Sheila Heen is my guest today. She’s the coauthor of Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most (1999), a New York Times Business Bestseller that has continuously been in print. An updated 10th anniversary edition was published in 2010. She’s also the coauthor of Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well (Even When It’s Off-Base, Unfair, Poorly Delivered and Frankly, You’re Not in the Mood), a New York Times bestseller. She is a lecturer at Harvard La...
Oct 18, 2019•31 min•Ep. 69
Matthew H. Goldberg (@MattGoldberg100) is my guest on this episode. He's a Postdoctoral Associate at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. He's an expert in social psychological topics related to communication, such as attitudes and persuasion, motivated reasoning, and ideology. We discuss Matt's recent paper A Social Identity Approach to Engaging Christians in the Issue of Climate Change, published this month in Science Communication. We also talk about related work at the Yale Prog...
Oct 01, 2019•32 min•Ep. 68
Today's episode features Charlie Sykes (@SykesCharlie), a conservative political commentator who hosted a popular talk radio show from 1993 to 2016. He later joined The Weekly Standard magazine and hosted The Daily Standard podcast. In December 2018, after the shuttering of The Weekly Standard, he and William Kristol founded The Bulwark website, hiring many former staff members of the Standard. Charlie currently hosts the daily Bulwark podcast, which features interviews with politicians, profess...
Sep 15, 2019•32 min•Ep. 67
This episode was recorded before a live audience at the Decatur Book Festival in Decatur, GA, on September 1, 2019. It features historians Kevin Kruse (@KevinMKruse) and Julian Zelizer (@JulianZelizer) talking about Fault Lines: A History of the United States Since 1974. The end of the episode features audience questions and answers. Here is a transcript of the episode. Rating the Show If you enjoyed this show, please rate it on iTunes: Go to the show’s iTunes page and click “View in iTunes”* Cl...
Sep 07, 2019•46 min•Ep. 66
Lara Schwartz is the director of the Project for Civil Discourse at American University where she’s also a professor in law and government. She’s also the coauthor of How to College: What to Know Before You Go (And When You're There). We talk about the problem of false equivalence (also termed false balance, both-sidesism, and both-siderism) in the classroom, and how college professors can address this problem. Related Links: Project for Civil Discourse on Youtube* Can journalistic “false balanc...
Sep 01, 2019•34 min•Ep. 65
Harvard University professor and best-selling author Steven Pinker considers why open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement matter beyond the academy. He makes the case that healthy colleges and universities equip citizens, scientists, policymakers, parents, and others with the habits of heart and mind necessary to advance the human condition. The talkback and Q&A host is Nick Gillespie, Editor-at-Large of Reason magazine. A transcript is available on Youtube. Editor's ...
Aug 23, 2019•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 64
Joanna Schug (@joannaschug) is a social and cross-cultural psychologist at the College of William and Mary. We discuss how the concept of relational mobility helps us understand why cultures differ from one another, and why people can have difficulty adapting to a new culture. For a long time, we’ve described cultures in terms of individualism or collectivism, but there are limitations to those terms. Joanna explains how we can interpret cultural behavior better if we think about high and low re...
Aug 15, 2019•28 min•Ep. 63
Cailin O’Connor (@cailinmeister) is a philosopher of science at the University of California-Irvine. We discuss her book The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread co-authored with James Owen Weatherall. Related Links: Do as I Say, Not as I Do, or, Conformity in Scientific Networks by James Owen Weatherall and Cailin O'Connor* How Science Spreads: Smallpox, Stomach Ulcers, and ‘The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary’: Episode of The Hidden Brain* Ukraine: The Haze of Propaganda by Tim Snyder, New Y...
Aug 01, 2019•32 min•Ep. 62
This episode features short interviews with people who attended the 2019 Heterodox Academy conference and one excerpt from a conference symposium. Guests In Order of Appearance: Jon Haidt, social psychologist and business ethics professor * Amna Khalid, historian* Jesse Singal, journalist at New York Magazine* Anya Pechko, entrepreneur and founder of Project Be* Fabio Rojas, sociologist and editor of Contexts* Nicholas Phillips, Heterodox Academy research associate Here is a transcript of the ep...
Jul 23, 2019•30 min•Ep. 61
Oliver Burkeman is a British journalist and author based in Brooklyn. We discuss his recent Guardian essay where he argues that excessive engagement with political news is unhealthy for individual wellbeing and for democracy. Related Links How the news took over reality by Oliver Burkeman* The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking (Burkeman)* Video: The Negative Path to Happiness and Success (Burkeman)* Help! How To Be Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done (Burkeman...
