Stanford Psychology Podcast - Stanford Psychology

Latest Episodes:

74 - Johannes Eichstaedt: Is Social Media to Blame for Mental Illness? Dec 01, 2022

Show notes

Anjie chats with Dr. Johannes Eichstaedt, an Assistant Professor in Psychology, and the Shriram Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence at Stanford University. Johannes directs the Computational Psychology and Well-Being lab. His research focuses on using social media (Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, …) to measure the psychological states of large populations and individuals to determine the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that drive physical illness (like heart disease), depression, or support psychological well-being. In this episode, Anjie and Johannes chat about how social media could be a lens to understand mental illnesses such as depression. Johannes also shares his thoughts on the emerging trends in social media, and how some powerful technocrats in Silicon Valley might have some huge blind spots in understanding human nature.

If you found this episode interesting at all, subscribe on our Substackand 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:

Johannes’s paper: Eichstaedt, J. C., Smith, R. J., Merchant, R. M., Ungar, L. H., Crutchley, P., Preoţiuc-Pietro, D., ... & Schwartz, H. A. (2018). Facebook language predicts depression in medical records. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(44), 11203-11208.

Johannes’s Twitter: @JEichstaedt

Johannes’s lab website: https://cpwb.stanford.edu/

Anjie’s: website: anjiecao.github.io

Anjie’s Twitter @anjie_cao

Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPod

Podcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/

Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

73 - Juliana Schroeder: Mistakenly Seeking Solitude Nov 24, 2022

Show notes

Eric chats with Juliana Schroeder, Associate Professor in the Management of Organizations at Berkeley Haas. She studies how people think about the minds of other people, and how they are often wrong trying to understand what others are up to. Her work has been discussed in outlets ranging from Vice to The Atlantic and Forbes.

In this episode, Eric and Juliana chat review her exciting recent work on “undersociality.” Talking to other people is often meaningful, not just for extraverts, and yet we hesitate to talk to others, making overly pessimistic predictions about how awkward and unpleasant such interactions would be. This leads us to “mistakenly seek solitude.” Juliana discusses what we can do to motivate ourselves to talk to others more, why that is so beneficial, and why she herself struggles to do it.
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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:

Juliana's review paper on undersociality: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364661322000432?casa_token=KI1Vjeg9NKUAAAAA:aTAEDP2eF1ay3I0rGI74FHNW21s83r_KvXCQMvr5auCxaVnhEah82tbASwjzwfc-68D54q8Kc2E

Juliana's key empirical paper: https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037/a0037323

Juliana's Twitter
Eric's website
Eric's Twitter @EricNeumannPsy
Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPod
Podcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/
Let us know what you think of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

72 - Maria Arredondo: When babies need to learn two languages Nov 17, 2022

Show notes

Anjie chats with Dr. Maria Arredondo, Assistant Professor at the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, and the Department of Psychology at University of Texas at Austin. Maria studies how infants, toddlers, and school-age children acquire their language(s). She is especially interested in why some children can become proficient bilinguals, while others struggle.
In this episode, Anjie and Maria discuss how learning two languages simultaneously can influence babies’ cognitive development. Maria also shared her journey in doing infant research and the challenges and joys of studying babies’ brains.

If you found this episode interesting at all, subscribe to our Substack and 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:

Maria’s paper:

Arredondo, M. M., Aslin, R. N., Zhang, M., & Werker, J. F. (2022). Attentional orienting abilities in bilinguals: Evidence from a large infant sample. Infant Behavior and Development, 66, 101683.

Arredondo, M. M., Aslin, R. N., & Werker, J. F. (2022). Bilingualism alters infants’ cortical organization for attentional orienting mechanisms. Developmental Science, 25(2), e13172.

Maria’s Twitter @MMArredondo_

Maria’s lab website: https://sites.utexas.edu/childslab/

Anjie’s: website: anjiecao.github.io

Anjie’s Twitter @anjie_cao

Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPod

Podcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/

Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

71 - Tessa West: Dealing with Toxic Coworkers Nov 10, 2022

Show notes

Eric chats with Tessa West, Associate Professor of Psychology at New York University. Tessa is a leading expert in the science of interpersonal communication. Her work has been covered by various outlets such as the New York Times and Time Magazine. She is most recently the author of “Jerks at Work: Toxic coworkers and what to do about them.”

In this episode, Eric and Tessa chat about why some people are jerks at work. How do you deal with them? Are there more jerks at work now than in the past? Can we find jerks in all cultures around the world? How can we detect jerks? Who is most likely to be taken advantage of by jerks at work? On the flipside of jerks, how can you turn coworkers into friends? Finally, Tessa talks about what it was like to write a trade book, whether that is harder than writing scientific papers, and how she tries to be optimistic about people despite this dark research topic.
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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:

Tessa's book
Tessa's website
Tessa's Twitter @TessaWestNYU
Eric's website
Eric's Twitter @EricNeumannPsy
Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPod
Podcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/
Let us know what you think of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

70 - Julia Leonard: Young children's effort allocation and persistence in learning Nov 03, 2022

Show notes

Bella chats with professor Julia Leonard. Julia is an assistant professor in the department of psychology at Yale University, where she directs the Leonard Learning Lab. Julia and her lab use cognitive, developmental, and computational approaches to study the factors that support both children's approach to learning and their capacity to learn.

In this episode, we discussed Julia's recent research on young children's persistence and the role that caretakers and teachers play in influencing the growth of children's persistence. Although the studies were done with children, you'll be surprised by how much insight her research can bring to all of us, even as adults! We also discussed the challenges we face in children's education and fostering environments that encourage the growth of children's persistence. In the end, Julia shares her personal stories about applying to graduate school and some important advice to anyone interested in pursuing a career in academia.
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.

