Stanford Psychology Podcast

Bella chats with professor Moira (Molly) Dillon.Molly is an assistant professor in the department of psychology at New York University, where she directs the Lab for the Developing Mind. Molly and her lab use cognitive, developmental, and computational approaches to study infant cognition, including the early emerging knowledge about objects, people, and places; symbolic thought and reasoning in geometry and logic; pictorial and linguistic production, and the relation between human cognition and machine intelligence. In this episode, we discussed Molly's new research on commonsense psychology in human infants and how this research helps advance our understanding of machine intelligence. Be ready to be amazed by what human infants are capable of understanding and doing.WE NOW HAVE A SUBSTACK! Stay up to date with the pod and become part of the ever-growing community :) https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/If you found this episode interesting, please consider leaving us a good rating! It only takes a second, but it will allow our podcast to reach more people and hopefully get them excited about psychology.LinksMolly's paper on Commonsense Psychology in Human Infants and Machines: The Lab for the Developing Mind websiteMolly's Twitter @MoiraDillonBella's websiteBella's Twitter @BellaFascendiniPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you thought of this episode or the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

Eric chats with Dan Gilbert, Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. Dan is captivated by a single fact—the world is not as it appears—and he uses science to uncover the illusions people have about the world, themselves, and each other. He is a contributor to Time, The New York Times, and NPR's All Things Considered, and in 2014 Science named him one of the world’s 50 most-followed scientists on social media. His TED talks have been seen by more than 15 million people and remain among the most popular of all time. His popular book, Stumbling on Happiness, spent 6 months on the New York Times bestseller list and sold over a million copies worldwide.In this episode, Eric asks Dan about his life journey from high-school dropout to one of the most respected psychologists alive. What was Dan like as a child? How did he combine his passion for science fiction writing with an academic career? Dan shares how much his life was, and is, shaped by the people around him. How did he end up in such fruitful collaborations with people like Dan Wegner or Tim Wilson? What was it like writing a popular science book, at a time when that was much less common than now? What is Dan’s advice on teaching and writing? How does he decide an idea is worth pursuing?WE NOW HAVE A SUBSTACK! Stay up to date with the pod and become part of the ever-growing community :) https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/If you found this episode interesting at all, consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but will allow us to reach more people and make them excited about psychology.Links:Dan's book Stumbling on HappinessDan's websiteDan's Twitter @DanTGilbertEric's websiteEric's Twitter @EricNeumannPsyPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

Joseph chats with Dr. Jordan Starck. Jordan is an IDEAL Provostial Fellow at Stanford University. His research focuses on the reasons organizations embrace diversity, examining the psychological factors shaping people’s preferred approaches and the downstream consequences of different approaches. In this episode they chat about diversity. What reasons do entities like universities give for proclaiming to embrace diversity and inclusion? To what extent do these reasons correspond to educational outcomes? Links:You can find the paper we discussed hereJordan's Twitter @JStarck4Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodLet us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com*We are currently conducting a survey to get to know our listeners better and to collect any feedback and suggestions so we can improve our podcast. If you have 1 minute, please click the link here to submit your anonymous response: https://forms.gle/dzHqnWTptW8pSVwMA. Thank you for your time and support!

Eric chats with Mina Cikara, Associate Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, where she directs the Intergroup Neuroscience Lab. The lab uses social psychological and cognitive neuroscience approaches to study how group membership and prejudice change the course of social cognition, studying phenomena such as schadenfreude, empathy, and dehumanization. Mina’s work has been covered in outlets such as the New York Times and Time Magazine.In this episode, Eric chats with Mina about her latest work on hate crimes in the US. Specifically, Mina argues that as a minority group grows larger than other minority groups, it faces more negative attitudes and hate crimes. Mina chats about how these findings might contrast with the essentialism literature, where a minority group would be attributed certain fixed traits. She then shares how she sees social psychology progress as a discipline, and what she would like to see in the future. Finally, Mina gives advice for young scholars in the field and discusses how to find an idea worth pursuing.If you found this episode interesting at all, consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but will allow us to reach more people and make them excited about psychology. Links:Mina's Paper: https://osf.io/2z3kw/Mina's Twitter @profcikaraEric's websiteEric's Twitter @EricNeumannPsyPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodLet us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

Bella chats with professor Mimi Liljeholm.Mimi is an associate professor in the department of cognitive sciences at the University of California, Irvine, where she directs the Learning and Decision Neuroscience Lab. Mimi and her lab study a broad range of topics, including agency, causal induction, habits, altruism, and social transmission. She is interested in studying how humans discover and represent the predictive structure of their environment, how such knowledge shapes cognition, perception, and motivated behavior, and how these processes go awry in addiction and psychopathology. In addition, Mimi adopts a multidisciplinary approach and draws a wide range of methods from psychology, neuroscience, economics, statistics, and computer science.In this episode, we discussed Mimi's research on agency, instrumental divergence, social conformity, and how these constructs apply in our daily life. We also discussed how Mimi's current research helps us further understand artificial intelligence and what researchers can do in future studies. In the end, Mimi shared a take-home message with the audience for people interested in psychology and students who wish to pursue a career as a psychologist or neuroscientist.You can find the paper that Mimi discussed in this episode here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2021.04.004.To learn more about Mimi's research you can visit her lab at: https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/LDNLab/

