Podcasts by You Are Not So Smart

239 - You're Invited - Jon Levy from 2023-11-29T11:42:32.499504

Our guest in this episode is the behavioral scientist Jon Levy who wrote a book titled You’re Invited, the Art and Science of Cultivating influence. The book details how Jon was able to convince...

241 - The Status Game - Will Storr from 2023-11-29T11:42:32.495897

In this episode we welcome back author Will Storr whose new book, The Status Game, feels like required reading for anyone confused, curious, or worried about...

243 - Psychological Tweetathon with Jay Van Bavel from 2023-11-29T11:42:32.491562

In this episode we sit down with NYU psychologist Jay Van Bavel who is very good at Twitter. His feed is always overflowing with the absolute latest and greatest research from psychology with li...

250 - Awe - Dacher Keltner from 2023-11-29T11:42:32.480098

In this episode we sit down with psychologist Dacher Keltner, one of the world’s leading experts on the science of emotion, the man Pixar hired to help them write Inside Out. In his new book – A...

252 - Procrastination - Britt Frank from 2023-11-29T11:42:32.475051

It’s February. It’s that time of year when we start to wonder if we might not follow through with our New Year’s resolutions. It’s that time of the year when procrastination becomes a centerpiec...

254 - I Never Thought of It That Way - Mónica Guzmán from 2023-11-29T11:42:32.470969

This is the first episode in a three-part series about how to have difficult conversations with people who see the world differently, how to have better debates about contentious issues, and how...

256 - The Persuaders - Anand Giridharadas from 2023-11-29T11:42:32.466477

This is the third episode in a three-part series about how to have difficult conversations with people who see the world differently, how to have better debates about contentious issues, and how...

263 - The Truth Wins - Tom Stafford (rebroadcast) from 2023-11-29T11:42:32.452007

Deliberation. Debate. Conversation. Though it can feel like that’s what we are doing online as we trade arguments back and forth, most of the places where we currently gather make it much easier...

266 - Project Alpha - Brian Brushwood from 2023-11-29T11:42:32.447041

We sit down with Brian Brushwood to discuss how he put together this most recent season of The World's Greatest Con, his podcast about incredible scams. This season is all about how two teenager...

268 - The Status Game - Will Storr (rebroadcast) from 2023-11-29T11:42:32.443853

In this episode we welcome back author Will Storr whose new book, The Status Game, feels like required reading for anyone confused, curious, or worried about how politics, cults, conspiracy theo...

270 - Defining Genius from 2023-11-29T11:42:32.440210

In this show you'll hear the first episode of a documentary series I made for Himalaya, an audio service devoted to inspirational and educational content that asked me if I had any ideas for a b...

274 - Cascades - Greg Satell from 2023-11-27T04:42:44

In this episode we sit down with Greg Satell, a communication expert whose book, Cascades, details how rapid, widespread change can sweep across gr...

273 - The Conspiracy Test - Jesse Richardson from 2023-11-12T17:20:08

In this episode Jesse Richardson tells us all about ConspiracyTest.org, a new project designed to be a weird, fun, and cleverly educational way to exp...

272 - Quit! - Annie Duke (rebroadcast) from 2023-10-29T09:00

I recently sat down for a live event and Q&A with the great Annie Duke to discuss her new book, Quit: The power of knowing when to walk away. This episode is the audio from that event. Quit is a...

271 - Survival of the Richest - Douglas Rushkoff (rebroadcast) from 2023-10-15T15:58:11

In this episode we sit down with Douglas Rushkoff, a media scholar, journalist, and professor of digital economics who has a new fire in his belly when it com...

269 - Deconstructing How Minds Change - Michael Taft from 2023-09-14T14:49:31

In celebration of How Minds Change, my new book, turning one-year-old, in this episode Michael Taft interviews David McRaney about how minds do and do not change, the process behind writing a bo...

267 - Do Your Own Research - Sedona Chinn from 2023-08-19T19:20:06

Sedona Chinn, who studies how people make sense of competing scientific, environmental, and health-related claims, joins us to discuss her latest research into doing your own research. In her la...

265 - Chess Queens - Jennifer Shahade (rebroadcast) from 2023-07-23T18:00:07

In this episode we sit down with Jennifer Shahade, a two-time U.S. Women’s Chess Champion, author, speaker, and professional poker player whose new book, Chess Queens, is the true story of the g...

264 - Nobody's Fool - Dan Simons and Christopher Chabris from 2023-07-11T21:14:58

In an era in which we have more information available to us than ever before, when claims of “fake news” might themselves be, in fact, fake news, Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris, authors o...

