Opinion Science

Sander van der Linden studies the psychology of misinformation. He and his lab have conducted studies to understand why people believe false information, and they've also leveraged the psychology of "inoculation" to build tools that help people avoid falling prey to misinformation. He describes this work and more in his new book, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects Our Minds and How to Build Immunity.You can play the video game that Sander's lab built to inoculate people against misinformation. The game is called Bad News.At the beginning of the episode, I share the story of the first bit of fake news in American media. In tracing the arc of the story and getting the critical details, I turned primarily to Andie Tucher's recent book, Not Exactly Lying: Fake News and Fake Journalism in American History. Other details thanks to an interview Tucher did, a story in The Saturday Evening Post, and an article by Emmanuel Paraschos.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.

April Bailey is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of New Hampshire, and she studies the psychology of androcentrism—people’s tendency to think of men as a stand-in for all people and treating women’s experiences as the outlier. We talk about exactly what androcentrism is, the kinds of evidence we have for it, and what it means for the future of how we think about gender.Things that come up in this episode:The history of the genderless pronoun "thon," including a question in The Straight Dope (see Baron, 2018; Converse, 1884; Merriam-Webster)An overview of the psychology of androcentrism (Bailey et al., 2019)Androcentrism reflected in the order in which people are listed (Hegarty et al., 2011)Billions of words on the internet highlight everyday androcentrism (Bailey et al., 2022)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.

Another year in the books! I don't think I ever really mastered writing the year as "2022," and now I have to write "2023." I'll figure it out one of these days.But another year meant another year of Opinion Science! This year saw even more new listeners, amazing guests, and an ambitious series of episodes over the summer. Your support has meant a lot.So even though I'm (again) a week or so behind on this, I wanted put together another "best of" episode, featuring notable moments from the podcast in 2022. As I say every year, it’s not truly a “best of” per se because I really am attached to every episode. Instead, I’ve chosen some clips that highlight the kind of show this is, including some of the things that made this year especially special.If you’re new to the show, this is a great place to start! And if you’ve been listening since the beginning, join me on some fun memories from this year.-AndyFeatured 2022 episodes:Episode 54: Influence is Your Superpower with Zoe ChanceEpisode 57: Media, Norms, & Social Change with Sohad MurrarEpisode 58: How Minds Change with David McRaney (ft. Adam Mastroianni)Episode 63: Why We Need Polls with G. Elliott MorrisEpisode 64: Saving Democracy with Robb WillerEpisode 68: Intellectual Humility with Tenelle PorterSciComm Summer #1: Joss Fong – Producing Science VideosSciComm Summer #2: Meryl Horn – Producing “Science Vs”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.

Geoff Durso studies what happens when we face mixed information. When people do good things and bad things. When a product has positive and negative qualities. Geoff's an assistant professor of marketing at DePaul University. He's also an old friend of mine. We met up at a conference and caught up, chatting about some of the cool work Geoff has done on the nature of ambivalence.(As I mention in the intro, you can also check out Episode 35 with Iris Schneider for more on ambivalence.)Things that come up in this episode:Geoff's early work on ambivalence (Rydell & Durso, 2012)The effects of expecting ambivalence (Durso et al., 2021)How psychological power makes us delay making decisions when we're ambivalent (Durso et al., 2016)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.

Tony Barnhart is Associate Professor of Psychological Science at Carthage College. But just as notably, he's a magician. As a result of this dual identity, he has the unique distinction of being an expert in the psychology of magic. Magicians have long prided themselves on understanding and exploiting human psychology, but Tony actually brings a scientific perspective. He's on the committee for the Science of Magic Association and played a central role in the book Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Our Everyday Deceptions. Today on the podcast, Tony shares his work on the psychology of attention, what we can learn from magicians' expertise in "misdirection," and what science can give back to magic.Opening the show is a chat with my buddy Erik Tait. Erik has the unique honor of recently placing third in card magic at F.I.S.M., the Olympics of magic. You can watch his winning act below. Erik shares his story of training for the big competition and what he's learned about the psychology of directing attention.Things that come up in this episode:We mention the "Invisible Gorilla" experiment a few times. You can learn more and see a video here.For a nice overview of Tony's research on the psychology of magic, check out his 15-minute keynote address for the 2020 American Psychological Association virtual meeting (video)Tracking people's attention by recording their eye movements while watching magic tricks (Barnhart & Goldinger, 2014)"Microsaccades" (tiny eye movements) reveal whether people are fooled by a magic trick (Barnhart et al., 2019)How auditory rhythms can direct visual attention (Barnhart et al., 2018)Using "tactical blinking" as misdirection (Barnhart et al., 2022)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.

