Stanford Psychology Podcast

Joseph chats with Dr. Lasana Harris about how using traits rather than stereotypes when thinking about strangers can help combat social bias. They also address questions like when is it useful to make a situational versus a dispositional attribution, what are the differences between social and personality psychology, and some advice for academics entering psychology.Dr. Harris is a Professor of Social Neuroscience in Experimental Psychology at University College London. He got his undergraduate degree from Howard University and his phD from Princeton University. His research uses a social neuroscience approach to explore the neural correlates of person perception, prejudice, dehumanization, anthropomorphism, social learning, social emotions, empathy, and punishment. He published a book in 2017 titled Invisible Mind: Flexible Social Cognition and Dehumanization. Paper link: Harris, L. T. (2021). Leveraging cultural narratives to promote trait inferences rather than stereotype activation during person perception. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 15(6), e12598Dr. Harris’ personal website: https://lt-harris.info/*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!

Bella chats with Dr. Henrike (Henny) Moll.Henny is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Southern California, where she directs the Minds in Development lab. Henny's primary research focus lies in children's understanding of perspectives and their ability to engage in joint attention. She studies how infants and young children come to understand the world and the role that others play in introducing them to the world. Her studies are informed by insights from philosophy of mind, education, and anthropology.In this episode, we discussed Henny's research on theory of mind, young children's perspective taking, especially when other people's beliefs clash with their own beliefs or with reality, and how the concept of experiential record plays an important role in children's ability to understand other people's beliefs. Henny also shared the lab's future directions and some exciting upcoming projects. Henny's website: https://dornsife.usc.edu/labs/mid-la/*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!

Joseph speaks with Prof. Anuj Shah about a lab experiment on social perceptions, in particular how when we learn a few details about a stranger, we seem to feel like they know and understand us too. They also talk about a field experiment in the New York City housing developments which affected social perceptions and was linked to lower rates of crime after people were provided with some details about neighborhood police officers. Anuj is an associate professor of Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business. His research uses psychology and behavioral science to examine social issues such as poverty, youth violence, and crime.Shah, A. K., & LaForest, M. (2022). Knowledge about others reduces one’s own sense of anonymity. Nature, 603(7900), 297-301.Anuj’s personal website: http://theslab.uchicago.edu/anuj/--We are currently conducting a survey to get to know our listeners better and to collect any feedback and suggestions so we could improve our shows. If you have 1 minute or so, please click the link here to submit your response: https://forms.gle/dzHqnWTptW8pSVwMA. All responses will be anonymous!

Eric chats with Vanessa Bohns, social psychologist and Professor of Organizational Behavior at Cornell University. Vanessa studies how people influence one another, and how they can underestimate how much influence they really have. Vanessa has been a Visiting Scholar at the NYU Stern School of Business and has taught at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Harvard Business Review. In this episode, Eric and Vanessa chat about Vanessa’s first book You Have More Influence Than You Think, published in September 2021. Vanessa discusses why people are often blind to how much of an impact they have on others. Are there occasions where people overestimate their influence? Does influence come with responsibility? Are there gender effects? Vanessa also mentions her related line of research on underestimating the kindness of strangers. Why are people often kinder than we expect? Finally, Vanessa shares her experience with writing a book as an academic and gives advice for others who consider writing a book.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:Vanessa's book Vanessa's Twitter @profbohnsEric's websiteEric's Twitter @EricNeumannPsyPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodLet us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

Joseph and Ashley talk about how infants, toddlers and children think about social relationships, how they track who is connected and how they are connected, what we can learn about children from studying animal behavior, and how children in other cultures might think differently about social relationships.Dr. Ashley Thomas is a postdoctoral researcher in Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of technology (MIT). She is interested in what infants, toddlers and children think and feel about social relationships and social intimacy. She also investigates adults moral judgments and asks questions like where do moral norms come from and how do they change? Ashley is currently a postdoctoral fellow with the Center for Research on Open and Equitable Scholarship at MIT. The fantastic Science paper that was referenced: Thomas, A. J., Woo, B., Nettle, D., Spelke, E., & Saxe, R. (2022). Early concepts of intimacy: young humans use saliva sharing to infer close relationships. Science, 375(6578), 311-315To learn more about Ashley's research please visit her personal website and her lab's website. Her twitter handle is @AshleyJ_Thomas--We are currently conducting a survey to get to know our listeners better and to collect any feedback and suggestions so we could improve our shows. If you have 1 minute or so, please click the link here to submit your response: https://forms.gle/dzHqnWTptW8pSVwMA. All responses will be anonymous!

