You probably hate meetings -- most people do -- and much of their awfulness feels inevitable which makes meetings seem unnecessary, but psychologist and organizational scientist Steven Rogelberg says that neither of these conclusions are true. Meetings are only bad if we make them bad, and since they are crucial to the cohesion of any institution, he wrote a book about how to use his research and the research of others to improve the meetings that must take place within any organization. - Show ...
Oct 07, 2019•51 min
In this episode we welcome Yale psychologist Laurie Santos who discusses her new podcast, The Happiness Lab which explores how wrong and misguided we can be when we pursue the things we think will make us happy or avoid the things that we think will make us sad. Based on the psychology course she teaches at Yale - the most popular class in the university’s 300-year history - The Happiness Lab is a tour of the latest scientific research into what does and does not make us happy. - Show notes at: ...
Sep 23, 2019•1 hr 6 min
In this episode we sit down with psychology legend Richard Petty to discuss the Elaboration Likelihood Model, a theory he developed with psychologist John Cacioppo in the 1980s that unified the study of attitude change and persuasion and has since become one of the most robust models for explaining how and why some messages change people’s minds, some don’t, and what makes some stick and others fade in influence over time. - Show notes at: www.youarenotsosmart.com - Become a patron at: www.patre...
Sep 09, 2019•45 min
In this episode, Dr. Jud Brewer, a neuroscientist and addiction psychiatrist, discusses bad habits and how to change them. He is the author of The Craving Mind: From Cigarettes to Smartphones to Love -- Why We Get Hooked and how We Can Break Bad Habits -- and his TED Talk on how to change a bad habit has more than 12 million views. But...we talk about so many other things in this episode. It's a free association smorgasbord of brain stuff that will rattle your head. ::: Show Notes at YouAreNotSo...
Aug 25, 2019•1 hr 13 min
In Lori Gottlieb's new book, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, she opens with a quote from James Baldwin that reads, "Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch." In this episode, we talk about therapy, how it works, the misconceptions around it, and how people go from resisting change to embracing the behaviors required to alter their own thoughts and feelings when stuck in destructive, unhealthy loops. You'l...
Aug 12, 2019•44 min
In this episode, we welcome Lilliana Mason on the program to discuss her new book, Uncivil Agreement, which focuses on the idea: “Our conflicts are over who we think we are, rather than reasoned differences of opinion.” Personally, I feel like this is just about the most important thing the social sciences are studying right now, and I think Mason is one of the its most brilliant scientists -- I promise, the insights you are about to hear will change the way you think about politics, tweeting, e...
Jul 28, 2019•1 hr 17 min
So, you might think that, in general, as an idea, as a practice, the A/B test would be beloved, supported, and encouraged as a way to test out policies and practices and drugs and treatments, but new research shows that a significant portion of the public does not feel this way, enough to cause doctors and lawmakers and educators to avoid A/B testing altogether. -- Show Notes at: youarenotsosmart.com -- -- Become a patron at: www.patreon.com/youarenotsosmart -- Patreon: http://patreon.com/youare...
Jul 15, 2019•1 hr 19 min
There are several ways to define pluralistic ignorance, and that’s because it’s kind of a brain twister when you try to put it into words. On certain issues, the majority of the people believe that the majority of the people in a group believe what, in truth, the minority of the members believe. Or put another way, it is the erroneous belief that the majority is acting in a way that matches its internal philosophies, and that you are one of a small number of people who feel differently, when in ...
Jul 01, 2019•1 hr 27 min
In this episode, we sit down with author Will Storr to talk about his new book -- Selfie: How We Became so Self-Obsessed, and What it is Doing to Us. The book explores what he calls “the age of perfectionism” -- our modern struggle to meet newly emerging ideals and standards that tell us we are falling short of the person we ought to be. As he says in the book, "Perfectionism is the idea that kills," and you’ll hear him explain what he means by that in the interview. -- Show Notes at: ...
Jun 16, 2019•1 hr 24 min
You Are Not So Smart, live in New York, at The Bell House, in Brooklyn -- David McRaney and three experts and a bunch of YANSS fans got together for a deep dive into how we turn perception into reality, how that reality can differ from brain to brain, and what happens when we dangerously disagree on the truth. -- Video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=277HGgqrrUM -- Show Notes at: youarenotsosmart.com -- -- Become a patron at: www.patreon.com/youarenotsosmart -- SPONSORS • The Great C...
