Two Psychologists Four Beers

Episode 114: Psychology Worth Doing (with Paul Bloom) Nov 11, 2024

Paul Bloom joins the show to talk about a recent paper in which he argues that much of developmental psychology is not worth doing. We also talk about where he thinks psychology has succeeded, and whether we should be more skeptical of progressive-friendly social science findings. Plus: is it ever a good idea to tell your friend that the person they're dating is bad for them?

Special Guest: Paul Bloom.

Links:

Episode 113: The Road to Cincinnati (with Adam Mastroianni) Oct 21, 2024

Researcher and writer Adam Mastroianni joins the podcast to talk about why he left academia, what conventional scientific research might be missing, and how he ended up writing a succesful science blog instead of more journal articles. Plus: what is a Science House? How do we know that psychology is making progress? And should scientific fraud be a crime?

Special Guest: Adam Mastroianni.

Links:

Episode 112: All About ADHD (with Amori Mikami) Sep 02, 2024

University of British Columbia professor and ADHD expert Amori Mikami joins the show to talk attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). What is it, how has our understanding of it changed over the years, and how accurate is the public discourse about it?

Plus, some more on Yoel's own ADHD journey and a quiz where we establish how many of Yoel's annoying behaviors are ADHD-related.

Special Guest: Amori Mikami.

Links:

Episode 111: We Are So Back Jul 31, 2024

Mickey joins Yoel for the first new episode in nearly a year. We talk what's been up with the show, plans for the future, and what it feels like to briefly be (almost) internet-famous.

In the second half of the show, we talk about expertise and prediction. When social scientists make predictions about the future, should we listen? How much should failures of prediction make us distrust expert advice more generally, and if so, how skeptical should we be?

Links:

Episode 110: RE-RELEASE: Destigmatizing Mental Health (with Andrew Devendorf) Oct 04, 2023

Andrew Devendorf joins Alexa and Yoel to discuss his work on "me-search" (or self-relevant research) within clinical psychology. He talks about the prevalence of mental health difficulties within the field, and the harmful taboos against speaking openly about them. And, he shares his own reasons for studying depression and suicide, and how he has been discouraged from citing personal experience as a motivation for his work. Their conversation also explores common misconceptions about mental illness, strengths of self-relevant research, and ways to be more supportive to those facing mental health challenges. In the end, Yoel and Alexa fail to resolve their debate about the existence of the "unbiased researcher."

Special Guest: Andrew Devendorf.

Links:

Episode 109: RE-RELEASE: Against Mindfulness Sep 27, 2023

Playing devil's advocate, Yoel and Mickey mount a criticism against the scientific study of mindfulness. What is mindfulness? Can we measure it? Is mindfulness-based therapy effective? Can mindfulness improve the quality of attention beyond the meditation cushion? Are effects of mindfulness mostly placebo effects produced by motivated practitioners and adherents? Should we be impressed by mindfulness meditation’s supposed effects on conceptions of the self? Is mindfulness, in all its complexity, amenable to scientific study?

Bonus: Is the value of diversity and inclusivity a core part of open science?

This is a re-release of an episode first released on August 7, 2019.

Links:

Episode 108: RE-RELEASE: We Need to Talk About Fraud Sep 20, 2023

Yoel and Alexa are joined by Joe Simmons to talk about fraud. We go in-depth on a recent high-profile fraud case, but we also talk about scientific fraud more generally: how common is it, how do you detect it, and what can we do to prevent it?

This is a re-release of Episode 73, originally released on September 29, 2021.

Special Guest: Joe Simmons.

Links:

Episode 107: Against Anti-DEI Rhetoric Aug 30, 2023

Jennifer Gutsell joins Alexa to discuss the controversy surrounding Yoel's experience interviewing at UCLA. They focus on a post, written by Alexa, in which she pushes back against defenses of "viewpoint diversity" and argues that the graduate petition advocating for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) was a brave effort that should be taken seriously. Jennifer elaborates on these ideas, suggesting that there are some views that are not up for debate, and emphasizing the care that is required when having theoretical discussions without a personal stake in the matter. Alexa and Jennifer go on to connect these ideas to a paper written by Kevin Durrheim in which he proposes that psychology's emphasis on our progressive accomplishments silences the deeper reality of racism within our field.

Special Guest: Jennifer Gutsell.

Links:

Episode 106: We Need to Talk About Fraud Again Jun 23, 2023

Harkening back to episode 73, Alexa and Yoel discuss recent evidence of fraud documented in the Data Colada blog post "Clusterfake." The post is the first in a series of four, which will collectively detail evidence of fraud in four papers co-authored by Harvard Business School Professor Francesca Gino. First, the co-hosts dive into the details, with Alexa soberly (in both senses of the word) explaining the revelations of calcChain. They go on to discuss the potential impact of these findings for collaborators, some of whom have begun conducting audits of work co-authored with Gino. In addition, they speculate about ways to reduce fraud that could relieve some of the burden from those who currently do this time-consuming and often thankless work. Finally, they consider what this means for a field still struggling to build a more trustworthy foundation.

Links:

Episode 105: Patchwork Politics May 17, 2023

In heated political debates, people are often accused of being hypocrites, lacking consistent foundational values. Today, Yoel and Alexa discuss a recent paper by David Pinsof, David Sears, and Martie Haselton, that challenges the commonsense notion that political belief systems stem from our core values. Instead, the authors propose that people form alliances with others, and develop political beliefs that serve to maintain those alliances. The cohosts discuss how these alliances might form, the various biases used to defend them, and whether values are truly absent from the process. They also tackle the deeper question of whether the alliance model means that neither side is right or wrong.

Links:

Episode 104: Quantifying the Narrative of Replicable Science Mar 29, 2023

Yoel and Alexa discuss a recent paper that takes a machine learning approach to estimating the replicability of psychology as a discipline. The researchers' investigation begins with a training process, in which an artificial intelligence model identifies ways that textual descriptions differ for studies that pass versus fail manual replication tests. This model is then applied to a set of 14,126 papers published in six well-known psychology journals over the past 20 years, picking up on the textual markers that it now recognizes as signals of replicable findings. In a mysterious twist, these markers remain hidden in the black box of the algorithm. However, the researchers hand-examine a few markers of their own, testing whether things like subfield, author expertise, and media interest are associated with the replicability of findings. And, as if machine learning models weren't juicy enough, Yoel trolls Alexa with an intro topic hand-selected to infuriate her.

Links:

Episode 103: Psych (with Paul Bloom) Mar 08, 2023

Alexa and Yoel chat with Paul Bloom about his newest book, Psych: The Story of the Human Mind. The book, built from Paul's popular Introduction to Psychology course, is an opinionated overview of the field of psychology but also a window into his deep fascination with the mind. Yoel and Alexa spend some time picking Paul's brain, inquiring about writing, and teaching, and how to avoid boredom. But Paul has a few questions of his own, challenging the cohosts to consider what their own version of Psych would look like. In the process, their conversation ranges from Freudian dream content, to the limitations of psychology, to the (glaring omission of) the anatomy of the inner ear.

Special Guest: Paul Bloom.

Links:

Episode 102: Destigmatizing Mental Health (with Andrew Devendorf) Feb 08, 2023

Andrew Devendorf joins Alexa and Yoel to discuss his work on "me-search" (or self-relevant research) within clinical psychology. He talks about the prevalence of mental health difficulties within the field, and the harmful taboos against speaking openly about them. And, he shares his own reasons for studying depression and suicide, and how he has been discouraged from citing personal experience as a motivation for his work. Their conversation also explores common misconceptions about mental illness, strengths of self-relevant research, and ways to be more supportive to those facing mental health challenges. In the end, Yoel and Alexa fail to resolve their debate about the existence of the "unbiased researcher."

Special Guest: Andrew Devendorf.

Links:

Episode 101: An Outside Perspective on Implicit Bias Jan 18, 2023

Alexa and Yoel discuss the much trodden topic of implicit bias from a less trodden perspective: that of the general public. Offering insight into the public's views is a paper by Jeffrey Yen, Kevin Durrheim, and Romin Tafarodi, which explores public thinking about the implicit association test (IAT) through an examination of the New York Times comments section. These comments demonstrate varying reactions to the idea that negative associations with some identities - racial and otherwise - can bubble beneath the surface of our explicit attitudes. Some dismiss the IAT as "academic abstraction," while others see their scores as an opportunity for confession, or even absolution. Still others embrace the role of troll, a topic foreshadowed by our discussion of the proposed overhauling of New College of Florida.

Links:

Episode 100: What Happened at Perspectives on Psychological Science? Dec 23, 2022

Yoel and special guest Rachel Hartman discuss the recent ouster of Klaus Fiedler, the former Editor in Chief of the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, over allegations of racism and abuse of power. They try to untangle a complicated story of peer review gone awry, explain the dueling open letters condemning and supporting Fiedler, and critically evaluate the allegations against him as well as the process that led to his dismissal as EIC. Along the way, they also talk about wine spritzers and journal prestige.

Special Guest: Rachel Hartman.

Links:

Episode 99: Is MTurk Too Good To Be True? Dec 07, 2022

In a recent article, psychologists Webb and Tangney document their experience collecting psychology data online using Amazon's crowdsourcing platform MTurk. Alarmingly, the authors conclude that ultimately only 2.6% of their sample was valid data from human beings. Yoel and Alexa weigh in on these findings, discussing what researchers can reasonably expect from online studies and platforms, and how their personal experiences have informed their own practices. They also consider a response written by Cuskley and Sulik, who argue that researchers, not recruitment platforms, are responsible for ensuring the quality of data collected online. Questions that arise include: What studies do people want to do? Does anyone read the fine print? And what are the ethics of mouse-hunting?

Links:

Episode 98: Inspired Science (with Spencer Greenberg) Nov 23, 2022

Yoel and Alexa are joined by Spencer Greenberg, founder of the behavioral science startup incubator Spark Wave and host of the Clearer Thinking podcast. He describes how he became fascinated with psychology and behavior change, and how he's been working to provide empirically-backed strategies for everday tasks, like making decisions or forming habits. He also offers an alternative perspective on open science, arguing that a phenomenon he calls "importance hacking" has been overshadowed by p-hacking in calls for science reform. Greenberg further challenges the Alexa and Yoel to consider whether the "open scientist" will fall short of what can only be achieved by the truly "inspired scientist." Finally, Spenccer has a major project in the works, and he gives us the honor of the big reveal.

Special Guest: Spencer Greenberg.

Links:

Episode 97: Getting Into Grad School Nov 09, 2022

With grad school application deadlines around the corner, Alexa and Yoel discuss how, exactly, that process works. Big picture, they talk about their goals in selecting graduate students to work on their labs, and whether they've gotten good at the process. They also examine typical application requirements - including recommendation letters, personal statements, GPAs, and (sometimes) the GRE - and consider which they'd keep, and which they'd prefer to never deal with again.

Links:

Episode 96: So, What Do You Do? Oct 26, 2022

Yoel and Alexa discuss a recent paper, written by Hughes, Srivastava, Leszko, and Condon, that created and validated a new index of "occupational prestige." The index is intended to provide a tool to measure the third component of socioeconomic status, alongside income and education. The cohosts consider how occupational prestige might lead to differential treatment, or even unrealistic expectations ("is anyone in this hotel a doctor?"). Digging deeper, they discuss the paper's exploration of ways that prestige tracks with the physical, critical thinking, and interpersonal demands of a profession. Finally, they realize that as a "former social neuroscientist," Alexa hasn't been getting the respect she deserves.

Links:

Episode 95: What are Teachers Good For? (with Paul Bloom) Sep 28, 2022

Paul Bloom joins Yoel and Alexa to talk about the glamour and humiliation of teaching psychology at the college level. They discuss how they've changed their approaches to teaching over the years, and whether they've become more skilled or more out of touch (or both). Alexa shares her experiences teaching about morality and evolution to a predominantly Christian student body, Yoel laments the fact that his students aren't more disagreeable, and Paul claims that critical thinking is overrated. In an era of increasing remote instruction, they claim that online courses can't do what they do. But, only Yik Yak knows for sure.

