Two Psychologists Four Beers

Psychologist Michael McCullough joins the show to talk forgiveness, punishment, and how we came to care about the welfare of people we don't know. Also: a listener calls out our dubious math. Special Guest: Michael McCullough.

Psychologist and author Maria Konnikova joins the show to talk poker, life, and what one teaches you about the other. She talks with us about working with Walter Mischel as a graduate student, her decision to leave the academic track to become an author, and her latest book, The Biggest Bluff , in which she describes how she became a tournament-winning professional poker player. Bonus: who will wi...

Yoel and Mickey interview one of the most influential social scientists of our generation, Harvard University's Joe Henrich. Why are people from the West so peculiar, so different from other people the world over? What led the West to be particularly prosperous? If not intelligence, what marks humans as so special? What are the various approaches to the evolutionary study of human behaviour? Does...

Robb Willer and Simine Vazire join the podcast to debate whether social science, in its current form, can usefully contribute to our response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Is psychology ready to give trustworthy advice to policy-makers? Plus: Yoel shirks his beer-drinking, yet again. Special Guests: Robb Willer and Simine Vazire.

Yoel and Mickey welcome Neil Lewis, Jr. of Cornell University to the podcast. Is psychology ready to be applied to help the response to the COVID-19 pandemic? What are the opportunity costs of applying a psychological intervention? How does Neil navigate Twitter so effectively? What will Neil be doing over at FiveThirtyEight? What can meta-analyses and registered reports tell us about stereotype t...

After over a year of (mostly) avoiding controversial topics, Yoel and Mickey dive in to talk about orthodoxy, dissent, and "cancel culture." Does the narrowing of acceptable views make us dumber or does it represent a drawing of new moral boundaries that make us more kind? How does the silencing of dissent lead to self-censoring? Why does it appear like some people are given more permission to dis...

For their 50th episode, Yoel and Mickey welcome Northwestern University psychologist Claudia Haase to the podcast to discuss relationships and mistakes. What was life like in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin wall? How can Yoel and Mickey iron out their relationship problems? How is life as a working academic and mother during a global pandemic? Why are people so scared to admit to their...

Yoel and Mickey have a far ranging conversation with University of British Columbia professor of philosophy, Evan Thompson. Despite growing up with a daily meditation practice and contributing to the cognitive science of mindfulness, why does Evan not consider himself a Buddhist? Is Buddhism a religion that is truly different from other religions? Is the self an illusion, as is popularily portraye...

Yoel and Mickey host Rachel Ruttan, who is an assisant professor of organizational behavior and human resources at the Rotman School of Management. What is organizational behavior and how is it different from psychology? What makes for a good research idea? How is figure skating like academia? When big corporations espouse social values, does it cheapen people's commitment to these values? Bonus:...

Yoel and Mickey welcome back returning guest Keith Maddox from Tufts University to talk about his research on racism. What is shadeism? Can anything be done to make it easier to talk about race and racism? What happens to poeple who confront racism? Has social psychology overplayed the impact of implicit prejudice? Has psychology overplayed the role of the individual racist, and not focused enough...

Yoel and Mickey try to settle their feud with the boys from Very Bad Wizards, Tamler Sommers and David Pizarro. They discuss what psychology, philosophy, and art can and can't do. Does psychology get more respect than it deserves? How has philosophy contributed to supporting the COVID-19 pandemic response? In principle, is it possible to measure authoritarianism or love or neuroticism? How has VBW...

Yoel and Mickey welcome humanistic psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman to the show. Scott talks about his academic path from intelligence researcher to positive psychologist. What is humanistic psychology? Can one study humananistic concepts like self-actualization, flourishing, and meaning scientifically? What does evolutionary psychology get wrong about basic human needs? Bonus: SBK sings! Special...

Yoel and Mickey spend the first half of the episode discussing how thier lives have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. How has the pademic affected those with and without children? How has the pandemic impacted our various relationships? For the second half of the episode, they discuss what to make of the rush of psychology research on COVID-19. Given psychology's noted problems with replicat...