Tenelle Porter is a new colleague of mine at Ball State University. She's an educational psychologist, and one of the things she studies is intellectual humility, which is people's awareness of the limits of their knowledge and the fallibility of their reasoning. Intellectual humility offers a variety of handy benefits even though there has been some disagreement about what it is, exactly. I was excited to sit down with Tenelle and get her take on intellectual humility, what it does for people, and when we ought to have more or less of it.Things that come up in this episode:For a nice summary of a lot of the things we discuss, check out Tenelle's new review article in Nature Reviews Psychology (Porter et al., 2022a)Surveying different definitions of "intellectual humility" to clarify the content of this idea (Porter et al., 2022b)Intellectual humility promotes openness to other opinions (Porter & Schumann, 2018)Intellectual humility promotes mastery in learning (Porter et al., 2020)Classroom environments can shape students' intellectual humility (Porter et al., 2022c)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.

Margo Monteith is a Distinguished Professor of Psychological Sciences at Purdue University. She studies how we can reduce prejudice in the world by confronting those biases head-on. One way we can confront prejudice is to keep ourselves in check, paying attention to the ways in which we might say or do something biased. Another way we can confront prejudice is to call out other people when they say or do something biased. In our conversation, Margo gives a big overview of her work in these areas and highlights the importance of keeping these biases under control. For big, up-to-date overviews of the research we talk about in this episode, you can check out a new chapter in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Monteith et al., 2022) and Margo's 2019 book with Robyn Mallet: Confronting Prejudice and Discrimination.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.

Efrén Pérez is a professor is a professor of Political Science and Psychology at UCLA. He studies political attitudes and behaviors among various racial and ethnic groups in the United States. With Margit Tavits, he recently co-wrote the book Voicing Politics: How Language Shapes Public Opinion. The book is a fascinating summary of research they have conducted testing how the unique characteristics of the language your speak can shape your political opinions. Languages around the world differ in their emphasis on gender or on the future, which shapes how speakers think in those terms. Languages also carry meaning as to their status in society, which can also affect people's opinions about race and ethnicity.In our conversation, Efrén shares how he got interested in language, what they've found in this research, and what questions they're tackling now.Some things that come up in our conversationHow a language organizes its words for color can shape color perception (Roberson et al., 2005)Language and opinion toward gender and LGBT equality (Perez & Tavits, 2019a; Tavits & Perez, 2019)Language's use of future tense and opinions of distant dilemmas (Perez & Tavits, 2017)Language status and the salience of ethnic divisions (Perez & Tavits, 2019b)The value of "Latinx" (Vicuña & Pérez, in press)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'm out with COVID, so I'm re-sharing an early Opinion Science episode that has remained one of the most downloaded episodes of the show. I also took the opportunity to very slightly remaster it. See you in a couple weeks with a new episode!Phia Salter takes a cultural psychology approach to studying racism. She’s an associate professor of Psychology at Davidson College, and in this episode she draws a contrast between thinking of racism as an individual bias versus thinking of it as systemic. She talks about her research on the “Marley hypothesis” and the ways in which our environments’ discussion of racial issues shapes our own views.For more resources on understanding racism in the U.S., you can start by checking out Smithsonian magazine's Resources to Understand Racism in America. Things we mention in this episode:Dr. Salter's summary of research related to systemic racism (Salter, Adams, & Perez, 2018)The "Marley Hypothesis": Historical knowledge associated with recognizing contemporary racism (Nelson, Adams, & Salter, 2013)Research on preferences for different Black History Month materials (Salter & Adams, 2016)Writings of Derrick Bell on Critical Race Theory (For an overview of the movement, Dr. Salter recommends Delgado and Stefancic's introductory book)George Lipsitz's "The Possessive Investment in Whiteness"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.

Tom Holtgraves studies how language helps us do things. We use words to inquire, to instruct, to command, and to persuade. Words are social. He's currently a Professor of Psychological Science at Ball State University (just down the hall from me!), and his lab studies how people use language and other symbols (e.g., emoji) to successfully or unsuccessfully communicate with one another. He edited the Oxford Handbook of Language and Social Psychology  and authored Language as Social Action: Social Psychology and Language Use. In our conversation, Tom introduces me to Speech Act Theory and what his own work tells us about how we can get our intentions across through language.Some things that come up in this episode:J. L. Austin's book "How to Do Things with Words"How we communicate uncertainty (Holtgraves, 2014; Holtgraves & Perdew, 2016)How emoji are used to convey indirect meaning (Holtgraves & Robinson, 2020)Politeness in conversational arguments (Holtgraves, 1997)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.