Special Guest: Paul Bloom.

Links:

Episode 94: Individualism, Interdependence, and Student Loans Sep 14, 2022

Inspired by a recent Atlantic article ("The Myth of Independent American Families" by Stephanie H. Murray) Alexa and Yoel consider what it means to live in an indiviualistic society. At an abstract level, they discuss different visions for interdependence, from communes to church communities to welfare states. On a more personal note, they reflect on ways that they depend on, and support, people in their families and communities, and whether it would be desirable to increase those levels of reliance. They also consider the domains of romantic relationships (should we feel like we're free to leave at any time?) and college education (how affordable should it be?). And, Yoel explains his beef with student loan forgiveness.

Links:

Episode 93: Facing a Social Media Mob (with Stefan Uddenberg) Aug 24, 2022

Yoel and Alexa are joined by Stefan Uddenberg, a social perception researcher and author of the paper "Deep Models of Superficial Face Judgments." This paper was the focus of a previous episde - "A Face for Podcasting" - in which the co-hosts discussed the research, and the resulting controversy. Now, Stefan offers a new, insider perspective. He begins by offering a deeper explanation of the work, noting that a large, diverse set of facial images, is essential for studying how people are unfairly judged based on appearance (e.g., their race and gender). He also recounts the outrage on Twitter and somehow finds lessons to be learned from even the harshest and most misinformed attacks. In an unexpected twist, Yoel and Alexa discover Stefan's hidden talent.

Special Guest: Stefan Uddenberg.

Links:

Episode 92: Should SPSP Stay Out of It? Aug 03, 2022

As the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) starts gearing up for their 2023 conference, Alexa and Yoel debate some of the organization's recent efforts to be more anti-racist and politically engaged. First, the co-hosts discuss debate over moving the conference from its originally scheduled location (Atlanta, Georgia) due to the state's restrictive abortion laws. They consider how boycotting (or, as SPSP ultimately decided, not boycotting) fits with the organization's mission and identity. Second, they examine SPSP's new submission evaluation criteria, which reward submissions for promoting equity, inclusion, and anti-racism. Yoel and Alexa are largely divided on both topics, but Yoel provides at least one improvement they can agree on.

Links:

Episode 91: Decriminalizing Mental Illness Jul 20, 2022

Yoel and Alexa chat with Jennifer Cox and Lauren Kois, co-directors of the Southern Behavioral Health and Law Initiative. Established in 2020, the initiative was created to address the dearth of mental health resources for people who become involved with the legal system. Jennifer and Lauren walk our co-hosts through common scenarios that can occur when a person with mental illness encounters the legal system, some of which involve long waits in understaffed state hospitals with little access to basic mental health resources. They also describe various efforts to ameliorate these problems, including their own work to optimize use of the 988 mental health emergency line in Alabama. In the process, they offer hope for researchers who aim to effect policy change without becoming mired in political polarization. And, they challenge future guests to a deadlifting contest.

Special Guests: Jennifer Cox and Lauren Kois.

Links:

Episode 90: Freelance Kinkology (with Aella) Jul 06, 2022

Independent researcher Aella joins Yoel and Alexa to talk about her experiences doing freelance social science. Their discussion touches on some far-ranging topics, from the upsides of Twitter microfame to the humbling experience of questioning one's faith. At one point, they consider the compromises - good and bad - that come from catering to one's critics. Aella also discusses a recent funded research project where she asks people about their sexual fetishes.

Special Guest: Aella.

Links:

Episode 89: What's Wrong with Social Media? Jun 22, 2022

Mickey returns with the hot takes you know and love. He joins Yoel and Alexa to discuss Jonathan Haidt's recent Atlantic article, "Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid." Haidt claims the answer is social media, but the cohosts aren't fully convinced. To shed a bit more light on the matter, they turn to an article by Amy Orben and Andrew Przybylski which provides a rigorous analysis of the relationship between social media use and well-being. In the end, Mickey admits to being a hypocrite, and Alexa makes a plug for Big Potato.

Links:

Episode 88: Many Many Labs Jun 08, 2022

Earlier this year, the last of five "Many Labs" projects was accepted for publication at Collabra: Psychology, representating the culmination of a nearly-decade long series of multi-lab replication efforts. In this episode, Alexa and Yoel consider what they've learned from Many Labs 1 through 5, including insights about replication, expertise, and the impact (or lack thereof) of small effects. They also discuss their own connections to the project - Yoel as an original author, and Alexa as a researcher examing psychologists' reactions to the findings. Although the co-hosts deny they have any existential fear of death (see Many Labs 4) they do share their most recent life-threatening experiences.

Links:

Episode 87: The Distracting Nature of Nudges May 18, 2022

Originating within the behavioral sciences, "nudging" has received attention as a way to achieve broad societal change by promoting small, individual adjustments. We're told, for instance, that if we all do our part reduce our carbon footprints we can stave off climate change. In today's episode, Yoel and Alexa consider a critique of "nudging" offered by Chater and Loewenstein. These authors argue that individual-level interventions often fail to accumulate to impressive societal change, and meanwhile distract from much needed system-level solutions. Also, Yoel claims to be less relatable than Alexa.

Sponsored By:

FindingFive: FindingFive is a non-profit web platform where academic researchers can create and run online behavioral research studies in the cloud. Promo Code: FF-US-2P4B
FindingFive: Link and promo code for users in the European Union Promo Code: FF-EU-2P4B

Links:

Episode 86: A Face For Podcasting May 01, 2022

Yoel and Alexa discuss a recent study that examines the facial features that people perceive as "smart," "dorky," "trustworthy," or a number of other traits. The study quickly captured a lot of attention, eliciting both fascination and anger. The cohosts turn to Twitter, and to Alexa's undergraduate students, to attempt to gain a deeper understanding of the criticisms and suspicions expressed about the work. In the process, they consider whether glasses make you look smart, and whether babies can be trusted.

Sponsored By:

FindingFive: FindingFive is a non-profit web platform where academic researchers can create and run online behavioral research studies in the cloud. Promo Code: FF-US-2P4B
FindingFive: Link and promo code for users in the European Union Promo Code: FF-EU-2P4B

Links:

Episode 85: People Dealing With the Pandemic Pretty Well, Study Finds Apr 20, 2022

Originally, Yoel and Alexa set out to discuss a study examining stress and decision-making during the pandemic. However, they get sidetracked by the ways that data are packaged - first by APA, and then by NPR - into a newsworthy account that may not tell the whole story. They identify ways in which the summary statements and headlines may exaggerate or twist the data into a more interesting narrative. Despite their skepticism, they consider NPR's advice about how to improve day-to-day decision-making. In a particularly humble moment, Yoel concedes that he should have known better than to buy a car without air conditioning.

Sponsored By:

FindingFive: FindingFive is a non-profit web platform where academic researchers can create and run online behavioral research studies in the cloud. Promo Code: FF-US-2P4B
FindingFive: Link and promo code for users in the European Union Promo Code: FF-EU-2P4B

Links:

Episode 84: Check Your Values? Apr 06, 2022

Alexa and Yoel fight some more, this time over whether or not science should be value free. They consider a position taken by W. E. B. Du Bois, who argued that social change was only possible if scientists focused solely on finding truth. In the process, they consider whether scientists should ever keep findings to themselves, and discuss the merits of leaving the value judgments to the politicians. In the end, they somehow conclude that it is fine that they never justify their alphas. Next time, Alexa promises to find out what's happening on UA frat house lawns.

Sponsored By:

FindingFive: FindingFive is a non-profit web platform where academic researchers can create and run online behavioral research studies in the cloud. Promo Code: FF-US-2P4B
FindingFive: Link and promo code for users in the European Union Promo Code: FF-EU-2P4B

Links:

Episode 83: Grand Challenges Mar 23, 2022

Yoel and Alexa discuss the "grand challenges" of psychological science, as identified in a recent survey of APS members. While usually nauseatingly agreeable, the two find many points of contention when it comes to psychology's shortcomings - from the kinds of diversity worth wanting to the value of decolonizing your syllabus. In the end, they make amends by agreeing that psychological science is, unfortunately, unlikely to solve climate change. And, along the way they express their appreciation for winter sports, tax advice, and alcoholic seltzers without artificial sweeteners.

Sponsored By:

FindingFive: FindingFive is a non-profit web platform where academic researchers can create and run online behavioral research studies in the cloud. Promo Code: FF-US-2P4B
FindingFive: Link and promo code for users in the European Union Promo Code: FF-EU-2P4B

Links:

Episode 82: Psychology Worth Knowing Mar 09, 2022

Yoel and Alexa embrace their credulous sides and consider concepts from psychology that have importance for people in their private and public lives. Each of us lists the three social psychological ideas that we think are most relevant to people's lives - the kinds of things we would teach if we could give just one lecture. There are areas of consensus, but at some point Alexa wonders what Yoel has against insurance. We also discuss our inability to meaningfully discuss international politics.

Sponsored By:

FindingFive: FindingFive is a non-profit web platform where academic researchers can create and run online behavioral research studies in the cloud. Promo Code: FF-US-2P4B
FindingFive: Link and promo code for users in the European Union Promo Code: FF-EU-2P4B

Links:

Episode 81: Against Retribution Feb 23, 2022

Alexa moonlights as a guest and answers Yoel's questions about her recent paper, in which she argues that the criminal justice system should abandon retribution. Alexa claims that when we ask if someone is blameworthy, we are asking social scientific questions: Were they rational? Were they being coerced? Were they acting out of character? We discuss some aspects of the social scientific evidence - from vignettes about soaping windows to group-to-individual inference - and consider whether it can provide satisfying answers. And, Yoel challenges Alexa to consider whether her utopian vision might have unintended consequences.

Plus, we talk about Canadian truckers, and Alexa keeps her valentine's day collage shrouded in mystery.

Links:

Episode 80: The C-Word (with Julia Rohrer) Feb 09, 2022

Personality psychologist and methodologist Julia Rohrer joins the show to talk about causal claims, strategic ambiguity, and how tough it is to tell what empirical claims many psychology papers are making. To illustrate, we subject Yoel's first paper, "Conservatives are more easily disgusted than liberals," to some vigorous post-publication peer review. We also discuss what makes Julia most hopeful about psychology, as well as the recent progress in alcohol-free beer.

Special Guest: Julia Rohrer.

Links:

Episode 79: All About Authenticity Jan 26, 2022

Alexa and Yoel talk authenticity. What is it? Is it good to have it? And why does Alexa score higher on it than Yoel? We talk about a draft paper examining how people infer authenticity in themselves and others, and a recently-published paper suggesting that supposedly highly authentic people might just be motivated to present themselves that way.

Plus, Alexa drinks some listener-supplied beer, with favorable results, and we discuss who the most famous academic is.

Links:

Episode 78: Meehl on Theory Jan 12, 2022

Alexa and Yoel are back with more amateur philosophy of science. This time, we do a deep dive into a paper by the legendary Paul Meehl: "Appraising and Amending Theories: The Strategy of Lakatosian Defense and Two Principles that Warrant It." What can this classic paper tell us about how to do better research?

We also talk about lactose, tandem bicycles, and New Year's resolutions (not in that order).

Links:

Episode 77: Against Method? Dec 08, 2021

Alexa and Yoel tackle Paul Feyerabend, the wild man of philosophy of science. What can we learn from his "anything goes" argument for methodological anarchy? We go deep on the first five chapters of Feyerabend's most famous work, "Against Method," and discuss his (maybe not entirely serious) arguments for extreme theory proliferation, ignoring the data, and Chinese herbal medicine.

Also, we discuss which Christmas album is superior: Sia or Dolly Parton.