Links:
Julia's paper on young children's persistence
Julia's Twitter: @julia_a_leonard
Leonard Learning Lab Twitter: @LeonardLearnLab

Bella's website: https://bellafascendini.github.io/
Bella's Twitter @BellaFascendini

Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPod

Let us know what you think of this episode or the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

69 - Robin Dunbar: How Many People Can You Be Friends With? Oct 27, 2022

Show notes

Eric chats with Robin Dunbar, Emeritus Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at Oxford. Robin has famously studied the evolution of the human brain, arguing that our brain developed to understand the complex social world we have created for ourselves. Most know him for “Dunbar’s number,” or the limit to the number of individuals we can maintain stable relationships with. Robin has received more awards than could be counted, including the prestigious Huxley Memorial Medal. He has written various books, most relevant for this conversation a book called “Friends: Understanding the Power of our Most Important Relationship.”

In this wide-ranging episode, Eric and Robin discuss why Dunbar’s number is actually a whole series of numbers. Robin explains how he arrived at this number, why it is so relevant to everything from our globalized world and big cities to maintaining friendships. Do psychopaths need friends to be happy? If you don’t like people, should you move into the woods and never talk to anyone again? He explains why we gossip and what makes something funny. Finally, he shares some personal stories about his career and why his discovery of Dunbar’s number was actually an accident.
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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:

Robin's Friendship book: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/friends-robin-dunbar/1138785864
Robin's most recent book on religion: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/316135/how-religion-evolved-by-dunbar-robin/9780241431788
Eric's website
Eric's Twitter @EricNeumannPsy
Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPod
Podcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/
Let us know what you think of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

68 - Special Episode: Join the BTS Conference! (Big Team Science, not the K-pop band.) Oct 20, 2022

Show notes

Next Thursday and Friday, October 27th and 28th, the first-ever Big Team Science Conference (BTS-CON for short) will be held virtually. The goal of BTSCON is to bring multidisciplinary groups of researchers, funders, and stakeholders to discuss advancements, challenges, and future opportunities related to big team science. The conference program spans two days, including a mixture of symposia, panels, hackathons, and talks. If you are new to this topic, you will find this episode particularly relevant. In this episode that aired earlier this year, Anjie chats with Dr. Nicholas Coles, the Director of Psychological Science Accelerator and one of the many amazing organizers behind BTSCON. They talked a little bit about what big team science is, and what are some real challenges that BTS practitioners would encounter.
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:

BTSCON official page: https://bigteamscienceconference.github.io/

Register now: https://opencollective.com/psysciacc/events/test-event-23392c94/contribute/registration-2022-big-team-science-conference-40278

Full conference program: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17m6t7or53uvFErIW_WHvegwlwV2Cq_rvG5ny-4cBkpM/edit?usp=sharing

The paper discussed: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00150-2%0D?error=server_error
Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPod

Podcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/

Let us know what you think of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

67 - Special Episode: Behind the Scenes of Paths to PhD Oct 13, 2022

Show notes

We are revisiting a special episode in celebration of the upcoming Paths to PhD event. Each year, Stanford's psychology department hosts Paths to PhD, a free, open-to-public information session on how to apply to PhD programs and research positions in psychology. This year’s event is scheduled to happen this Saturday, October 15th from 10:00 am-5:00 pm, and so far we have over three hundred people who signed up and are going to join us from across the world. In this episode that we did a year ago, we invited Lauren and Camilla, two graduate students who were pivotal figures in the shaping of this event.

If you are a graduate student, a postdoc, or a faculty member who is interested in bringing an event like this into your department, you might find this episode to be particularly relevant. And if you are a past, current, or future applicant interested in learning more about the behind-the-scene of this event, you will also find this episode to be interesting. We talked about what this event is about, how it came to be, what will happen in the future, as well as the joy and challenges of organizing and planning events like Path to PhD.

Event page: https://psychology.stanford.edu/diversity/paths-phd

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:

Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPod

Podcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/

Let us know what you think of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

66 - Shai Davidai: Pursuing Status in a Zero-Sum World Oct 06, 2022

Show notes

Eric chats with Shai Davidai, Assistant Professor in the Management Division of Columbia Business School. His research examines people’s everyday judgments of themselves, other people, and society as a whole. He studies perceptions of inequality and competitive, zero-sum beliefs about the world. Shai received his PhD from Cornell under Tom Gilovich’s supervision. His work has been published in various top-tier journals.

In this episode, Eric and Shai discuss how people pursue status. When do people seek status through dominant aggressive bullying and when do they receive it due to their competence and a good character? Shai’s work reveals the role of zero-sum beliefs: people who believe one person’s gain is another’s loss choose more dominant strategies to gain status. Is this an adaptive response? Can such zero-sum perceptions be inaccurate and, even worse, self-fulfilling? What’s the way out of competitive zero-sum cultures? Shai shares how he stays optimistic despite such depressing research interests, discusses being an international scholar living in the US, and gives advice to his younger grad student self. He finally poses a puzzle for the listener: would you rather be extremely smart or extremely kind?
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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:

Shai's paper: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2022-89563-001
Shai's website
Eric's website
Eric's Twitter @EricNeumannPsy
Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPod
Podcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/
Let us know what you think of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

65 - Viridiana Benitez: The Power of Predictability Sep 29, 2022

Show notes

Anjie chats with Dr. Viridiana Benitez, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University. Viridiana directs the Learning and Development Lab and studies how children learn about the world around them. In this episode, Anjie and Viridiana chat about one facet of learning: how predictability helps young children learn words.
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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:

Viridiana’s paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982218307796?via%3Dihub
Viridiana’s lab website: https://www.learndevlab.org/

Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPod
Podcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/

Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com