Books

Mon, 18 Jul 2022 00:00:00 -0400

Daniel Pink is a bestselling author who uses social science research to explore big questions about what it means to be human. He’s written seven books, and his newest one came out last February—The Power of Regret. You can also check out his Masterclass on sales and persuasion. In our conversation, Dan gives a look into his writing process. How does he go from an idea for a book to the final product? And how does he draw on social science along the way? This was a super fun chat—check it out!

[Please note this is mostly a re-broadcast of Opinion Science, Episode 48]

This episode is part of a special podcast series on science communication. You can find more info and episodes here: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/hot-scicomm-summer/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

SciComm Summer #6: Evelyn Carter - Training and Consulting

Mon, 11 Jul 2022 00:00:00 -0400

Evelyn Carter is a social psychologist who specializes in communicating science-based practices in diversity, equity, and inclusion to organizations. She leads workshops, gives talks, develops courses, gives interviews with the media, and writes newsletters…all of which requires a special skill for making science understandable and actionable. She’s currently the president at Paradigm, which is a company that provides consulting services, workshops, and products that are designed to build organizations that diverse, equitable, and inclusive.

In our conversation, Evelyn shares how she had to chart out her own path and gives advice for communicating nuanced and sensitive findings from social science to the public.

This episode is part of a special podcast series on science communication. You can find more info and episodes here: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/hot-scicomm-summer/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

SciComm Summer #5: Taylor Scott - Bridging Research and Policy

Mon, 04 Jul 2022 00:00:00 -0400

Taylor Scott is an assistant research professor at Penn State, she's the director of research translation in the Evidence-to-Impact Collaborative, and she's co-director of the Research-to-Policy Collaboration. In this episode, we talk about the relationship between scientists and policymakers, how to facilitate those interactions, and ultimately what social science research might have to contribute to policy initiatives.

If you're a researcher and you're interested in getting involved with the Research-to-Policy Collaboration, you can enter your information here: https://research2policy.org/participating-researchers/

You can read more about the Research-to-Policy Collaboration model and their empirical work in several journal publications, including papers in PNAS (Crowley et al., 2021), American Psychologist (Crowley et al., 2021), and American Journal of Public Health (Long et al., 2021).

This episode is part of a special podcast series on science communication. You can find more info and episodes here: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/hot-scicomm-summer/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

SciComm Summer #4: David Nussbaum - Writing Op-Eds

Mon, 27 Jun 2022 00:00:00 -0400

David Nussbaum is a social psychologist with a keen talent for pitching Op-Eds. He's worked with many social scientists to land articles in major outlets, including the New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, etc. He recently launched a new non-profit organization, Psychgeist Media, which aims to help researchers share their work with the public in an accurate and engaging way. You definitely want to get on their email list because their monthly newsletter is great.

In our conversation, we spend some time walking the process of pitching and writing this Op-Ed that was published in the Washington Post last year: "Small talk is boring. Our research shows how you can do better."

This episode is part of a special podcast series on science communication. You can find more info and episodes here: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/hot-scicomm-summer/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

SciComm Summer #3: David McRaney - Making Social Science Engaging

Mon, 20 Jun 2022 00:00:00 -0400

David McRaney is a writer and podcaster who has been covering important work in psychology for many years. Although he was a guest on Opinion Science a few months ago (Episode 58: How Minds Change with David McRaney), I also used the opportunity to ask him about his process for communicating psychological research to the public. So, the first 15 minutes of this episode is a repeat of his earlier appearance, but the rest of the interview hasn't been released until now.

We talk about the challenges of knowing what your audience already knows, how to situate science reporting within accessible narratives, and the big question of why it's worth engaging with social science in a public setting at all.

David's new book, How Minds Change, comes out tomorrow and is definitely worth picking up. You should also throw his podcast You Are Not So Smart on your podcast app now because it's great.

This episode is part of a special podcast series on science communication. You can find more info and episodes here: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/hot-scicomm-summer/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

SciComm Summer #2: Meryl Horn - Producing the "Science Vs" Podcast

Mon, 13 Jun 2022 00:00:00 -0400

Meryl Horn is a producer at Science Vs from Gimlet Media and Spotify. Science Vs is a popular science podcast that pits timely claims against scientific evidence. It's a great show. You should listen to it.

Before being a podcast producer, Meryl got her PhD in Neuroscience from the University of California San Francisco. She shares how she went from being a graduate student to working professionally in science communication. She also breaks down the process of pitching, researching, and completing an episode of Science Vs, including helpful advice for translating niche science findings to a mainstream audience.

We pay particular attention to this episode of Science Vs from last year: "Burnout: Can We Fix Work?"

This episode is part of a special podcast series on science communication. You can find more info and episodes here: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/hot-scicomm-summer/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

SciComm Summer #1: Joss Fong - Producing Science Videos

Mon, 06 Jun 2022 00:00:00 -0400

Joss Fong is a senior editorial producer at Vox. She produces science videos on a variety of topics, pushing the medium in ever more creative directions to convey interesting and important ideas.

We spend a lot of our time talking about her most recent video: "How American conservatives turned against the vaccine"

Here are some of the other videos we talked about in this episode:

All of Joss’ videos for Vox are available in this YouTube playlist.

Also, Joss mentioned a great animation-based science channel on YouTube: Kurzgesagt

This episode is part of a special podcast series on science communication. You can find more info and episodes here: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/hot-scicomm-summer/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Introducing "SciComm Summer"

Mon, 30 May 2022 00:00:00 -0400

Special summer series on science communication! Regular Opinion Science episodes will resume in September.

Announcing a special podcast mini-series for the summer focused on social science communication. I wanted to talk to a bunch of people who have become experts at communicating research outside of academia through different forms of media.

I also wanted to emphasize the unique challenge of social science communication. I felt that a lot of the popular discussions of science communication have focused on topics like chemistry, biology, astronomy…all important and interesting in their own right. But communicating findings in psychology, political science, and economics comes with its own quirks. Of course, the series is still largely under the SciComm banner.

#63: Why Polls Matter with G. Elliott Morris

Mon, 23 May 2022 00:00:00 -0400

G. Elliott Morris is a data journalist for The Economist. In July 2022, he’s releasing his first book, Strength in Numbers: How Polls Work and Why We Need Them. The book takes a critical look at the history and current use of public opinion polling and the role it plays in democracy. Morris also contributed to The Economist’s 2020 presidential election forecasts. We talk about how he got involved in all of this, sources of error in polling, and the importance of opinion polls.

Also in this episode, we hear from Andrew Kozak (@andrewkozaktv), meteorologist for Spectrum News 1 in Ohio. He shares how weather forecasting works and common misconceptions about forecasts.

Some music sourced from Blue Dot Sessions.

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/polls-polling-g-elliott-morris/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#62: Persuasion via Emotion with Robin Nabi

Mon, 09 May 2022 00:00:00 -0400

Robin Nabi is a professor of communication at the University of California-Santa Barbara. She studies how emotional appeals can (and cannot) lead people to change their thoughts and behaviors. She’s published important research on the effects of anger, humor, and guilt, and she’s also developed integrated theories about how emotions can work together in the persuasion process. We talk about all this and more!

When we talk about humor and persuasion, we briefly mention Dannagal Young’s prior appearance on the show. To listen to that check out: Episode 19: Political Humor as Persuasion with Danna Young

Some things that come up in our conversation:

Sarah McLaclan’s powers of emotional manipulation (ASPCA)
Aristotle’s treatise on Rhetoric, including ethos (Miyawaki, 2017), logos (Trebing, 2017), and pathos (Tollefson, 2017).
Robin has a nice summary of work in this area in a chapter for The International Encyclopedia of Media Effects (Nabi, 2017)
Emotion is not as irrational as we may believe (e.g., Clore, 2011; Mull, 2019)
Emotions can help frame an issue (Nabi, 2003)
“Emotional flow” or the sequence of emotions in a message (Nabi, 2015)

Some sound effects sourced from freesfx.co.uk

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/persuasion-via-emotion-with-robin-nabi/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#61: Moral Conviction with Linda Skitka

Mon, 25 Apr 2022 00:00:00 -0400

Linda Skitka is a distinguished professor of psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She's been studying people's moral convictions--the opinions that we connect to our core sense of moral right and wrong. Two people might agree about universal healthcare, for example, but they might disagree about how much their positions on this issue are drawn from their personal moral compass. Over the years, Linda and her colleagues have found that our opinions take on a different character if we've attached a feeling of moral significance to them.

A few things than come up in this episode:

Bernie Sanders’ 2016 speech urging people to treat inequality as a moral issue.
In the opening, I discuss some research I did on how the mere perception of moral relevance makes opinions harder to change (Luttrell et al., 2016)
For a summary of the research on moral conviction, Linda and her colleagues recently published a great overview in Annual Review of Psychology (Skitka et al., 2021)
The early days of distinguishing moral conviction from other characteristics (Skitka et al., 2005)
People resist conformity when they hold a morally convicted attitude (Aramovich et al., 2012)
The question of how emotion plays a role in moralized opinions (Brandt et al., 2015; Skitka & Wisneski, 2011; Skitka et al., 2018; Wisneski & Skitka, 2016)

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/moral-conviction-with-linda-skitka/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#60: "Unconscious" Bias? with Adam Hahn

Mon, 11 Apr 2022 00:00:00 -0400

Adam Hahn spends a lot of time thinking about how well people know their own biases. Sure, people often refer to "implicit bias" as social biases that exist unconsciously. But do they really? How strongly can we claim we're unaware of these attitudes and is there any reason to think people can readily tell you what their gut reactions are when they encounter people of different racial, gender, and religious identities? Adam's a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath.