Links:

Episode 76: Preregistration (What is it Good For) Nov 17, 2021

Alexa and Yoel talk about objections to preregistration. Does preregistration imply that researchers can't be trusted? Does it mean that they can't use their best judgment? When might preregistration be unhelpful? We also discuss researcher degrees of freedom in a recent paper testing Cardi B's maxim that "hoes don't get cold."

Plus: ketchup on ice cream, and Alexa's controversial replacement for Daylight Savings Time.

Links:

Episode 75: Beyond Experiments Nov 03, 2021

Alexa and Yoel talk about a paper purporting to show that winning the Nobel Prize increases your lifespan. In the process, they dip their toes into non-experimental causal inference and discuss whether there is a taboo in psychology about drawing causal conclusions from non-experimental data. Plus, Yoel does his best to explain what an instrumental variable is and Alexa drinks a very large beer.

Links:

Episode 74: Pleasurable Suffering (with Paul Bloom) Oct 13, 2021

Paul Bloom joins us to talk about why we want to suffer. Sometimes it's a means to an end, but sometimes we desire it for its own sake.

Among other things, we talk about mountain-climbing, whether you'd want to run just the end of the marathon, experience machines, BDSM, and parenting.

Plus, a very special extra guest host, kidney donation, pronouns, and trigger warnings.

Special Guest: Paul Bloom.

Links:

Episode 73: We Need to Talk About Fraud (with Joe Simmons) Sep 29, 2021

Yoel and Alexa are joined by Joe Simmons to talk about fraud. We go in-depth on a recent high-profile fraud case, but we also talk about scientific fraud more generally: how common is it, how do you detect it, and what can we do to prevent it?

Special Guest: Joe Simmons.

Links:

Episode 72: The Climate Survey (with Danielle McDuffie) Sep 15, 2021

Danielle McDuffie is a graduate student in psychology at the University of Alabama. This is the story of how she ran a graduate student climate survey, the explosive results, and the very contentious year that ensued.

Special Guest: Danielle McDuffie.

Links:

Episode 71: The Good Life Sep 01, 2021

Alexa and Yoel discuss a new paper (Oishi & Westgate, 2021) arguing that psychological richness is an overlooked aspect of the good life. In the process, they compare psychologically-rich-life scores, plan hypothetical vacations, and compare major regrets.

Also, Alexa reviews an (accidentally-purchased) alcohol-free beer.

Links:

Episode 70: Older Aug 11, 2021

Alexa and Yoel tackle the most dreaded subject: getting older. Have they become better researchers and people over the years? Are they happier and more connected? Or are they just more forgetful and less good at stats?

Plus: some listener feedback about self-care raises conceptual questions about suffering.

Episode 69: How to Self-Care Jul 21, 2021

Alexa and Yoel go deep on self-care. What is it, how do you do it, and why does the term raise Yoel's hackles? How hard do we actually work, and should we be trying to work less?

Also, Alexa shares an amazingly successful culinary experiment.

Links:

Episode 68: How (Not) to be a Hater Jul 07, 2021

Alexa and Yoel discuss "The Anticreativity Letters," a satirical article by Richard Nisbett that advises young psychology researchers to (among other things) avoid being overly critical. How does the article's advice hold up today? How does one combine appropriate skepticism with enthusiasm for research? Or are the two in conflict at all?

Plus: Alexa gets salty about salty drinks, and Yoel returns to the gym.

Sponsored By:

Paperpile: No-fuss reference management for the web. Manage your research library, right in your browser. Promo Code: BEERS

Links:

Episode 67: Getting Drunk (with Ted Slingerland) Jun 23, 2021

Mickey and Yoel welcome repeat guest Ted Slingerland to talk about his new book "Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization," in which he makes the case for alcohol.

Also, why are Yoel's guns out, and what was Mickey's worst trip?

Special Guest: Edward (Ted) Slingerland.

Sponsored By:

Paperpile: No-fuss reference management for the web. Manage your research library, right in your browser. Promo Code: BEERS

Links:

Episode 66: How is Open Science Doing? Jun 09, 2021

Yoel and Alexa discuss progress in open science over the past 10 years. Is the scientific reform glass half-full or half-empty? Where have we made progress, and what still needs work? We use two papers describing "Scientific Utopia" by Nosek and colleagues (written nearly 10 years ago!) in order to evaluate our progress.

Also, the true story of how Ashley Madison got its name.

Sponsored By:

Paperpile: No-fuss reference management for the web. Manage your research library, right in your browser. Promo Code: BEERS

Links:

Episode 65: Our Social Media Prisms May 26, 2021

Mickey, Alexa, and Yoel break down "Breaking the Social Media Prism," a new book arguing that social media reinforces our pre-existing political beliefs and polarizes us against the other side.

Plus, HUGE NEWS about who's hosting the show. Also, Yoel gets a French lesson.

Links:

Episode 64: Quick Fixes (with Jesse Singal) Apr 28, 2021

Journalist and podcaster Jesse Singal joins the show to talk about the enduring popularity of social-psychological quick fixes and how they go wrong. Plus: what is wrong with how the media covers science?

Special Guest: Jesse Singal.

Links:

Episode 63: Legalize It (with Carl Hart) Mar 24, 2021

Neuroscientist and addiction researcher Carl Hart joins the show to talk drug legalization. Why does he think all drugs should be legal? What are some common myths about drug use and addiction? And how has his personal experience as a regular drug user influenced his views?

Bonus: What drugs should we try next?

Special Guest: Carl Hart.

Links:

Episode 62: Actually Against Academia (with Lee Jussim) Feb 24, 2021

Lee Jussim joins the show to argue that we have been too soft on academia. We discuss problems in psychology and the social sciences including ideological bias, politically-motivated retractions, and more. Have things gotten better or worse over the past 10 years?

Plus: is Lee bad at Twitter?

Special Guest: Lee Jussim.

Links:

Episode 61: Bullshit, Misinformation, and What to Do About It (with Gord Pennycook) Jan 27, 2021

Psychologist Gordon Pennycook joins the show to talk bullshit and misinformation. What is bullshit, and why do some people fall for it more than others? Why does misinformation spread so readily, and what can be done to stop it?

Plus: Yoel asks some perfectly reasonable questions about COVID's origins, and Mickey indulges in some Canadian content.

Special Guest: Gordon Pennycook.

Links:

Episode 60: 2020 Silver Linings Dec 30, 2020

Mickey and Yoel follow up on two recent episodes ("Against Academia?" and "Racism and Sexism on Campus"). Then they review some of the less-bad aspects of 2020 and recommend some things that got them through a challenging year. Plus: what 80s band was Mickey the #1 fan of?

Links:

Episode 59: Talking about Talking (with Katie Kinzler) Dec 16, 2020

Psychologist Katie Kinzler joins the show to talk language. How do children and adults make judgments about people based on how they talk? Is there a "bilingual advantage"? And does Mickey sound Canadian?

Bonus: When deciding whether to go to grad school, should you not do what Katie did?

Special Guest: Katherine (Katie) Kinzler.

Links:

Menagerie Single Hop Pale Ale – Fairweather Brewing Company
Blueberry, Chocolate, Coffee & Vanilla - Collective Arts Brewing
815 Cabernet Sauvignon - Joel Gott Wines
Bourbon | Knob Creek® Bourbon Whiskey
Once a French Speaker, Always a French Speaker? — Once a French Speaker, Always a French Speaker? Bilingual Children’s Thinking About the Stability of Language
How You Say It: Why You Talk the Way You Do―And What It Says About You: Kinzler, Katherine D.: 9780544986558: Amazon.com: Books

Episode 58: Sexism and Racism on Campus (with Anne Wilson) Dec 02, 2020

Repeat guest Anne Wilson joins the show to talk about two recent papers about bias in psychology and on campus. Is gender and racial bias pervasive? Or are things better than many of us might think? We also discuss the recent "female mentorship" paper that's been causing quite the hubbub.

Special Guest: Anne Wilson.

Links:

Episode 57: Against Academia? Nov 11, 2020

Mickey and Yoel tackle the pros and cons of academia. As an academic, is it taboo to say you love your job? How hard do we work anyway? If we ran the world, how would we change academic hiring?

Also: why do reporters call us and ask us for our opinion?

Links:

Episode 56: The Kindness of Strangers (with Michael McCullough) Oct 21, 2020

Psychologist Michael McCullough joins the show to talk forgiveness, punishment, and how we came to care about the welfare of people we don't know. Also: a listener calls out our dubious math.

Special Guest: Michael McCullough.

Sponsored By:

The Great Courses Plus: The Great Courses Plus is a Video-On-Demand service brought to you by The Great Courses – the leading global media brand for lifelong learning and personal enrichment. With thousands of in-depth videos taught by the world’s greatest professors, you’ll always have something fascinating to learn about. Promo Code: BEERS

Links:

Episode 55: All In (with Maria Konnikova) Oct 07, 2020

Psychologist and author Maria Konnikova joins the show to talk poker, life, and what one teaches you about the other. She talks with us about working with Walter Mischel as a graduate student, her decision to leave the academic track to become an author, and her latest book, The Biggest Bluff, in which she describes how she became a tournament-winning professional poker player.

Bonus: who will win our round of Lodden Thinks?

Special Guest: Maria Konnikova.

Sponsored By:

The Great Courses Plus: The Great Courses Plus is a Video-On-Demand service brought to you by The Great Courses – the leading global media brand for lifelong learning and personal enrichment. With thousands of in-depth videos taught by the world’s greatest professors, you’ll always have something fascinating to learn about. Promo Code: BEERS

Links:

Episode 54: Being WEIRD (with Joe Henrich) Sep 23, 2020

Yoel and Mickey interview one of the most influential social scientists of our generation, Harvard University's Joe Henrich. Why are people from the West so peculiar, so different from other people the world over? What led the West to be particularly prosperous? If not intelligence, what marks humans as so special? What are the various approaches to the evolutionary study of human behaviour? Does psychology suffer from a theory crisis? Has religion been a net plus to the survival of human groups?

Bonus: Who is lazier, psychologists or economists?

Special Guest: Joe Henrich.

Sponsored By:

The Great Courses Plus: The Great Courses Plus is a Video-On-Demand service brought to you by The Great Courses – the leading global media brand for lifelong learning and personal enrichment. With thousands of in-depth videos taught by the world’s greatest professors, you’ll always have something fascinating to learn about. Promo Code: BEERS

Links:

Episode 53: The COVID debate (with Robb Willer and Simine Vazire) Sep 09, 2020

Robb Willer and Simine Vazire join the podcast to debate whether social science, in its current form, can usefully contribute to our response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Is psychology ready to give trustworthy advice to policy-makers?

Plus: Yoel shirks his beer-drinking, yet again.

Special Guests: Robb Willer and Simine Vazire.

Sponsored By:

The Great Courses Plus: The Great Courses Plus is a Video-On-Demand service brought to you by The Great Courses – the leading global media brand for lifelong learning and personal enrichment. With thousands of in-depth videos taught by the world’s greatest professors, you’ll always have something fascinating to learn about. Promo Code: BEERS

Links:

Episode 52: Cold Takes (with Neil Lewis, Jr.) Aug 26, 2020

Yoel and Mickey welcome Neil Lewis, Jr. of Cornell University to the podcast. Is psychology ready to be applied to help the response to the COVID-19 pandemic? What are the opportunity costs of applying a psychological intervention? How does Neil navigate Twitter so effectively? What will Neil be doing over at FiveThirtyEight? What can meta-analyses and registered reports tell us about stereotype threat?

Bonus: How is Mickey like Jesus?

Special Guest: Neil Lewis, Jr..

Links:

Episode 51: Against Orthodoxy Aug 12, 2020

After over a year of (mostly) avoiding controversial topics, Yoel and Mickey dive in to talk about orthodoxy, dissent, and "cancel culture." Does the narrowing of acceptable views make us dumber or does it represent a drawing of new moral boundaries that make us more kind? How does the silencing of dissent lead to self-censoring? Why does it appear like some people are given more permission to dissent than others? Is cancel culture leading to a right-wing backlash?

