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 ...
Aug 29, 2022•1 hr 12 min•Ep 13•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Aug 22, 2022•57 min•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Aug 15, 2022•54 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
Aug 08, 2022•55 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast 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 episod...
Aug 01, 2022•1 hr•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast 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 accompli...
Jul 25, 2022•58 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jul 18, 2022•50 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast 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 orga...
Jul 11, 2022•52 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast 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 getti...
Jul 04, 2022•52 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast David Nussbaum is a social psychologist with a keen talent for pitching Op-Eds. He's worked with many social scientists to land articles in major outlets, including the New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, etc. He recently launched a new non-profit organization, Psychgeist Media , which aims to help researchers share their work with the public in an accurate and engaging way. You definitely want to get on their email list because their monthly newsletter is great. In our conve...
Jun 27, 2022•51 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast David McRaney is a writer and podcaster who has been covering important work in psychology for many years. Although he was a guest on Opinion Science a few months ago ( Episode 58: How Minds Change with David McRaney ), I also used the opportunity to ask him about his process for communicating psychological research to the public. So, the first 15 minutes of this episode is a repeat of his earlier appearance, but the rest of the interview hasn't been released until now. We talk about the ch...
Jun 20, 2022•40 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast Meryl Horn is a producer at Science Vs from Gimlet Media and Spotify. Science Vs is a popular science podcast that pits timely claims against scientific evidence. It's a great show. You should listen to it. Before being a podcast producer, Meryl got her PhD in Neuroscience from the University of California San Francisco. She shares how she went from being a graduate student to working professionally in science communication. She also breaks down the process of pitching, researching, and com...
Jun 13, 2022•1 hr•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast Joss Fong is a senior editorial producer at Vox . She produces science videos on a variety of topics, pushing the medium in ever more creative directions to convey interesting and important ideas. We spend a lot of our time talking about her most recent video: "How American conservatives turned against the vaccine" Here are some of the other videos we talked about in this episode: "Does Megalodon still exist? Shark Week debunked" “Are We Automating Racism?” ( Glad You Asked s...
Jun 06, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast Special summer series on science communication! Regular Opinion Science episodes will resume in September. Announcing a special podcast mini-series for the summer focused on social science communication. I wanted to talk to a bunch of people who have become experts at communicating research outside of academia through different forms of media. I also wanted to emphasize the unique challenge of social science communication. I felt that a lot of the popular discussions of science communication hav...
May 30, 2022•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast G. Elliott Morris is a data journalist for The Economist. In July 2022, he’s releasing his first book, Strength in Numbers: How Polls Work and Why We Need Them . The book takes a critical look at the history and current use of public opinion polling and the role it plays in democracy. Morris also contributed to The Economist’s 2020 presidential election forecasts . We talk about how he got involved in all of this, sources of error in polling, and the importance of opinion polls. Also in this epi...
May 23, 2022•1 hr 10 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast Robin Nabi is a professor of communication at the University of California-Santa Barbara. She studies how emotional appeals can (and cannot) lead people to change their thoughts and behaviors. She’s published important research on the effects of anger, humor, and guilt, and she’s also developed integrated theories about how emotions can work together in the persuasion process. We talk about all this and more! When we talk about humor and persuasion, we briefly mention Dannagal Young’s prior appe...
May 09, 2022•51 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast Linda Skitka is a distinguished professor of psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She's been studying people's moral convictions --the opinions that we connect to our core sense of moral right and wrong. Two people might agree about universal healthcare, for example, but they might disagree about how much their positions on this issue are drawn from their personal moral compass. Over the years, Linda and her colleagues have found that our opinions take on a different ch...
Apr 25, 2022•43 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast Adam Hahn spends a lot of time thinking about how well people know their own biases. Sure, people often refer to "implicit bias" as social biases that exist unconsciously . But do they really? How strongly can we claim we're unaware of these attitudes and is there any reason to think people can readily tell you what their gut reactions are when they encounter people of different racial, gender, and religious identities? Adam's a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology...
Apr 11, 2022•49 min•Ep 20•Transcript available on Metacast Mark Brandt studies a bunch of things. He’s an assistant professor of psychology at Michigan State University. These days, he’s been exploring how we can think about belief systems as a network of interconnected opinions. Using mathematical simulations that specify how people’s opinions can be connected, Mark and his team have been able to establish a core model that explains a bunch of findings from political psychology. Mark also co-organizes a free online seminar, the Minority Politics Online...
Mar 28, 2022•49 min•Ep 19•Transcript available on Metacast David McRaney is an author and host of the podcast You Are Not So Smart . In June, he’s releasing a new book— How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion (you can pre-order it now). In the book, David goes on a wild journey to understand the mechanics of persuasion. He combines research in psychology with stories of persuasion on the ground to arrive at an understanding of when and why people end up changing their opinions. In our conversation, David shares how he...
