Opinion Science

Latest Episodes:

#46: Polling 101 with Ashley Amaya Sep 13, 2021

Show notes

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.

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Learn more about Opinion Science and catch up on all the episodes at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/.

Portraits: "Just Because You Asked" (Vanessa Bohns) Sep 06, 2021

Show notes

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.

Join me over at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/OpinionScience

Learn more about Opinion Science and catch up on all the episodes at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/.

#45: How Kids Judge with Larisa Heiphetz Aug 30, 2021

Show notes

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.

Join me over at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/OpinionScience

Learn more about Opinion Science and catch up on all the episodes at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/.

#44: The Contact Hypothesis Aug 16, 2021

Show notes

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.

Join me over at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/OpinionScience

Learn more about Opinion Science and catch up on all the episodes at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/.

#43: Values with Greg Maio Aug 02, 2021

Show notes

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.

Join me over at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/OpinionScience

Learn more about Opinion Science and catch up on all the episodes at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/.

#42: Thinking with Richard Nisbett Jul 19, 2021

Show notes

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.

Join me over at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/OpinionScience

Learn more about Opinion Science and catch up on all the episodes at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/.

#41: Taking Social Science into the World with Neil Lewis Jr. Jul 05, 2021

Show notes

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.

Join me over at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/OpinionScience

Learn more about Opinion Science and catch up on all the episodes at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/.

#40: Explaining Brains with Alie and Micah Caldwell Jun 21, 2021

Show notes

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.

Join me over at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/OpinionScience

Learn more about Opinion Science and catch up on all the episodes at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/.

#39: Social Media Polarization with Chris Bail Jun 07, 2021

Show notes

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.

Join me over at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/OpinionScience

Learn more about Opinion Science and catch up on all the episodes at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/.

#38: American Islamophobia with Nazita Lajevardi May 24, 2021

Show notes

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.

Join me over at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/OpinionScience

Learn more about Opinion Science and catch up on all the episodes at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/.

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