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You Are Not So Smart

You Are Not So Smart is a show about psychology that celebrates science and self delusion. In each episode, we explore what we've learned so far about reasoning, biases, judgments, and decision-making.

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23 episodes
fortnightly
Avg 1 hr 1 min
English

Episodes 23

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Monday · 43 min
348 - The Dress - Decoder Ring
We return to The Dress and the psychological lessons offered by one of the most viral moments in the history of the internet via an episode of Decoder Ring in which David McRaney shares some insights from his book, How Minds Change, with Willa Paskin, the host of Decoder Ring.
August 31 · 1 hr 10 min
347 - Under Alien Skies - Phil Plait
Astronomer Phil Plait joins us to discuss his book, Under Alien Skies, in which he describes what it would actually be like to travel to Saturn, Mars, asteroids, and distant stars.
August 17 · 59 min
346 - No Nocebo Effect - Helen Pilcher
The suffering is real, but the source may not be what you assume. That's the essence of the nocebo effect, the placebo effect's evil twin. As neuroscientist Dr. Helen Pilcher explains, illness is not simply a matter of biology. Our thoughts, conscious or otherwise, can make lead to symptoms in unexpected ways.
August 3 · 1 hr 6 min
345 - A Pox on Fools - Thomas Levenson
MIT professor Thomas Levenson, the author of the book A Pox on Fools, takes us through the same repeating patterns throughout history which have led to antivaxxers and vaccine hesitancy since the very first vaccines.
August 3 · 1 hr 7 min
344 - Intellectual Humility - Tenelle Porter
Can intellectual humility be measured? What influences it and affects it, limits it and enhances it? What even is it, scientifically speaking?
July 6 · 1 hr 8 min
343 - Misguided - Matthew Facciani
What is misinformation? How does it differ from disinformation or just plain ‘ole propaganda? How do we protect ourselves from people with nefarious intentions using all of these things to affect our thoughts, feelings, and behavior?
June 22 · 47 min
342 - The Conspiracy Theorist Who Changed His Mind
Tim Harford of the podcast Cautionary Tales sits down with David McRaney to hear a story from David's book, How Minds Change, about how (and why) a prominent conspiracy theorist realized he was wrong.
June 8 · 45 min
341 - Positive Rants - Heather Barnes
Communications professor Heather Barnes teaches us how to truly engage with difficult people through the power of positive rants.
May 25 · 1 hr 2 min
340 - Thinking Sideways - Jennifer Shahade
Chess champion Jennifer Shahade tells us how we can borrow from the best chess players' decision-tree approach to avoid considering every possible option and instead "think sideways" to consider the best choices on the board.
May 11 · 1 hr 28 min
339 - Enlightened Disagreement
Northwestern University just launched the Litowitz Center for Enlightened Disagreement, a real-world institution devoted to "research-backed approaches to cultivating open-mindedness, identifying one’s own cognitive biases, working collaboratively with others despite disagreement and more."
April 27 · 39 min
338 - May Contain Lies - Alex Edmans (rebroadcast)
Alex Edmans, a professor of finance at London Business School, tells us how to avoid the Ladder of Misinference.
April 13 · 59 min
337 - Cognitive Surrender - Gideon Nave and Steven D. Shaw
How is AI reshaping human reasoning? What is cognitive surrender, and how do we avoid its negative impact? What is system three thinking, and how can we get the most out of it?
March 30 · 1 hr 3 min
336 - The 3.5 Percent Rule - Erica Chenoweth (rebroadcast)
If you want to create a movement that can change the national status quo, you don't need half the country, you only need 3.5 percent of the population to join – but there are some caveats.
March 16 · 1 hr 12 min
335 - Align Your Mind - Britt Frank (rebroadcast)
Using parts work, psychologist Britt Frank offers a road map for understanding, befriending, and leading the multiple voices within yourself.
March 2 · 1 hr 19 min
334 - Magical Thinking - Matt Tompkins (rebroadcast)
We explore the long history of the manipulation of our own magical thinking and how studying deception can help us better understand perception, memory, belief, and more.
February 16 · 38 min
YANSS 333 - Selective Perception - Jay Van Bavel
How can two people watch the same video yet see two different things? How can two people witness the same event but arrive at two different truths about what they witnessed? How can the same evidence lead people to drastically different realities? In this episode, Dr. Jay Van Bavel at NYU explains.
February 2 · 1 hr 8 min
332 - Concordance Over Truth Bias (rebroadcast)
In this episode, we sit down with three disinformation researchers whose new paper found something surprising about both our resistance and our susceptibility to both true news we wish was fake and fake news we wish was true.
January 19 · 1 hr 7 min
331 - Wicked Problems - Martin Carcasson
Dr. Martin Carcasson tells us how he, as the Director of the Center for Public Deliberation at Colorado State, trains people how to facilitate deliberation and overcome wicked problems so that they can "spark processes that are particularly designed to avoid triggering the worst in human nature and tap into the best."
January 5 · 1 hr 4 min
330 - A More Beautiful Question - Warren Berger (rebroadcast)
Warren Berger has made a career out of classifying, categorizing, and making sense of the many varieties of questions that we ask and in this episode he explains how we can ask more beautiful questions that can lead to all manner of better outcomes.
Dec 22, 2025 · 51 min
329 - Point Taken - Steven Franconeri
Dr. Steven Franconeri explains the powerful insights and opportunities offered by a game he and his team created for having better disagreements about just about anything, but especially about the sort of topics that often lead to arguments, fights, and terrible holiday dinners.

Showing 1–20 of 23 episodes