The Nature & Nurture Podcast

Dr. Randy Thornhill is an evolutionary biologist and a Distinguished Professor of Biology Emeritus at the University of New Mexico. He is a pioneering researcher of parasite-stress theory, which describes how pathogens have throughout history shaped our behavior and values.  In this episode we discuss parasite-stress theory and the behavioral immune system, and how conservative values are cross-culturally associated with regional parasite prevalence. Additionally, we discuss these findings in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and how advancements in sanitation throughout history may have given rise to more liberal ideals. 

Dr. Beth Smith is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Southern California where she directs the Infant Neuromotor Control Laboratory. Dr. Smith's research focuses on the development of neural control of movement during infancy and evaluates interventions for neural and functional development in infants with or at risk for developmental delay.

Dr. Katie Bottenhorn is a neuroscientist and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Southern California. In this episode we talk about Katie's background in neuropsychology, the methodological aspect of neuroinformatics, and Katie's dissertation research focusing on how hormonal fluctuations during the menstrual cycle impact women's brains. Additionally, we discuss gender imbalances in STEM fields such as neuroscience, and compare large sample neuroimaging studies to deep phenotyping approaches featuring a large number of scans within a small sample.  Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 0:46 - Pursuing psychology and chemistry as an undergrad 3:33 - Neuroimaging vs wet lab neuroscience research 5:47 - Plans for neuroscience grad school 9:13 - STEM gender imbalance and the "leaky pipeline" 11:11 - Katie's transition into methodological research 15:52 - Pursuing data science without a math or computer science background 18:33 - Applying deep phenotyping methodology to studying women's health 20:55 - Dense sampling methods in neuroimaging: more scans, not more participants 24:14 - The replication crisis in neuroimaging 26:11 - Big data neuroscience via large samples vs. deep phenotyping 28:25 - Katie's dissertation work looking at how hormonal fluctuations change women's brains 32:00 - Determining causality in brain and behavior 34:59 - How hormones change brains during puberty 36:46 - Katie's plans for postdoctoral research

Dr. Babak Hemmatian is a cognitive scientist and postdoctoral research fellow at the Beckman Institute of the University of Illinois. His research focuses on using natural language processing techniques to analyze natural discourse, such as social media posts, as they relate to personal and political beliefs. In this episode we discuss Babak's background in computational cognitive science, his PhD research analyzing how Reddit and Twitter users' perspectives on the legalization of gay marriage and marijuana use changed over time, and the ethics of collecting data from social media users. 

Dr. David Geary is a cognitive developmental and evolutionary psychologist and Curators' Distinguished Professor and a Thomas Jefferson Fellow at the University of Missouri. He is an expert in children's mathematical development and the evolution of human sex differences. 

Dr. Mark Schaller is a Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia and one of the pioneering researchers of the behavioral immune system. 

Dr. Rosalind Arden is a behavioral geneticist, Research Fellow at the London School of Economics, and an expert in the study of intelligence. In this episode we discuss the genetic and environmental factors that influence human intelligence, and Rosalind's pioneering work studying intelligence in dogs.

Dr. Arik Kershenbaum is an evolutionary biologist and lecturer at the University of Cambridge with expertise in studying animal communication. In this episode we discuss his book, The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy, and the many universal features of evolution and communication that we might expect to find in alien life. 

Dr. Julia Marshall is a postdoctoral researcher at Boston College, where she studies children's cooperative development, moral development, and desire to punish. In this episode we discuss Julia's background in psychology, how moral values can be studied empirically in children, the developmental factors that lead to the desire to punish and cooperate, and compare children's and adults' prosocial norms. Learn more about Julia's work at: https://www.juliaannemarshall.com/  Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 0:25 - What first got Julia interested in psychology 3:48 - How is morality studied empirically? 6:41 - Are children's moral beliefs innate, or socially constructed? 7:37 - Children and adults have different views on punishment 13:44 - How psychological studies with children differs from studies with adults 16:18 - Sampling bias in psychology research 17:40 - Studying cooperative behavior vs. antisocial behavior 19:57 - Social behavior in humans vs. animals 24:38 - How third-party punishment arises in humans 31:04 - Fairness as expectation of norms 33:15 - Is all prosocial behavior inherently selfish? 38:27 - Conformity vs. following one's conscience 42:51 - How temperament and aggression influence cooperation 46:29 - Julia's current and future research

Dr. Ryan Boyd is a computational social and behavioral scientist at Lancaster University. In this episode, we discuss Ryan's background in psychology, his transition from experimental to computational psychology, and his exposure to natural language processing. Additionally, we discuss how natural language processing research can be used to analyze text and predict personality, behavior, and authorship. Finally, we discuss the ethics of data collection on social media, and forms of data science that may be used to protect privacy.