Yoel and Mickey welcome Nina Strohminger, Assistant Professor of Legal Studies & Business Ethics at the Wharton School of Business, to the show. Nina delivers entertaining takes on digust and morality, the true self, adventures in academia, and writing heroic book reviews. Do incidental emotions reliably impact decision making? What aspect of mind is at the core of one's identity? Which neurod...

Yoel and Mickey welcome evolutionary psychologist Joshua Tybur to the podcast to discuss COVID-19 and the function of disgust as part of the behavioral immune system. What is the relationship between disgust sensitivity and political orientation? Can the theory of evolutionary act as a meta-theory for the study of human psychology? Why is evolutionary psychology so controversial and polarizing? Bo...

Yoel and Mickey welcome return guest Elizabeth Page-Gould to the podcast to discuss adults with and without children. Why did Liz choose to have children? What do we make of fathers who leave their familiies? How does society view people without children? What is the logic behind anti-natalism? Bonus: What is concept creep and is it necessarily a bad thing? Special Guest: Elizabeth Page-Gould.

As Little Urban Achievers, Yoel and Mickey delight in discussing previews for The Jesus Rolls, a Big Lebowski spinoff starring John Torturo as Jesus Quintana. They next talk about the University of California's policy of selecting faculty job candidates based primarily on their diversity and inclusion statements. They finally talk science: What happens when open science advocates veer from their p...

Yoel and Mickey welcome Stanford sociologist and psychologist Robb Willer to the show, who serves up hot takes about the replication crisis. Did the low replicabilty era in social psychology have consequences for political science or sociology? Has the open science movement benefited from motivated morality, only effecting change when change was easy? Despite intentions, will the open science move...

Yoel and Mickey discuss a new paper by Tal Yarkoni suggesting that quantitative research in psychology is suffering from a generaliozability crisis. Do the numbers and statistics that psychological scientists present in their papers correspond to their verbal claims? What would psychological science look like if psychologists made fewer general statements? Should psychologists conduct more qualita...

Yoel and Mickey declare war on Christmas, discuss US-Canada differences, and almost entirely avoid serious topics. Bonus semi-serious topic: are all theories in psychology bound to be true?

Mickey and Yoel chat with Nick Hobson, a psychologist who has moved from academia to applying behavioral science in the real world. What are some of the challenges that face academics-turned-practitioners? How can you apply psychological research in a rigorous way while, at the same time, keeping the bosses happy? We talk to Nick to find out. Plus: Yoel's eventful evening, and microdosing. Special...

Are many classic social psychology experiments more theater than science? Mickey and Yoel discuss "The Rise and Fall of Social Psychology," a book by the sociologist Augustine Brannigan that makes this provocative claim. Given the complexity of social life, are laboratory experiments just the wrong way to measure most social phenomena? Bonus: who is Don Cherry, and what is his beef with Yoel?

Mickey and Yoel take advantage of the SESP (Society for Experimental Social Psychology) conference to ask guests some hard-hitting questions about the present and future of social psychology (and, of course, beers). We then answer the same questions ourselves. Bonus: why are we banning applause on the show? Special Guests: Hanah Chapman, Keith Maddox, Laura Niemi, and Pam Smith.

Mickey and Yoel talk with Debra Mashek, the executive director of Heterodox Academy, an organization working to increase open inquiry, viewpoint diversity and constructive disagreement in academia. But what does that mean exactly? Aren't these just codewords for "more conservatives"? We talk to Debra to find out. We also ask Debra about her decision to leave her tenured faculty position and move a...

Jessica Flake joins Mickey and Yoel to talk measurement. What is it, how do you do it well, and do social psychologists care about it? What does measurement theory tell us about the validity of standardized tests like the GRE? Jessica also talks about how she went from high-school dropout to professor at McGill. Bonus: what the hell is Kentucky Gentleman? Special Guest: Jessica Flake.