A few things that come up in our conversation:

In the intro, I talk about the work of Russ Fazio (e.g., Fazio et al., 1986) and John Bargh (e.g., Bargh et al., 1992) looking into the automatic activation of attitudes. I also highlight Greenwald and Banaji's (1995) presentation of "implicit social cognition." (The quote about using "implicit" to refer to processes outside of awareness is from a 2001 chapter by Banaji and Tesser.) Also, big tip of the hat to Adam Hahn for helping me organize the structure of the introduction.
You can take the Implicit Association Test (IAT) at "Project Implicit"
Whether implicit bias is unconscious depends on how you define "unconscious" (Hahn & Goedderz, 2020)
People can predict their scores on the IAT (Hahn et al., 2014; Hahn & Gawronski, 2019)
People's predictions of their IAT performance is predictable (Rivera & Hahn, 2019)
For details on some of the newer (unpublished as of yet) work that Adam talks about, you might enjoy this 2021 talk he gave at Université Grenoble Alpes.

News clips at the top of the show were sourced from the following: NPR [1] [2], 5News, CBSNews, Devex, Christian Science Monitor, CNN, & The Young Turks.

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/unconscious-bias-with-adam-hahn/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and fol

#59: Belief Systems with Mark Brandt

Mon, 28 Mar 2022 00:00:00 -0400

Mark Brandt studies a bunch of things. He’s an assistant professor of psychology at Michigan State University. These days, he’s been exploring how we can think about belief systems as a network of interconnected opinions. Using mathematical simulations that specify how people’s opinions can be connected, Mark and his team have been able to establish a core model that explains a bunch of findings from political psychology.

Mark also co-organizes a free online seminar, the Minority Politics Online Seminar Series (MPOSS). Check it out for a bunch of great presentations by researchers who are studying a range of important topics.

A few things that come up in our conversation:

We focus on a recent summary of the idea that networks can help explain belief systems (Brandt & Sleegers, 2021)
Using network analysis, we can identify which opinions are central to a belief system (Brandt et al., 2019)
It is difficult to quantify an individual person’s network of opinions (Brandt & Morgan, 2022; Brandt, 2022)

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/belief-systems-with-mark-brandt/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#58: How Minds Change with David McRaney (ft. Adam Mastroianni)

Mon, 14 Mar 2022 00:00:00 -0400

David McRaney is an author and host of the podcast You Are Not So Smart. In June, he’s releasing a new book—How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion (you can pre-order it now). In the book, David goes on a wild journey to understand the mechanics of persuasion. He combines research in psychology with stories of persuasion on the ground to arrive at an understanding of when and why people end up changing their opinions. In our conversation, David shares how he got wrapped up in reporting on social science research, why he wanted to learn more about persuasion, and what he’s learned about how minds change.

Also at the top of the episode is a look at some brand new research by Adam Mastroiannion how public opinion in the United States has changed over the years…and how people are generally ignorant about what these changes have been. For details, check out the paper (Mastroianni & Danas, 2022), which came out last week in PNAS. (You should also check out Adam’s blog, Experimental History.)

Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions.

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/how-minds-change-with-david-mcraney/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#57: Media, Norms, and Social Change with Sohad Murrar

Mon, 28 Feb 2022 00:00:00 -0500

Sohad Murrar studies how media and norms affect people's opinions about social groups. Does media representation matter? Can infotainment aimed at reducing misconceptions really work? In this episode, Sohad gives us a glimpse into what the research says, her own experiences consulting with Hollywood creatives, and how conveying social norms can be a potent way of addressing prejudice.

Also at the top of the show, you'll hear about a radio program from the 1930s: "Americans All--Immigrants All." You can listen to most episodes of that show at WNYC's archives. Many of the details about the program and how it responded to anti-immigrant prejudice at the time is thanks to a wonderful book by Susan Herbst: A Troubled Birth: The 1930s and American Public Opinion.

Some of the research Sohad and I talk about includes:

Thoughtfully produced infotainment can lead to reduced prejudice in viewers (Murrary & Brauer, 2018)
How stories can foster more positive attitudes toward social groups (Murrar & Brauer, 2019)
Conveying pro-diversity social norms serves to increase tolerance and inclusion (Murrar, Campbell, & Brauer, 2020)

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/media-norms-social-change-with-sohad-murrar/

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#56: Receptiveness to Other Opinions with Julia Minson

Mon, 14 Feb 2022 00:00:00 -0500

Julia Minson studies the psychology of disagreement. In particular, she's been working to understand what sorts of people are receptive to other opinions and how our perceptions of other people's receptiveness can improve conversations. Dr. Minson is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of government.

Some things that come up in this episode:

StoryCorps and the One Small Step initiative (the clip at the beginning of the episode is from "Family Politics")
For a big overview of the kinds of things we discuss, check out a recent review article about receptiveness by Julia and her colleague, Frances Chen (Minson & Chen, in press)
The effects of asking questions on receptiveness (Chen, Minson, & Tormala, 2010)
Eye contact can foster resistance to persuasion (Chen, Minson, Schöne, & Heinrichs, 2013)
Measuring receptiveness to opposing views as a personal trait (Minson, Chen, & Tinsley, 2019)
Developing an algorithm to detect receptiveness using language (Yeomans, Minson, et al., 2020)

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/receptiveness-with-julia-minson/

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#55: Stereotypes at the Intersection with Chris Petsko

Mon, 31 Jan 2022 00:00:00 -0500

Chris Petsko studies which stereotypes come to mind in a given moment. He's a social psychologist and postdoctoral scholar at Duke University. I talk with Chris about his "lens-based account of intersectional stereotyping," which argues that we can only pay attention to one social identity at a time. As a result, the stereotypes that come to mind depend on the one lens through which we're seeing someone at the moment.

Things we mention in this episode:

Walter Lippman's 1922 book "Public Opinion"
Testing a lens-based account of intersectional stereotyping (Petsko, Rosette, & Bodenhausen, 2022)
An early summary of a lens-based theory of categorization and stereotyping (Petkso & Bodenhausen, 2020)
Sexual orientation and racial identity interact to predict relevant outcomes (Petsko & Bodenhausen, 2019)

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/stereotypes-at-the-intersection-with-chris-petsko/

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#54: Influence is Your Superpower with Zoe Chance

Mon, 17 Jan 2022 00:00:00 -0500

Zoe Chance is an assistant professor of marketing at the Yale School of Management. Prior to Yale, she managed a $200 million segment of the Barbie brand at Mattel. In February, she's releasing her first book: Influence Is Your Superpower.

In this episode, we talk about Zoe's winding road to becoming a business school professor, the class she teaches at Yale on influence and persuasion, and the insights she shares in her upcoming book.

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/influence-is-your-superpower-with-zoe-chance/

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

BONUS: "Best" of Opinion Science (2021)

Sun, 09 Jan 2022 00:00:00 -0500

Another year in the books! Sure, there was a lot of wild stuff in 2021--an insurrection, COVID vaccine rollouts, a new president, another installment in the Tiger King franchise...and my daughter was born!

But through it all, we had Opinion Science. This year saw a bunch of new listeners, amazing guests, and some ambitious episodes. Your support has meant a lot.

So even though I'm a couple weeks behind on this, I wanted put together another "best of" episode, featuring notable moments from the podcast in 2021. As I said in the 2020 "best of" episode, it’s not truly a “best of” per se because I really am attached to every episode. S eriously, there's something in every episode of the show that has stuck with me. So instead, I’ve chosen some particularly meaningful episodes for me, fan favorites, and moments that highlight what this show is all about.

If you’re new to the show, this is a great place to start! And if you’ve been listening since the beginning, join me on some fun memories from this year.

-Andy

Featured 2021 episodes:

#53: Influence on the Ground with Brian Ahearn

Mon, 03 Jan 2022 00:00:00 -0500

Brian Ahearn specializes in applying the science of influence in everyday situations. He is one of only a dozen individuals in the world who currently holds the Cialdini Method Certified Trainer® (CMCT) designation, and he teaches the psychology of persuasion and influence as it applies to sales and other aspects of our lives.

He's the author of Influence PEOPLE, which was named one of the best influence books of all time by BookAuthority. He followed that up with Persuasive Selling for Relationship Driven Insurance Agents.

Late last year, he released a new book, The Influencer, which uses narrative to teach principles of influence.

In a lot of ways, our conversation follows up on my interview with Robert Cialdini from earlier this year, so be sure to check out Episode 37: Influence with Robert Cialdini.

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/influence-on-the-ground-with-brian-ahearn/

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Giving and Getting Good Gifts [Rebroadcast]

Mon, 20 Dec 2021 00:00:00 -0500

This is a rebroadcast of Episode 27: Giving and Getting Good Gifts (December 21, 2020).

It’s that time of year when winter holidays send people on a buying spree as they collect gifts to give to every friend, family member, and acquaintance. And you’d think that after so many years of giving gifts for all sorts of holidays, we’d be pretty good at it. Right? Well, not according to research in psychology. In this episode, we explore the psychology of why giving to others is such a good thing to do, and also where gift givers go wrong. Along the way, we’ll pick up some tips for how to approach giving in a smarter, more effective way.

Many guests in this episode!

We hear from Laura and Bethany Sanders about childhood gifting go awry. Laura Sanders is a stand-up comedian and illustrator, so check out her work!
Dr. Lara Aknin is an associate professor of Social Psychology at Simon Fraser University. She studies what makes people happy.
Dr. Jeff Galak is an associate professor of Marketing at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business. He also runs the YouTube channel, “Data Demystified.”
Dr. Julian Giviis an assistant professor of Marketing at West Virginia University's John Chambers College of Business and Economics. He studies gift-giving.

Research in this episode:

Part I: Why give to others? Lara Aknin and her colleagues found that college students were happier when giving money to other people vs. spending on themselves (Dunn, Aknin, & Norton, 2008). She has replicated this finding all over the world, with kids, and other populations (see Dunn et al., 2020).