Bonus: Why was the podcast account suspended from Twitter?

Links:

Episode 50: The Upside of Feeling Bad (with Claudia Haase) Jul 29, 2020

For their 50th episode, Yoel and Mickey welcome Northwestern University psychologist Claudia Haase to the podcast to discuss relationships and mistakes. What was life like in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin wall? How can Yoel and Mickey iron out their relationship problems? How is life as a working academic and mother during a global pandemic? Why are people so scared to admit to their mistakes? How can we learn from failure?

Bonus: Should you delete Twitter?

Special Guest: Claudia Haase.

Links:

Episode 49: Why Buddhism is Wrong (with Evan Thompson) Jul 15, 2020

Yoel and Mickey have a far ranging conversation with University of British Columbia professor of philosophy, Evan Thompson. Despite growing up with a daily meditation practice and contributing to the cognitive science of mindfulness, why does Evan not consider himself a Buddhist? Is Buddhism a religion that is truly different from other religions? Is the self an illusion, as is popularily portrayed by Buddhist modernists such as Sam Harris? What do failures to replicate social psychology studies of embodied cognition mean for the larger enterprise of embodied cognition? Can science and traditional Buddhism co-exist? Why is Evolutionary Psychology a doomed entreprise?

Bonus: Which city is superior, Toronto or Vancouver?

Special Guest: Evan Thompson.

Links:

Episode 48: Clocks and Garbage Cans (with Rachel Ruttan) Jul 01, 2020

Yoel and Mickey host Rachel Ruttan, who is an assisant professor of organizational behavior and human resources at the Rotman School of Management. What is organizational behavior and how is it different from psychology? What makes for a good research idea? How is figure skating like academia? When big corporations espouse social values, does it cheapen people's commitment to these values?

Bonus: What is the best way to suss out if a new friend smokes weed?

Special Guest: Rachel Ruttan.

Links:

Episode 47: Talking about Racism (with Keith Maddox) Jun 17, 2020

Yoel and Mickey welcome back returning guest Keith Maddox from Tufts University to talk about his research on racism. What is shadeism? Can anything be done to make it easier to talk about race and racism? What happens to poeple who confront racism? Has social psychology overplayed the impact of implicit prejudice? Has psychology overplayed the role of the individual racist, and not focused enough on structural racism?

Special Guest: Keith Maddox.

Links:

Episode 46: Very Good Men (with Very Bad Wizards) Jun 03, 2020

Yoel and Mickey try to settle their feud with the boys from Very Bad Wizards, Tamler Sommers and David Pizarro. They discuss what psychology, philosophy, and art can and can't do. Does psychology get more respect than it deserves? How has philosophy contributed to supporting the COVID-19 pandemic response? In principle, is it possible to measure authoritarianism or love or neuroticism? How has VBW not become an icon of the IDW?

Bonus: Who loves Tamler's step-mother the most?

Special Guest: Very Bad Wizards.

Links:

Episode 45: Being Human (with Scott Barry Kaufman) May 13, 2020

Yoel and Mickey welcome humanistic psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman to the show. Scott talks about his academic path from intelligence researcher to positive psychologist. What is humanistic psychology? Can one study humananistic concepts like self-actualization, flourishing, and meaning scientifically? What does evolutionary psychology get wrong about basic human needs?

Bonus: SBK sings!

Special Guest: Scott Barry Kaufman.

Sponsored By:

The Great Courses Plus: The Great Courses Plus is a Video-On-Demand service brought to you by The Great Courses – the leading global media brand for lifelong learning and personal enrichment. With thousands of in-depth videos taught by the world’s greatest professors, you’ll always have something fascinating to learn about. Promo Code: BEERS

Links:

Episode 44: Psychology in the Time of COVID-19 Apr 29, 2020

Yoel and Mickey spend the first half of the episode discussing how thier lives have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. How has the pademic affected those with and without children? How has the pandemic impacted our various relationships? For the second half of the episode, they discuss what to make of the rush of psychology research on COVID-19. Given psychology's noted problems with replication, generalizability, and standards of evidence, should psychologists be trying to shape public policy? What actionable advice can psychology offer?

Bonus: Mickey finally says what he truly think of the Very Bad Wizards crew.

Sponsored By:

The Great Courses Plus: The Great Courses Plus is a Video-On-Demand service brought to you by The Great Courses – the leading global media brand for lifelong learning and personal enrichment. With thousands of in-depth videos taught by the world’s greatest professors, you’ll always have something fascinating to learn about. Promo Code: BEERS

Links:

Episode 43: Penumbral Fuzz (with Nina Strohminger) Apr 15, 2020

Yoel and Mickey welcome Nina Strohminger, Assistant Professor of Legal Studies & Business Ethics at the Wharton School of Business, to the show. Nina delivers entertaining takes on digust and morality, the true self, adventures in academia, and writing heroic book reviews. Do incidental emotions reliably impact decision making? What aspect of mind is at the core of one's identity? Which neurodegenerative diseases are the most difficult for caregivers to cope with? What does Nina really think about Colin McGinn's book, The Meaning of Disgust?

Bonus: What is worse: pop-psychology or pop-philosophy?

Special Guest: Nina Strohminger.

Sponsored By:

The Great Courses Plus: The Great Courses Plus is a Video-On-Demand service brought to you by The Great Courses – the leading global media brand for lifelong learning and personal enrichment. With thousands of in-depth videos taught by the world’s greatest professors, you’ll always have something fascinating to learn about. Promo Code: BEERS

Links:

Episode 42: The Plague (with Joshua Tybur) Apr 01, 2020

Yoel and Mickey welcome evolutionary psychologist Joshua Tybur to the podcast to discuss COVID-19 and the function of disgust as part of the behavioral immune system. What is the relationship between disgust sensitivity and political orientation? Can the theory of evolutionary act as a meta-theory for the study of human psychology? Why is evolutionary psychology so controversial and polarizing?

Bonus: Would Mickey inflate a new unlubricated condom with his mouth?

Special Guest: Joshua Tybur.

Sponsored By:

The Great Courses Plus: The Great Courses Plus is a Video-On-Demand service brought to you by The Great Courses – the leading global media brand for lifelong learning and personal enrichment. With thousands of in-depth videos taught by the world’s greatest professors, you’ll always have something fascinating to learn about. Promo Code: BEERS

Links:

Episode 41: With and Without Children (with Elizabeth Page-Gould) Mar 18, 2020

Yoel and Mickey welcome return guest Elizabeth Page-Gould to the podcast to discuss adults with and without children. Why did Liz choose to have children? What do we make of fathers who leave their familiies? How does society view people without children? What is the logic behind anti-natalism?

Bonus: What is concept creep and is it necessarily a bad thing?

Special Guest: Elizabeth Page-Gould.

Sponsored By:

The Great Courses Plus: The Great Courses Plus is a Video-On-Demand service brought to you by The Great Courses – the leading global media brand for lifelong learning and personal enrichment. With thousands of in-depth videos taught by the world’s greatest professors, you’ll always have something fascinating to learn about. Promo Code: BEERS

Links:

Episode 40: Diversity, Death, and (Cohen's) D Mar 04, 2020

As Little Urban Achievers, Yoel and Mickey delight in discussing previews for The Jesus Rolls, a Big Lebowski spinoff starring John Torturo as Jesus Quintana. They next talk about the University of California's policy of selecting faculty job candidates based primarily on their diversity and inclusion statements. They finally talk science: What happens when open science advocates veer from their pre-registration plans and fail to reject the null hypothesis? Should we care about effect sizes in psychology outside of applied research?

Sponsored By:

The Great Courses Plus: The Great Courses Plus is a Video-On-Demand service brought to you by The Great Courses – the leading global media brand for lifelong learning and personal enrichment. With thousands of in-depth videos taught by the world’s greatest professors, you’ll always have something fascinating to learn about. Promo Code: BEERS

Links:

Episode 39: Hot Takes (with Robb Willer) Feb 19, 2020

Yoel and Mickey welcome Stanford sociologist and psychologist Robb Willer to the show, who serves up hot takes about the replication crisis. Did the low replicabilty era in social psychology have consequences for political science or sociology? Has the open science movement benefited from motivated morality, only effecting change when change was easy? Despite intentions, will the open science movement make science even more elitist?

Bonus: Taking psychedelic drugs at music concerts is fun!

Special Guest: Robb Willer.

Links:

Episode 38: Is There a Generalizability Crisis? Jan 22, 2020

Yoel and Mickey discuss a new paper by Tal Yarkoni suggesting that quantitative research in psychology is suffering from a generaliozability crisis. Do the numbers and statistics that psychological scientists present in their papers correspond to their verbal claims? What would psychological science look like if psychologists made fewer general statements? Should psychologists conduct more qualitative and descriptive research? Did Tal Yarkoni himself use a quantitative argument to prop up very old verbal claims about the problem of induction?

Bonus: Before discussing generalizability, Yoel and Mickey discuss Contrapoints and her new video on cancel-culture.

Links:

Episode 37: The War on Christmas Holiday Special Dec 25, 2019

Yoel and Mickey declare war on Christmas, discuss US-Canada differences, and almost entirely avoid serious topics.

Bonus semi-serious topic: are all theories in psychology bound to be true?

Links:

Episode 36: Psychological Science Meets the Real World (with Nick Hobson) Dec 11, 2019

Mickey and Yoel chat with Nick Hobson, a psychologist who has moved from academia to applying behavioral science in the real world. What are some of the challenges that face academics-turned-practitioners? How can you apply psychological research in a rigorous way while, at the same time, keeping the bosses happy? We talk to Nick to find out.

Plus: Yoel's eventful evening, and microdosing.

Special Guest: Nick Hobson.

Links:

Episode 35: Against Experiments Nov 27, 2019

Are many classic social psychology experiments more theater than science? Mickey and Yoel discuss "The Rise and Fall of Social Psychology," a book by the sociologist Augustine Brannigan that makes this provocative claim. Given the complexity of social life, are laboratory experiments just the wrong way to measure most social phenomena?

Bonus: who is Don Cherry, and what is his beef with Yoel?

Links:

Episode 34: The Future of Social Psychology Nov 13, 2019

Mickey and Yoel take advantage of the SESP (Society for Experimental Social Psychology) conference to ask guests some hard-hitting questions about the present and future of social psychology (and, of course, beers). We then answer the same questions ourselves.

Bonus: why are we banning applause on the show?

Special Guests: Hanah Chapman, Keith Maddox, Laura Niemi, and Pam Smith.

Links:

Beau's Brewing Co. - Lug Tread
Oxford students vote to replace clapping with silent jazz hands | News | The Times
SESP
Laura Niemi | Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy
Hanah Chapman
Pamela Smith | Faculty | Rady School of Management | UC San Diego
Yidan Yin
Tufts University, Department of Psychology: People
Semantics derived automatically from language corpora contain human-like biases | Science
Exploring the landscape of modern academic psychology: Finding and filling the holes. (Paul Rozin) — Like any other domain of human activity, psychology has its fads and fashions. One consequence of fads is an overconcentration of resources on specific problems or approaches, which leaves other important problems or approaches (holes) underappreciated and understudied. This article is primarily about different factors (such as negativity bias, polarization of positions, focus on internal causes of behavior, dedication to a narrow view of what science is) that result in holes and about explorations of some of these holes that have interested the author. Psychologists should look more in the holes left behind by current enthusiasms.
The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect: Judea Pearl, Dana Mackenzie: 9780465097609: Amazon.com: Books
Watch Undone - Season 1 | Prime Video

Episode 33: What is Heterodox Academy? (with Debra Mashek) Oct 30, 2019

Mickey and Yoel talk with Debra Mashek, the executive director of Heterodox Academy, an organization working to increase open inquiry, viewpoint diversity and constructive disagreement in academia. But what does that mean exactly? Aren't these just codewords for "more conservatives"? We talk to Debra to find out.

