112. Gordon Pennycook: From Carrot River to Cornell, misinformation, and reducing conspiracy beliefs

Gordon Pennycook is an Associate Professor at Cornell University. We talk about his upbringing in rural Northern Canada, how he got into academia, and his work on misinformation: why people share it and what can be done about it.

BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.

Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon

Timestamps

0:00:00: Straight outta Carrot River: From Northern Canada to publishing in Nature

0:37:01: Exploration vs focusing on one topic: finding your research topic

0:48:57: A sense of having made it

0:54:17: Why apply reasoning research to religion?

0:59:45: Starting working on misinformation 

1:08:20: Defining misinformation, disinformation, and fake news

1:15:52: Social media, the consumption of news, and Bayesian updating

1:24:48: Reasons for why people share misinformation

1:35:57: Are social media companies listening to Pennycook et al?

1:38:19: Using AI to change conspiracy beliefs

1:44:59: A book or paper more people should read

1:46:33: Something Gordon wishes he'd learnt sooner

1:48:12: Advice for PhD students/postdocs

Podcast links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/pod-bsky

Gordon's links

• Website: https://geni.us/pennycook_web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/pennycook-scholar
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/pennycook-bsky

Ben's links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar

References

Costello, Pennycook & Rand (2024). Durably reducing conspiracy beliefs through dialogues with AI. Science.

Dawkins  (2006). The God Delusion.

MacLeod, ... & Ozubko (2010). The production effect: delineation of a phenomenon. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition.

Nowak & Highfield (2012). Supercooperators: Altruism, evolution, and why we need each other to succeed.

Pennycook, ... & Fugelsang (2012). Analytic cognitive style predicts religious and paranormal belief. Cognition.

Pennycook, Fugelsang & Koehler (2015). What makes us think? A three-stage dual-process model of analytic engagement. Cognitive Psychology.

Pennycook, Cheyne, Barr, Koehler & Fugelsang (2015). On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit. Judgment and Decision making.

Pennycook & Rand (2019). Lazy, not biased: Susceptibility to partisan fake news is better explained by lack of reasoning than by motivated reasoning. Cognition.

Pennycook & Rand (2021). The psychology of fake news. Trends in cognitive sciences.

Rand (2016). Cooperation, fast and slow: Meta-analytic evidence for a theory of social heuristics and self-interested deliberation. Psychological Science.

Stanovich (2005). The robot's rebellion: Finding meaning in the age of Darwin.

Tappin, Pennycook & Rand (2020). Thinking clearly about causal inferences of politically motivated reasoning: Why paradigmatic study designs often undermine causal inference. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences.

Thompson, Turner & Pennycook (2011). Intuition, reason, and metacognition. Cognitive Psychology.