262 - If It Sounds Like a Quack - Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling from 2023-06-25T21:56:49

At the peak of COVID-19, Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling set out to write a book about the widespread pushback against masks and vaccines as away to discuss the rise of the medical freedom movement in ...

261 - Hack Your Bureaucracy - Marina Nitze from 2023-06-11T01:22:34

Marina Nitze is a professional fixer of broken systems – a hacker, not of computers and technology, but of the social phenomena that tend to emerge when people get together and form organization...

260 - The Science of Stuck - Britt Frank (rebroadcast) from 2023-05-28T16:10:13

Feeling stuck? Can't build momentum to escape all the loops keeping you from moving forward? Our guest in this episode is professor, author, therapist, and speaker Britt Frank, a trauma speciali...

259 - Think Again - Adam Grant (rebroadcast) from 2023-05-13T10:00

How to manage procrastination according to Margaret Atwood, how to work around your first-instinct fallacy, the upsides of imposter syndrome, the best way to avoid falling prey to the Dunning-Kr...

258 - Under Alien Skies - Phil Plait from 2023-04-30T22:59:28

Astronomer Phil Plait joins us to discuss his new book, Under Alien Skies, in which he describes what it would be like (through human eyes and real physical experiences) to actually travel to Sa...

257 - What Do You Mean? - Celeste Kidd from 2023-04-16T22:34:06

Is a hotdog a sandwich?

Well, that depends on your definition of a sandwich (and a hotdog), and according to the most recent research in cognitive science, the odds that your concept of a ...

255 - Good Arguments - Bo Seo from 2023-03-19T13:33:02

This is the second episode in a three-part series about how to have difficult conversations with people who see the world differently, how to have better debates about contentious issues, and ho...

253 - The World's Greatest Con - Brian Brushwood (rebroadcast) from 2023-02-19T09:00

In this episode, we sit down with famed stage magician and infamous instructor of the school of scams, Brian Brushwood, whose new podcast explores the world's greatest con artists and con jobs f...

251 - Come up for Air - Nick Sonnenberg from 2023-01-22T20:43:45

Nick Sonnenberg doesn’t believe there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done. That’s because when his business was in crisis mode, he developed a framework for eliminating in...

249 - The Power of Surprise (rebroadcast) from 2022-12-24T14:56:06

In this episode, Micheal Rousell, author of The Power of Surprise, explains the science of surprise at the level of neurons and br...

248 - Visual Thinking - Temple Grandin from 2022-12-11T22:36:33

Temple Grandin was born in 1947 at a time when words like neurodivergent and neurotypical had yet to enter the lexicon, at a time when autism was not well understood, and since she didn’t develo...

247 - Narcissism (rebroadcast) from 2022-11-27T19:02:15

In this episode we explore what narcissism is (and what is most-definitely is not). 

There is a form of narcissism which has been, up until now, confused with psychopathy. But a new paper,...

246 - Ideaflow - Jeremy Utley from 2022-11-13T21:45:16

In this episode we sit down with Jeremy Utley of the Stanford d.school to discuss his new book, Ideaflow, which is all about how to create a practice for producing and trading ideas in massive q...

245 - The Conspiracy Theorist Who Changed His Mind - Tim Harford from 2022-10-28T20:41:35

Here’s a special bonus episode featuring my recent conversation with Tim Harford, author, economic journalist, and host of the Cautionary Tales podcast. We discussed a story from my new book, Ho...

244 - Quit - Annie Duke from 2022-10-16T18:52:20

I recently sat down for a live event and Q&A with the great Annie Duke to discuss her new book, Quit: The power of knowing when to walk away. This episode is the audio from that event. Quit is a...

242 - Survival of the Richest - Douglas Rushkoff from 2022-09-18T15:33:03

In this episode we sit down with Douglas Rushkoff, a media scholar, journalist, and professor of digital economics who has a new fire in his belly when it com...

240 - QAnon and Conspiracy Narratives (rebroadcast) from 2022-08-22T04:14:26

When we talk about conspiracy theories we tend to focus on what people believe instead of why, and, more importantly, why they believe those things and not other things. In this episode...

238 - Chess Queens - Jennifer Shahade from 2022-07-25T01:56:43

In this episode we sit down with Jennifer Shahade, a two-time U.S. Women’s Chess Champion, author, speaker, and professional poker player whose new book, Chess Queens, is the true story of the g...

237 - Reactance - Michele Belot from 2022-07-10T23:47

New research suggests people on opposite sides of wedge issues want to listen to each other. We are each eager to hear differing opinions and understand opposing views, and when we do it can cha...

236 - How Minds Change from 2022-06-27T02:53:50

In this episode I read an excerpt from my new book How Minds Change, a portion concerning how to change minds about abortion rights, and Chris Clearfield interviews me about that very same book ...