We also ask Debra about her decision to leave her tenured faculty position and move across the country to take this job.

Special Guest: Debra Mashek.

Links:

Episode 32: Measurement Schmeasurement (with Jessica Flake) Oct 16, 2019

Jessica Flake joins Mickey and Yoel to talk measurement. What is it, how do you do it well, and do social psychologists care about it? What does measurement theory tell us about the validity of standardized tests like the GRE? Jessica also talks about how she went from high-school dropout to professor at McGill.

Bonus: what the hell is Kentucky Gentleman?

Special Guest: Jessica Flake.

Links:

Episode 31: Is Ego Depletion Real? Oct 02, 2019

By listener request, Yoel quizzes Mickey about ego depletion. How did we start studying it? How has the replication crisis changed how we think about it? After more than a decade studying ego depletion, does Mickey still have any faith in the phenomenon?

Bonus: what does it mean to say, "don't @ me"?

Links:

De Hemel Brewery
Don't @ me
The Strength Model of Self-Control — Self-control is a central function of the self and an important key to success in life. The exertion of self-control appears to depend on a limited resource.
Is Ego Depletion Real? An Analysis of Arguments — An influential line of research suggests that initial bouts of self-control increase the susceptibility to self-control failure (ego depletion effect). Despite seemingly abundant evidence, some researchers have suggested that evidence for ego depletion was the sole result of publication bias and p-hacking, with the true effect being indistinguishable from zero.
Self-Control, Ego Depletion, and Social Psychology’s Replication Crisis — Provides Baumeister's perspective on ego depletion and its status in the context of psychology's replication crisis. Reviews history, controversy, evidence.
A series of meta-analytic tests of the depletion effect: Self-control does not seem to rely on a limited resource. - PsycNET — We find very little evidence that the depletion effect is a real phenomenon, at least when assessed with the methods most frequently used in the laboratory. Our results strongly challenge the idea that self-control functions as if it relies on a limited psychological or physical resource.
Bias-Correction Techniques Alone Cannot Determine Whether Ego Depletion is Different from Zero: Commentary on Carter, Kofler, Forster, & McCullough, 2015 by Michael Inzlicht, Will Gervais, Elliot Berkman :: SSRN — Despite our admiration for this program of meta-research, we suggest that bias-corrected meta-analyses cannot yet resolve whether the overall ego depletion is different from zero or not.
RRR – The Ego-Depletion Paradigm — A Multi-Lab Pre-Registered Replication of the Ego-Depletion Paradigm Meta-analysis of the studies revealed that the size of the ego-depletion effect was small with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) that encompassed zero (d = 0.04, 95% CI [−0.07, 0.15].

Episode 30: Evaluating Eminence Sep 18, 2019

Yoel and Mickey discuss the role of eminence in science. Is there a role for eminence in psychology? What makes a researcher eminent? Would we be better off disregarding eminence entirely?

Your hosts also discuss common myths in psychology plus a recent mini-controversy in which someone compared New York Times columnist Brett Stephens to a bedbug.

Plus: what did Yoel bring back from Hawaii?

Links:

Evil Genius | STACY’S MOM CITRA IPA — Stacy’s Mom is our American IPA dry-hopped exclusively with Citra hops. Soft on the palate with extremely low bitterness, this is a great example of a new-school American IPA. Citra hops provide an explosive aroma of tropical fruits, lemon peel, peach and mango, complimented by a clean and slightly toasty malt base. Think you don’t like IPAs? Give Stacy’s Mom a try!
Bret Stephens 'bedbugs' spat: Times writer's latest column links phrase to Nazi rhetoric during Holocaust - The Washington Post
10 Myths About The Mind | Psychology Today Canada — It’s high time we put the most enduring myths about human behavior to bed, and see the mind—and the world—as it is.
Parenting doesn’t matter that much—as long as you don’t do anything super-weird. — We’re all terrified we’re going to mess up our kids. The science says we probably won’t have much impact at all.
Fountains of Wayne - Stacy's Mom - YouTube
Our obsession with eminence warps research : Nature News & Comment
PsyArXiv Preprints | Against Eminence

Episode 29: Sacred Values Sep 04, 2019

Yoel and Mickey discuss sacred values. How are sacred valued different from other values? What are the hallmarks of values that have become sacrilized? Why does it seem crass, or even offensive, to suggest trading off a sacred value (such as diversity value) against other, more mundane considerations? What does it mean that sacred values are dose insensitive and evidence insensitive?

Bonus: Do scientists who attended conferences sponsored by the late Jeffrey Epstein need to morally cleanse?

Links:

St. Mary Axe | INDIA PAGAN ALE — A robust pale ale - hazy, juicy and aggressively hopped.
Divercity Helles Lager – Lost Craft — Divercity is our beer, from Toronto, for everyone.
What it was like to be a scientist in Jeffrey Epstein’s circle. — The “Girls” Were Always Around
Opinion | Don’t Mess With My ‘Sacred Values’ - The New York Times
Thinking The Unthinkable: Sacred Values and Taboo Cognitions — "Many people insist that their commitments to certain values (e.g. love, honor, justice) are absolute and inviolable – in effect, sacred. They treat the mere thought of trading off sacred values against secular ones (such as money) as transparently outrageous – in effect, taboo."
The psychology of the unthinkable: taboo trade-offs, forbidden base rates, and heretical counterfactuals. - PubMed - NCBI
Protected Values - ScienceDirect
Specks of Dirt and Tons of Pain: Dosage Distinguishes Impurity From Harm - Joshua Rottman, Liane Young, 2019 — Levels of moral condemnation often vary with outcome severity (e.g., extreme destruction is morally worse than moderate damage), but this is not always true. We investigated whether judgments of purity transgressions are more or less sensitive to variation in dosage than judgments of harm transgressions.
I hate open science – [citation needed] — Now that I’ve got your attention: what I hate—and maybe dislike is a better term than hate—isn’t the open science community, or open science initiatives, or open science practices, or open scientists… it’s the term. I fundamentally dislike the term open science.

Episode 28: Better Advice (with Alexa Tullett) Aug 21, 2019

Yoel and Mickey welcome Associate Professor of Psychology, Alexa Tullett from the University of Alabama to the podcast. Co-host of The Black Goat podcast and board member of the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science (SIPS), Alexa talks about being a Canadian early career researcher working in the US. What research is Alexa most excited about these days? How did she become interested in meta science? What advice would she give to non-Americans thinking of working in academia in the US? How did the Black Goat podcast come about?

Bonus: Follow-up on the effect of parenting on happiness.

Special Guest: Alexa Tullett.

Links:

Episode 27: Against Mindfulness Aug 07, 2019

Playing devil's advocate, Yoel and Mickey mount a criticism against the scientific study of mindfulness. What is mindfulness? Can we measure it? Is mindfulness-based therapy effective? Can mindfulness improve the quality of attention beyond the meditation cushion? Are effects of mindfulness mostly placebo effects produced by motivated practitioners and adherents? Should we be impressed by mindfulness meditation’s supposed effects on conceptions of the self? Is mindfulness, in all its complexity, amenable to scientific study?

Bonus: Is the value of diversity and inclusivity a core part of open science?

Links:

Burdock Bottle Shop
Collective Arts Brewing (Art + Brewing) — Lunch Money is a straight-up, easy drinking, ale brewed exclusively with German Magnum and Centennial hops to fuel your creativity.
Will this time be different? — Prepared remarks delivered by Sanjay Srivastava to the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science (SIPS) on July 9, 2019 in Rotterdam.
Can We End the Meditation Madness? — I AM being stalked by meditation evangelists. ... Before we're all swept into this fad, we ought to ask why meditation is useful.
The benefits of being present: mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being. - PubMed - NCBI — Mindfulness is an attribute of consciousness long believed to promote well-being. This research provides a theoretical and empirical examination of the role of mindfulness in psychological well-being. The development and psychometric properties of the dispositional Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) are described.
Mind the Hype: A Critical Evaluation and Prescriptive Agenda for Research on Mindfulness and Meditation. - PubMed - NCBI — During the past two decades, mindfulness meditation has gone from being a fringe topic of scientific investigation to being an occasional replacement for psychotherapy, tool of corporate well-being, widely implemented educational practice, and "key to building more resilient soldiers." Yet the mindfulness movement and empirical evidence supporting it have not gone without criticism. Misinformation and poor methodology associated with past studies of mindfulness may lead public consumers to be harmed, misled, and disappointed.
Argentine tango dance compared to mindfulness meditation and a waiting-list control: a randomised trial for treating depression. - PubMed - NCBI — OBJECTIVES: To determine whether tango dancing is as effective as mindfulness meditation in reducing symptoms of psychological stress, anxiety and depression, and in promoting well-being.
Spirituality, mindfulness and substance abuse. - PsycNET — ...A positive relationship between mindfulness and smoking/frequent binge drinking behavior was uncovered
Meditation Programs for Psychological Stress and Well-being: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis | Complementary and Alternative Medicine | JAMA Internal Medicine | JAMA Network — Mindfulness meditation programs had moderate evidence of improved anxiety, depression, and pain and low evidence of improved stress/distress and mental health–related quality of life. We found low evidence of no effect or insufficient evidence of any effect of meditation programs on positive mood, attention, substance use, eating habits, sleep, and weight. We found no evidence that meditation programs were better than any active treatment (ie, drugs, exercise, and other behavioral therapies).
Mindfulness training affects attention--or is it attentional effort? - PubMed - NCBI — Our data demonstrate that previously observed improvements of attention after MBSR may be seriously confounded by test effort and nonmindfulness stress reduction
Meditation, mindfulness and executive control: the importance of emotional acceptance and brain-based performance monitoring. - PubMed - NCBI
Cognitive effects of MBSR/MBCT: A systematic review of neuropsychological outcomes. - PubMed - NCBI — Overall studies did not support attention or executive function improvements. We found preliminary evidence for improvements in working memory and autobiographical memory as well as cognitive flexibility and meta-awareness.
Mindfulness training as cognitive training in high-demand cohorts: An initial study in elite military servicemembers. - PubMed - NCBI
A randomised active-controlled trial to examine the effects of an online mindfulness intervention on executive control, critical thinking and key thinking dispositions in a university student sample | BMC Psychology | Full Text — No evidence was found to suggest that engaging in guided mindfulness practice for 6 weeks using the online intervention method applied in this study improves critical thinking performance.

Episode 26: Terrible Advice (with Paul Bloom) Jul 24, 2019

Yoel and Mickey welcome Paul Bloom to the podcast, who is not only a returning guest but also the Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor of Psychology at Yale University. We first give terrible advice on parenting. Does parenting affect happiness, relationship satisfaction, and meaning? Does parenting screw with prospective decision making because it leaves the decision maker utterly transformed? We next discuss perversity. Why do we enjoy doing transgressive things? Who is likely to be perverted? Is perversion ever a good strategy?

Bonus: How would Paul rate Yoel on a scale of 1 to 5?

Special Guest: Paul Bloom.

Links:

Parenthood and Marital Satisfaction: A Meta‐Analytic Review - Twenge - 2003 - Journal of Marriage and Family - Wiley Online Library — This meta‐analysis finds that parents report lower marital satisfaction compared with nonparents
Long-term effects of pregnancy and childbirth on sleep satisfaction and duration of first-time and experienced mothers and fathers. - PubMed - NCBI — Following the sharp decline in sleep satisfaction and duration in the first months postpartum, neither mothers' nor fathers' sleep fully recovers to prepregnancy levels up to 6 years after the birth of their first child.
In Defense of Parenthood: Children Are Associated With More Joy Than Misery - S. Katherine Nelson, Kostadin Kushlev, Tammy English, Elizabeth W. Dunn, Sonja Lyubomirsky, 2013 — The results indicate that, contrary to previous reports, parents (and especially fathers) report relatively higher levels of happiness, positive emotion, and meaning in life than do nonparents.
A Reassessment of the Defense of Parenthood — In this Commentary, we report a reanalysis of the data, which suggests that it is premature to abandon the idea that children reduce happiness
WHAT YOU CAN’T EXPECT WHEN YOU’RE EXPECTING — It seems natural to choose whether to have a child by reflecting on what it would be like to have one. I argue that choosing on this basis is not rational, raising general questions about our ordinary conception of how to make this life-changing decision.
Idealizing Parenthood to Rationalize Parental Investments - Richard P. Eibach, Steven E. Mock, 2011 — Although raising children has largely negative effects on parents’ emotional well-being, parenthood is often idealized as a uniquely emotionally rewarding role.
Break Music: St.Vincent - Smoking Section
The Strange Appeal of Perverse Actions — Why do we enjoy doing things for no good reason?

