Opinion Science

Robb Willer studies social and political divides, and maybe more importantly, he tries to find ways to overcome them. In our conversation, he shares his personal background, unpacks persuasion strategies that cut across political lines, and reveals the results of a major new study in his lab that tested a bunch of strategies for reducing political animosity and encouraging people to value democracy over other political attitudes.Some things that come up in the episode:How moral values can be used in persuasion to appeal to audiences across the political spectrum (Feinberg & Willer, 2019; also see this New York Times article)The value of correcting "meta-perceptions" as a way to curb political prejudice (Mernyk, Pink, Druckman, & Willer, 2022)A "mega-study" testing 25 interventions to address political animosity and democratic attitudes (Voelkel et al., working paper)Audio for the opening of the show from BBC, CBC, and CNN.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.

John Sides is a political scientist at Vanderbilt University and co-founded The Monkey Cage, which is a popular political science blog now available at the Washington Post. The blog gives academic social scientists a platform to use their expertise to help the public understand political news. In our conversation, John talks about the origins of TMC, the kinds of articles that are successful, and how (and why!) to write well for a public audience.This episode is the final episode in a special podcast series on science communication. You can find more info and episodes here: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/hot-scicomm-summer/Video going over key ideas from the scicomm series: https://youtu.be/Fbx2Xj4KcU0Learn 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.

Steve Rathje has managed to rack up more than a million followers on TikTok (@stevepsychology) while pursuing a PhD in social psychology (and doing some very cool research). He shares quick videos about key insights from psychological science that are reaching an entirely new audience. In our conversation, he fills me in on the finer points of TikTok as a platform, why it's uniquely suited to science communication, and how Steve approaches each video to bring insights from social science to a largely untapped audience.  This episode is part of a special podcast series on science communication. You can find more info and episodes here: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/hot-scicomm-summer/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.

Alie and Micah Caldwell produce the YouTube channel, Neuro Transmissions. Their videos present the basics of neuroscience and psychology in an accessible, engaging way. Alie is a neuroscientist and senior science writer at the University of Chicago Medicine. Micah is a licensed professional clinical counselor. In our conversation, we talk about the origins of Neuro Transmissions, their philosophy of science communication, and their new book. (This episode is a rebroadcast of Opinion Science #40: "Explaining Brains".)This episode is part of a special podcast series on science communication. You can find more info and episodes here: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/hot-scicomm-summer/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.

Tim Houlihan and Kurt Nelson are the hosts of Behavioral Grooves, which is a wonderful weekly podcast featuring interviews with behavioral scientists and practitioners. For #HotSciCommSummer, I wanted to learn more about how they started their podcast journey, what advice they have for budding podcasters, and what advice they have for academics who are going to be interviewed about their work. This episode is part of a special podcast series on science communication. You can find more info and episodes here: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/hot-scicomm-summer/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.

Jesse Thorn hosts the show "Bullseye" on NPR where he interviews people in arts and culture. A few years ago, he interviewed a bunch of incredible interviewers for his podcast, "The Turnaround." He's just the guy to talk to about the craft of interviewing people of note, which is a skill that's called for in lots of science communication efforts. So I was excited to meet Jesse and get his take on interviewing, including some really great tangible tips. This episode is part of a special podcast series on science communication. You can find more info and episodes here: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/hot-scicomm-summer/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.

Vanessa Bohns is a social psychologist at Cornell University, and last year she release a book for the public: You Have More Influence Than You Think. It's a great book about a program of research she's been working on for year. I wanted to talk to Vanessa about what it was like to translate her research into a format that would be useful and digestible for non-academic audiences. We also talk about why a full-time researcher would take on a project like this, how to actually accomplish it, and then what happens when the book is out there in the world. Vanessa was a previous guest on Opinion Science (Ep. 19: More Influence Than You Realize with Vanessa Bohns), and it was great to have her back on for this summer's science communication series.This episode is part of a special podcast series on science communication. You can find more info and episodes here: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/hot-scicomm-summer/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.

Daniel Pink is a bestselling author who uses social science research to explore big questions about what it means to be human. He’s written seven books, and his newest one came out last February—The Power of Regret. You can also check out his Masterclass on sales and persuasion. In our conversation, Dan gives a look into his writing process. How does he go from an idea for a book to the final product? And how does he draw on social science along the way? This was a super fun chat—check it out![Please note this is mostly a re-broadcast of Opinion Science, Episode 48]This episode is part of a special podcast series on science communication. You can find more info and episodes here: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/hot-scicomm-summer/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.

Evelyn Carter is a social psychologist who specializes in communicating science-based practices in diversity, equity, and inclusion to organizations. She leads workshops, gives talks, develops courses, gives interviews with the media, and writes newsletters…all of which requires a special skill for making science understandable and actionable. She’s currently the president at Paradigm, which is a company that provides consulting services, workshops, and products that are designed to build organizations that diverse, equitable, and inclusive.In our conversation, Evelyn shares how she had to chart out her own path and gives advice for communicating nuanced and sensitive findings from social science to the public.This episode is part of a special podcast series on science communication. You can find more info and episodes here: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/hot-scicomm-summer/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.

Taylor Scott is an assistant research professor at Penn State, she's the director of research translation in the Evidence-to-Impact Collaborative, and she's co-director of the Research-to-Policy Collaboration. In this episode, we talk about the relationship between scientists and policymakers, how to facilitate those interactions, and ultimately what social science research might have to contribute to policy initiatives. If you're a researcher and you're interested in getting involved with the Research-to-Policy Collaboration, you can enter your information here: https://research2policy.org/participating-researchers/You can read more about the Research-to-Policy Collaboration model and their empirical work in several journal publications, including papers in PNAS (Crowley et al., 2021), American Psychologist (Crowley et al., 2021), and American Journal of Public Health (Long et al., 2021).This episode is part of a special podcast series on science communication. You can find more info and episodes here: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/hot-scicomm-summer/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.