PsyberSpace® - we help you understand your world

Make Yourself Useful: The Psychology of the Founder Reflex

The Founder Reflex: Why White Progressive Spaces Reward Starting Over Supporting Why do white women in progressive spaces so often start something new instead of joining what people of color have already built? Dr. Leslie Poston examines the “founder reflex” and the psychology that keeps it running: the redemptive self, psychological ownership, communal narcissism, and a reward structure that pays better for visibility than for usefulness. She looks at what gets lost when founding wins by default, from duplicated initiatives to the quieter costs borne by the people already doing the work. Along the way: elite capture, the nonprofit industrial complex, white ignorance as a motivated stance, and what engaged followership actually asks of someone who wants to help. If you’ve ever wondered whether the thing you’re about to launch already exists, this one is for you. 00:00 Founder Reflex Defined 01:38 Real World Examples 02:38 Costs of Duplication 03:50 Redemptive Self Story 05:04 Why Founding Feels Better 08:29 Communal Narcissism 11:09 Elite Capture Explained 13:46 White Ignorance Defense 17:04 Manufactured vs Real Community 18:42 White Feminism Patterns 20:58 Followership Skills 22:43 Practice Joining Instead 23:23 Closing Thoughts ★ Support this podcast ★

• Transcript

Training Grounds: The Rapist Pipeline

The Cornell Seven, Frat Chats, and the Rape Pipeline: How Institutions Protect Men Who Harm Women Dr. Leslie Poston returns from a two-week break to work through the Cornell Seven case and what it tells us about how institutions handle men who harm women. The episode opens with the facts of the 101-page lawsuit filed September 14, including the Snapchat chat that advertised the assault to the rest of the fraternity, and traces what Cornell did and didn’t do in the two years before the story broke nationally. From there, Leslie turns to LSU, Temple, the University of Chicago, and the research on why these cases keep producing the same outcomes. She covers rape myths, DARVO, himpathy, and the recent retaliation against Jane Doe. The episode closes on the question the research actually leaves us with, which isn’t the one most of the coverage is asking. 00:00 Why The Break 01:27 Cornell Seven Overview 03:09 What Allegedly Happened 05:39 Institutional Response Fallout 08:49 Why Campuses Bury Cases 10:20 LSU And A Contrast Case 13:33 How The Pipeline Starts 18:08 Frat Culture In Group Dynamics 21:03 Receipts And Proof Culture 25:19 Rape Myths, Himpathy, DARVO 26:54 Swatting Threats Retaliation 27:50 From Campus To Power 32:42 What To Do Next 35:55 Consequences And Closing ★ Support this podcast ★

• Transcript

The One Person Problem: Why We Blame Villains and Wait for Heroes Instead of Fixing Systems

Beyond Blame and Savior: Why Systems, Not Individuals, Drive Outcomes When something goes wrong, we look for the person who caused it. When we want something fixed, we look for the person who can save us. Host Dr. Leslie Poston breaks down why both of those instincts are the same cognitive shortcut, what they protect us from seeing, and how superhero narratives, religious traditions, and political campaigns all reinforce the pattern. She pulls examples from Trump, Obama, Dolly Parton, Mamdani, and corporate scandal culture to show how the same psychology operates across the political spectrum. 00:00 Blame And Hope Pattern 00:56 Fundamental Attribution Error 03:07 Just World And Scapegoats 05:07 Collective Narcissism Politics 07:29 Corporate Scandal Rituals 07:54 Villains Versus Saviors 08:31 Compensatory Control Theory 09:42 How Groups Create Leaders 11:07 Obama And Dolly Totems 13:15 Superhero Myth Training 16:38 Religion And Strongmen 20:08 Why Systems Thinking Hurts 23:10 Practical System Questions 24:19 Closing And Subscribe ★ Support this podcast ★