Episode 25: Truth and Political Bias in Psychology (with John Jost) Jul 03, 2019

Yoel and Mickey welcome Professor of Psychology and Politics John Jost from New York University to the podcast. Author of the most influential political psychology paper of the last two decades, John talks about the role of psychology in politics and the role of politics in psychology. Is it fair to characterize conservatives as dogmatic, rigid, and close-minded? Given replication failures, are conservatives indeed more attuned to negative stimuli in their environments? Does the description of conservatives as resistant to change applicable in the Trump era? Should social scientists be advocates/activists, neutral fact-finders, or something in between? Why is the dominance of liberals in social psychology (and academia more broadly) not a problem?

Bonus: What is with all the homo-eroticism?

Special Guest: John Jost.

Links:

Juicy Ass - Flying Monkeys
Farmageddon (Raspberry & Black Raspberry - 2019) – Bellwoods Brewery
Modelo Especial | Casa Modelo Mexican Beer
Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition — Analyzing political conservatism as motivated social cognition integrates theories of personality (authoritarianism, dogmatism—intolerance of ambiguity), epistemic and existential needs (for closure, regulatory focus, terror management), and ideological rationalization (social dominance, system justification).
The Politics of Fear: Is There an Ideological Asymmetry in Existential Motivation? | Social Cognition — Although the association between fear of death and conservatism was not reliable, there was a significant effect of mortality salience (r = .08–.13) and a significant association between subjective perceptions of threat and conservatism (r = .12–.31).
Ideological Asymmetries and the Essence of Political Psychology - Jost - 2017 - Political Psychology - Wiley Online Library — Individuals are not merely passive vessels of whatever beliefs and opinions they have been exposed to; rather, they are attracted to belief systems that resonate with their own psychological needs and interests, including epistemic, existential, and relational needs to attain certainty, security, and social belongingness.
Ideological asymmetries in conformity, desire for shared reality, and the spread of misinformation. - PubMed - NCBI — Ideological belief systems arise from epistemic, existential, and relational motives to reduce uncertainty, threat, and social discord.
Neoliberal Ideology and the Justification of Inequality in Capitalist Societies: Why Social and Economic Dimensions of Ideology Are Intertwined
An Asymmetrical “President-in-Power” Effect | American Political Science Review | Cambridge Core — When political polarization is high, it may be assumed that citizens will trust the government more when the chief executive shares their own political views.
A quarter century of system justification theory: Questions, answers, criticisms, and societal applications - Jost - 2019 - British Journal of Social Psychology - Wiley Online Library — A theory of system justification was proposed 25 years ago by Jost and Banaji (1994, Br. J. Soc. Psychol., 33, 1) in the British Journal of Social Psychology to explain ‘the participation by disadvantaged individuals and groups in negative stereotypes of themselves' and the phenomenon of outgroup favouritism.
Do Needs for Security and Certainty Predict Cultural and Economic Conservatism? A Cross-National Analysis — We examine whether individual differences in needs for security and certainty predict conservative (vs. liberal) position on both cultural and economic political issues and whether these effects are conditional on nation-level characteristics and individual-level political engagement.
Political Diversity in Social and Personality Psychology — A lack of political diversity in psychology is said to lead to a number of pernicious outcomes, including biased research and active discrimination against conservatives.
The Ideology of Social Psychologists (and Why it Matters) | SPSP
We tried to publish a replication of a Science paper in Science. The journal refused. — Our research suggests that the theory that conservatives and liberals respond differently to threats isn’t actually true.

Episode 24: Heuristics and Biases in the Democratic Primary Jun 19, 2019

Yoel and Mickey take a deep dive into the Democratic Primary field, asking what the field of judgment and decision making can teach us about the large and diverse field of Democratic candidates. Why is Biden leading in the polls? Is Elizabeth Warren being helped by Kamala Harris? Why isn’t Biden hurt by progressives’ deep dislike of him? What should we make of one-issue voters?

Bonus: Yoel makes a fearless and consequential prediction. Who will make him stick to his word?

Links:

Miller High Life • RateBeer
Following outcry, American Psychological Association “refocuses” takedown notice program – Retraction Watch
2020 Presidential Candidates | The New York Times
The recognition heuristic: A decade of research — The recognition heuristic exploits the basic psychological capacity for recognition in order to make inferences about unknown quantities in the world
The Adaptive Decision Maker: John W. Payne, James R. Bettman, Eric J. Johnson: 9780521425261: Books - Amazon.ca — The Adaptive Decision Maker argues that people use a variety of strategies to make judgments and choices. The authors introduce a model that shows how decision makers which strategy a person will use in a given situation.
Decoy effect - Wikipedia — In marketing, the decoy effect (or attraction effect or asymmetric dominance effect) is the phenomenon whereby consumers will tend to have a specific change in preference between two options when also presented with a third option that is asymmetrically dominated.
Choice Based on Reasons: The Case of Attraction and Compromise Effects on JSTOR — Choice Based on Reasons: The Case of Attraction and Compromise Effects

Episode 23: Slow-Form Journalism (with Daniel Engber) Jun 05, 2019

Yoel and Mickey welcome Slate columnist Daniel Engber to the podcast. Dan talks about the state of science journalism, including what he sees as more skeptical, less credulous reporting. He also talks about the replication crisis in psychology, imposter syndrome in academics, concussion in sport, and the value of blue-ribbon panels opining on the state of science. Dan also delights with his contrarian takes on marathon running, the windchill factor, and a computer’s progress bar.

Bonus: Yoel yet again finds an excuse to drink no beer at all.

Special Guest: Daniel Engber.

Links:

Apex Predator | Off Color Brewing
Folly Brewing Toronto Microbrewery — Imposter Syndrome -- Farmhouse IPA
Everything Is Crumbling — An influential psychological theory, borne out in hundreds of experiments, may have just been debunked. How can so many scientists have been so wrong?
Daryl Bem proved ESP is real. Which means science is broken.
How the progress bar keeps you sane | TED Talk
Don’t Run a Marathon — Running a marathon is a dangerous, expensive, stupid, meaningless task. Don’t do it.
Wind chill is a meaningless number. So why are we still using it?

Episode 22: Blend of Darkness (with Brent Roberts) May 22, 2019

Yoel and Mickey welcome Professor of Psychology Brent Roberts from the University of Illinois to the podcast. One of the most influential personality psychologists of our day, Brent unleashes his thoughts on broad range of topics: candidate gene studies, personality, conscientiousness, coddling of the American mind, screen-time, senior colleagues, and the replication crisis in psychology. What is personality and how does it change? Why do people love the Myers-Briggs personality test? How would conscientiousness have helped us in our ancestral past? Has helicopter-parenting made American kids fragile and easily debilitated? Has the smartphone actually destroyed a generation? Should we be optimistic about the gains made by the reform movement in psychology?

Bonus: Mickey gives Yoel a surprise gift.

Special Guest: Brent Roberts.

Links:

White Pony Microbrewery — Blend of Darkness is a blend and is made up of "Black Sheep" and "Zumbi" which has then been variously matured in Speyside, whisky, brandy, tequila and Jack Daniel's Bourbon casks. Finally, this oak aged beer has been blended again, this time with "Sheep doesn't get sheep", White Pony's new imperial stout.
Live Transmission Milkshake IPA — Grab me a beer, too!
Naughty Neighbour Pale Ale — Nickel Brook Brewing co. — The Naughty Neighbour is ready to knock your socks (and skates) off! Practically born with her skates on, Naughty Neighbour quickly rose through the ranks to become an undefeated Roller Derby Champ. Just like her, our American Pale Ale is bold, smooth and in-your-face!
Whiskey Barrel Stout | Boulevard Brewing Company — Over-the-top but surprisingly approachable, this twist on the classic style starts with several types of malted barley, rye, oats and wheat.
Brent W Roberts | Psychology at Illinois
5-HTTLPR: A Pointed Review | Slate Star Codex
No Support for Historical Candidate Gene or Candidate Gene-by-Interaction Hypotheses for Major Depression Across Multiple Large Samples. - PubMed - NCBI
The surprise guest
Brent W. Roberts on Twitter: "Progress implies you had a place to move from. There has never been any place to move from than "the association of screen time to well-being in teens is minuscule". Are you claiming that the effect sizes were large and are now small? 1/… https://t.co/4WFOz7shHK"
The New Rules of Research | pigee
Social media’s enduring effect on adolescent life satisfaction | PNAS — In this study, we used large-scale representative panel data to disentangle the between-person and within-person relations linking adolescent social media use and well-being. We found that social media use is not, in and of itself, a strong predictor of life satisfaction across the adolescent population. Instead, social media effects are nuanced, small at best, reciprocal over time, gender specific, and contingent on analytic methods.

Episode 21: Perils of Privilege Apr 24, 2019

Yoel and Mickey discuss the concept of privilege, the unearned, sometimes invisible conditions of a person’s life that give them advantages that others might not have. What are the benefits of acknowledging one’s privilege and calling it out in others? Are there drawbacks to focusing on the immutable characteristics of a person that might normally proffer advantages? If all our characteristics are unearned, that is products of biology and environment that we have zero control over, should people be praised or blamed for them? But, first, they discuss new internal analyses by Google suggesting it has been overpaying women, not men; they then raise serious concerns about this analysis because it conditioned on a collider, a statistical concept that Yoel and Mickey (to put it generously) struggle to understand.

Bonus: Mickey falls in love with bidets.

Links:

Bidet Attachments by TUSHY | For People Who Poop — Ask me about my butthole
New York Times | Google Finds It's Underpaying Many Men as It Addresses Wage Equity — A survey of employee salaries at Google reaches a surprising conclusion: More men than women were being underpaid
Julia Rohrer's Brilliant Blogpost: That one weird third variable problem nobody ever mentions: Conditioning on a collider – The 100% CI — Causal inference from observational data boils down to assumptions you have to make and third variables you have to take into account. I’m going to talk about a third variable problem today, conditioning on a collider.
Thinking Clearly About Correlations and Causation: Graphical Causal Models for Observational Data - Julia M. Rohrer, 2018 — Certain types of third variables—colliders and mediators—should not be controlled for because that can actually move the estimate of an association away from the value of the causal effect of interest.
BuzzFeed | How Privileged Are you?
What Is Privilege? - YouTube
Privileged | By Kyle Korver — What I’m realizing is, no matter how passionately I commit to being an ally, and no matter how unwavering my support is for NBA and WNBA players of color….. I’m still in this conversation from the privileged perspective of opting in to it.
'The Class Ceiling' Decodes the Cultures of Elite Workplaces - The Atlantic — When two sociologists interviewed highly paid architects, TV producers, actors, and accountants, they encountered work cultures that favor the already affluent.

Episode 20: Apostasy and Dissent (with Sarah Haider) Mar 27, 2019

Yoel and Mickey talk with Sarah Haider, the co-founder and Executive Director of Ex-Muslims of North America, an organization that advocates for the acceptance of religious dissent and supports those who leave Islam. Sarah talks about her own experience of growing up Muslim and leaving her faith; the unique predicament of and risks for Muslim dissenters; and how US partisan politics make her work more difficult.

Bonus: Sarah gives Mickey pointers on how to avoid using Twitter as an outrage machine, a lesson he sorely needs.