Jul 15, 2019•30 min•Ep. 60
Nicholas Christakis is a physician and sociologist at Yale University, and Director of the Human Nature Lab at the Yale Institute for Network Science. His previous books included Connected, about how social networks affect our health and our lives, and Death Foretold, about the sociology of prognosis. We discuss his new book Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society in which he writes about how evolutionary pressures gave human beings a set of social skills and desires that we can ca...
Jul 01, 2019•32 min•Ep. 59
My guest today is Angie Maxwell (@AngieMaxwell1). She received her PhD. In American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin, and is currently associate professor of Southern Studies at the University of Arkansas. She also chairs the Diane D. Blair Center of Southern Politics, which administers national polls of political attitudes that oversample residents of the Southern U.S. Her new book The Long Southern Strategy: How Chasing White Voters in the South Changed American Politics, which i...
Jun 15, 2019•37 min•Ep. 58
Professors and politicians warn that we face a crisis of civility today. But is civility really a virtue, and how much civility do we really need? Those questions are addressed by my guest today is Teresa Bejan, in her book Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration, published in 2017. Teresa is an associate professor of political theory at the University of Oxford. Mere Civility critiques early modern debates about civility and how much disagreement we should tolerate, analyzing t...
Jun 01, 2019•32 min•Ep. 57
Deb Mashek and Karen Gillo talk about the Heterodox Academy 2019 Conference, scheduled for June 20 and June 21 in New York City. The conference includes an awards dinner on June 20. Deb Mashek is executive director and Karen Gillo is communications director of Heterodox Academy. Rating the Show If you enjoyed this show, please rate it on iTunes: Go to the show’s iTunes page and click “View in iTunes”* Click “Ratings and Reviews” which is to the right of “Details”* Next to “Click to Rate” select ...
May 20, 2019•10 min•Ep. 56
Maria Dixon Hall manages the Campus Cultural Intelligence program at Southern Methodist University. She has a background in multiple disciplines, having earned a masters of divinity, a masters of theology, and a PhD in Organizational Communication and Religion. Her work in cultural intelligence differs from the typical diversity training that’s done on college campuses, and as you’ll hear, it has received both positive and negative media coverage. Maria will be a panelist at the 2019 Heterodox A...
May 15, 2019•34 min•Ep. 55
This is a re-release of an episode from The Annex, a sociology podcast created by Joseph Cohen (CUNY Queens College), Leslie Hinkson (Georgetown), and Gabriel Rossman (UCLA). You can follow the Annex on Twitter and find previous episodes at www.theannexpodcast.com. The episode is an interview with Arthur Sakamoto from Texas A&M about explanations of Asian-Americans’ high educational achievement, and attributing this achievement to Asian culture, with special guest host Chris C. Martin. It wa...
May 08, 2019•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 54
Christopher Federico is a political psychologist with joint appointments in psychology and political science at the University of Minnesota. We talk about a new paper in which he and Ari Malka argue that people do not simply become liberal or conservative based on the strength of their psychological needs for security and certainty. Factors like political engagement, national history, and the influence of political journalists, writers, and academics play a role as well. Related Links "The conti...
May 01, 2019•35 min•Ep. 53
How political scientists have wrongly conflated racial identity and prejudice
Apr 15, 2019•33 min•Ep. 52
Arthur Brooks’ book Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America From the Culture of Contempt was published this month. This episode features him in conversation with Deb Mashek, executive director of Heterodox Academy, and the two co-hosts of How Do We Fix it?, Richard Davies and Jim Meigs. Arthur is the president of the American Enterprise Institute and former professor of business and government policy at Syracuse University. Before his academic career, he spent 12 years as a French ...
Apr 01, 2019•52 min•Ep. 51
Thanks for supporting the podcast. We're now at episode 50! In this episode, clinical psychologist Kathryn Gordon talks about whether prejudiced political expression can cause trauma in listeners. Katie worked as a professor in the psychology department at North Dakota State University (NDSU) for ten years. We also talk about Katie's podcast Jedi Counsel, which is co-hosted by Brandon Saxton. Jedi Counsel discusses psychological science through fictional characters, current events, and interview...
