Opinion Science

Laura Wallace studies what happens when people perceive a communicator as biased. In this episode, we talk about why bias is different from trustworthiness, how perceived bias affects a person's ability to be persuasive, and how we think about biased communicators in general.Things we mention in the episode:Gallup poll on Americans' perceptions of media biasNPR's complaints that they have both pro-conservative and pro-liberal biasesBias and trustworthiness are separate cues to credibility (Wallace, Wegener, & Petty, 2019)Flip-flopping as a problem for persuasion (Wallace, Wegener, & Petty, 2020)Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Matt Goldberg is a soon-to-be associate research scientist at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. He uses established research from the psychology of persuasion to understand how the public thinks about climate change and how to convince people to adopt new beliefs and behaviors to stave off the threats of global warming. We talk about the differences between theoretical and applied research and what leaders can do to guide the world through this difficult time.Things we mention in the episode:Global warming's "Six America's"Using meta-cognition to understand hurricane evacuation behavior (Goldberg et al., 2020)Perceived consensus about climate change attitudes (Goldberg et al., 2019a, 2019b)The effects of discussing climate change with others (Goldberg et al., 2019c)Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Yoel Inbar is a social psychologist at University of Toronto. He studies the feeling of disgust and how it shapes people's moral judgments. We talk about how disgust is associated with certain opinions, and why moral emotions can make people hold onto negative beliefs about genetically modified crops (even when the science supports their safety and usefulness).Yoel is also co-host of another psychology podcast, Two Psychologists, Four Beers.Things we mention in the episode:The relationship between “disgust sensitivity” and political beliefs (Inbar, Pizarro, & Bloom, 2008)The “behavioral immune system” (see this article by Schaller)Disgusting smells and attitudes toward gay men (Inbar, Pizarro, & Bloom, 2012)Reasons to be skeptical that disgust amplifies moral judgments (Landy & Goodwin, 2015)Facial expressions of disgust during moral judgments (Chapman et al., 2009) Public opinions of genetically modified food (check out Scott, Inbar, et al., 2018)Evaluating evidence in a way that fits your current opinion (Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979) Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Jehan Sparks studies how positive vs. negative information informs our opinions. One of the things she looks at is something called a "negativity bias" where negative events loom larger than positive events when we're forming a summary impression. We talk about the nature of good vs. bad, how the order in which we learn information matters, and how different people think about information differently.Things we mention in the episode:How “good vs. bad” can be too simple (Sparks, 2020)The “negativity bias” (Baumeister et al., 2001; Rozin & Royzman, 2001)How opinions depend on the order in which you learn information (Sparks & Ledgerwood, 2017)Negativity bias to explain risk-taking (Pietri, Fazio, & Shook, 2013)The effects of age on the negativity bias (Sparks & Ledgerwood, 2018)Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

This week I talk to Jake Teeny about his research on word of mouth. When do people pass their opinions along to others? Jake tells me that businesses count word of mouth as a leading form of marketing, but it can be tricky to know exactly how to control it. We talk about when and why people share their opinions, according to the research in social psychology.(By the way, Jake and I co-author a blog for Psychology Today called "A Difference of Opinion.")Things we mention in the episode:Arousal increases social transmission of information (Berger, 2011)Certainty as a reason to persuade (Cheatham & Tormala, 2015)Hypocrisy as a form of cognitive dissonance (Stone & Fernandez, 2008)Atypical things are more popular (Berger & Packard, 2018)Hit Makers by Derek Thompson (Amazon)Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Coming Soon: The Opinion Science PodcastVisit opinionsciencepodcast.com for more.I’m Andy Luttrell, and I’m excited to introduce the Opinion Science Podcast. It’s a show about the science of people’s opinions, where they come from, and how they change. I’m a social psychologist, and I’ll be talking to other social scientists who study public opinion and persuasion, but I’ll also talk to other experts in the business of understanding and shaping the world’s views. The ideas we’ll explore in this show will give you a glimpse into the psychology of political attitudes, consumer preferences, public health communication, and social activism, just to name a few. But I’m even interested in more mundane opinions…like why some people inexplicably prefer cake over pie. So subscribe now and tune in every other week for these conversations. I think you’ll like it…but form your own opinion.For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.