• Transcript

Wired for War: The Psychology of Leaders Who Choose Conflict

War, Power, and the Psychology of Leaders: Dark Traits, Moral Disengagement, and AI-Driven Distance Dr. Leslie Poston argues that war is a predictable failure of leadership selection: the traits that help people gain power, Dark Triad and Tetrad traits like narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and sadism, are the same traits that make leaders dangerous when it comes to decisions about conflict. She traces this pattern through current wars including the US-Iran strikes, Sudan, Myanmar, Ukraine, and Afghanistan-Pakistan. The episode explores how Bandura's moral disengagement operates in modern warfare, how technologies like autonomous weapons and AI targeting systems are widening the accountability gap between leaders and consequences, and why violence is cognitively simpler than peace. She draws a structural parallel between military and corporate leadership failures, particularly in the AI industry's treatment of creative workers, and closes with research-backed interventions for changing who ends up in positions of power and what they bring with them. 00:00 Why Leaders Start Wars 03:10 Dark Tetrad in Power 06:05 Ego Escalation Pattern 07:25 Moral Disengagement Explained 09:03 AI Weapons and Distance 13:38 Violence Beats Complexity 14:56 Groupthink and Sunk Costs 17:20 Corporate Violence via AI 20:53 What Real Leadership Is 22:29 Fixing the Selection Problem 24:58 Closing Thoughts ★ Support this podcast ★

• Transcript

Fear, Politics, and Getting the Science Right: Terror Management Theory Revisited

Terror Management Theory, Replication, and How Science Updates What We Think We Know Dr. Leslie Poston discusses Terror Management Theory (TMT) as a framework for understanding how death anxiety shapes social and political behavior, and uses it to illustrate how science updates its conclusions as evidence changes. She contrasts open replication with cases like Dan Ariely's retracted work. She traces TMT from Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death to early experiments showing harsher punishment after mortality reminders, explains the anxiety buffer (worldview, self-esteem, relationships) and proximal vs. distal defenses, and reviews findings linking mortality salience to prejudice, nationalism, consumerism, and support for confident leaders. She then covers replication challenges, including Many Labs 4, competing re-analyses, independent failed replications, and a major meta-analysis showing publication bias likely inflated the effect. Alongside TMT, she reviews neuroscience and physiology research on threat sensitivity and political ideology, which shows smaller but consistent associations. The episode connects constant ambient threat in modern media and authoritarian rhetoric to these dynamics and discusses buffering strategies like bolstering self-esteem, relationships, shared humanity, and recognizing fear priming. 00:00 Welcome and TMT Introduction 00:47 Dan Ariely and Bad vs. Good Science 01:34 Ernest Becker and The Denial of Death 03:05 The First Mortality Salience Study 03:52 How TMT Works 05:31 Death Cues in Daily Life 06:41 What the Research Found 09:28 Threat Sensitivity in the Brain 11:31 Replication and Re-analysis 13:42 Understanding Publication Bias 14:46 What We Actually Know 16:58 Why This Matters Now 17:46 What Helps 18:28 Science as an Updating Process 19:00 Outro ★ Support this podcast ★

• Transcript

The Personality Test Industrial Complex: The MBTI Problem

Why MBTI Took Over Corporate Culture Despite Weak Science, and What to Use Instead Dr. Leslie Poston traces how the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator became a multi-million-dollar corporate fixture despite decades of research challenging its psychometric quality, from Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers' Jung-inspired typology to its commercialization by the Myers-Briggs Company. The episode outlines core problems with the MBTI, including poor test-retest reliability, arbitrary binary categorization despite normally distributed traits, and weak predictive validity for workplace outcomes. Poston covers why it still feels accurate through the Barnum/Forer effect, motivated reasoning, preference for simple categories, and social identity dynamics reinforced by online communities and corporate incentives. She contrasts the MBTI with evidence-based personality science such as the Big Five and HEXACO, notes the growing commercial availability of validated tools, and examines why the MBTI persists through ease of use, positivity, institutional inertia, and cultural saturation. Participate in Our Latest Research Project! Click Here. Not your thing? Share the link! 00:00 MBTI Everywhere 01:31 Origins and Jung 03:30 The Business Machine 04:33 Reliability and Validity Issues 07:55 Why It Feels True 12:27 Big Five and Better Models 17:04 Why MBTI Still Dominates 20:08 What You Can Do 22:15 Bigger Lesson and Wrap ★ Support this podcast ★