Mar 15, 2019•30 min•Ep. 50
Are we facing a free speech crisis in higher education today? According to today’s guest, Jeffrey A. Sachs, lecturer in politics at Acadia University, the answer is mostly no. Jeff has published pieces about free speech and political bias on campus on the Heterodox Academy blog, the Niskanen Center blog, and the Washington Post's Monkey Cage blog. He is on Twitter at @JeffreyASachs. Articles by Jeffrey Sachs Community and Campus: The Relationship between Viewpoint Diversity and Community Partisa...
Mar 04, 2019•34 min•Ep. 49
I’m joined today by Julian Zelizer, historian at Princeton University and CNN Political Analyst. He has been among the pioneers in the revival of American political history. He has written over 900 op-eds, including his popular weekly column for CNN.com. He is also a regular contributor to The Atlantic. This year, he is the Distinguished Senior Fellow at the New York Historical Society where he is writing a book about Abraham Joshua Heschel. He’s the coauthor with Kevin Kruse of Fault Lines: A H...
Feb 20, 2019•32 min•Ep. 48
Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) was founded by Eboo Patel, and its mission is to create a system of people and campuses where interfaith cooperation is the norm. The organization continues the tradition of modern interfaith work which started in 1893 with the Parliament of World’s Religions. However, IFYC is less focused on theoretical dialogue and more focused on action. They provide free educator resources on their website, organize training conferences, and provide grant funding for scholars to ...
Feb 13, 2019•30 min•Ep. 47
Deb Mashek and Musa al-Gharbi are the executive director and communications director of Heterodox Academy. They reflect on the organization’s activities in 2018 and present several new initiatives scheduled for 2019, including HxA Disciplines, member networking, and nationally representative data collection. 0:00 Rapid fire summary of 2018 8:30 Ideological diversity is connected to ethnic and religious diversity 12:22 Focusing on certain disciplines and public awareness 16:00 Revamping our Guide...
Jan 28, 2019•26 min•Ep. 46
Xander Snyder and Erik Fogg host the ReConsider Podcast—their motto is "We don't do the thinking for you." You can visit reconsidermedia.com to learn more about their podcast, which covers politics, history, and society. This episode is longer than the typical episode because of it's a simulcast across two podcasts. 0:00 Introduction to Erik, Xander, and the Reconsider podcast 5:00 How do you "not do the thinking" for your listener? 17:20 Socratic dialogue as a technique 20:30 The difference bet...
Jan 22, 2019•52 min•Ep. 45
In 2016, Jonathan Haidt gave a talk at a number of American universities in which he made the provocative argument that universities must choose either truth or social justice as their primary motive for operating. He argued that universities used to be centered around truth, and that going forward some universities could continue to do that, whereas others could be frank about declaring social justice to be their primary motive. He did not argue that students couldn’t pursue social justice at a...
Jan 14, 2019•35 min•Ep. 44
Kevin M. Kruse, historian at Princeton University is my guest on this episode. He’s the author of White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism, published in 2005, and One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America, published in 2015. He and his colleague at Princeton, Julian Zelizer, have a new book coming out January 9th titled Fault Lines: A History of the U.S. Since 1974. It evolved from a course taught by Kruse and Zelizer at Princeton. We talk about Fa...
Jan 02, 2019•56 min•Ep. 43
Dr. Ellen Hendriksen is host of The Savvy Psychologist, which was picked as a Best New Podcast of 2014 on iTunes. Her work is regularly featured in Psychology Today, Scientific American, The Huffington Post, and Susan Cain's Quiet Revolution. Her book, How to be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety was published in 2018. She's a clinical psychologist at Boston University's Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders (CARD). Links The Savvy Psychologist Podcast How to Deal...
Dec 21, 2018•27 min•Ep. 42
My guests on today’s episode are Craig Frisby and Joshua D. Phillips. Craig Frisby is co-editor, with William O’Donohue, of a new book, Cultural Competence in Applied Psychology: An Evaluation of Current Status and Future Directions. The book takes a critical look at what professionals in the fields of clinical psychology, counseling psychology, school psychology refer to as cultural competence, also referred to as cultural sensitivity or multicultural competence. Josh Phillips is the author of ...
Dec 10, 2018•39 min•Ep. 41
When you make moral judgments, what is happening at the psychological level? According to one theory, you’re applying a template of two roles: an intentional wrongdoer and a sensitive and vulnerable victim. The more closely that template fits a situation, the more likely you are to deem the situation immoral. Research by today’s guest, Tania Reynolds, shows how these moral evaluations intersect with gender, and it reveals that people more easily stereotype men as powerful wrongdoers, and women a...
Nov 30, 2018•36 min•Ep. 40
