Listeners were fascinated by the Monster Island experiment Aaron told us about last episode! At the same time, another member of the group responded by posting that Aaron had perhaps left some things out of his account. I thought it would be a great opportunity to hear more about the experiment and also see how identity can affect how things like this are experienced.

My brother from another pod-mother Aaron Rabinowitz is on to discuss the fantastic article he wrote for The Skeptic! The article is about his experience in the Facebook group Monster Island, which was a no-holds-barred debate group that some of you may have been involved with. If you weren't, Aaron will detail what happened, including a pretty scary twist (or predictable?) ending. Before that, we talk about James Lindsay going full Trump supporter. 

I've been wondering how two things could be true - that Giuliani has an obviously fake story about obtaining Hunter Biden's laptop, and that the leak contains seemingly real texts between Joe and Hunter Biden. I tried to get to the bottom of it.  I also talk about the recent murder of a teacher in Paris, committed by a Muslim refugee with radical beliefs, and how we can try to maintain proper perspective in the wake of visceral acts of terror.

Lindsey Osterman is back for a follow-up to our Social Dilemma episode. Last time we talked about where the documentary got things a little wrong. Today Lindsey's here to tell us what they had right, but didn't go enough into. It's not a pretty picture! As usual, she's got the science to back the claims: 3 major studies which show that Facebook has affected real elections. Studies: Kramer et al 2014, Bond et al 2012, Haenschen

The second part of our conversation on cults. We finish up on the psychology and then talk about Q anon and Trumpism and whether or not they can fairly be called cults.

If you've been watching The Vow on HBO (or any number of other cult related shows) you may have been wondering how cults work - why people join, and how cults hang onto their members. There is a lot of psychology behind it, so who better to help break it down than our evo psych expert Lindsey Osterman!

We're doubling our usual Torrez here! Andrew's son Alex, high school debate champ, is here to help us break down the monstrosity that was that presidential debate!

The death of the great RBG is absolutely devastating, and has made the stakes so much higher. In this episode, I talk about what we HAVE to do to keep our democracy. Things aren't good. Toward the end, I get into the arguments over whether RBG should have retired, mainly because in EVERY interaction I've seen online about this, people get a bunch of the factual information wrong. However, the arguments are almost completely moot, so if you feel you don't need a history lesson, feel free to skip this part. Links: Ideological measures of the court, Avg justice retirement age, excellent Rebecca Traister article, RBG on why she can't retire, 2014 article asking her to retire.

The new doc 'The Social Dilemma' on Netflix is making quite an impression on people. It tells a riveting story of the harms of social media, and has led to many people deleting their accounts or limiting their usage. But are all the claims backed up by science? Yes and no... If you've got an urge to delete all your accounts, you might want to hear what social psychologist Lindsey Osterman has to say about it! (and then maybe still delete your accounts if you want..) Links: Verge article I really liked, social network sites and well-being study, A systematic review: the influence of social media on depression, anxiety and psychological distress in adolescents, Time Spent on Social Network Sites and Psychological Well-Being: A Meta-Analysis.

It's been a while, but today we've got a science episode! Making her return to the show is Lindsey Osterman, a psychologist who has been studying parasocial relationships. It's already incredibly likely that you take part in some number of parasocial relationships, but now in the time of COVID they're more prevalent and important than ever. Here are the studies Lindsey references! Gabriel et al (2018) - From apprentice to presidentDownload Osterman & Hecmanczuk (2019) - Parasocial ForgivenessDownload