Joseph chats with Dr. Jay Van Bavel, an Associate Professor of Psychology and Neural Science at the New York University. His research examines how collective concerns namely group identities, moral values, and political beliefs—shape the mind, brain, and behavior. In this episode we chat about his new book titled “The Power of Us: Harnessing Our Shared Identities to Improve Performance, Increase Cooperation, and Promote Social Harmony”.You can find Jay and Dominic’s book here: https://www.powerofus.online/You can also find him in on twitter @jayvanbavelTo learn more about Jay’s research you can visit his lab website, the Social Identity and Morality Lab: https://www.jayvanbavel.com/lab*We are currently conducting a survey to get to know our listeners better and to collect any feedback and suggestions so we can improve our podcast. If you have 1 minute, please click the link here to submit your anonymous response: https://forms.gle/dzHqnWTptW8pSVwMA. Thank you for your time and support!

Anjie chats with Dr. Elika Bergelson. Elika is a Crandall Family Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University.  Her research aims to understand the interplay of processes during language acquisition. In this episode, Elika shares a recent perspective piece titled: “The comprehension boost in early word learning: Older infants are better learners”. Elika talks about how babies learn words, and how researchers get to know what babies know. You can read the article we discussed here: https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cdep.12373To learn more about Elika’s research, you can visit her lab’s website: https://bergelsonlab.com/or follow them on twitter @bergelsonlab).  

Eric chats with Michael Kraus, Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Yale School of Management. Michael’s lab studies what behaviors and emotions maintain and perpetuate economic and social inequality in society. Michael’s research has appeared in Psychological Review, Perspectives on Psychological Science, and Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.In this episode, Michael talks about his recent work on how much US-Americans overestimate how equal their country is. For example, why are some people motivated to deny the vast wealth inequality between Whites and African Americans? Michael then shares how he has successfully intervened to make people’s estimates somewhat more accurate. Finally, Eric asks Michael about advice for young researchers and how he comes up with interesting research ideas. If that is not exciting enough, Michael even performs a power analysis live on the podcast! But not of the statistical kind…If you found this episode interesting at all, consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but will allow us to reach more people and make them excited about psychology.Links:Michael's paper Michael's Twitter @mwkrausEric's websiteEric's Twitter @EricNeumannPsyPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodLet us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com 

Joseph chats with Dr. Kurt Gray about what drives our moral judgments, how we reason about the morality of non-human agents, the factors underlying moral disagreement and how we can bridge partisan animosity. Dr. Gray is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he runs the Deepest Beliefs Lab and the Center for the Science of Moral Understanding. His lab investigates people’s deepest beliefs and why they matter for society and organizations.Here are ideas and resources referenced in the chat:3:52 | Moral Foundations Theory6:25 | Theory of Dyadic Morality7:42 | The Myth of Harmless Wrongs16:36 | Mind Perception of Robots19:45 | Center for the Science of Moral Understanding36:00:00 | Moral Character Judgements37:15:00 | Moral Identity picture scale38:00:00 | Personal experiences bridge divides better than facts44:45:00 | Six Guidelines for Interesting ResearchTo learn more about Kurt and his research, check out his lab website:  https://www.deepestbeliefslab.com/You can also follow him on twitter: https://twitter.com/kurtjgray*We are currently conducting a survey to get to know our listeners better and to collect any feedback and suggestions so we can improve our podcast. If you have 1 minute, please click the link here to submit your anonymous response: https://forms.gle/dzHqnWTptW8pSVwMA. Thank you for your time and support!

Anjie chats with Dr. Nicholas Coles. Nicholas is a Research Scientist at Stanford University, the co-director of the Stanford Big Team Science Lab, and the Director of the Psychological Science Accelerator. He conducts research in affective science, cross-cultural psychology, and meta-science.In affective science, Nicholas seeks to understand the social, cognitive, and physiological processes that underlie emotion. Much of his research here has focused on the facial feedback hypothesis, the idea that sensorimotor feedback from facial expressions can impact emotional processes (e.g., that smiling can make people feel happy). In meta-science, Nicholas works on building research infrastructure that allows researchers to more efficiently obtain knowledge about psychological phenomenon. In this domain, he directs the Psychological Science Accelerator: a globally distributed consortium of researchers who pool intellectual and material resources to accelerate the accumulation of generalizable knowledge in psychology.In this episode, Anjie and Nicholas chat about a recent comment piece in Nature titled "Build up big team science".  They take a deep dive into an emerging trend in psychology – research done by a lot of people across a lot of labs. Nicholas shares the challenges, along with the promises of big team science. You can read the comment we discussed here: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00150-2%0D?error=server_errorTo learn more about Nicholas's research, you can visit his website: https://nicholas-coles.netlify.app/Or you can also follow him on twitter: https://twitter.com/coles_nicholas_To learn more about PSA, here's the link to its website: https://psysciacc.org/