Special Guest: Sarah Haider.

Links:

Ex-Muslims of North America — We Envision A World Where Every Person Is Free To Follow Their Conscience
Sarah Haider: Islam and the Necessity of Liberal Critique (AHA Conference 2015) - YouTube — Presented at the American Humanist Association 74th Annual Conference, May 7-10, 2015, in Denver, Colorado.
Ex-Muslims: They left Islam and now tour the US to talk about it - BBC News
Islam’s Ex Factor: An Interview with Sarah Haider and Muhammad Syed - TheHumanist.com
Should Muslims Like Me Be So Critical of Ex-Muslims? - YouTube
List of ex-Muslim organisations - Wikipedia

Episode 19: Two Normies Four Beers Feb 27, 2019

Yoel and Mickey discuss Kill All Normies, a book written by Angela Nagle about the online culture wars, the rise of transgressive politics, and the disappearance of moderates. But, first they discuss a new journal article titled The Paradox of Viral Outrage suggesting that online pile-ons tend to backfire

Bonus: What does Mickey really think about Christina Hoff Sommers?

Links:

Quillette Social in Toronto
Quillette
The Paradox of Viral Outrage - Takuya Sawaoka, Benoît Monin, 2018 — Moral outrage has traditionally served a valuable social function, expressing group values and inhibiting deviant behavior, but the exponential dynamics of Internet postings make this expression of legitimate individual outrage appear excessive and unjust.
Kill All Normies || Angela Nagle — How internet subcultures are conquering the mainstream, from from 4chan and Tumblr to Trump and the alt-right.
Yelp Reviewers’ Use of ‘Authenticity’ Is White Supremacy in Action - Eater NY — According to a study of Yelp reviews for NYC restaurants, judging restaurants by “authenticity” tends to put non-white owners in a trap
Is a Planned Monument to Women’s Rights Racist? - The New York Times — "I do think we cannot have a statue of two white women representing the vote for all women,”

A Schedule Update (Shomer F*cking Sabbatical) Feb 06, 2019

We are going to be on a one-episode-a-month schedule till May. Why? Because Mickey is on sabbatical from his cough incredibly demanding job: ✈️🌴🏖🍹😎

Links:

Bali

Episode 18: What Science and the Humanities Offer Each Other (with Edward Slingerland) Jan 30, 2019

Yoel and Mickey welcome Distinguished Professor of Asian Studies, Edward (Ted) Slingerland from the University of British Columbia to the podcast. Ted discusses what the sciences can offer the humanities, but also how the humanities can enrich science. Ted then discusses his popular book, "Trying Not To Try", where he describes the Chinese concept of Wu-Wei, which can be defined as effortless action or spontaneity and proposes that the ever-striving West could use a lot more of it. Finally, Ted tries in vain to convince Mickey that intoxication is an important, critical part of culture.

Bonus: Did Ted actually say there are downsides to being Dude-like?

Special Guest: Edward (Ted) Slingerland.

Links:

Cantillon Brewery
Brasserie Timmermans
Mort Subite
What Science Offers the Humanities | Edward Slingerland — This book examines some of the deep problems facing current approaches to the study of culture, focusing especially on the excesses of postmodernism, but also acknowledging the problems with Enlightenment objectivism. Slingerland argues that, for the humanities to progress, they need to move beyond the mind-body dualism upon which both postmodernism and objectivism are based.
Trying Not to Try: The Art and Science of Spontaneity (9780770437619): Edward Slingerland: Books — A deeply original exploration of the power of spontaneity—an ancient Chinese ideal that cognitive scientists are only now beginning to understand—and why it is so essential to our well-being
Two Psychologists Four Beers - Blog - A Note From Ted Slingerland

Episode 17: Why Trump Won Jan 02, 2019

Yoel and Mickey discuss Identity Crisis, a new book about the 2016 US presidential election written by the political scientists John Sides, Michael Tesler, and Lynn Vavreck. But first, they talk about the recent controversy over Patreon's ban of a provocative internet personality and what, if any, implications this has for free speech.

Bonus: who is Mickey's favorite Sex and the City character?

Links:

Michael Inzlicht on Twitter: Toilet paper roll — "My departmental rival, @gmacdonalduoft, had this made for our area secret Santa party last night. Now I'm struggling to decide whether I should make it my twitter profile pic.… https://t.co/HYrtwJ4hQu"
Delirium Tremens
Crowdfunding platform Patreon defends itself amid boycott - Business Insider
Stars of ‘Intellectual Dark Web’ Scramble to Save Their Cash Cows
How Kim Cattrall got a date with Pierre Trudeau
Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America: John Sides, Michael Tesler, Lynn Vavreck: 9780691174198: Amazon.com: Books

Episode 16: How Polarized Are We? (with Anne Wilson) Dec 19, 2018

Yoel and Mickey sit down with Anne Wilson of Wilfrid Laurier University to discuss free speech, the Lindsay Shepherd case, political polarization, #MeToo, and more.

Bonus: how many tattoos does Mickey have, and is that why he's less trustworthy?

Special Guest: Anne Wilson.

Links:

Episode 15: Just When You Think You're Out Dec 05, 2018

Yoel and Mickey discuss two mini-controversies recently in the news: 1) Should equity, diversity, and inclusion statements be required from academic job candidates? Do they signal the liberal values of academia, and if so, is that a bad thing? 2) Are psychologists disproportionately likely to argue that free speech is in crisis on campus? If so, why?

Bonus: Mickey describes an intimate product that he definitely does not own.

Links:

Kenneth DeMarree - Department of Psychology - University at Buffalo
Bare Spray – A Hit for Your Naughty Bits
🐙🛐Will Gervais🛐🐙 on Twitter — "Academia has some bleak and pessimistic takes on political conservatives. This is bad. In my opinion, “diversity statements discriminate against conservatives” is one of those bleak and pessimistic takes."
Clay Routledge on Twitter — "Also, I think many conservatives support diversity and inclusion but there is published research showing many liberal academics would discriminate against conservative applicants so they might need to be careful to express the "correct" approach in their statements.… https://t.co/4A4kGKRZA2"
Writing Your Diversity Statement — The goal of the diversity statement is to show how your past experiences have made you a diverse candidate, and how you’ll apply that diverse perspective at your target institution in your future research and teaching pursuits
Jeffrey Sachs on Twitter
The Scholar's Stage: Why Is the Fight for Free Speech Led by the Psychologists? — Here’s a puzzle I think about a lot. If any academic field is associated with the contemporary debate surrounding free speech, it’s psychology. Haidt, Pinker, Peterson, Saad, Jussim, even Lehmann. All specialize or have backgrounds in academic psych. So what’s the puzzle?

Episode 14: Vices (with Elizabeth Page-Gould) Nov 21, 2018

Yoel and Mickey have their first repeat guest as Liz Page-Gould joins them to talk vices. Weed, booze and porn are all on the table (well, not literally) as we take on some popular vices. Why do you get paranoid when you smoke? Was alcohol really the impetus for agriculture? Is watching porn bad for your relationship? Bonus: learn who's watched porn in the last week.

Special Guest: Elizabeth Page-Gould.

Links:

Rouge River Brewery
Adverse effects of cannabis - The Lancet — Cannabis is the most widely used illicit drug in many developed societies. Its health and psychological effects are not well understood and remain the subject of much debate, with opinions on its risks polarised along the lines of proponents' views on what its legal status should be. An unfortunate consequence of this polarisation of opinion has been the absence of any consensus on what health information the medical profession should give to patients who are users or potential users of cannabis.
CANNABIS AND SCHIZOPHRENIA A Longitudinal Study of Swedish Conscripts - The Lancet — The association between level of cannabis consumption and development of schizophrenia during a 15-year follow-up was studied in a cohort of 45 570 Swedish conscripts.
GWAS of lifetime cannabis use reveals new risk loci, genetic overlap with psychiatric traits, and a causal influence of schizophrenia | Nature Neuroscience
Prevalence of Marijuana Use Disorders in the United States Between 2001-2002 and 2012-2013 | Adolescent Medicine | JAMA Psychiatry | JAMA Network — Laws and attitudes toward marijuana in the United States are becoming more permissive but little is known about whether the prevalence rates of marijuana use and marijuana use disorders have changed in the 21st century.
Long-term effects of exposure to cannabis - ScienceDirect — The long-term use of cannabis, particularly at high intake levels, is associated with several adverse psychosocial features, including lower educational achievement and, in some instances, psychiatric illness. There is little evidence, however, that long-term cannabis use causes permanent cognitive impairment, nor is there is any clear cause and effect relationship to explain the psychosocial associations.
Neuropsychological Performance in Long-term Cannabis Users | Adolescent Medicine | JAMA Psychiatry | JAMA Network — Although cannabis is the most widely used illicit drug in the United States, its long-term cognitive effects remain inadequately studied.
How Alcohol and Caffeine Helped Create Civilization | HumanProgress — On the other hand, research suggests that alcohol may have helped create civilization itself. Alcohol consumption could have given early homo sapiens a survival edge. Before we could properly purify water or prepare food, the risk of ingesting hazardous microbes was so great that the antiseptic qualities of alcohol made it safer to consume than non-alcoholic alternatives — despite alcohol’s own risks.
Trying Not to Try | Edward Slingerland — Trying Not to Try: Ancient China, Modern Science and the Power of Spontaneity
Pornography Consumption and Satisfaction: A Meta‐Analysis - Wright - 2017 - Human Communication Research - Wiley Online Library
Perceived Effects of Pornography on the Couple Relationship: Initial Findings of Open-Ended, Participant-Informed, "Bottom-Up" Research. - PubMed - NCBI
Pornography and Impersonal Sex | Human Communication Research | Oxford Academic

Episode 13: What's Wrong with the IAT? (with Jesse Singal) Nov 07, 2018

Journalist Jesse Singal joins Yoel and Mickey to talk about the state of science journalism, what he thinks is wrong with how people interpret the Implicit Association Test (IAT), and the pros and cons of moral outrage. Why do so many science journalists simply repeat talking points from university press releases? Is it ethical to administer the IAT as a teaching tool? What is social media like for a journalist?

Bonus: Yoel, Mickey, & Jesse discuss a new paper arguing there are upsides to moral outrage.

Special Guest: Jesse Singal.

Links:

Dunham Orange de Dunham
Brasserie Dunham — Dunham brewery was founded on June 1st 2011. Our portfolio reflect our passion for this fine nectar.
Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) | Twitter
The Upside of Outrage: Trends in Cognitive Sciences — The Upside of Outrage
Online outrage: The good, the bad, and the ugly
Science of Us: Productivity, Mental Health, & Relationships - The Cut
Psychology’s Racism-Measuring Tool Isn’t Up to the Job -- Science of Us — Almost two decades after its introduction, the implicit association test has failed to deliver on its lofty promises.
How to Think about "Implicit Bias" - Scientific American — Amidst a controversy, it’s important to remember that implicit bias is real—and it matters
Blindspot
Disproportionate Use of Lethal Force in Policing Is Associated With Regional Racial Biases of Residents
Boston Celtics vs Toronto Raptors | October 19, 2018 - YouTube

Episode 12: Everybody Hates Social Media Oct 24, 2018

Mickey and Yoel take on social media. What are the upsides and downsides of being on social media, particularly Twitter? Why does Mickey ban himself from social media for most of the day? What led Yoel to abandon Twitter entirely for two weeks, and what drew him back in? Would the open science movement have happened without social media? Bonus: when is it a good idea to give voice to the voiceless?