Jun 03, 2019•2 hr 4 min
The marshmallow test is one of the most well-known studies in all of psychology, but a new replication suggests we've been learning the wrong lesson from its findings for decades. -- Show Notes at: youarenotsosmart.com -- -- Become a patron at: www.patreon.com/youarenotsosmart -- SPONSORS • The Great Courses Plus: www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/smart • Squarespace: www.squarespace.com Offer code: SOSMART Patreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart...
May 20, 2019•52 min
Live Show Tickets: www.eventbrite.com/e/you-are-not-s…ets-58457802862 What makes you happy? As in, what generates happiness inside the squishy bits that reside inside your skull? That's what author and neuroscientist Dean Burnett set out to answer in his new book, Happy Brain, which explores both the environmental and situational factors that lead to and away from happiness, and the neurological underpinnings of joy, bliss, comfort, love, and connection. In the episode you'll hear all that and m...
May 06, 2019•1 hr 29 min
Live Show Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/you-are-not-so-smart-with-david-mcraney-tickets-58457802862 When faced with an inescapable and unwanted situation, we often rationalize our predicament so as to make it seem less awful and more bearable, but what if that situation is a new law or a new administration? The latest research suggests that groups, nations, and cultures sometimes rationalize the new normal in much the same way, altering public opinion on a large scale. - Show notes at: w...
Apr 21, 2019•42 min
In this episode we sit down with the director and producers of the documentary film, Behind the Curve, an exploration of motivated reasoning and conspiratorial thinking told through the lives of people who have formed a community around the belief that the Earth is flat. - Live Show Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/you-are-not-so-smart-with-david-mcraney-tickets-58457802862 - Show notes at: www.youarenotsosmart.com - Become a patron at: www.patreon.com/youarenotsosmart SPONSORS • The Great ...
Apr 08, 2019•1 hr 15 min
When was the last time you changed your mind? Are you sure? In this episode we explore new research that suggests for the majority of the mind change we experience, after we update our priors, we delete what we used to believe and then simply forget that we ever thought otherwise. In the show, psychologists Michael Wolfe and Todd Williams, take us though their new research which suggests that because brains so value consistency, and are so determined to avoid the threat of decoherence, we hide t...
Mar 25, 2019•39 min
In this episode, we sit down with vaccine expert Dr. Paul Offit to discuss his new book, Bad Advice or Why Celebrities, Politicians, and Activists Aren't Your Best Source of Health Information. Offit has been fighting for years to promote vaccines, educate the public, and oppose the efforts of anti-vaxxers, and in his new book he offers advice for science consumers and communicators on how to deal with what he calls the opaque window of modern media which gives equal time to non-experts when it ...
Mar 11, 2019•1 hr 8 min
In this episode, we sit down with psychologist Michele Gelfand and discuss her new book: Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World. In the book, Gelfand presents her research into norms, and a fascinating new idea. It isn’t norms themselves that predict how cultures will react, evolve, innovate, and clash -- but how different cultures value those and sanction people who violate them. She categorizes all human cultures into two -- kinds, tight and loose -- and argues...
Feb 25, 2019•1 hr 13 min
"Science is wrong about everything, but you can trust it more than anything." That's the assertion of psychologist Brian Nosek, director of the Center for Open Science, who is working to correct what he sees as the temporarily wayward path of psychology. Currently, psychology is facing what some are calling a replication crisis. Much of the most headline-producing research in the last 20 years isn't standing up to attempts to reproduce its findings. Nosek wants to clean up the processe...
Feb 10, 2019•45 min
The evidence is clear that humans value being good members of their tribes much more than they value being correct. We will choose to be wrong if it keeps us in good standing with our peers. In this episode, we explore how that affects politics and science communication, and how it is driving our growing partisan divide. - Show notes at: www.youarenotsosmart.com - Become a patron at: www.patreon.com/youarenotsosmart Patreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart...
Jan 28, 2019•1 hr 5 min
In this episode of the You Are Not So Smart Podcast we sit down with one of the original cyberpunks, the famed journalist, documentarian, media theorist, all-around technology superstar and weirdo, Douglas Rushkoff. MIT considers Rushkoff one of the "world's ten most influential thinkers," and in the episode we talk about his latest (and 20th) book, Team Human. The book is a bit of a manifesto in which he imagines a new counterculture that would revolt against the algorithms that are s...