• Transcript

Why You're Stuck: The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Why Some People Bounce Back: Narrative Identity, Redemption Stories, and Getting Unstuck PARTICIPATE IN MY POST DOC RESEARCH! CLICK HERE. Dr. Leslie Poston explains that resilience after hard experiences often depends less on toughness or event severity and more on the narrative people construct about what happened. Drawing on 30+ years of narrative identity research from researchers like Dan McAdams, she contrasts “redemption sequences” (negative-to-positive meaning) with “contamination sequences” (positive overtaken by negative), noting links to well-being and depression. She cites evidence that narrative is an active ingredient: long-term sobriety predicts redemption framing of the last drink, increases in narrative agency precede mental health gains in therapy, and expressive writing improves outcomes when it creates coherent story structure. She discusses developmental roots in parent-child elaborative reminiscing, the risk of event centrality in PTSD/CPTSD and collective trauma (e.g., post-9/11 America), and how cultural “master narratives” shape which stories feel possible, with cross-cultural differences. Practical takeaways include therapy, structured writing, supportive listening, and reframing adversity as a chapter, plus a note about upcoming paid courses and no ads. SIGN UP FOR PSYBERSPACE® COURSE LAUNCH HERE 00:00 Why We Get Stuck 01:28 Narrative Identity Basics 02:20 Redemption vs Contamination 03:47 Stories Change Outcomes 06:56 How Kids Learn Stories 09:49 When Trauma Becomes Identity 11:35 Collective Trauma Filters 13:21 Culture and Master Narratives 14:39 When Redemption Doesn’t Fit 17:12 Practical Tools to Reframe 21:24 Closing and Housekeeping ★ Support this podcast ★

• Transcript

Specimen in a Petri Dish Part Two: Body Control as Political Power

Body Policing as Authoritarian Power: From Fascist Propaganda to TikTok Pipelines In Part One, we asked who gets to decide what a woman's body should look like. In Part Two, Dr. Leslie Poston follows that question into political history, tracing a line from Mussolini's propaganda offices to the fashion industry to TikTok's algorithm. The distance between fascist body archetypes and a teenage girl's feed in 2026 is shorter than you'd think. Drawing on the work of Sabrina Strings, Da'Shaun Harrison, and Lois Shearing, this episode examines how and why body control has functioned as a tool of authoritarian power, and what makes it so effective at recruiting women and girls today. PARTICIPATE IN MY POST DOC RESEARCH! CLICK HERE. 00:00 Part Two Setup 01:16 Fascist Body Archetypes 03:49 Fear and Conformity 05:03 Racial Origins of Fatphobia 07:11 Modern Body Fascism 09:33 Fashion Industry Data 12:38 Ariana Grande Case Study 13:36 Skinny Talk Pipeline 17:09 Why It Works Psychologically 21:34 Closing Resources ★ Support this podcast ★

• Transcript

Specimen in a Petri Dish: The Psychology of Public Body Policing

Why Society Feels Entitled to Comment on Women’s Bodies, and the Harm It Causes Jenna Ortega sat down to talk about her career. Within a day, the internet was only talking about her body. Dr. Leslie Poston traces this pattern across decades of public scrutiny aimed at women in the spotlight, examines the psychology behind why people feel entitled to comment on women's bodies at all, and looks at what the research says those comments actually do. Part one of a two-part series. PARTICIPATE IN MY POST DOC RESEARCH! CLICK HERE. 00:00 Welcome and Setup 01:55 Jenna Ortega Scrutiny 03:43 Ariana Grande Pattern 04:58 2000s Tabloid Era 07:11 Why Commentary Persists 09:57 Concern Trolling Explained 11:28 Parasocial Entitlement 12:58 Research on Harm 15:21 Stress and Health Effects 16:52 Ozempic Culture Shift 19:51 Coping and Bigger Question 20:52 Wrap Up and Part Two For those who asked about reading my dissertation, I made it open access for you. ★ Support this podcast ★

• Transcript

Be Cringe, Be Free: The Psychology of Refusing to Perform

Be Cringe, Be Free: Authenticity, Shame, and the Cost of Performing the Self "Be cringe, be free" sounds like a joke about dancing badly in public. Dr. Leslie Poston makes the case that it's actually a question psychology has been thinking about for decades: why does being yourself in public feel so dangerous, and can dropping the performance actually change anything beyond your own life? This episode draws on Goffman's front stage and back stage selves, Winnicott's true self and false self, Brehm's reactance theory, Gilbert's social rank theory, Tangney's research on shame and guilt, Gilovich's spotlight effect, Meyer's minority stress theory, Keltner's work on embarrassment, and Deci, Ryan, and Neff on autonomy and self-compassion, to ask what it actually costs to keep performing, and what it takes to stop. 00:00 Be Cringe Be Free 01:07 Life as Theater 02:48 True vs False Self 04:37 Reactance and Pushback 06:14 Where Cringe Fear Comes From 08:04 Spotlight Effect Reality Check 09:03 Minority Stress and Real Risk 10:23 Embarrassment vs Defiance 11:57 Autonomy and Self Compassion 13:57 Freedom as Collective Change 14:33 Outro and Research Invite LINK TO PARTICIPATE IN DR. POSTON'S NEXT RESEARCH STUDY: https://bit.ly/4fCx52d (linked form will deactivate when study is full) ★ Support this podcast ★

• Transcript

Gotcha Culture: Why Catching an AI Cheater Feels So Good

The Psychology Behind AI Call-Outs and False Certainty Dr. Leslie Poston examines why people react with such gleeful certainty when an AI detector flags someone's writing, even though these tools are wrong often enough to falsely implicate one in five students in a single class. The satisfaction people feel rarely tracks whether the accusation is true. It tracks something else entirely, and this episode breaks down five distinct psychological motives hiding underneath that feeling, from protecting a shaky self-image to genuine hypocrisy to anger that belongs somewhere else altogether. Along the way: why detectors fail the way they do, what several centuries of public exposure rituals have in common with a modern callout post, and how to catch yourself doing this before you hit send. 00:00 Why AI Callouts Feel Good 01:08 Schadenfreude and Deservingness 03:10 Algorithms Reward Accusations 04:19 Five Motives Behind Callouts 04:27 Downward Comparison Relief 05:31 Imposter Syndrome Trigger 06:28 Secret Users and Hypocrisy 08:08 Moral Grandstanding Performance 09:00 Misdirected Anger at AI 10:03 Why Detectors Fail 12:12 Historical Parallels and Exposures 14:33 How to Respond Responsibly 17:06 Closing and Subscribe ★ Support this podcast ★

• Transcript

Coded to Exhaustion: The Hidden Cost of Outsmarting the Algorithm

Algospeak and the Cost of Speaking Under Algorithmic Suppression When millions of creators have to say 'unalive' instead of suicide and use a grape emoji instead of talking about rape, something has gone wrong. In this episode, Dr. Leslie Poston discusses her dissertation research on the psychological impact of algospeak, the deliberate language modifications social media creators use to evade algorithmic content moderation, where those strategies actually come from, what happens when they spread, and what it costs the people who need them most. Portions of this research are currently being prepared for peer-reviewed journal publication. Poston, L.E. (2026) Speaking at a Cost: Algorithmic Suppression, Appropriated Resistance, and the Psychological Burden of Linguistic Evasion on Social Media (Dissertation) Fielding Graduate University. 00:00 Welcome and Setup 00:44 What Is Algospeak 02:40 Origins and Raciolinguistics 04:13 Why I Studied This 05:28 Methods and Dataset 07:03 Emotional Toll 08:54 Cognitive Load 12:50 "Neutralization Lifecycle" 15:11 Beyond Algorithms Harassment 16:10 What Needs to Change 17:53 What Changed Since Study 19:31 Key Takeaways and Sign Off Note: had some trouble with the audio leveling this week on a word or two, if I have time I'll re-record and replace those segments this weekend. ★ Support this podcast ★

• Transcript

What We Lose When Knowledge Has to Pay Rent

Education’s Value Beyond Jobs: Critical Thinking, Humanities, and the Real Jobs Crisis Host Dr. Leslie Poston argues that education’s value is not defined by whether it leads directly to a job, criticizing the “elite overproduction” framing that treats employment outcomes as the only metric and shift systemic economic failures onto individuals. She emphasizes that a good education builds durable capacities like critical thinking, tolerance for ambiguity, and empathy (traits tied to better judgment in civic life, relationships, and work) supported by research on intrinsic motivation, liberal arts outcomes, and longitudinal gains in reflective learning and need for cognition. In medicine, humanities-linked interventions measurably improve empathy and uncertainty tolerance, reducing unnecessary tests and stress. She cites evidence that employers inflated degree requirements as a screening filter, worsening credential gaps, and explains cultural bias toward individual-blame narratives. She concludes that labor-market reform and valuing knowledge should be treated as separate fixes. 00:00 Education Beyond Jobs 01:16 The ROI Framing Trap 03:27 Critical Thinking Core 05:57 Intrinsic Motivation Wins 07:24 Medicine Needs Humanities 09:27 AI Ethics Training Gap 11:51 Who Caused Credential Creep 13:36 Bias Toward Blame 14:56 Two Problems Two Fixes 16:57 Closing Values Call ★ Support this podcast ★

• Transcript

Love Languages Were Never Scientific

Why Love Languages Went Viral Without the Science to Support Them Millions of people can name their love language. Almost none of them know the man who invented the concept wasn't a psychologist, never ran a study, and built the whole thing from his own irritation with how his wife loaded the dishwasher. Host Leslie Poston traces "The Five Love Languages" back to its actual origins, checks Gary Chapman's core claims against three decades of relationship research, and asks a harder question: who benefits when a framework this thin gets treated as settled science, and who ends up doing the work of proving it. 00:00 Love Languages Phenomenon 01:18 Who Is Gary Chapman 02:47 Pastoral Origins Story 04:13 Brand Expansion Machine 04:59 Putting The Theory To Test 05:40 What The Research Finds 07:15 Why It Still Spreads 09:19 A Closer Look At Who Does The Work 11:43 The Physical Touch Question 13:04 When It Becomes A Shield 16:27 What Holds Up Instead 18:38 Closing Thoughts And Sign Off **Note: We had some technical difficulties during recording this week. If there is a problem with your audio, please let us know** ★ Support this podcast ★

Why We Keep Falling For Moral Panics

Moral Panics as Effort Shields: Why Outrage Replaces Action Why do we grab onto moral panics so eagerly, and then quietly drop them the moment they stop being convenient? In this episode, host Leslie Poston, Ph.D., introduces the concept of the 'effort shield' and argues that moral panics serve a psychological function most people never examine. Drawing on Stanley Cohen's foundational work, system justification theory, and the Semmelweis effect, she walks through four case studies spanning technology and policy to show how the pattern repeats, who profits from it, and what it costs us. If you've ever wondered why the same cycle of outrage keeps happening without anything actually changing, this one's for you. 00:00 Stranger Danger to Uber 01:04 What Moral Panics Do 02:24 Effort Shields Explained 05:14 Stranger Danger Myth 07:58 Video Games Scapegoat 10:44 Social Media Panic 12:29 KOSA and Policy Fallout 13:50 Anti Abortion Effort Shield 16:42 Pattern Across Examples 18:01 Why Panics Persist 18:29 Spotting the Shield 19:17 Closing and Subscribe ★ Support this podcast ★

• Transcript

Why We Reject New Evidence That Could Directly Help Us: The Semmelweis Effect

The Semmelweis Effect, COVID Cognitive Decline, and Why Evidence Struggles to Spread Host Leslie Poston explains the Semmelweis effect (reflexively rejecting strong evidence because it threatens identity or established norms) through Ignaz Semmelweis’ 1840s discovery that chlorinated handwashing slashed childbed-fever deaths, despite fierce professional backlash and decades-long delay before adoption. She distinguishes the effect from confirmation bias and links it to cognitive dissonance, status quo bias, and identity-protective cognition. The episode then connects this pattern to research showing COVID-19 infection is associated with measurable, cumulative cognitive deficits (memory, reasoning, executive function), limited protection from vaccination, and brain changes, with reinfection worsening decline and older or severe cases at higher risk. Poston argues these impairments may reduce society’s ability to update beliefs, compounding the typical 17-year medical translation gap and polarized trust in science, and suggests bias awareness, infection prevention, living guidelines, better evidence infrastructure, and transparent communication. 00:00 Semmelweis Effect Intro 01:05 Deadly Maternity Mystery 01:38 Handwashing Breakthrough 02:21 Why Evidence Gets Rejected 03:30 Bias Mechanics Explained 05:58 Not Just Skepticism 07:11 COVID Cognitive Decline Data 08:37 Brain Changes And Reinfection 11:22 Translation Gap In Medicine 13:33 Trust Polarization Problem 14:38 Three Forces Collide 15:30 Practical Ways Forward 18:20 Closing Reflection And Signoff ★ Support this podcast ★

• Transcript

The Age of Uncertainty: What Workplace Instablity is Doing to Your Brain

Sustained Uncertainty at Work: Why It Hurts Your Brain and What Helps Host Leslie Poston discusses sustained workplace uncertainty and its psychological effects, citing an APA Monitor on Psychology article and survey data showing widespread job insecurity, low engagement, and feelings of being replaceable or invisible—especially among workers under 25. She explains research finding peak stress at maximum uncertainty and connects it to ongoing “maybe” conditions created by economic instability, policy shifts, AI restructuring, and layoffs at profitable companies, which sever the link between effort and security and contribute to survivor syndrome, reduced collaboration, and morale gaps between HR and executives. Declining trust and weak communication—highlighted by Edelman and Gallup findings—intensify uncertainty, while workplace ostracism can activate pain-related brain regions and disproportionately affects women of color. She offers limits-aware coping ideas: reduce self-blame, assess whether uncertainty is temporary or permanent, diversify identity beyond work, and evaluate whether leadership will tell the truth. 00:00 Welcome and Setup 00:21 Workplace Uncertainty Data 01:48 Why Uncertainty Hurts 02:37 Living in Maybe 04:03 Profit Driven Layoffs 06:30 Survivor Syndrome Fallout 08:01 Trust Makes It Bearable 10:03 Manager Pipeline Breakdown 10:40 Invisibility and Ostracism 12:25 What You Can Do 13:09 Action Steps That Help 15:46 Closing Thoughts ★ Support this podcast ★

• Transcript

Sounds Deep, Says Nothing: The Science of Bullshit Receptivity

Bullshit Receptivity: Why We Trust the Wrong Words Host Leslie Poston discusses “bullshit receptivity,” a peer-reviewed construct describing susceptibility to impressive-sounding but meaningless language. She highlights Cornell cognitive psychologist Shane Littrell’s studies in which over 1,000 office workers rated AI-generated corporate jargon alongside real executive quotes; those most impressed scored lowest on analytic thinking and workplace decision-making, and were more likely to amplify jargon in a feedback loop that rewards BS-producing leaders. Poston connects this to earlier work by Gordon Pennycook (University of Waterloo) on pseudo-profound statements and cognitive defaults like initial acceptance and weak conflict monitoring, and to research linking BS receptivity with overclaiming, poor metacognition, fake news vulnerability (Pennycook and Rand), political slogans, and “scientific” BS. She notes Brandolini’s Law and emphasizes practicing analytic thinking, including restating claims in plain language, citing the University of Washington’s “Calling Bullshit” course and mentioning future coverage of pre-bunking. 00:00 Welcome and Setup 00:41 Cornell Corporate BS Study 02:49 Feedback Loop and Examples 04:56 Waterloo Origins of BS Scale 06:12 Why We Fall for It 07:55 Metacognition and Overclaiming 08:41 BS in News and Politics 10:28 Scientific and General BS 11:52 Training Your BS Detector 13:50 Practical Plain Language Test 14:47 Wrap Up and Teaser The studies referenced: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886926000620 https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2026/03/workers-who-love-synergizing-paradigms-might-be-bad-their-jobs https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/judgment-and-decision-making/article/on-the-reception-and-detection-of-pseudoprofound-bullshit/0D3C87BCC238BCA38BC55E395BDC9999 https://sjdm.org/~baron/journal/20/200221/jdm200221.pdf https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psych-unseen/202007/does-america-have-problem-bullshit-receptivity https://www.niemanlab.org/2017/08/when-it-comes-to-the-academic-study-of-fake-news-bullshit-receptivity-is-a-thing/ https://jspp.psychopen.eu/index.php/jspp/article/view/6565 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13546783.2022.2066724 UPDATED with notes from the study author: (Note: I love it when an author adds nuance! We lead with curiosity here and we know 15 - 25 minute episodic summaries can potentially overly-condense a topic.) Replying to the LinkedIn post about this, Dr. Littrell said: "Re: "The findings are consistent across every domain: the strongest predictor of whether someone catches BS is whether they engage analytic thinking or "go with their gut"." There's a bit more to it than that. People can fall for BS through either mode of thinking (more "reflective" and more "intuitive"): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13546783.2023.2189163 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/acp.4154 More detailed discussion here, for anyone interested: https://bullshitology.substack.com/p/brown-pilled-why-we-fall-for-bullshit" ★ Support this podcast ★

• Transcript

The Credibility Trap: Why We Trust Confident Wrongness

The Credibility Trap: Why Confidence Beats Correctness Host Leslie Poston is back after a hiatus to move PsyberSpace to a new weekly Thursday schedule and explains why people often trust confident speakers over accurate ones, calling it the “credibility trap.” She outlines the confidence heuristic (certainty feels like evidence), why it works through verbal cues across all media, and how Dunning-Kruger dynamics and overclaiming research show that learning a little can increase false recognition and perceived expertise, a risk she notes may worsen with increased LLM use. She adds the authority heuristic, where credentials or platforms suppress scrutiny, and describes harms when confidently wrong figures are amplified, including in public health and policy. Research on “bullshit receptivity” and overconfidence in news judgment shows some people are especially vulnerable and unaware. She argues honest expertise sounds uncertain due to scientific qualifiers, which media incentives punish, and offers habits to resist: treat uncertainty as a knowledge signal, watch for broad undifferentiated certainty, separate authority from accuracy, and question one’s own discernment. 00:00 Welcome Back Update 00:21 The Credibility Trap 01:14 Confidence Heuristic Explained 03:05 Dunning Kruger And Overclaiming 06:10 Authority Signals Amplify Errors 09:49 Who Falls For It 12:11 Honesty Sounds Uncertain 15:38 How To Resist The Trap 18:18 Final Thoughts And Sign Off ★ Support this podcast ★

• Transcript

Propaganda: Nobody's Immune

How Propaganda Uses Your Values Against Your Brain: The Passport Revocation Example Host Leslie Poston explains that no one is immune to propaganda, using her own initial approval of a proposal to revoke passports for unpaid child support as an example of how emotional framing can short-circuit deeper thinking. She argues effective propaganda relies on a grain of truth and an emotional trigger, using agenda-setting to shape what people think about and how, and distinguishes agitation propaganda (fast, gut-response) from integration propaganda (slow, worldview-shaping). She describes how moral conviction, motivated reasoning, and cognitive fluency can recruit analytical skill to defend prior conclusions, making simple frames feel both right and true. She warns that vague mechanisms attached to sympathetic victims can expand beyond intent, citing civil asset forfeiture and welfare fraud provisions, and offers habits: slow down on strong emotions, ask who’s missing from the frame, examine the mechanism and recourse, reject forced binaries, and note topics where scrutiny feels disloyal. 00:00 No One Is Immune 00:35 Passport Law Gut Reaction 02:15 Propaganda Uses Truth 03:08 Agitation vs Integration 04:55 Moral Conviction Trigger 06:26 Fluency Feels Like Truth 07:30 Framing Hides Mechanisms 08:42 Policy History Examples 09:33 Five Anti Propaganda Habits 12:10 Create the Thinking Gap 12:41 Closing and Subscribe ★ Support this podcast ★

• Transcript