Stanford Psychology Podcast

Eric chats with Shai Davidai, Assistant Professor in the Management Division of Columbia Business School. His research examines people’s everyday judgments of themselves, other people, and society as a whole. He studies perceptions of inequality and competitive, zero-sum beliefs about the world. Shai received his PhD from Cornell under Tom Gilovich’s supervision. His work has been published in various top-tier journals.In this episode, Eric and Shai discuss how people pursue status. When do people seek status through dominant aggressive bullying and when do they receive it due to their competence and a good character? Shai’s work reveals the role of zero-sum beliefs: people who believe one person’s gain is another’s loss choose more dominant strategies to gain status. Is this an adaptive response? Can such zero-sum perceptions be inaccurate and, even worse, self-fulfilling? What’s the way out of competitive zero-sum cultures? Shai shares how he stays optimistic despite such depressing research interests, discusses being an international scholar living in the US, and gives advice to his younger grad student self. He finally poses a puzzle for the listener: would you rather be extremely smart or extremely kind?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:Shai's paper: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2022-89563-001 Shai's website Eric's websiteEric's Twitter @EricNeumannPsyPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you think of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

Anjie chats with Dr. Viridiana Benitez, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University. Viridiana directs the Learning and Development Lab and studies how children learn about the world around them. In this episode, Anjie and Viridiana chat about one facet of learning: how predictability helps young children learn words. 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:Viridiana’s paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982218307796?via%3DihubViridiana’s lab website: https://www.learndevlab.org/Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

Eric chats with Claude Steele, Emeritus Lucie Stern Professor of Psychology at Stanford. He is world-renowned for his work on stereotype threat and its application to minority student academic performance. In 2010, he released his book, Whistling Vivaldi and Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us, summarizing years of research on stereotype threat and the underperformance of minority students in higher education. He is elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. He was Vice Chancellor and Provost at Berkeley and provost at Columbia and served as President of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.In this episode, Eric and Claude chat about Claude’s most recent thinking about stereotype threat, where people fear fulfilling stereotypes about their social groups. When and why does it matter? How can we create more inclusive and non-threatening environments, from work contexts to classrooms? What does it have to do with Carol Dweck’s growth mindset? Claude proposes that trust is essential to reduce stereotype threat: when people trust they are not judged for their social groups, they perform better. Finally, Claude shares how his growing up on the South Side of Chicago still influences his thinking, how he circuitously stumbled into psychology – and what it was like having Ted Bundy as one of his students!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:Claude's book: https://wwnorton.com/books/Whistling-Vivaldi/ Claude's websiteEric's websiteEric's Twitter @EricNeumannPsyPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you think of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

Joseph chats with Anne Scheel. Anne is currently a postdoc at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam but will be starting as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Methodology and Statistics at Utrecht University in mid October. Anne is a meta-scientist who is interested in which research and publication practices can improve the reproducibility of the published literature, and how researchers can be encouraged to design more falsifiable and informative studies. She did her PhD at Eindhoven University of Technology, followed by a postdoc project at VU Amsterdam and CWTS Leiden. In this episode we chat about her recent publications in which she argues that most claims in the psychology literature are so critically underspecified that attempts to empirically evaluate them are doomed to failure. She also argues that researchers should focus more on non-confirmatory research activities to obtain the inputs necessary to make hypothesis tests informative.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.LinksAnne’s papers:Scheel, A. M. (2022). Why most psychological research findings are not even wrong. Infant and Child Development, 31(1), e2295Scheel, A. M., Tiokhin, L., Isager, P. M., & Lakens, D. (2021). Why hypothesis testers should spend less time testing hypotheses. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 16(4), 744-755Paper on strategic ambiguity: Frankenhuis, W., Panchanathan, K., & Smaldino, P. E. (2022). Strategic ambiguity in the social sciencesAnne’s Twitter @annemscheelAnne’s blog 100% CIJoseph’s Twitter @outa_josephPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

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Eric chats with Carol Dweck and Matt Dixon. Carol is the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford, world-renowned for her work on fixed and growth mindsets. Her nearly 40-page long CV could not possibly be summarized here and includes prestigious awards such as the Yidan Prize for Education Research and the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association. Matt is a postdoc at Stanford working with Carol and James Gross. He studies the psychological and biological basis of motivation, decision-making, and emotion regulation strategy use in healthy and clinical populations.In this episode, Carol and Matt discuss their recent paper on the neuroscience of intelligent decision-making. Have we misunderstood – and underestimated – the role of the amygdala? Is our prefrontal cortex as important as we think? What even makes a decision intelligent? Throughout the chat, Carol and Matt propose a new conceptualization of intelligence that includes human motivation, not just abstract problem-solving skills. Eric asks them about clinical applications and how their work casts a more positive, a more understanding light on why adolescents are the way they are. Finally, they share advice for young scholars.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:Paper: https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Frev0000339Carol’s book Mindset: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/44330/mindset-by-carol-s-dweck-phd/ Eric's websiteEric's Twitter @EricNeumannPsyPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you think of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