Mar 14, 2022•56 min•Ep 18•Transcript available on Metacast Sohad Murrar studies how media and norms affect people's opinions about social groups. Does media representation matter? Can infotainment aimed at reducing misconceptions really work? In this episode, Sohad gives us a glimpse into what the research says, her own experiences consulting with Hollywood creatives, and how conveying social norms can be a potent way of addressing prejudice. Also at the top of the show, you'll hear about a radio program from the 1930s: "Americans All--Im...
Feb 28, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Ep 17•Transcript available on Metacast Julia Minson studies the psychology of disagreement. In particular, she's been working to understand what sorts of people are receptive to other opinions and how our perceptions of other people's receptiveness can improve conversations. Dr. Minson is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of government. Some things that come up in this episode: StoryCorps and the One Small Step initiative (the clip at the beginning of the episode is from "Family Poli...
Feb 14, 2022•53 min•Ep 16•Transcript available on Metacast Chris Petsko studies which stereotypes come to mind in a given moment. He's a social psychologist and postdoctoral scholar at Duke University. I talk with Chris about his "lens-based account of intersectional stereotyping," which argues that we can only pay attention to one social identity at a time. As a result, the stereotypes that come to mind depend on the one lens through which we're seeing someone at the moment. Things we mention in this episode: Walter Lippman 's ...
Jan 31, 2022•48 min•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast Zoe Chance is an assistant professor of marketing at the Yale School of Management. Prior to Yale, she managed a $200 million segment of the Barbie brand at Mattel. In February, she's releasing her first book: Influence Is Your Superpower . In this episode, we talk about Zoe's winding road to becoming a business school professor, the class she teaches at Yale on influence and persuasion, and the insights she shares in her upcoming book. For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://o...
Jan 17, 2022•52 min•Ep 14•Transcript available on Metacast Another year in the books! Sure, there was a lot of wild stuff in 2021--an insurrection, COVID vaccine rollouts, a new president, another installment in the Tiger King franchise...and my daughter was born! But through it all, we had Opinion Science . This year saw a bunch of new listeners, amazing guests, and some ambitious episodes. Your support has meant a lot. So even though I'm a couple weeks behind on this, I wanted put together another "best of" episode, featuring notable mo...
Jan 09, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Brian Ahearn specializes in applying the science of influence in everyday situations. He is one of only a dozen individuals in the world who currently holds the Cialdini Method Certified Trainer® (CMCT) designation, and he teaches the psychology of persuasion and influence as it applies to sales and other aspects of our lives. He's the author of Influence PEOPLE , which was named one of the best influence books of all time by BookAuthority . He followed that up with Persuasive Selling for R...
Jan 03, 2022•49 min•Ep 13•Transcript available on Metacast This is a rebroadcast of Episode 27: Giving and Getting Good Gifts (December 21, 2020). It’s that time of year when winter holidays send people on a buying spree as they collect gifts to give to every friend, family member, and acquaintance. And you’d think that after so many years of giving gifts for all sorts of holidays, we’d be pretty good at it. Right? Well, not according to research in psychology. In this episode, we explore the psychology of why giving to others is such a good thing to do...
Dec 20, 2021•47 min•Transcript available on Metacast Melina Palmer is founder and CEO of The Brainy Business , which provides behavioral economics consulting to businesses of all sizes from around the world. Her podcast, The Brainy Business , has downloads in over 160 countries and is used as a resource for teaching applied behavioral economics for many universities and businesses. In this episode, I talk to Melina about how she got involved in the world of behavioral science, what behavioral economics means to her, and how she goes about applying...
Dec 06, 2021•50 min•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast This episode follows up on the previous episode of Opinion Science about IBM's Project Debater . If you haven't already, be sure to check out that episode. But this week we hear more from Harish Natarajan, Dan Zafrir, and Noa Ovadia--three accomplished debaters. They'll share how they got into debate, what debate means to them, and why the exercise of debate is so important. In the opening section of the episode, we hear a quick clip from social psychologist Richard Petty . And th...
Nov 22, 2021•38 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast In 2019, IBM introduced the world to Project Debater : an AI system that could go up against humans to debate anything. In this episode, we trace Project Debater’s growth from just an idea to a fully fledged piece of technology and the public debates it’s engaged in. And it raises a bigger question: is persuasion a fundamentally human ability or is it really something that machines are capable of? We hear from IBM engineer and project leaders Noam Slonim , expert debaters Harish Natarajan, Dan Z...
Nov 08, 2021•51 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast 