Jan 14, 2019•1 hr 11 min
In 2017, YANSS did three episodes about the backfire effect, and by far, those episodes were the most popular that year. Then, in 2018, part four was the most popular. The backfire effect has his special allure to it, because, on the surface, it seems to explain something we’ve all experienced -- when we argue with people who believe differently than us, who see the world through a different ideological lens -- they often resist our views, refuse to accept our way of seeing things, and it often ...
Dec 31, 2018•1 hr 14 min
In this episode, we sit down with negotiation expert Misha Glouberman who explains how to talk to people about things -- that is, how to avoid the pitfalls associated with debate when two or more people attempt to come to an agreement that will be mutually beneficial. - Show notes at: www.youarenotsosmart.com - Become a patron at: www.patreon.com/youarenotsosmart SPONSORS • The Great Courses: www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/smart • Squarespace: www.squarespace.com/sosmart Patreon: http://patreon.com...
Dec 17, 2018•1 hr 42 min
In late 2014 and early 2015, the city of Starkville, Mississippi, passed an anti-discrimination measure that lead to a series of public debates about an issue that people there had never discussed openly. In this episode, we spend time in Starkville exploring the value of argumentation and debate in the process of change, progress, and understanding our basic humanity. - Show notes at: www.youarenotsosmart.com - Become a patron at: www.patreon.com/youarenotsosmart SPONSORS • The Great Courses: w...
Dec 03, 2018•55 min
Our guest in this episode of the You Are Not So Smart Podcast is Dave Levitan, a science journalist with a new book titled: Not a Scientist: how politicians mistake, misrepresent, and utterly mangle science. In the book, Levitan takes us through 12 repeating patterns that politicians fall into when they mistake, misrepresent, and mangle science. Some are nefarious and intentional, some are based on ignorance, and some are just part of the normal business of politicians managing their public imag...
Nov 19, 2018•44 min
We've transferred our biases to artificial intelligence, and now those machine minds are creating the futures they predict. But there's a way to stop it. In this episode we explore how machine learning is biased, sexist, racist, and prejudiced all around, and we meet the people who can explain why, and are going to try and fix it. --- • Show Notes: www.youarenotsosmart.com -- • The Great Courses: www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/smart -- • Squarespace: www.squarespace.com CODE: SOSMART -- • ZipRecrui...
Nov 05, 2018•53 min
On this episode, we welcome journalist Kate Leaver to talk about her new book The Friendship Cure in which she explores the crippling, damaging, life-threatening impact of loneliness and the severe mental health impacts of living a life disconnected from a support network of close contacts. But...there is a cure...learning how to connect with others and curate better friendships. In the interview we talk about loneliness, how to make friends, the difference between male and female friendship, pl...
Oct 21, 2018•1 hr 16 min
In this episode, we sit down with psychologist Julia Shaw, an expert in memory and criminal psychology, to discuss her new book - Evil. In the book, she makes a case for something she calls "evil empathy," seeing people who do heinous things as fellow human beings instead of as monsters. According to Shaw, othering criminals by categorizing them as a separate kind of human allows us to put them out of our minds and disappear them to institutions or prisons. The result is we become less...
Oct 08, 2018•54 min
One of the most effective ways to change people’s minds is to put your argument into a narrative format, a story, but not just any story. The most persuasive narratives are those that transport us. Once departed from normal reality into the imagined world of the story we become highly susceptible to belief and attitude change. In this episode, you’ll learn from psychologist Melanie C. Greene the four secrets to creating the most persuasive narratives possible. - Show notes at: www.youarenotsosma...
Sep 24, 2018•39 min
In this episode we explore prevalence induced concept change. In a nutshell, when we set out to change the world by reducing examples of something we have deemed problematic, and we succeed, a host of psychological phenomena can mask our progress and make those problems seem intractable -- as if we are only treading water when, in fact, we’ve created the change we set out to make. Sponsors: -- • The Great Courses: www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/smart -- • Squarespace: www.squarespace.com CODE: SOSM...
Sep 10, 2018•32 min
In this episode, Tali Sharot, a cognitive neuroscientist and psychologist at University College London, explains our' innate optimism bias. When the brain estimates the outcome of future events, it tends to reduce the probability of negative outcomes for itself, but not so much for other people. In other words, if you are a smoker, everyone else is going to get cancer. The odds of success for a new restaurant change depending on who starts that venture, you or someone else. Sharot explains why a...
Aug 26, 2018•40 min