Joseph chats with Chaz Firestone, Assistant Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. Chaz’s lab studies how we see and think, and how seeing and thinking interact to produce sophisticated behavior. Recent projects in his lab have explored how our minds generate physical intuitions about the world, and other foundational questions about the nature of perception. Chaz has been named a Rising Star by the Association for Psychological Science, and this year was awarded the Stanton Prize by the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, which recognizes one young scholar who has made significant contributions to research at the intersection of psychology and the philosophy of mind. In this episode Chaz talks about his recent publication in Psychological Science titled "Melting ice with your mind: Representational momentum for physical states”. The study found that participants who viewed objects undergoing state changes (e.g., ice melting, logs burning) remember them as more changed than they actually were. Chaz discusses the implications of these findings for our theories of event perception and memory.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.LinksChaz & colleagues’ paper *Hafri, A., *Boger, T., & Firestone, C. (2022). Melting ice with your mind: Representational momentum for physical states. Psychological Science, 33(5), 725-735Chaz’s Twitter @chazfirestoneJoseph's website josephouta.comJoseph’s Twitter @outa_josephPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

Eric chats with Robb Willer, Professor of Sociology, Psychology, and Organizational Behavior, and the Director of the Polarization and Social Change Lab at Stanford University. Robb is also the co-Director of Stanford’s Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. He studies social forces that bring people together (such as morality and altruism), forces that divide them (such as fear and prejudice), and domains of social life that feature the complex interplay of the two (such as hierarchies and politics). Robb has published in top journals across different fields, and his lab’s work has been featured in outlets such as the New York Times, Vox, and Washington Post.In this episode, Eric chats with Robb about his latest work on false meta-perceptions. This line of work suggests something counter-intuitive: Democrats and Republicans might overestimate how violent the other party is. Such misguided perceptions can become self-fulfilling: each party risks reacting with violence to the overly violent picture they have painted of the outgroup. Robb also shares how he knows what research ideas to pursue and what other projects he is excited about these days. Finally, he talks about his less-than-straightforward journey into psychology and gives advice on how to teach psychology in a fun and engaging way.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:Robb's Paper: https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2116851119Robb's Strengthening Democracy Challenge: https://www.strengtheningdemocracychallenge.org/paperEric's websiteEric's Twitter @EricNeumannPsyPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you think of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

Anjie chats with Dr. Kevin Binning, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. Kevin studies diversity and equity in education, with the aim to both understand and improve pressing societal problems. In this episode, Anjie and Kevin chat about the background, the mechanism, and the future of interventions in the classroom that can help foster equity in college science courses. 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:Kevin’s paper on ecological intervention: Binning, K. R., Kaufmann, N., McGreevy, E. M., Fotuhi, O., Chen, S., Marshman, E., ... & Singh, C. (2020). Changing social contexts to foster equity in college science courses: An ecological-belonging intervention. Psychological Science, 31(9), 1059-1070.Kevin’s website: https://sites.pitt.edu/~kbinning/Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

Eric chats with Susan Fiske, Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology and Professor of Public Affairs at Princeton University. Susan is one of the world’s leading scholars studying social cognition, having written more than 400 articles and chapters as well as several books, including Envy Up, Scorn Down, and The Human Brand. She has won more awards than could possibly be listed, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and the APA Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award. Susan’s biography is currently being highlighted in the 40 Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine exhibit at the National Academy of Sciences, to which she was elected in 2013. In this episode, Eric asks Susan about her latest work on how diverse environments paradoxically make us see different ethnic groups as more, not less similar. In the second half of the chat, Susan reveals why she brings exotic chocolate to lab meetings and how to find a research idea worth pursuing. She talks about her complicated journey into academia and how she developed her influential stereotype content model. She discusses the importance of female role models and the obstacles women face in academia. As if that is not exciting enough, she even gives dating advice!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:Susan's paper on stereotype dispersion: https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2000333117 Susan's book on envy and scorn: https://www.russellsage.org/publications/envy-scorn-down-1 Susan's book on marketing psychology: https://thehumanbrand.com/ Eric'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