Eric chats with Robert Rosenthal, Professor of Psychology at University of California Riverside. Bob is the former Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard. Bob has gained worldwide fame for his work on self-fulfilling prophecies: “When we expect certain behaviors of others, we are likely to act in ways that make the expected behavior more likely to occur.” Over 50 years ago, Bob introduced the Pygmalion Effect many psychology students now read about in their textbooks: when teachers expect certain students to be smart, those students actually become smarter. In this episode, Eric asks Bob about the current state of the evidence around the Pygmalion Effect. Bob discloses that he only started his work on self-fulfilling prophecies because of accidental analyses in his work. Bob relates his work to growth mindsets and speculates about self-fulfilling prophecies when judging another’s moral character. He also discusses what is now called the Rosenthal Effect: experimenters’ expectations of their studies can influence the actual study outcomes. What methodological and statistical advances in psychology is he excited about? What does he think of the current reproducibility crisis? Are we misunderstanding meta-analyses? Finally, Bob shares advice for young scientists and ends with a forceful appeal to the beauty and privilege of learning about psychology. 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:One of Bob's papers on the Pygmalion EffectEric's websiteEric's Twitter @EricNeumannPsyPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodLet us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

In this episode, Anjie chats with Dr. Angie Johnston, who is currently an assistant professor of psychology at Boston College, where she directs the Canine Cognition Center and Social Learning Laboratory.  Her works take a comparative approach: comparing human learning to domestic dogs’ learning, as a way to examine which aspects of human learning are unique and which are shared among species. In this episode, we are going to talk about one of her recent works that try to answer a question that many dog owners may have: why does my dog sometimes look back at me?You can check out the paper we discuss here: Johnston, A. M., Chang, L. W., Wharton, K., & Santos, L. R. (2021). Dogs (Canis familiaris) prioritize independent exploration over looking back. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 135(3), 370.To learn more about Angie’s research, you can visit her personal website and her lab’s website.  She is also on Twitter as @AngieMJohnston--We are currently conducting a survey to get to know our listeners better and to collect any feedback and suggestions so we could improve our shows. If you have 1 minute or so, please click the link here to submit your response: https://forms.gle/dzHqnWTptW8pSVwMA. All responses will be anonymous!

 Eric chats with Molly Crockett, Associate Professor of Psychology at Yale University. Molly studies how people make moral decisions, both in the lab and in everyday life. Their lab’s research has won numerous awards around the world, and Molly will be moving their lab to Princeton University in summer 2022. In this wide-ranging conversation, Molly first chats about their recent work on social media. Are online platforms making us more outraged? How should we reshape social media for a more civil society? Then, Molly discusses another line of work on trust in leaders around the globe during Covid. Do people like or dislike utilitarian leaders? What was Molly's rather adventurous experience running a registered report proposing data collection across six continents? Finally, Molly chats about academic life more broadly. Should we favor slow over fast science? Are current academic incentives damaging to our mental health?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 on social media and outragePaper on trust in leaders during CovidMolly's Twitter @mollycrockettEric's websiteEric's Twitter @EricNeumannPsyPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodLet us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

Kate chats with Gillian Sandstrom, a Senior Lecturer in the Psychology of Kindness at the University of Sussex and the Director of the Sussex Centre for Research on Kindness. Gillian’s work focuses on the benefits of minimal social interactions with “weak ties” and strangers, and the barriers that prevent people from connecting with others. In this episode, Gillian tells Kate about the misconceptions that prevent people from talking to strangers and the surprising benefits that can come from engaging in fleeting interactions with strangers, even if we will never see them again. Check out Gillian’s paper, Why do people avoid talking to strangers? A mini meta-analysis of predicted fears and actual experiences talking to a stranger, which received an Honorable Mention in the Journal of Self and Identity’s 2021 Best Paper Award, here.You can learn more about Gillian’s exciting research on her website: gilliansandstrom.com. You can also connect with her directly on Twitter @GillianSocial.--We are currently conducting a survey to get to know our listeners better and to collect any feedback and suggestions so we could improve our shows. If you have 1 minute or so, please click the link here to submit your response: https://forms.gle/dzHqnWTptW8pSVwMA. All responses will be anonymous!

Eric chats with Diego Gambetta, social scientist and Carlo Alberto Chair at the University of Turin. Diego has studied topics as diverse as trust, the mafia, and violent extremism. His work has been widely cited around the world. Diego has held past appointments at numerous universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, Columbia, and Stanford. In this episode, Eric and Diego chat about trust, distrust, and cynicism. Diego explains what it means to trust someone, and how distrust is more complex than a mere absence of trust. Whom do we trust and why? Can we trust our instincts? Is trust always desirable? Does everyone want to be seen as a trustworthy person? How does the Mafia manage to cooperate despite its distrustful outlook? Finally, Diego responds to Eric’s research ideas on cynicism. How to build trust among the most cynical? Are some people just hopelessly distrustful?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:Book Codes of the UnderworldPaper on trustEric's websiteEric's Twitter @EricNeumannPsyPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodLet us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com