Part II: How gift-givers and gift-recipients disagree.

A. Gift-givers focus on the moment of giving whereas recipients are thinking more long-term (Galak, Givi, & Williams (2016)

B. Gift-givers think price matters more than receivers do (Flynn & Adams, 2009)

C. Givers avoid repeatedly giving the same thing, but recipients don’t mind (Givi, 2020)

D. People opt to give sentimental gifts less often than receivers would prefer (Givi & Galak, 2017); giving something as a gift can also imbue it with sentimentality and make the affection for the gift last longer (Yang & Givi, 2015)

E. Just ask people what they want (Gino & Flynn, 2011)

F. Giver-centric gifts make people feel closer to each other, even though we think recipient-focused gifts are the most appropriate (Aknin & Human, 2015)

Check out my new audio course on Knowable:

#52: Applying Behavioral Science with Melina Palmer

Mon, 06 Dec 2021 00:00:00 -0500

Melina Palmer is founder and CEO of The Brainy Business, which provides behavioral economics consulting to businesses of all sizes from around the world. Her podcast, The Brainy Business, has downloads in over 160 countries and is used as a resource for teaching applied behavioral economics for many universities and businesses.

In this episode, I talk to Melina about how she got involved in the world of behavioral science, what behavioral economics means to her, and how she goes about applying research in social science to address real challenges in business.

You can read the first chapter of her book, What Your Customer Wants and Can’t Tell You, for free using this link: http://www.thebrainybusiness.com/opinionscience

For more information about my comments about "honesty nudges" at the end of the episode, you can check on a recent article by Kristal et al. (2020) and this BuzzFeed News article.

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/applying-behavioral-science-with-melina-palmer/

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#51: On Debate with Harish Natarajan, Dan Zafrir, & Noa Ovadia

Mon, 22 Nov 2021 00:00:00 -0500

This episode follows up on the previous episode of Opinion Science about IBM's Project Debater. If you haven't already, be sure to check out that episode.

But this week we hear more from Harish Natarajan, Dan Zafrir, and Noa Ovadia--three accomplished debaters. They'll share how they got into debate, what debate means to them, and why the exercise of debate is so important.

In the opening section of the episode, we hear a quick clip from social psychologist Richard Petty. And the study I summarize is from a working paper by Peter Schwardmann, Egon Tripodi, and Joël J. van der Weele.

Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue).

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/debate-with-harish-natarajan-dan-zafrir-noa-ovadia/

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#50: To Persuade is Human?

Mon, 08 Nov 2021 00:00:00 -0500

In 2019, IBM introduced the world to Project Debater: an AI system that could go up against humans to debate anything. In this episode, we trace Project Debater’s growth from just an idea to a fully fledged piece of technology and the public debates it’s engaged in. And it raises a bigger question: is persuasion a fundamentally human ability or is it really something that machines are capable of?

We hear from IBM engineer and project leaders Noam Slonim, expert debaters Harish Natarajan, Dan Zafrir, and Noa Ovadia, communication neuroscientist Elisa Baek, and best-selling author Daniel Pink.

To learn more about Project Debater, visit IBM’s Project Debater website and watch this great mini documentary about the system.

Clips from IBM events were made available by IBM and are licensed creative commons.

For a transcript of this episode, head to: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/to-persuade-is-human/

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#49: Inoculating Against Persuasion with Josh Compton

Mon, 25 Oct 2021 00:00:00 -0400

Josh Compton studies how “inoculating” people against persuasion can make them more resistant to arguments they encounter later. Dr. Compton is an associate professor of speech at Dartmouth and has written a lot about “inoculation theory,” which began (as a theory) back in the 60s with the work of William McGuire. We talk about lots of inoculation theory’s many extensions and applications.

Things we mention in this episode:

The “virgin-soil epidemic” explanation of disease spread among indigenous people following Columbus’ voyage to the Americas. (See this Atlantic article by Ostler, 2020)
William McGuire’s original formulation of “inoculation theory” (McGuire, 1964)
A lot of the work Josh discusses is reviewed in Compton et al. (2021) and Compton (2021).
Online games that help inoculate against fake news: “Bad News”, “Breaking Harmony Square”, and “Go Viral!”

For a transcript of this episode, go to: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/inoculating-against-persuasion-with-josh-compton/

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#48: "Selling" Social Science with Daniel Pink

Mon, 11 Oct 2021 00:00:00 -0400

Daniel Pink is a bestselling author who uses social science research to explore big questions about what it means to be human. He’s written six books, and a new one comes out in February—The Power of Regret. You can also check out his Masterclass on sales and persuasion. In our conversation, Dan gives a look into his writing process. How does he go from an idea for a book to the final product? And how does he draw on social science along the way? This was a super fun chat—check it out!

Things that come up in our conversation:

Scapple: a mind-mapping app that Dan uses.
The psychology of counterfactual thinking (see Smallman & Summerville, 2018)
Classic social influence study on reusing hotel towels (Goldstein, Cialdini, & Griskevicius, 2008)
“Paper Lion” by George Plimpton
Stumbling on Happiness by Dan Gilbert
How to Change by Katy Milkman

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#47: Moral Foundations & Political Opinion with Jesse Graham

Mon, 27 Sep 2021 00:00:00 -0400

Jesse Graham studies human morality and what it means for our political opinions. He’s an Associate Professor of Management at the Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah. As a graduate student with Jonathan Haidt, he helped develop Moral Foundations Theory (MFT), which has gone on to be a massively influential theory of morality and how it develops. One of Jesse’s key insights was that these moral foundations help explain the divides between liberal and conservative people, which has implications for all kinds of political opinions and pressing topics like political polarization.

In our conversation, Jesse fills us in on the early days of his research and the development of MFT over time, walks through the implications of MFT for political ideology, and reflects on where the theory is now.

Things that come up in this episode:

Divisions between liberal and conservatives: antipathy (Iyengar et al., 2019), geographic segregation (Motyl et al., 2014), avoiding each other’s opinions (Frimer, Skitka, & Motyl, 2017), and even shorter Thanksgiving dinners (Chen & Rohla, 2018; Frimer & Skitka, 2020)
Jonathan Haidt’s “Social Intuitionist Model” of morality (Haidt, 2001)
Moral Foundations Theory (Graham et al., 2013; for a useful overview, check out MoralFoundations.org)
Values beyond the moral (Schwartz, 1992)
How adult political leanings can be predicted from observations of them as kids (Block & Block, 2006)
Ideology and geographic preferences (Motyl et al., 2020)
Moral foundations and the basis of vaccine attitudes (Amin et al., 2017; Karimi-Malekabadi et al., 2021), needle exchange attitudes (Christie et al., 2019), and a variety of political attitudes including abortion (Koleva et al., 2012)

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/moral-foundations-political-opinion-with-jesse-graham

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#46: Polling 101 with Ashley Amaya

Mon, 13 Sep 2021 00:00:00 -0400

Dr. Ashley Amaya is a senior survey methodologist at Pew Research Center. She has a PhD in Survey Methodology and is an expert when it comes to polling the country’s opinions. Our conversation highlights how the simple polling numbers you see on the news are the results of months—sometimes years—of work.

Dr. Amaya shares how Pew recruits and maintains high-quality samples of survey respondents, carefully designs the questions that get asked, and checks their surveys’ demographics against the broader population. We also talk about what consumers should look for when assessing a poll’s legitimacy and where else experts are looking for the public’s opinion.

A few things that come up in this episode:

65% of U.S. adults think there is intelligent life on other planets (Pew Research Center; June 30, 2021)
Pew Report: “Measuring the Risks of Panel Conditioning in Survey Research” (June 9, 2021)
Sampling methods: address-based sampling vs. random digit dialing (RDD) vs. non-probability sampling
Weighting survey responses by demographics (see this page on Pew’s website)
The importance of well-written survey questions (see this video from Pew)

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/polling-101-with-ashley-amaya/

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Portraits: "Just Because You Asked" (Vanessa Bohns)

Mon, 06 Sep 2021 00:00:00 -0400

In a new occasional series on Opinion Science, Portraits gives a snapshot of insights in social science. This week, Dr. Vanessa Bohns shows us how we're more influential than we give ourselves credit for.

Vanessa's new book is You Have More Influence Than You Think. It's available September 7th.

To hear the full conversation I had with Vanessa, go back to Episode 21 of Opinion Science: More Influence Than You Realize with Vanessa Bohns.

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#45: How Kids Judge with Larisa Heiphetz

Mon, 30 Aug 2021 00:00:00 -0400

Larisa Heiphetz studies how kids think about religion and morality. She’s an assistant professor of psychology at Columbia University where she runs the Columbia Social and Moral Cognition Lab. As a new dad, I’ve been thinking about how young kids form opinions—do they even form opinions at all? So I was curious to talk with Larisa about her work on how kids make different kinds of judgments and think about their new social worlds.

If your interested in participating yourself (or your young child!) in Dr. Heiphetz’s research, you can sign up for studies here: https://columbiasamclab.weebly.com/childstudysign-up.html

Things we mention in this episode:

Developmental psychology as a research tool to understand big questions (see Heiphetz, 2014)
How we think of moral as different from facts and preferences (e.g., Heiphetz et al., 2013, 2014, 2017)
Research on how kids evaluate “helpers” and “hinderers” (e.g., Hamlin & Van de Vondervoort, 2018).
Psychological “essentialism” and why kids tend to think that way (Heiphetz, 2020)

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/how-kids-judge-with-larisa-heiphetz/

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#44: The Contact Hypothesis

Mon, 16 Aug 2021 00:00:00 -0400

How can we make the world less prejudiced? Research from the social sciences hints at a promising solution. This week, we do a deep dive on “The Contact Hypothesis”: what it is, how we know it works, and what its limits are.

We hear from four experts in this area whose research sheds light on the question:

Tom Pettigrew, emeritus professor of psychology at University of California, Santa Cruz
Linda Tropp, professor of social psychology at University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Shreya Bhattacharya, economist; PhD from the University of Houston
Salma Mousa, assistant professor of political science at Yale University

For a transcript of this episode, fully annotated with references, go to: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/the-contact-hypothesis/

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#43: Values with Greg Maio

Mon, 02 Aug 2021 00:00:00 -0400

Greg Maio studies human values. He’s a professor of psychology at the University of Bath in England.* He also co-wrote the popular textbook, The Psychology of Attitudes and Attitude Change, and in 2016, his own book came out called The Psychology of Human Values. In our conversation, he shares his work on what values are and why they’re so important. We talk about when values guide or choices (and when they don’t), how people have a hard time articulating their values, and how we can design interventions around the values that people can come together on.

*In my intro for this episode, I mistakenly said the University of Bath was in Wales. It is actually in England. Greg was at Cardiff University for years before recently moving to Bath, and Cardiff is in Wales. Sorry for the mixup!

Some things we mention in this episode:

What are values? (See this useful online article by Dr. Maio.)
How do values work and how has the science on this evolved? (see Maio, 2010)
How values can act as “truisms” that make them hard to defend (Maio & Olson, 1998; Bernard, Maio, & Olson, 2003; 2005)
Values can contribute unity on otherwise divisive issues (e.g., Wolf, Haddock, Manstead, & Maio, 2020)

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/values-with-greg-maio/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#42: Thinking with Richard Nisbett

Mon, 19 Jul 2021 00:00:00 -0400

Richard E. Nisbett has spent his career studying how people think. He is an emeritus professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan, and his research has influenced how psychologists think about reasoning, introspection, culture, and intelligence. He has written several important books over his career, including The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently…and Why and Mindware: Tools for Smart Thinking.

His newest book is Thinking: A Memoir.

In this episode, Nisbett shares samples of his work relating to our inability to know the inner workings of our own minds, whether we can call various cognitive biases “errors” in reasoning, and how culture shapes the way we interact with the world.

Some things that come up in this episode:

Nisbett’s favorite study: Norman R. F. Maier’s finding that people fail to understand where their insights come from (Maier, 1931)
The classic set of studies by Richard Nisbett and Tim Wilson on our failure to introspect on cognitive processes (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977)
The study where a goat entered a classroom (but that was really about intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation; Lepper, Greene, & Nisbett, 1973)
Nisbett’s work on errors in reasoning (Nisbett & Ross, 1980; Nisbett, 1992)
Early work by Hazel Markus and Shinobu Kitayama on the effects of culture on how we think about ourselves (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; also see Markus’ book Clash!)
The “Culture of Honor” (Nisbett, 1996)
Cross-cultural differences in analytic versus holistic thinking (see Nibsett’s Geography of Thought for a summary)

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/thinking-with-richard-nisbett/

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Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#41: Taking Social Science into the World with Neil Lewis Jr.

Mon, 05 Jul 2021 00:00:00 -0400

Neil Lewis Jr. doesn’t just study social questions—he studies them in the places where they matter. He’s an assistant professor of communication at Cornell University, and he’s interested in social inequities, how they work, and how we can address them. In addition to his own research, he also consults for organizations and contributes to FiveThirtyEight. He was named a Rising Star by the Association for Psychological Science in 2019 and won the SAGE Young Scholar award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in 2020.

In our conversation, Neil shares his research on health communication and education disparities, talks about what it takes to collaborate outside of academic institutions, and how he approaches science communication.

Things we mention in this episode:

In my introduction to this episode, I pull from a variety of sources to highlight the value of applied psychological research. These include the research by the Research Branch, Information and Education Division of the War Department, a history of social psychology (Kruglanski & Stroebe, 2011), Kurt Lewin’s research on eating organ meats (Lewin, 1943), reflections on social psychology’s “fun and games” (Ring, 1967), references to social psychology’s “crisis of confidence” (Elms, 1975), and Katz’s reflection on the value of basic and applied social research (Katz, 1951).
Field study of health messages in a physician waiting room (Lewis et al., 2020) and the laboratory research it was based on (Albarracin et al., 2007)
Neil brings up a controversial paper suggesting that social psychology isn’t a science—instead, it’s a study of history (Gergen, 1973)

The opening of the episode features audio from the World War II film, Why We Fight: Prelude to War, produced by the U.S. Office of War Information (1942).

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/taking-social-science-into-the-world-with-neil-lewis-jr/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#40: Explaining Brains with Alie and Micah Caldwell

Mon, 21 Jun 2021 00:00:00 -0400

Alie and Micah Caldwell produce the YouTube channel, Neuro Transmissions. Their videos present the basics of neuroscience and psychology in an accessible, engaging way. Alie is a neuroscientist and senior science writer at the University of Chicago Medicine. Micah is a licensed professional clinical counselor. In our conversation, we talk about the origins of Neuro Transmissions, their philosophy of science communication, and their new book.

Check your local bookstores for their upcoming book: Brains Explained: How They Work and Why They Work That Way.

Some science communication resources that came up in our conversation:

ComSciCon: A free science communication workshop for graduate students
Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science
COMPASS Science Communication Trainings
Alan Alda’s book, If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?
The Union of Concerned Scientists

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/neuro-transmissions-with-alie-&-micah-caldwell/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#39: Social Media Polarization with Chris Bail

Mon, 07 Jun 2021 00:00:00 -0400

Chris Bail is a computational social scientist. He wrangles the data that our social interactions leave behind to better understand how ideas spread. He is Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at Duke University, where he directs the Polarization Lab. A Guggenheim and Carnegie Fellow, he studies political extremism on social media using tools from the emerging field of computational social science.

He is the author of Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make our Platforms Less Polarizing.

Things we mention in this episode:

Internet bots for good and evil
@simscreens: A Twitter bot tweeting out frames from The Simpsons
Using Twitter bots to understand polarization (Bail et al., 2018)
Many people just don’t care about politics (check out my interview with Nathan Kalmoe)
Dr. Bail’s earlier work on how anti-Muslim sentiment spreads (Bail, 2016)
Tools developed by the Polarization Lab to fight back against polarization

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Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/social-media-polarization-with-chris-bail/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#38: American Islamophobia with Nazita Lajevardi

Mon, 24 May 2021 00:00:00 -0400

Nazita Lajevardi studies public opinion relating to Muslim Americans. She’s a political scientist and attorney at Michigan State University. In 2020, she published Outsiders at Home: The Politics of American Islamophobia. The book is an extension of her research on public opinion about Muslims in the United States, discrimination faced by Muslim Americans in politics, and the experience of facing these biases. In our conversation, we talk about all these questions and what makes Muslim American identity so tricky to pin down.

Note. The brief clip at the top of the show is from Episode 4 ("Strawberries") of the Hulu show Ramy and is presented for purposes of commentary and education.

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Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/american-islamophobia-with-nazita-lajevardi/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#37: Influence with Robert Cialdini

Mon, 10 May 2021 00:00:00 -0400

Dr. Robert Cialdini is an internationally recognized expert on the science of influence. His book Influence is one of the most influential business and psychology books of all time, selling over five-million copies worldwide. As a social psychologist, Cialdini has conducted foundational research on compliance, social norms, and helping behavior. But he is perhaps best known for boiling influence down to several key principles.

He just released an updated and expanded edition of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, and it’s well worth checking out! I was excited to talk with him about the new book, how he started studying influence, what made him write a book for the public at a time when academics stayed within their university walls, and how we can be effective communicators of social science findings.

Things we mention in this episode:

“Basking in reflected glory” (Cialdini et al., 1976)
The “full cycle” approach to social psychology (Cialdini, 1980; Mortensen & Cialdini, 2010)
Observing littering in a natural environment to study psychological questions (Cialdini & Baumann, 1981)
Belonging to a group feels personal when your personal identity and group identity are fused (Swann & Buhrmester, 2015)
People who are highly identified with a political party are more willing to hide evidence of tax fraud by a politician from their party (Ashokkumar, Galaif, & Swann, 2019)

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Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/influence-with-robert-cialdini/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#36: Negotiation with Kwame Christian

Mon, 26 Apr 2021 00:00:00 -0400

Kwame Christian is an attorney and negotiation expert. He's the director of the American Negotiation Institute where he and his team offer training and consultation for a variety of negotiation needs. He serves as a professor for Otterbein University's MBA program and Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law.

In his podcast, Negotiate Anything, Kwame talks to experts in negotiation and persuasion to bring insights to a wide audience. In our conversation, he shares that the podcast has been downloaded over 3 million times!

He is also the author of the book Finding Confidence in Conflict: How to Negotiate Anything and Live Your Best Life. In it, he shares how to overcome obstacles that get in the way of effective conversations. For a glimpse, check out his TEDx Dayton talk, "Finding Confidence in Conflict."

You can find the negotiation guides Kwame mentions in this episode at the ANI website: https://americannegotiationinstitute.com/negotiation-guides/

In our conversation, Kwame helps define what negotiation is, the reason why people struggle with it, and how we can use practice and psychology to get better at it.

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Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/negotiation-with-kwame-christian/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#35: Ambivalence with Iris Schneider

Mon, 12 Apr 2021 00:00:00 -0400

Dr. Iris Schneider studies the psychology of "ambivalence," which is when we can see both the pros and cons of something. Oftentimes research shows that ambivalence can be problematic, getting in the way of people being able to form a coherent view on something. However, Dr. Schneider suggests that there can be benefits to ambivalence if we're able to see it not as a challenge to overcome but a state to be embraced.

Things we mentioned in this episode.

For some good general resources for reading about the psychology of ambivalence, see: van Harreveld, Nohlen, & Schneider (2015); Schneider & Schwarz (2017)
You can see people’s ambivalence by tracking the movement of their mouse as they choose whether something is “good” or “bad” (Schneider et al., 2015)
Only a third of people’s everyday decisions are between two alternative options (Fischoff, 1991)
Some people just tend to be more ambivalent than others, and it’s related to having less bias (Schneider et al., 2020; Simons et al., preprint)
Lots of characteristics of people’s opinions can be considered either valuable or problematic, depending on your perspective (e.g., Rydell et al., 2006; Tormala et al., 2011)
Identity-based motivations guide people’s interpretation of difficulty (e.g., Oyserman, 2015)

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/ambivalence-with-iris-schneider/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#34: Opinions of Ourselves with Ken DeMarree

Mon, 29 Mar 2021 00:00:00 -0400

Ken DeMarree studies how opinion science applies how we see ourselves. He’s an associate professor of psychology at the University at Buffalo. In our conversation, we talk about how opinion science can be used to understand things like self-esteem, how people sometimes desire opinions they currently disagree with, and how some people just tend to be pretty confident in their views.

Things we mention in this episode:

California’s Self-Esteem Task Force (Guardian; NYT; The Cut)
The psychology of strong opinions can help us understand how people see themselves (DeMarree et al., 2007)
More “accessible” self-esteem is more durable and impactful (DeMarree et al., 2010)
Seeing yourself in both positive and negative ways makes your self-esteem more susceptible to influence (DeMarree et al., 2011)
When we want an opinion we don’t already have, it makes us conflicted (DeMarree et al., 2014; 2017)
Some people just tend to be more confident in their views than others (DeMarree et al., 2020)

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/opinions-of-ourselves-with-ken-demarree/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#33: Liking What Helps You with David Melnikoff

Mon, 15 Mar 2021 00:00:00 -0400

David Melnikoff studies how our goals affect how we feel about things. When stuff helps us reach a goal, we like it…even if it’s not the kind of thing we’d ordinarily like. In our conversation, we talk about what psychologists mean when they talk about people’s “attitudes,” how goals can affect those attitudes, and why all of this means that people can sometimes come to like immoral people.

Things that come up in this episode:

What is an “attitude”? (For more on this concept, check out this webpage.)
“Instrumentality” and “action valence” affect how we feel about someone in the moment (Melnikoff, Lambert, & Bargh, 2019)
Morality isn’t always a valued quality in other people (Melnikoff & Bailey, 2018)

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/liking-what-helps-you-with-david-melnikoff/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#32: Moralizing and Attention with Ana Gantman

Mon, 01 Mar 2021 00:00:00 -0500

Dr. Ana Gantman studies how people process moral stuff. She’s an assistant professor at Brooklyn College, and she finds that our attention is often drawn more quickly to morally relevant stimuli in our environment. More recently, she’s been looking into how our moral judgments collide with bureaucracy and how we can use moral psychology to address issues surrounding consent and sexual assault.

Things we mention in this episode:

The “moral pop-out” effect where moral stuff grabs our attention (Gantman & Van Bavel, 2014; Brady, Gantman, & Van Bavel, 2020)
Moral pop-out seems to work like a motivational state because it goes away when needs for justice are satisfied (Gantman & Van Bavel, 2016)
Using EEG to study the time course of moral perception (Gantman et al., 2020)
The books The Utopia of Rules and Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber
How “phantom rules” can be selectively enforced when someone’s violated other social norms.
Taking “consent pledges” before a party can get college students to moralize consent (The Daily Princetonian)

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/moralizing-and-attention-with-ana-gantman/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#31: The Language of Opinion with Matt Rocklage

Mon, 15 Feb 2021 00:00:00 -0500

Dr. Matt Rocklage studies the words we use to express opinions. He’s an assistant professor of marketing the University of Massachusetts-Boston. In our conversation, Matt talks about the Evaluative Lexicon, which is a tool he developed to quantify the language of opinion. Take an online review, feed it into the Evaluative Lexicon, and it’ll tell you how much the person liked or disliked the product and how much their emotions played a role in their opinion. His research with this tool has shown just how potent emotion can be and how we should approach studying language in psychology.

Things we mention in this episode:

The “Evaluative Lexicon” (Rocklage & Razio, 2015; Rocklage et al. 2018); you can learn more at: http://www.evaluativelexicon.com/
Emotion-based opinions tend to be stronger (Rocklage & Fazio, 2016; 2018; Rocklage & Luttrell, in press)
The role of emotion in consumer reviews (Rocklage & Fazio, 2020)
People turn to emotional language more when trying to be persuasive (Rocklage, Rucker, & Nordgren, 2018)

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/language-of-opinion-with-matt-rocklage/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#30: "Us vs. Them" with Jay Van Bavel

Mon, 01 Feb 2021 00:00:00 -0500

Jay Van Bavel studies how our social identities shape the way we see ourselves and the people around us. He’s an associate professor of psychology at New York University. In an upcoming book, he and his colleague, Dominic Packer, present social identity theory. It’s a classic theory in social psychology that has inspired tons of research and continues to give insight into the modern world. At its root, it’s the idea that people often adopt an “us vs. them” mindset, which fuels lots of conflict between groups. In our conversation, Jay shares the basic tenets and controversies surrounding social identity theory and the direction his own research lab is going.

For a quick overview of Social Identity Theory, featuring Dr. Van Bavel, you can check out this YouTube video [13:36] I made.

Things we mention in this episode:

Dominic Packer’s research on identity and dissent.
The pioneering work of John Turner and Henri Tajfel and the development of social identity theory.
Marilynn Brewer’s “Optimal Distinctiveness Theory”
Jay’s research on how social identities affect our thought and behavior in domains like politics (e.g., Van Bavel & Pereira, 2018) and social media (Brady, Crockett, & Van Bavel, 2020).
According to Facebook’s global creative director, Andrew Keller, the average person scrolls through 300 feet of mobile content a day.
Lilliana Mason’s book (Uncivil Agreement) applying social identity to politics.

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/social-identities-with-jay-van-bavel/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#29: Hype with Michael F. Schein

Mon, 18 Jan 2021 00:00:00 -0500

Michael F. Schein is a writer, speaker, and founder of the marketing agency, MicroFame Media. In his new book, The Hype Handbook, he explores the antics of historically successful “hype artists”—cult leaders, music promoters, propagandists, etc.—to extract 12 common strategies that get people excited about and committed to new ideas.

In our conversation, we talk about how “hype” is or is not the same as “persuasion,” how much we’re able to learn from stories of historical hype artists, and the ethical and practical limits of hype.

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/hype-with-michael-f-schein/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#28: When Money Buys Happiness with Lara Aknin

Mon, 04 Jan 2021 00:00:00 -0500

Lara Aknin studies what makes people happy. In particular, she’s spent a lot of time looking at how being generous can improve one’s well-being. She is an associate professor of social psychology at Simon Fraser University, and you heard her a couple weeks ago on Opinion Science. Her work was featured on our episode on gift-giving, but she has so much interesting work that it seemed setting aside a whole episode for our entire conversation.

Things that come up in this episode:

College students were happier when spending money on others vs. on themselves (Dunn, Aknin, & Norton, 2008; for a replication see Aknin et al., 2020)
The positive effects of spending on others extends around the world (Aknin et al., 2013), in small rural societies (Aknin et al., 2015; Aime et al., 2017), with children (Aknin, Hamlin, & Dunn, 2012), and among ex-offenders (Aknin et al., 2018).
Giver-focused gifts promoted greater relationship closeness than recipient-focused gifts (Aknin & Human, 2015)
For reviews of the effects of “prosocial spending,” see Aknin et al. (2018) and Dunn et al. (2020)

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/when-money-buys-happiness-with-lara-aknin/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

BONUS: "Best" of Opinion Science (2020)

Mon, 28 Dec 2020 00:00:00 -0500

Although 2020 will be remembered mostly for annoyances and deeply tragic events, one thing that kept me going this year was starting this podcast. Being able to talk with friends, people I've long admired, and people I had only recently met was a real joy.

I wanted to put together an episode with some notable moments in Opinion Science this year. It's not truly a "best of" per se because I really am attached to every episode! Although I was learning on the fly how to podcast, there's aspects of all of this year's episodes that I value.

So instead, I've chosen some particularly meaningful episodes for me, fan favorites, and moments that highlight what this show is all about.

If you're new to the show, this is a great place to start! And if you've been listening since the beginning, join me on some fun memories from this year.

-Andy

Featured 2020 episodes:

Episode 1: Word of Mouth with Jake Teeny
Episode 6: Film Criticism with Alissa Wilkinson
Episode 9: Systemic Racism with Phia Salter
Episode 15: Political Campaigning with Joe Fuld (*Hear the new season of his podcast)
Episode 16: Implicit Bias with Mahzarin Banaji
Episode 19: Political Humor as Persuasion with Danna Young (*See her new TED Talk)
Episode 20: The Cognitive Dissonance Episode
Episode 22: Political Persuasion with Alex Coppock
Episode 23: Polling Young Voters with Kristen Soltis Anderson

#27: Giving and Getting Good Gifts

Mon, 21 Dec 2020 00:00:00 -0500

It’s that time of year when winter holidays send people on a buying spree as they collect gifts to give to every friend, family member, and acquaintance. And you’d think that after so many years of giving gifts for all sorts of holidays, we’d be pretty good at it. Right? Well, not according to research in psychology. In this episode, we explore the psychology of why giving to others is such a good thing to do, and also where gift givers go wrong. Along the way, we’ll pick up some tips for how to approach giving in a smarter, more effective way.

Many guests in this episode!

We hear from Laura and Bethany Sanders about childhood gifting go awry. Laura Sanders is a stand-up comedian and illustrator, so check out her work!
Dr. Lara Aknin is an associate professor of Social Psychology at Simon Fraser University. She studies what makes people happy.
Dr. Jeff Galak is an associate professor of Marketing at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business. He also runs the YouTube channel, “Data Demystified.”
Dr. Julian Giviis an assistant professor of Marketing at West Virginia University's John Chambers College of Business and Economics. He studies gift-giving.

Research in this episode:

Part II: How gift-givers and gift-recipients disagree.

A. Gift-givers focus on the moment of giving whereas recipients are thinking more long-term (Galak, Givi, & Williams (2016)

B. Gift-givers think price matters more than receivers do (Flynn & Adams, 2009)

C. Givers avoid repeatedly giving the same thing, but recipients don’t mind (Givi, 2020)

E. Just ask people what they want (Gino & Flynn, 2011)

F. Giver-centric gifts make people feel closer to each other, even though we think recipient-focused gifts are the most appropriate (Aknin & Human, 2015)

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

For a transcript of this episode, vi

#26: Intersectional Role Models in STEM with India Johnson and Eva Pietri

Mon, 07 Dec 2020 00:00:00 -0500

Two guests! Drs. Eva Pietri and India Johnson stop by to share the important work they’re doing together on the power of role models for underrepresented groups in STEM fields.

Things that come up in this episode:

Women and racial and ethnic minorities are under-represented in STEM fields (National Science Board, 2020)
Encouraging identity-safety in STEM among Black (Johnson, Pietri, Fullilove, & Mowrer, 2019; Pietri, Johnson, & Ozgumus, 2018) and Latina women (Pietri, Drawbaugh, Lewis, & Johnson, 2019)
Using videos to enhance relatability of scientists (Pietri, Johnson, Majid, & Chu, in press)
Extending these ideas to encourage women to identify with male scientists (Pietri, Drawbaugh, Johnson, & Colvin, in press)

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/intersectional-role-models-in-stem-with-india-johnson-eva-pietri/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#25: Geography of Bias with Eric Hehman

Mon, 23 Nov 2020 00:00:00 -0500

Dr. Eric Hehman studies the geography of bias. Lots of research has looked at the prejudice that lives in an individual person’s head, but Eric looks at the average amount of bias in particular location. On average, some counties have more implicit bias than others, and some states have more bias than others. But what does it mean? That’s what Eric and I talk about this week!

Things we mention in this episode:

Zippia’s collection of fun maps, including Thanksgiving sides, pickle fandom, and sandwich preferences.
Regional implicit biases are related to police use of force against African Americans in that region (Hehman, Flake, & Calanchini, 2018)
Inspiration for Eric’s focus on regional bias (Motyl et al., 2014; Rae & Olson, 2015; Rentfrow et al., 2013)
How same-sex marriage legislation affected anti-gay bias one state at a time (Ofosu, Chambers, Chen, & Hehman, 2019)
Validating region-based measures of bias (Hehman, Calanchini, Flake, & Leitner, 2019)
Searching for environmental features that relate a region’s level of bias (Hehman, Ofosu, & Calanchini, 2020)
The “bias of crowds” model of implicit bias (Payne, Vuletich, & Lundberg, 2017)

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/geography-of-bias-with-eric-hehman/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#24: Persuasion via Story-Telling with Melanie Green

Mon, 09 Nov 2020 00:00:00 -0500

Melanie Green studies stories. She’s a professor of Communication at University of Buffalo, and for years she’s been looking into whether stories can serve to persuade people. Are stories just entertainment or can they change our minds? In this episode, we talk about stories, her research on persuasion, and the experience of being transported by a story.

Topics that come up in this episode:

People differ in their “transportability,” which is associated with their receptiveness to narrative persuasion (Mazzocco et al., 2010)
Narrative persuasion depends on transportation (Green & Brock, 2000)
Meta-analyses of narrative persuasion studies (Braddock & Dillard, 2016; Oschatz & Marker, 2020; Zebregs et al., 2015)
Research by Jeff Niederdeppe’s lab on story-telling in health communication
Stories continue to be persuasive after proven false (Green & Donahue, 2011)
People make judgments of a person’s warmth or competence depending on whether they tell stories (Clark, Green, & Simons, 2019)

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/persuasion-via-story-telling-with-melanie-green/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#23: Polling Young Voters with Kristen Soltis Anderson

Mon, 26 Oct 2020 00:00:00 -0400

Kristen Soltis Anderson is a pollster and co-founder of Echelon Insights. For five years, she co-hosted the podcast, The Pollsters, she hosts the SiriusXM show, The Trendline, and the Fox Nation show What Are the Odds? She also regularly appears on television to discuss the latest polls.

She’s spent a lot of time looking at polls of Millennials in particular. In 2015, she published her first book, The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America (And How Republicans Can Keep Up), in which she reviews data on millennials’ tendency to vote for Democrats and the unique features of modern life that may be driving this shift.

In this episode, we have a great conversation about her work, what political polling can reveal, and how young voters’ preferences may affect the 2020 U.S. election…and other elections to come.

Some things that come up in this episode:

Generation Z enjoys mocking Millennials (Buzzfeed)
The Bennington College study of political attitudes over one’s lifetime (Newcomb, 1943; Alwin, Cohen, & Newcomb, 1992)
Kristen’s new report on Generation Z and Millennials’ optimism for the future (Walton Family Foundation, 2020)

Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/polling-young-voters-with-kristen-soltis-anderson/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#22: Political Persuasion with Alex Coppock

Mon, 12 Oct 2020 00:00:00 -0400

Alex Coppock is an assistant professor of Political Science at Yale University. His research considers what affects people's political beliefs, especially the kinds of messages people regularly encounter--TV ads, lawn signs, Op-Eds, etc. In this episode, he shares the findings of a big, new study that just came out as well as what it means for how persuasion works.

Things that came up in this episode:

A new study testing dozens the efficacy of dozens of political ads (Coppock, Hill, & Vavreck, 2020)
The long-lasting effects of newspaper op-eds on public opinion (Coppock, Ekins, & Kirby, 2018)
The effects of lawn signs on vote outcomes (Green, Krasno, Coppock, Farrer, Lenoir, & Zingher, 2016)
Framing effects in persuasion (for an overview, see Chong & Druckman, 2007)
The sleeper effect (see here for an overview)

For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/political-persuasion-with-alex-coppock/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#21: More Influence Than You Realize with Vanessa Bohns

Mon, 28 Sep 2020 00:00:00 -0400

Vanessa Bohns studies the difference between how much influence people have and how influence they think they have. On the podcast, we talk about her studies, why people underestimate their influence, and whether this means we should try asking for more than we do now.

If you sit tight until next year, Dr. Bohns has a book coming out called You Have More Influence than You Think.

A few things that come up in our conversation:

For a general overview of Dr. Bohns’ research on this topic, you can check out this article in Harvard Business Review or her review in Current Directions in Psychological Science.
People underestimate how many people they have to ask in order to get someone to agree to do something (Flynn & Bohns, 2008).
People even underestimate their influence in getting people to do ethically questionable things (Bohns, Roghanizad, & Xu, 2014).
We don’t realize how uncomfortable it is for people to say no to requests (Bohns & Flynn, 2010).
The influence process is different between in-person versus emailed requests (Roghanizad & Bohns, 2017).
People’s biases about influence even extend to how they think about unwanted romantic advances (Bohns & DeVincent, 2019).
We break down the difference between the “spotlight effect” and the “invisibility cloak” bias.
Tory Higgins’ “saying is believing” effect shows how much power audiences have (Higgins & Rholes, 1978).

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

New Episodes on the Way!

Mon, 21 Sep 2020 00:00:00 -0400

Just a quick word about new episodes on the way and a switch to biweekly shows.

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

BONUS: Good Accidents with Elliot Aronson

Mon, 07 Sep 2020 00:00:00 -0400

Elliot Aronson has seen a long and influential career in social psychology. Aronson got his PhD in 1959 from Stanford University, working with Leon Festinger on some of the first experiments testing dissonance theory. He authored a celebrated social psychology textbook, now in its twelfth edition, and he pioneered the research on the jigsaw classroom--"a cooperative learning technique that reduces racial conflict among school children, promotes better learning, improves student motivation, and increases enjoyment of the learning experience."

Two weeks ago, I released a big episode on cognitive dissonance (check it out!), which pulled together interviews with several people who are experts in the field. Elliot Aronson was one of those experts, and I'm excited to share our full conversation with you this week. We talk dissonance but Elliot also shares how he became a social psychologist and what it takes to run a high-impact experiment.

Check out Elliot's writing:

The Role of Cognitive Dissonance in the Pandemic: A recent article in the Atlantic by Elliot Aronson and Carol Tavris
The Social Animal: Elliot's social psychology textbook
Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me): A popular book about cognitive dissonance and other biases.
Not By Chance Alone: Elliot's autobiography
Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion

BONUS: Dissonance and the New Look with Joel Cooper

Mon, 31 Aug 2020 00:00:00 -0400

Last week's special episode on cognitive dissonance pulled together interviews with several people who are experts in the field. Joel Cooper is one of those experts! When I first started getting interested in the social psychology of cognitive dissonance, Joel's book (Cognitive Dissonance: 50 Years of a Classic Theory) was so useful.

You heard snippets of this interview in last week's episode, but I want to share it all on its own for anyone interested in more about Joel's story. We get into plenty of things that didn't fit into last week's show, including Joel's perspective on what made dissonance theory so influential, how dissonance can be felt vicariously, and why he used to use odd measurement scales.

For a transcript of this show, visit the episode's webpage: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/cognitive-dissonance-with-joel-cooper

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#20: The Cognitive Dissonance Episode

Mon, 24 Aug 2020 00:00:00 -0400

In 1957, Leon Festinger published A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Along with a collection of compelling experiments, Festinger changed the landscape of social psychology. The theory, now referenced constantly both in and outside of academic circles, has taken on a life of its own. And it’s still informing new research and analysis more than 60 years later.

For the grand 20th episode of Opinion Science, I want to give you an insider’s look at the theory–its inspiration, the people involved, the classic studies, and the remaining controversies.

Throughout the show you’ll hear from people who have studied cognitive dissonance and who knew the infamous Leon Festinger: Elliot Aronson, Joel Cooper, Jeff Stone, April McGrath, and Mike Gazzaniga.

To learn more about cognitive dissonance, check out these two books written by two of our guests: Cognitive Dissonance: 50 Years of Classic Theory and Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me).

For a transcript of this show, visit the episode's webpage: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/cognitive-dissonance/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#19: Political Humor as Persuasion with Danna Young

Mon, 17 Aug 2020 00:00:00 -0400

Dr. Dannagal Young studies political humor. She pulls together psychology, communications, and political science, to understand how political satire works to change minds and expand political knowledge. She also has a new book: Irony and Outrage: The Polarized Landscape of Rage, Fear, and Laughter in the United States, which explores how satire became a tool of political left and outrage media because a tool of the political right.

Some things that come up on this episode:

Daily Show viewers were particularly well-informed about the 2004 election (Young, 2004)
Jon Stewart defending the Daily Show on Crossfire (2006)
Jokes lead people to suspend critical thinking about a message (Polk, Young, & Holbert, 2009; Young, 2008)

For a transcript of this show, visit the episode's webpage: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/political-humor-as-persuasion-with-danna-young

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#18: Health Communication with Allison Earl

Mon, 10 Aug 2020 00:00:00 -0400

Allison Earl studies the challenges of getting health information to people who need it. Her research looks at how people react defensively to information about their health and how to improve it. In this episode, she shares her research on people's tendency to avoid threatening health information and how simple meditation exercises can make people more open to these kinds of messages.

Some things that come up in this episode:

Targeting health information to specific groups makes people feel judged (Derricks & Earl, 2019)
Rejecting information about stimatized health issues (Earl, Nisson, & Albarracín, 2015)
Race disparities in attention to HIV-prevention information (Earl et al., 2016)
Trigger warnings as a way to get people ready for emotional information (Gainsburg & Earl, 2018)
Meditation makes people more open to threatening health information (Takahashi & Earl, 2020)

For a transcript of this show, visit the episode's webpage: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/health-communication-with-allison-earl

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#17: How We Think About Animals with Kristof Dhont

Mon, 03 Aug 2020 00:00:00 -0400

Kristof Dhont studies the psychology behind humans’ complicated feelings about animals. In particular, his research looks at how the existence of “speciesism” can stem from the same psychological factors that also produce other social prejudices. In this episode, Kristof and I talk about how people avoid connecting meat to the animals it comes from, how a social dominance worldview gives rise to speciesism, and what psychology can (and can’t) tell us about effective advocacy.

Check out Dr. Dhont’s new book: Why We Love and Exploit Animals: Bridging Insights from Academia and Advocacy

And as I mention at the end of the episode, a few years ago, I wrote my own vegan cookbook: Vegan Spanish Cooking.

Some of the things that come up in this episode:

How people disconnect “meat” from the animals it comes from (Kunst & Hohle, 2016)
Why people still eat meat even when they object to its production (“the meat-paradox”; Bastian & Loughnan, 2016)
Denying animals’ “minds” to justify meat-eating (Bastian, Loughnan, Haslamn, & Radke, 2011)
“Social dominance orientation” (see this helpful summary)
Connecting social dominance and speciesism (Dhont et al., 2014; 2016)
How dehumanization reflects treating animals as lesser beings (Costello & Hodson, 2010)

For a transcript of this show, visit the episode's webpage: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/how-we-think-about-animals-with-kristof-dhont/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#16: Implicit Bias with Mahzarin Banaji

Mon, 27 Jul 2020 00:00:00 -0400

Mahzarin Banaji is a professor of psychology at Harvard University. In the 90s, she and her colleagues pioneered the research in social psychology on implicit bias. They are perhaps best known for creating the Implicit Association Test (IAT), which purports to measure the preferences that people are unable or unwilling to say they have. Using this tool, psychologists have arrived at fascinating findings about bias, which have spawned a productive (and sometimes contentious) field of research. Together with Anthony Greenwald, Dr. Banaji wrote the popular book, Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People.

I talked with Mahzarin about her early days studying psychology and what prompted her to study implicit bias. She also shared new research on how implicit biases have changed over time and what this means for how to achieve social progress.

If you’re interested in the IAT—the test that researchers use to measure implicit bias—you can take one yourself at the official Project Implicit website.

You can also check out one of Mahzarin’s recent projects: Outsmarting Human Minds. It’s a website devoted to bringing insights from social psychology to the public.

Finally, I usually link to a bunch of primary articles that come up in the episode, but we covered a lot of ground in this one! However, we spent a lot of time on a recent paper led by Mahzarin’s graduate student, Tessa Charlesworth, on how implicit biases have changed over time (Charlesworth & Banaji, 2019). For an accessible summary of this research, check out their article in Harvard Business Review.

For a transcript of this show, visit the episode's webpage: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/implicit-bias-with-mahzarin-banaji/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#15: Political Campaigning with Joe Fuld (ft. Pavan Parikh)

Mon, 20 Jul 2020 00:00:00 -0400

Joe Fuld founded the political consulting firm, The Campaign Workshop, and he also co-hosts the podcast, "How to Win a Campaign." In this episode, he shares his background in political and advocacy campaigns and what you need to consider if you're thinking of running for office yourself.

At the top of the show, I also talked to Pavan Parikh. He's currently running for Probate Court Judge in Hamilton County, Ohio. You can learn more about Pavan at https://www.pavanforjudge.com/ or follow his campaign on Facebook or Twitter.

A few articles related to topics that Joe Fuld mentions:

For a transcript of this show, visit the episode's webpage: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/political-campaigning-with-joe-fuld/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Additional music this week: Firefly by Podington Bear, licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License.

#14: Certainty with Zakary Tormala

Sun, 12 Jul 2020 22:00:00 -0400

Dr. Zakary Tormala is a professor of behavioral science and marketing at Stanford University’s business school. He studies how people can become certain of an opinion and what that means for their willingness to share their views. We talk about what certainty is, how it affects people's choices and resistance to change, and how the research about certainty can inform best practices in persuasion.

Some of the things that come up in this episode:

Robert Burton's article, "The Certainty Epidemic" (also see his book, On Being Certain)
The difference between "clarity" and "correctness" (Petrocelli, Tormala, & Rucker, 2007)
The relationship between certainty and advocacy (Cheatham & Tormala, 2015; 2017)
How successfully resisting persuasion can boost certainty (Tormala & Petty, 2002)
How apparent social consensus increases certainty (Clarkson, Tormala, Rucker, & Dugan, 2013)
Why uncertainty can get people to pay attention (Karmarkar & Tormala, 2010)
For an overview of some of the ideas in this episode, check out Dr. Tormala's brief article in Current Opinion in Psychology: "The role of certainty (and uncertainty) in attitudes and persuasion" or his article in Harvard Business Review: "How certainty transforms persuasion."

For a transcript of this show, visit the episode's webpage: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/certainty-with-zakary-tormala

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#13: Fake News with Gordon Pennycook

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 22:00:00 -0400

Dr. Gordon Pennycook studies why people share misinformation. His research has used many techniques to understand people’s ability to judge the accuracy of information, their willingness to share that information, and what we can do to encourage people to only spread true information.

Some of the things that come up in this episode:

There’s lots of coronavirus misinformation out there
Seeing fake news repeatedly makes it feel more true (Pennycook, Cannon, & Rand, 2018)
Believing fake news is more about not paying attention than partisanship (Pennycook & Rand, 2019)
Encouraging people to think about accuracy reduces sharing of false and misleading news (Pennycook et al., preprint)
Using Twitter bots to get people to think about accuracy
Interventions to stop the spread of COVID-19 misinformation (Pennycook et al., in press)
The problem with biased thinking or “motivated reasoning” (Tappin, Pennycook, & Rand, 2020; preprint)

For a transcript of this show, visit the episode's webpage: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/fake-news-with-gordon-pennycook/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Additional music and sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com.

#12: Comedy + Science with Shannon Odell

Sun, 28 Jun 2020 21:00:00 -0400

Shannon Odell is a comedian and neuroscientist, and she uses comedy as a tool to teach people about science. She’s done this through hosting live shows, a YouTube series, a podcast, and other ways of getting the word out about how cool neuroscience is. In this episode, we talk about how she got into science, how she got into comedy, and how she thought to combine those two worlds.

Be sure to check out some of Shannon’s work:

“Your Brain on Blank”: a YouTube series about how your brain processes different life experiences (drinking, meditating, listening to music)
The Science of Self-Care Podcast: a group of comedians take a deep dive into a self-care practice (e.g., acupuncture, yoga, aromatherapy) and explore the science behind it
Drunk Science: Live show (turned Zoom show) where comedians defend their “research” to scientists

For a transcript of this show, visit the episode's webpage.

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#11: Opinions Across Cultures with Sharon Shavitt

Sun, 21 Jun 2020 21:00:00 -0400

Dr. Sharon Shavitt is a professor of marketing at the University of Illinois. Her research has looked at consumer behavior from lots of angles, and she has been a pioneer in thinking about the role of culture in the persuasion process. In this episode, we talk about how she started to consider how the success of an advertisement depends on the audience’s cultural values and other effects of culture. She also shares her experience connecting social psychology with the world of marketing, which wasn’t that common when she was in graduate school.

Links for more on some of what we talked about:

Individualistic vs. collectivistic cultures (check out the great book, Clash!)
Dr. Shavitt’s research on culture and persuasion (Han & Shavitt, 1994)
The effect of political values on successful persuasion (Feinberg & Willer, 2016)
"Preferences don't have to be personal" (Riemer, Shavitt, Koo, & Markus, 2014)
Holistic vs. analytic thinking and price-quality judgments (Lalwani & Shavitt, 2013)

For a transcript of this show, visit the episode's webpage.

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Music in this episode by YOUNG BLOOOD (https://www.facebook.com/YOUNGBLOODMUSIK/). Young Blood YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwWoMQ7Y7rdXob2MQnIJe_g?sub_confirmation=1

#10: Policing, Race, and Advocacy with Deion Hawkins

Sun, 14 Jun 2020 19:00:00 -0400

Deion Hawkins is an assistant professor of Communication Studies at Emerson College. He uses in-depth interviews with members of a community to understand health communication and the effects of police brutality. In this episode, he shares his dissertation work about where members of Black community get information about police brutality and the psychological toll that information takes. We also talk more generally about the recent Black Lives Matter protests and the role of race in academic research.

For a transcript of this show, visit the episode's webpage on http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Music in this episode: Stomps Claps & Beatbox by MusicToday80; Composed by: Anwar Amr Youtube Channel; Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0); Music provided by Free Vibes.

#9: Systemic Racism with Phia Salter

Mon, 08 Jun 2020 02:00:00 -0400

Phia Salter takes a cultural psychology approach to studying racism. She’s an associate professor of Psychology at Davidson College, and in this episode she draws a contrast between thinking of racism as an individual bias versus thinking of it as systemic. She talks about her research on the “Marley hypothesis” and the ways in which our environments’ discussion of racial issues shapes our own views.

For more resources on understanding racism in the U.S., you can start by checking out Smithsonian magazine's Resources to Understand Racism in America.

Things we mention in this episode:

Dr. Salter's summary of research related to systemic racism (Salter, Adams, & Perez, 2018)
The "Marley Hypothesis": Historical knowledge associated with recognizing contemporary racism (Nelson, Adams, & Salter, 2013)
Research on preferences for different Black History Month materials (Salter & Adams, 2016)
Writings of Derrick Bell on Critical Race Theory (For an overview of the movement, Dr. Salter recommends Delgado and Stefancic's introductory book)
George Lipsitz's "The Possessive Investment in Whiteness"

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#8: Opinions Online with William Brady

Mon, 01 Jun 2020 02:00:00 -0400

William Brady studies how messages spread online--especially on social media sites. By mixing psychology experiments with analyses of millions of messages on social media websites, he's learned what kinds of language cuts through the clutter. Specifically, he finds that moral emotional language plays a hefty role in online communication. In this episode, Billy talks about this research and his other work on moral outrage to give us an idea of how opinions spread online.

Things we mention in this episode:

NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics
Paul Rozin’s research on “the process of moralization”
Statistically analyzing patterns of words (check this out for a quick intro)
Moral emotional language captures attention and prompts retweets (Brady et al., 2017, 2020; also see this Scientific American article)
Moral outrage online (check out Molly Crockett’s article for The Globe and Mail)

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#7: Neither Liberal nor Conservative with Nathan Kalmoe

Mon, 25 May 2020 05:00:00 -0400

Nathan Kalmoe is a political scientist at Louisiana State University. He studies public opinion and mass political behavior. In 2017 he co-authored the book, Neither Liberal nor Conservative: Ideological Innocence in the American Public. In this episode, we talk about his research on how political ideology means different things to political leaders than to the general public, how lots of people tend to avoid describing themselves and liberal or conservative, but how they nevertheless seem perfectly comfortable identifying as Democrat or Republican.

Things we mention in this episode:

Early research and writing by Phillip Converse and Walter Lippman
Nathan's recent article in Political Psychology: "Uses and Abuses of Ideology in Political Psychology"
Nathan's book with Donald Kinder: Neither Liberal nor Conservative: Ideological Innocence in the American Public
His upcoming book: With Ballots and Bullets: Partisanship and Violence in the American Civil War

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#6: Film Criticism with Alissa Wilkinson (ft. Cody Duckworth)

Mon, 18 May 2020 05:00:00 -0400

Alissa Wilkinson is a film critic and culture reporter for Vox and an associate professor of English and Humanities and The King's College in New York City. We talk about how she translates her own thoughts and feelings about a film into a written piece of criticism and the role that criticism plays in society. She shares thoughts about the job of a film critic and the delicate art of rating, reviewing, and recommending movies.

This episode also features snippets from a conversation with Cody Duckworth. If you're interested, you can hear our full conversation as a bonus episode on the Opinion Science website (here!).

In this episode, we mention a few things Alissa has written about before, so for full context, check out these articles:

"The case for spoilers" (11/7/19)
"Rotten Tomatoes, explained" (7/14/18)
"Do not see The Emoji Movie" (7/29/17)
Alissa's review of "The Assistant" (4/28/20)
Alissa's review of "Bad Education" (4/24/20)

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#5: Perceived Bias with Laura Wallace

Mon, 11 May 2020 05:00:00 -0400

Laura Wallace studies what happens when people perceive a communicator as biased. In this episode, we talk about why bias is different from trustworthiness, how perceived bias affects a person's ability to be persuasive, and how we think about biased communicators in general.

Things we mention in the episode:

Gallup poll on Americans' perceptions of media bias
NPR's complaints that they have both pro-conservative and pro-liberal biases
Bias and trustworthiness are separate cues to credibility (Wallace, Wegener, & Petty, 2019)
Flip-flopping as a problem for persuasion (Wallace, Wegener, & Petty, 2020)

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#4: Climate Change Communication with Matt Goldberg

Mon, 04 May 2020 05:00:00 -0400

Matt Goldberg is a soon-to-be associate research scientist at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. He uses established research from the psychology of persuasion to understand how the public thinks about climate change and how to convince people to adopt new beliefs and behaviors to stave off the threats of global warming. We talk about the differences between theoretical and applied research and what leaders can do to guide the world through this difficult time.

Things we mention in the episode:

Global warming's "Six America's"
Using meta-cognition to understand hurricane evacuation behavior (Goldberg et al., 2020)
Perceived consensus about climate change attitudes (Goldberg et al., 2019a, 2019b)
The effects of discussing climate change with others (Goldberg et al., 2019c)

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#3: "Disgusted" with Yoel Inbar

Mon, 27 Apr 2020 06:00:00 -0400

Yoel Inbar is a social psychologist at University of Toronto. He studies the feeling of disgust and how it shapes people's moral judgments. We talk about how disgust is associated with certain opinions, and why moral emotions can make people hold onto negative beliefs about genetically modified crops (even when the science supports their safety and usefulness).

Yoel is also co-host of another psychology podcast, Two Psychologists, Four Beers.

Things we mention in the episode:

The relationship between “disgust sensitivity” and political beliefs (Inbar, Pizarro, & Bloom, 2008)
The “behavioral immune system” (see this article by Schaller)
Disgusting smells and attitudes toward gay men (Inbar, Pizarro, & Bloom, 2012)
Reasons to be skeptical that disgust amplifies moral judgments (Landy & Goodwin, 2015)
Facial expressions of disgust during moral judgments (Chapman et al., 2009)
Public opinions of genetically modified food (check out Scott, Inbar, et al., 2018)
Evaluating evidence in a way that fits your current opinion (Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979)

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#2: Good vs. Bad with Jehan Sparks

Mon, 20 Apr 2020 05:00:00 -0400

Jehan Sparks studies how positive vs. negative information informs our opinions. One of the things she looks at is something called a "negativity bias" where negative events loom larger than positive events when we're forming a summary impression. We talk about the nature of good vs. bad, how the order in which we learn information matters, and how different people think about information differently.

Things we mention in the episode:

How “good vs. bad” can be too simple (Sparks, 2020)
The “negativity bias” (Baumeister et al., 2001; Rozin & Royzman, 2001)
How opinions depend on the order in which you learn information (Sparks & Ledgerwood, 2017)
Negativity bias to explain risk-taking (Pietri, Fazio, & Shook, 2013)
The effects of age on the negativity bias (Sparks & Ledgerwood, 2018)

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

#1: Word of Mouth with Jake Teeny

Mon, 13 Apr 2020 05:00:00 -0400

This week I talk to Jake Teeny about his research on word of mouth. When do people pass their opinions along to others? Jake tells me that businesses count word of mouth as a leading form of marketing, but it can be tricky to know exactly how to control it. We talk about when and why people share their opinions, according to the research in social psychology.

(By the way, Jake and I co-author a blog for Psychology Today called "A Difference of Opinion.")

Things we mention in the episode:

Arousal increases social transmission of information (Berger, 2011)
Certainty as a reason to persuade (Cheatham & Tormala, 2015)
Hypocrisy as a form of cognitive dissonance (Stone & Fernandez, 2008)
Atypical things are more popular (Berger & Packard, 2018)
Hit Makers by Derek Thompson (Amazon)

Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Introducing "Opinion Science"

Fri, 03 Apr 2020 10:00:00 -0400

Coming Soon: The Opinion Science Podcast

Visit opinionsciencepodcast.com for more.

I’m Andy Luttrell, and I’m excited to introduce the Opinion Science Podcast. It’s a show about the science of people’s opinions, where they come from, and how they change. I’m a social psychologist, and I’ll be talking to other social scientists who study public opinion and persuasion, but I’ll also talk to other experts in the business of understanding and shaping the world’s views. The ideas we’ll explore in this show will give you a glimpse into the psychology of political attitudes, consumer preferences, public health communication, and social activism, just to name a few. But I’m even interested in more mundane opinions…like why some people inexplicably prefer cake over pie. So subscribe now and tune in every other week for these conversations. I think you’ll like it…but form your own opinion.