Stanford Psychology Podcast

Julia Chatain, a computer scientist and learning scientist specializing in embodied learning and educational tech, discusses making abstract math concrete with VR, AR, robots and low-tech manipulatives. She covers measuring learning through movement, scalable low-tech alternatives, co-design with teachers and students, and AI-generated interactive exercises. The conversation highlights interdisciplinary teamwork and FELT’s focus on accessibility and scalability.

This week, Enna chats with Dr. Casey Kenyon Brown, Professor at Georgetown University in the Department of Psychology and the Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience. She has received numerous honors and awards, including the prestigious Pathway to Independence Award from the National Institute on Aging and the Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science.Casey’s research examines how we share, understand, and influence one another’s emotions. She’s interested in how these interpersonal emotional processes are beneficial for healthy aging, and how these processes may go awry and contribute to depression. In this episode, Casey shares her journey in psychology, talks about her research on emotion and relationships, and provides advice on how we can build strong connections with people we love. Please join our substack (https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/) to stay connected with our community of listeners from all over the world! If you found this episode interesting, please consider leaving us a good rating. It just takes a minute but will allow us to reach more listeners to share our love for psychology. Casey’s Lab Website: https://careslab.facultysite.georgetown.edu/ Casey’s Lab Twitter: @CARESlab_GUCasey’s paper on empathy and shared depression: https://doi.org/10.1177/21677026221141852 Enna’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ennayuxuanchen/ Enna’s Twitter: @EnnaYuxuanChenPodcast Contact: stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com Podcast Twitter: @StanfordPsyPod

Erica Bailey, a UC Berkeley Haas professor who studies authenticity and self-perception. She explores how felt truth can diverge from objective reality. Short conversations cover why core self-aspects skew positive, how others judge authenticity, cultural and contextual influences, authenticity at work and in interviews, and balancing vulnerability with competence.

Tamar Kushnir, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke, studies cognitive development and imagination in children. The conversation explores how imagination supports memory, planning, moral judgment, and social thinking. It touches on counterfactuals, pretend play, mind‑wandering versus goal‑directed thought, creativity’s ties to knowledge, and imagination’s role in social change.

Robin Dunbar, Emeritus Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at Oxford, delves into the intriguing concept of 'Dunbar's number'—the cognitive limit of stable relationships we can maintain. He unpacks its layers, revealing how friendships require significant emotional investment. The discussion explores why isolation can be preferable after trauma and contrasts social needs of autistic individuals versus psychopaths. Dunbar also highlights the role of gossip in social bonding and how humor evolved, providing insight into the complexities of human connections.

Dr. Nicky Sullivan, a senior researcher at Impact Justice and recent Stanford Psychology PhD, dives into the intersection of academic research and criminal justice reform. He shares insights on the Homecoming Project, which supports returning citizens, highlighting the significance of participant narratives alongside data. Sullivan reflects on his transition from researching race with families to evaluating systemic change, and offers practical networking tips for grad students. He emphasizes the importance of clear communication and co-designing research to achieve lasting impact.

Su chats with Dr. Steve Rathje. Dr. Rathje is an incoming Assistant Professor of Human-Computer Interaction in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. He is an NSF and AXA postdoctoral fellow at New York University. Steve’s work centers on the psychology of technology. He studies how core psychological phenomena like polarization, intergroup conflict, the spread of information, and mental health interact with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and social media. Through a combination of behavioral science, computational methods, and large-scale data, his research sheds light on how our minds and our societies are being shaped in the digital age. In today's episode, we discuss his research background together with his recent review paper “The psychology of virality," in which they explore why certain content spreads rapidly online and offline, often involving a mix of emotional, social, and structural factors..Steve’s paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2025.06.014 Steve’s personal website: https://stevenrathje.com/ Su’s Twitter @sudkrc & Bluesky @sudkrc.bsky.socialPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

Anjie chats with Dr. Ying Wong, founder and CEO of B.peachy and former cultural psychologist. Ying received her PhD in Psychology from Stanford in 2007, where she studied shame and guilt through a cultural lens. After academia, she built an impressive career across global business, and she now is the founder and CEO of B.peachy, a company dedicated to menstrual care.In this episode, Anjie and Ying discuss Ying’s remarkable journey from academia into the business world, and how she has carried her training in social psychology into every stage of her career. They talk about what it was like to pivot into consulting and how her psychology training prepared her to build products and teams. If you found this episode interesting at all, subscribe on our Substack and consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but helps us reach more people and get them excited about psychology.Links:Dr. Wong’s company B.peachy: https://bpeachy.online/Dr. Wong’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ying-wong/Anjie’s website: https://anjiecao.github.io/Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack: https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/

In this engaging discussion, Dr. Susan Engel, a renowned psychologist from Williams College, dives into her extensive research on children's curiosity and intellectual development. She explores how curiosity evolves throughout life and the surprising decline many experience as they age. Dr. Engel highlights the link between curiosity and invention in children's play, as well as the critical role of autonomy in fostering curiosity. With insights into educational structures, she questions how environments shape our innate urge to know, making for a thought-provoking listen.

Su chats with Dr. Roger Levy. Dr. Levy is a Professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, where he directs the Computational Psycholinguistics Laboratory. His research focuses on theoretical and applied questions in the processing and acquisition of natural language. His work furthers our understanding of the cognitive underpinning of language processing and acquisition, combining computational modeling, psycholinguistic experimentation, and analysis of large, naturalistic language datasets, to help design models and algorithms that will allow machines to process human language. In today's episode, we discuss his research background together with his recent work "The Science of Language in the Era of Generative AI".Roger’s review: https://mit-genai.pubpub.org/pub/ak3evnmm/release/1 Roger’s lab website: http://cpl.mit.edu/  Roger’s personal website: https://www.mit.edu/~rplevy/ Su’s Twitter: https://x.com/sudkrc Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com