Two Psychologists Four Beers

Episode 135: Big Team Science Outside the West (with Sergio Barbosa and Alma Jeftic)

Sergio Barbosa (Universidad del Rosario, Bogotá) and Alma Jeftic (International Christian University, Tokyo) join Yoel to talk about big team science from the perspective of researchers outside the West. We talk about what big international collaborations get right but also what could be improved—and what it would take for researchers outside the West to lead projects, rather than just collect data for them.

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Episode 134: Applied Moral Psychology (with Josh Greene)

Harvard psychologist and philosopher Josh Greene joins the show to talk about two projects where he's trying to apply his research to change the real world: Giving Multiplier (a donation platform that nudges people towards higher-impact giving), and Tango, a quiz game that gets Democrats and Republicans to like each other a little better.

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Episode 133: What's the Environmental Cost of AI? (with Andy Masley)

Andy Masley joins Yoel and Mickey to talk about a claim that's made him (in)famous: using AI chatbots doesn't meaningfully affect your carbon footprint or water usage. We ask Andy what data centers actually do with water, why "ten times a Google search" is not a useful metric, and why people really don't want data centers built near them.

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Episode 132: If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich? (with Paul Bloom)

Paul and Yoel talk about whether it's a problem that psychologists seem to be no better than laypeople at predicting behavior. We also cover a recent controversy in anthropology.

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Episode 131: What's Wrong With AI (with Molly Crockett)

Cognitive scientist Molly Crockett joins the show to talk about what it's like to be known in the field as an "AI skeptic." We talk about where Molly is actually skeptical, but also what she thinks that label gets wrong.

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Episode 130: You Should Be Talking to Strangers (with Nick Epley)

Researcher, professor, and former Division III football player Nick Epley joins the show to talk about why we underestimate the benefits of social connections—and how we can change our behavior to connect more with others.

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Episode 129: RE-RELEASE: Terrible Advice (with Paul Bloom)

Yoel and Mickey welcome many-time guest Paul Bloom to the podcast to dispense terrible advice. We first talk about parenting—its impact on happiness and meaning, its transformation of the person; and then discuss perversity, including the enjoyment of doing transgressive things for no good reason.

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Episode 128: Why Do We Care About Faculty Diversity? (with Azim Shariff)

Many academics care about diversity in faculty hiring, but why? Azim Shariff joins the show to talk about a new paper where he outlines different rationales for diversity in hiring, and an as-yet unpublished study where he asked department chairs how much they actually value each of them.

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Episode 127: The Great Canadian Euthanasia Experiment (with Mickey Inzlicht)

Mickey and Yoel talk about Canada's controversial euthanasia law (called MAID: medical assistance in dying). We also discuss a new paper that finds (or does it?) that ego depletion is not as dead as people think.

Episode 126: Using AI to Improve Science (with Paul Litvak)

Paul Litvak joins the show to talk about how AI tools can help us measure research quality and assess evidence in the scientific literature. His first project is a way to extract test statistics and p-values from papers automatically, with no manual coding needed. We also talk about legendary researcher Robin Dawes (for whom Paul's non-profit is named) and Paul's exit from academia. Plus, Yoel reveals a shameful secret about his use of AI.

Episode 125: Citation Diversity Statements? (with Mickey Inzlicht)

Mickey is back and fired up about citation diversity statements. We discuss a recent editorial from Nature Reviews Psychology encouraging authors to include a "citation diversity statement" in their articles to "to draw attention to citation imbalances and confirm that they made efforts to cite publications from a diverse group of researchers." Even more problematically, Mickey advances some questionable beer views.

Episode 124: Civic Honesty Around the Globe (with David Tannenbaum)

David Tannenbaum joins the show to talk about one of Yoel's favorite papers: a massive field study of honesty in 40 countries that had some unexpected results. We also talk about hiking and David chugs a beer.

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Episode 123: RE-RELEASE: What are Teachers Good For? (with Paul Bloom)

This is a re-release of Episode 95, which was recorded in September 2023. Paul Bloom joins Yoel and Alexa to talk about what they've learned about teaching. They swap stories, discuss goals, and speculate about whether they've gotten better or worse over time. This is a re-release of Episode 95, which was recorded in September 2023.

Episode 122: When to Quit (with Paul Bloom)

Paul Bloom takes over the show to interview Yoel about loss of faith: when to give up on a theory, and which of his own findings he no longer believes.

Episode 121: A New Paradigm for Psychology?

Yoel is joined by a mysterious pseudonymous due called Slime Mold Time Mold, who are proposing a new paradigm for psychology. Using principles from cybernetics, can we explain emotion, motivation, personality, mental illness, and more?

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Episode 120: Transparent Replications (with Spencer Greenberg)

Returning guest Spencer Greenberg joins the show to talk replications, what psychologist think of terror management theory (and other controversial topics), and a machine-learning tool he developed to predict correlations between psychological traits and survey questions.

Episode 119: The Future of DEI in Higher Ed (with Amori Mikami)

It's been a tumultuous time for DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) efforts in higher education. Whether due to political pressure, internal dissension, or both, many prominent institutions are revamping or even eliminating their DEI offices and rethinking DEI policies that once seemed unquestionable. Amori Mikami from the University of British Columbia re-joins the show to talk about the changes, what she thinks universities ought to be doing, and what she thinks we they can do better.

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Episode 118: Do We Have a Purity Problem? (with David Pizarro)

Moral psychologist David Pizarro joins the show to talk about "purity." When moral psychologists ask people about their judgments of sex with chickens, smearing yourself with cat feces, and sibling incest, what are we learning? Is it possible that "purity" isn't a coherent concept at all, or is there an underlying method to the madness?

Episode 117: Good News for the Chronics (with Mickey Inzlicht)

On-again off-again co-host Mickey Inzlicht joins the show to debrief about the recent SPSP conference, dissect a new paper purporting to show working memory deficits in heavy cannabis users, and evaluate some critiques of AI empathy.

Episode 116: Can We Do Science Without Ideology? (with Moin Syed)

Cultural psychologist and open science advocate Moin Syed joins the show to talk what he thinks people get wrong about ideology, diversity, and open science. We talk about what role, if any, researchers' ideology should play in their science, and what it means when people describe psychological research as "ideological." In the second half of the show, we talk about what people get wrong about preregistration, and why it seems some misconceptions just won't die.