Links:

Blood Brothers — Blood Brothers Brewing is a family-owned craft brewery opened in 2015 by Dustin and Brayden Jones in Toronto, Ontario.
Department of Deviance: Resignation — I have been a blogger at Feminist Philosophers for about 5 years. I resigned from the blog over the summer but now want to do so publicly.
Keziah on Twitter: "PROM… " — To everyone causing so much negativity: I mean no disrespect to the Chinese culture. I’m simply showing my appreciation to their culture. I’m not deleting my post because I’ve done nothing but show my love for the culture. It’s a fucking dress. And it’s beautiful.
Opinion | The Nation Magazine Betrays a Poet — and Itself - The New York Times — I was the magazine’s poetry editor for 35 years. Never once did we apologize for publishing a poem.
How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life - The New York Times
Moral outrage in the digital age | Nature Human Behaviour — Moral outrage is an ancient emotion that is now widespread on digital media and online social networks. How might these new technologies change the expression of moral outrage and its social consequences?
Clay Routledge on Twitter: "I keep seeing people post about how Twitter is horrible and exhausting.
Jonathan Kay on the tyranny of Twitter: How mob censure is changing the intellectual landscape | National Post — Without intending to, Twitter’s culture warriors have created a sort of crowdsourced ideological autocracy ― and paradoxically, it’s left-wingers who are often targets

Episode 11: No Such Thing as Bad Publicity? Oct 10, 2018

Yoel and Mickey discuss how scientists should publicize their work. Should scientists issue press releases about their findings? Should they write op-ed columns to communicate directly with the public? If Yoel writes an op-ed about Mickey's paper, is that weird? Do scientists have an obligation to share their work with the public, or does self-promotion involve too many perverse incentives?

Bonus: Toronto sex doll brothel, raw water, and beaver fever.

Links:

Episode 10: Conservative Social Psychologist Wanted (with Clay Routledge) Sep 26, 2018

Yoel and Mickey welcome Clay Routledge to the show. Clay is a professor of psychology at North Dakota State University who studies the cognitive and motivational consequences of the search for meaning, including religion and other supernatural beliefs. Clay talks about his childhood growing up as the child of missionaries in Africa and the U.S., what it's like to be outside the liberal mainstream in psychology, and how religion and belief in alien visitors may be connected.

Special Guest: Clay Routledge.

Links:

Junkyard Brewing Company | Small craft brewery in Moorhead, MN
Flensburger Brauerei — FLENSBURGER BREWERY Premium-quality beers from Northern Germany
Clay Routledge — Behavioral Scientist, Author, Consultant, Professor
Clay Routledge (@clayroutledge) | Twitter
The Campus Left vs. the Mentally Ill - WSJ — Berkeley offers counseling to those upset by a guest speaker. Other students have genuine problems
Social Justice in the Shadows - Quillette
Supernatural: Death, Meaning, and the Power of the Invisible World
Don't Believe in God? Maybe You'll Try UFOs - The New York Times
Suicides Have Increased. Is This an Existential Crisis?

Episode 9: Giving the Finger (with Alice Dreger) Sep 12, 2018

Yoel and Mickey welcome author, journalist, historian, and bioethicist Alice Dreger to the show. Alice, who wrote Galileo’s Middle Finger, discusses how her upbringing, her academic background, and her own Galilean personality led her to piss so many people off in the service of serving both truth and justice. Can academics pursue both truth and justice? What is a Galilean personality? Do activists pollute science? Why did Alice refuse to be lumped in with the so-called Intellectual Dark Web? How can we improve the way newspapers work?

Bonus: Why did Yoel and Mickey create an (Alice approved) drinking podcast?

Special Guest: Alice Dreger.

Links:

Corona Extra | LCBO
Glutenberg Craft Brewery
Alice Domurat Dreger
Galileo's Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and One Scholar's Search for Justice (9780143108115): Alice Dreger: Books
Criticism of a Gender Theory, and a Scientist Under Siege - The New York Times — In academic feuds, as in war, there is no telling how far people will go once the shooting starts.
Why I Escaped the ‘Intellectual Dark Web’ - The Chronicle of Higher Education — Pissing off progressives isn’t intellectual progress
East Lansing Info

Episode 8: Confessions of a Science Critic (with James Heathers) Aug 29, 2018

Yoel and Mickey welcome Northeastern University research scientist and science critic James Heathers to their show. Yoel, Mickey, and James discuss science reform and the need for robust science criticism. Why is it so hard for some (older) scientists to admit their mistakes? Do science critics feel empathy for the scholars they criticize? Is there a danger of science criticism going too far, even over-correcting? What exactly is Yoel drinking this episode?

Bonus: James discusses his fascinating research on people who can control their goosebumps.

Bonus Bonus: Yoel and Mickey submit to James's break-music request.

Special Guest: James Heathers.

Links:

Molson Canadian | Premium Lager
Big Cranky - Stony Creek BreweryStony Creek Brewery
Retraction Watch – Tracking retractions as a window into the scientific process
Meet the ‘data thugs’ out to expose shoddy and questionable research | Science | AAAS
Why We Find And Expose Bad Science – Medium — Why We Find And Expose Bad Science (It isn’t because we’re mean.)
Here’s How Cornell Scientist Brian Wansink Turned Shoddy Data Into Viral Studies About How We Eat -- BuzzFeed — Brian Wansink won fame, funding, and influence for his science-backed advice on healthy eating. Now, emails show how the Cornell professor and his colleagues have hacked and massaged low-quality data into headline-friendly studies to “go virally big time.”
The voluntary control of piloerection [PeerJ]
The People Who Can Control Their Goose Bumps - The Atlantic — Everyone cannot do it. But Palejko is not alone, either. He is among dozens of people that James Heathers, a postdoctoral researcher at Northeastern University, identified during and after a recent study on the phenomenon. Heathers posted a preprint—which has not yet been peer reviewed—describing 32 people who can control their goose bumps, and he’s been contacted by several others since. Many of them, like Palejko, had thought this ability was perfectly ordinary for most of their lives. Palejko told me his brother can do it, too.
Creating goosebumps at will may be more interesting than it sounds | Ars Technica

Episode 7: When Does the Left Go Too Far? Aug 15, 2018

Yoel and Mickey ask how to know when the political Left has gone too far. Assuming the Left can indeed go too far--turning off even other progressives who feel abandoned by their natural political home--Yoel and Mickey riff on ways this might manifest. The conversation includes a discussion of identity politics, the problems with subjectivity, the challenge of balancing the desire for justice with the desire for truth, and the inherent problem of being both a scientist and activist. Before debating the supposed sins of the Left, Yoel and Mickey discuss a new paper overturning the cause of the so-called negativity bias (i.e., the notion that bad is stronger than good).

Bonus: Mickey makes a risky hypothesis about German beers. Can any listeners provide evidence that disconfirms Mickey’s bold claim?

Links:

Episode 6: Yoel and Mickey Fall in Love (with Elizabeth Page-Gould) Aug 01, 2018

Yoel and Mickey welcome their University of Toronto colleague and close friend, psychologist Elizabeth Page-Gould. Liz, who is an expert in close friendship, tries to help Yoel and Mickey fall in love with each other…and with her…by administering the so-called fast-friends procedure. By answering questions of increasing intimacy and revealing personal stories, Yoel, Mickey, and Liz grow in rapport over the course of the hour, sometimes uncovering deep emotions.

Bonus: Yoel and Mickey discuss a new paper in Science Magazine suggesting that judgments of blue dots can help us understand the advent of concepts such as micro-aggressions.

Special Guest: Elizabeth Page-Gould.

Links:

Episode 5: I Love How You Hurt Me (with Paul Bloom) Jul 18, 2018

Yoel and Mickey welcome Yale psychologist Paul Bloom to the show, their very first guest. In a far ranging conversation, Yoel, Mickey, and Paul discuss the potential benefits of pain. Why do we sometimes choose to suffer? Are there any benefits (to self or society) to being a painful or disagreeable person? Why do we enjoy and seek out aversive fiction, be that in books, TV, or film? Why do so many of the goals that we set and pursue involve pain and suffering?

Bonus: Yoel, Mickey, and Paul each completed a validated measure of agreeableness. Can you guess who came out on “top”?

Special Guest: Paul Bloom.

Links:

Episode 4: The Replication Crisis Gets Personal Jul 04, 2018

In their most emotional episode yet, Yoel and Mickey discuss the replication crisis in psychology. What is meant by the replication crisis and how did it get started? Why does it appear like the field is split into two, with some young academics actively trying to reform psychology and more senior scholars suggesting the problems have been mostly overstated? How have academics dealt with the possibility that their own work might not be robust and replicable? Finally, how did one of the most notorious academic fraudsters get caught?

Bonus: Did Mickey spike Toxoplasma gondii (crazy cat lady parasite) in Yoel’s beer?

Links:

Episode 3: WTF is the IDW? Jun 20, 2018

Yoel and Mickey take a deep dive into the so-called Intellectual Dark Web (IDW). What is the IDW and who are the prominent members of this group? Why do members of the IDW seem so cranky? Are members of the IDW actually being silenced, and given their massive popularity, who is silencing them? Is the IDW a positive and new development in our culture? Should the members of the IDW be concerned about some of their fans and followers?

Bonus: Why did Yoel decide to have us drink the champagne of beers?

Links:

Meet the Renegades of the Intellectual Dark Web — An alliance of heretics is making an end run around the mainstream conversation. Should we be listening?
After Evergreen - The Stranger — One Year Later, Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying Look Back
The Sam Harris-Ezra Klein debate - Vox — Ezra and Sam Harris debate race, IQ, identity politics, and much more.
Sam Harris and the Myth of Perfectly Rational Thought | WIRED — The famous proponent of New Atheism is on a crusade against tribalism but seems oblivious to his own version of it.
Can Things Be Both Popular And Silenced? | Slate Star Codex — CAN THINGS BE BOTH POPULAR AND SILENCED?
Pretty Loud For Being So Silenced | Current Affairs — Critics of the left aren’t oppressed and they don’t believe in “rational debate.”
Intellectual Dark Web: Bari Weiss’s Analysis Is a Little Off | National Review — First, let me say that the phrase “Intellectual Dark Web” strikes me as a marketing label — and not necessarily a good one.
Quillette Magazine
Most in U.S. Oppose Colleges Considering Race in Admissions — - Seven in 10 Americans say merit should be only basis for college admissions - 65% disagree with Supreme Court decision allowing race to be a factor - By 50% to 44%, blacks favor merit, not race
Miller High Life | The Champagne of Beers
Fireball Cinnamon Whisky

Episode 2: You're Not Wrong Walter, You're Just an A$$hole Jun 05, 2018

In this episode, Yoel and Mickey tackle problems of tone and incivility in online discussions of the scientific literature. What constitutes bullying and is the term abused to derail legitimate criticism? What is an ad hominem attack and when is it a fallacy? Finally, who's our favorite member of the Black Goat podcast?

Links:

When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy - The New York Times
Here’s How Cornell Scientist Brian Wansink Turned Shoddy Data Into Viral Studies About How We Eat
Some Points On Bullying, Attacks and Criticism
Simone Schnall's replication response
Issues with data and analyses: Errors, underlying themes, and potential solutions | PNAS — Scientists are often protected by academic freedom, and in the United States, individuals are afforded First Amendment rights for free speech. However, freedoms are not immune to legal or social recourse, as in the case where a biotech chief executive officer was convicted of wire fraud for a misleading press release about a product (88). Individuals engaging in ad hominem attacks in scientific discourse should be subject to censure.
No, we can't censure people for ad hominem attacks in scientific discourse. |
Stop accusing me of ad hominem fallacies you stupid idiots | The Logic of Science
PsychMAP
PsychMAD
Sanjay's blog
Simine's blog
The Black Goat – A podcast about doing science
Wheat — Side Launch Brewing Company
Great Lakes Brewery - Octopus Wants to Fight IPA

Episode 1: In Search of the Campus Free Speech Crisis May 19, 2018

In their first episode, Yoel and Mickey tackle the alleged free speech crisis on campus. Is there reason to worry or are reports of left-wing intolerance overblown? We take a closer look and talk about what we do and don't feel comfortable saying on campus.

Also: who are we and why are we doing this?

Links:

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Two Psychologists Four Beers

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected