Stanford Psychology Podcast

Joseph chats with Anne Scheel. Anne is currently a postdoc at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam but will be starting as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Methodology and Statistics at Utrecht University in mid October. Anne is a meta-scientist who is interested in which research and publication practices can improve the reproducibility of the published literature, and how researchers can be encouraged to design more falsifiable and informative studies. She did her PhD at Eindhoven University of Technology, followed by a postdoc project at VU Amsterdam and CWTS Leiden. In this episode we chat about her recent publications in which she argues that most claims in the psychology literature are so critically underspecified that attempts to empirically evaluate them are doomed to failure. She also argues that researchers should focus more on non-confirmatory research activities to obtain the inputs necessary to make hypothesis tests informative.WE NOW HAVE A SUBSTACK! Stay up to date with the pod and become part of the ever-growing community :) https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/If you found this episode interesting at all, consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but will allow us to reach more people and make them excited about psychology.LinksAnne’s papers:Scheel, A. M. (2022). Why most psychological research findings are not even wrong. Infant and Child Development, 31(1), e2295Scheel, A. M., Tiokhin, L., Isager, P. M., & Lakens, D. (2021). Why hypothesis testers should spend less time testing hypotheses. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 16(4), 744-755Paper on strategic ambiguity: Frankenhuis, W., Panchanathan, K., & Smaldino, P. E. (2022). Strategic ambiguity in the social sciencesAnne’s Twitter @annemscheelAnne’s blog 100% CIJoseph’s Twitter @outa_josephPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

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Eric chats with Carol Dweck and Matt Dixon. Carol is the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford, world-renowned for her work on fixed and growth mindsets. Her nearly 40-page long CV could not possibly be summarized here and includes prestigious awards such as the Yidan Prize for Education Research and the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association. Matt is a postdoc at Stanford working with Carol and James Gross. He studies the psychological and biological basis of motivation, decision-making, and emotion regulation strategy use in healthy and clinical populations.In this episode, Carol and Matt discuss their recent paper on the neuroscience of intelligent decision-making. Have we misunderstood – and underestimated – the role of the amygdala? Is our prefrontal cortex as important as we think? What even makes a decision intelligent? Throughout the chat, Carol and Matt propose a new conceptualization of intelligence that includes human motivation, not just abstract problem-solving skills. Eric asks them about clinical applications and how their work casts a more positive, a more understanding light on why adolescents are the way they are. Finally, they share advice for young scholars.WE NOW HAVE A SUBSTACK! Stay up to date with the pod and become part of the ever-growing community :) https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/If you found this episode interesting at all, consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but will allow us to reach more people and make them excited about psychology.Links:Paper: https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Frev0000339Carol’s book Mindset: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/44330/mindset-by-carol-s-dweck-phd/ Eric's websiteEric's Twitter @EricNeumannPsyPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you think of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

Joseph chats with Chaz Firestone, Assistant Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. Chaz’s lab studies how we see and think, and how seeing and thinking interact to produce sophisticated behavior. Recent projects in his lab have explored how our minds generate physical intuitions about the world, and other foundational questions about the nature of perception. Chaz has been named a Rising Star by the Association for Psychological Science, and this year was awarded the Stanton Prize by the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, which recognizes one young scholar who has made significant contributions to research at the intersection of psychology and the philosophy of mind. In this episode Chaz talks about his recent publication in Psychological Science titled "Melting ice with your mind: Representational momentum for physical states”. The study found that participants who viewed objects undergoing state changes (e.g., ice melting, logs burning) remember them as more changed than they actually were. Chaz discusses the implications of these findings for our theories of event perception and memory.WE NOW HAVE A SUBSTACK! Stay up to date with the pod and become part of the ever-growing community :) https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/If you found this episode interesting at all, consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but will allow us to reach more people and make them excited about psychology.LinksChaz & colleagues’ paper *Hafri, A., *Boger, T., & Firestone, C. (2022). Melting ice with your mind: Representational momentum for physical states. Psychological Science, 33(5), 725-735Chaz’s Twitter @chazfirestoneJoseph's website josephouta.comJoseph’s Twitter @outa_josephPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

Eric chats with Robb Willer, Professor of Sociology, Psychology, and Organizational Behavior, and the Director of the Polarization and Social Change Lab at Stanford University. Robb is also the co-Director of Stanford’s Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. He studies social forces that bring people together (such as morality and altruism), forces that divide them (such as fear and prejudice), and domains of social life that feature the complex interplay of the two (such as hierarchies and politics). Robb has published in top journals across different fields, and his lab’s work has been featured in outlets such as the New York Times, Vox, and Washington Post.In this episode, Eric chats with Robb about his latest work on false meta-perceptions. This line of work suggests something counter-intuitive: Democrats and Republicans might overestimate how violent the other party is. Such misguided perceptions can become self-fulfilling: each party risks reacting with violence to the overly violent picture they have painted of the outgroup. Robb also shares how he knows what research ideas to pursue and what other projects he is excited about these days. Finally, he talks about his less-than-straightforward journey into psychology and gives advice on how to teach psychology in a fun and engaging way.WE NOW HAVE A SUBSTACK! Stay up to date with the pod and become part of the ever-growing community :) https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/If you found this episode interesting at all, consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but will allow us to reach more people and make them excited about psychology.Links:Robb's Paper: https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2116851119Robb's Strengthening Democracy Challenge: https://www.strengtheningdemocracychallenge.org/paperEric's websiteEric's Twitter @EricNeumannPsyPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you think of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

Anjie chats with Dr. Kevin Binning, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. Kevin studies diversity and equity in education, with the aim to both understand and improve pressing societal problems. In this episode, Anjie and Kevin chat about the background, the mechanism, and the future of interventions in the classroom that can help foster equity in college science courses. WE NOW HAVE A SUBSTACK! Stay up to date with the pod and become part of the ever-growing community :) https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/If you found this episode interesting at all, consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but will allow us to reach more people and make them excited about psychology.Links:Kevin’s paper on ecological intervention: Binning, K. R., Kaufmann, N., McGreevy, E. M., Fotuhi, O., Chen, S., Marshman, E., ... & Singh, C. (2020). Changing social contexts to foster equity in college science courses: An ecological-belonging intervention. Psychological Science, 31(9), 1059-1070.Kevin’s website: https://sites.pitt.edu/~kbinning/Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

Eric chats with Susan Fiske, Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology and Professor of Public Affairs at Princeton University. Susan is one of the world’s leading scholars studying social cognition, having written more than 400 articles and chapters as well as several books, including Envy Up, Scorn Down, and The Human Brand. She has won more awards than could possibly be listed, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and the APA Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award. Susan’s biography is currently being highlighted in the 40 Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine exhibit at the National Academy of Sciences, to which she was elected in 2013. In this episode, Eric asks Susan about her latest work on how diverse environments paradoxically make us see different ethnic groups as more, not less similar. In the second half of the chat, Susan reveals why she brings exotic chocolate to lab meetings and how to find a research idea worth pursuing. She talks about her complicated journey into academia and how she developed her influential stereotype content model. She discusses the importance of female role models and the obstacles women face in academia. As if that is not exciting enough, she even gives dating advice!WE NOW HAVE A SUBSTACK! Stay up to date with the pod and become part of the ever-growing community :) https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/If you found this episode interesting at all, consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but will allow us to reach more people and make them excited about psychology.Links:Susan's paper on stereotype dispersion: https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2000333117 Susan's book on envy and scorn: https://www.russellsage.org/publications/envy-scorn-down-1 Susan's book on marketing psychology: https://thehumanbrand.com/ Eric's websiteEric's Twitter @EricNeumannPsyPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

Bella chats with professor Moira (Molly) Dillon.Molly is an assistant professor in the department of psychology at New York University, where she directs the Lab for the Developing Mind. Molly and her lab use cognitive, developmental, and computational approaches to study infant cognition, including the early emerging knowledge about objects, people, and places; symbolic thought and reasoning in geometry and logic; pictorial and linguistic production, and the relation between human cognition and machine intelligence. In this episode, we discussed Molly's new research on commonsense psychology in human infants and how this research helps advance our understanding of machine intelligence. Be ready to be amazed by what human infants are capable of understanding and doing.WE NOW HAVE A SUBSTACK! Stay up to date with the pod and become part of the ever-growing community :) https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/If you found this episode interesting, please consider leaving us a good rating! It only takes a second, but it will allow our podcast to reach more people and hopefully get them excited about psychology.LinksMolly's paper on Commonsense Psychology in Human Infants and Machines: The Lab for the Developing Mind websiteMolly's Twitter @MoiraDillonBella's websiteBella's Twitter @BellaFascendiniPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you thought of this episode or the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

Eric chats with Dan Gilbert, Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. Dan is captivated by a single fact—the world is not as it appears—and he uses science to uncover the illusions people have about the world, themselves, and each other. He is a contributor to Time, The New York Times, and NPR's All Things Considered, and in 2014 Science named him one of the world’s 50 most-followed scientists on social media. His TED talks have been seen by more than 15 million people and remain among the most popular of all time. His popular book, Stumbling on Happiness, spent 6 months on the New York Times bestseller list and sold over a million copies worldwide.In this episode, Eric asks Dan about his life journey from high-school dropout to one of the most respected psychologists alive. What was Dan like as a child? How did he combine his passion for science fiction writing with an academic career? Dan shares how much his life was, and is, shaped by the people around him. How did he end up in such fruitful collaborations with people like Dan Wegner or Tim Wilson? What was it like writing a popular science book, at a time when that was much less common than now? What is Dan’s advice on teaching and writing? How does he decide an idea is worth pursuing?WE NOW HAVE A SUBSTACK! Stay up to date with the pod and become part of the ever-growing community :) https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/If you found this episode interesting at all, consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but will allow us to reach more people and make them excited about psychology.Links:Dan's book Stumbling on HappinessDan's websiteDan's Twitter @DanTGilbertEric's websiteEric's Twitter @EricNeumannPsyPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

Joseph chats with Dr. Jordan Starck. Jordan is an IDEAL Provostial Fellow at Stanford University. His research focuses on the reasons organizations embrace diversity, examining the psychological factors shaping people’s preferred approaches and the downstream consequences of different approaches. In this episode they chat about diversity. What reasons do entities like universities give for proclaiming to embrace diversity and inclusion? To what extent do these reasons correspond to educational outcomes? Links:You can find the paper we discussed hereJordan's Twitter @JStarck4Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodLet us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com*We are currently conducting a survey to get to know our listeners better and to collect any feedback and suggestions so we can improve our podcast. If you have 1 minute, please click the link here to submit your anonymous response: https://forms.gle/dzHqnWTptW8pSVwMA. Thank you for your time and support!