235 - Tough - Terry Crews from 2022-06-13T02:50:03

Terry Crews, actor, athlete, artist, President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho, star of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, host of America’s Got Talent - that Terry Crews joins us to discuss his new book,...

234 - The Truth Wins - Tom Stafford from 2022-05-29T16:31:47

Link to preorder How Minds Change and get your preorder bonuses: https://www.davidmcraney.com/howmindschangehome

Deliberation. Debate. Conversation. Though it can feel like that’s what we...

232 - Think Again - Adam Grant from 2022-05-01T12:54:55

How to manage procrastination according to Margaret Atwood, how to work around your first-instinct fallacy, the upsides of imposter syndrome, the best way to avoid falling prey to the Dunning-Kruge...

231 - On Being Certain - Robert Burton (rebroadcast) from 2022-04-17T20:47:34

In this episode, we sit down with neurologist Robert Burton, author of On Being Certain, a book that fundamentally changed the way I think about what a belief actually is. That’s because the book p...

230 - The Science of Stuck - Britt Frank from 2022-04-03T18:52

Feeling stuck? Can't build momentum to escape all the loops keeping you from moving forward? Our guest in this episode is professor, author, therapist, and speaker Britt Frank, a trauma specialist ...

229 - What's Your Problem? - Jacob Goldstein from 2022-03-27T23:22

In this episode, Jacob Goldstein, the longtime host of NPR’s Planet Money, talks about his new podcast about technology and business called What’s Your Problem? with Jacob Goldstein. Goldstein spen...

228 - The Power of Regret - Daniel H. Pink from 2022-03-19T13:55

NO REGRETS - Our guest in this episode of the You Are Not So Smart podcast is Daniel Pink, the five-time NYT Bestselling author of When and To Sell is Human and Drive and A Whole New Mind. His new ...

227 - Imaginable - Jane McGonigal from 2022-03-06T20:31

Jane McGonigal's new books details how she creates alternate reality games in which people take part in virtual worlds, and, in so doing, gain a sensitively to the cues (and a familiarity with the ...

226 - The World's Greatest Con - Brian Brushwood from 2022-02-20T23:09

In this episode, we sit down with famed stage magician, infamous instructor of the school of scams, Brian Brushwood, whose new podcast explores the world's greatest con artists and con jobs from Wo...

225 - Blindsight and Neuromarketing from 2022-02-06T14:27

In this episode, neuromarketing experts Prince Ghuman and Matt Johnson discuss the many strange examples from their book, Blindsight, in an effort to make us all smarter consumers, empowered to mak...

224 - The Conversation Lab - Misha Glouberman from 2022-01-23T21:10

In this episode of the You Are Not So Smart Podcast, we sit down once again with Misha Glouberman, an expert on conflict and conversation, to discuss how best to improve your communication skills a...

223 - To Persuade is Human? from 2022-01-09T22:14:56

This episode, featuring Andy Luttrell of the Opinion Science Podcast, is all about a machine, built by IBM, that can debate human beings on any issue, which leads to the question: is persuasion, wi...

222 - The Power of Surprise - Michael Rousell from 2021-12-27T00:09:29

Not all surprises trigger change, but almost all change is triggered by surprise. In this episode, Micheal Rousell, author of The Power of Surprise, explains the science of surprise at the level of...

221 - Conversations and Conversions at the Portable Planetarium from 2021-12-12T20:36

In this episode we sit down with Joey Rodman (@okiespacequeen), a science educator in Oklahoma whose recent Twitter thread about using a portable planetarium to reach out to flat earthers went vira...

220 - A Very Short History of Life on Earth - Henry Gee from 2021-11-28T23:06:49

In this episode, we sit down with Henry Ernest Gee, the paleontologist, evolutionary biologist and senior editor of the scientific journal Nature. I was honored to get the opportunity chat with o...

219 - Irrational Labs - Evelyn Gosnell from 2021-11-14T19:46

In this episode we sit down with expert in behavioral economics Evelyn Gosnell, who is also the managing director of Irrational Labs, an organization that uses social science to help other organiza...

218 - Unwinding Anxiety - Jud Brewer from 2021-10-31T18:03

In this episode, Dr. Jud Brewer, a neuroscientist and addiction psychiatrist, discusses the biological origins of anxiety and how to unwind our feedback loops using techniques derived from his lab’...

217 - Livewired - David Eagleman (rebroadcast) from 2021-10-17T16:28:42

In this episode we sit down with neuroscientist David Eagleman to learn how brains turn noise into signal, chaos into order, electrical spikes into meaning, and how new technology can expand subjec...

216 - Shape - Jordan Ellenberg from 2021-10-03T18:15

In this episode, we sit down with Jordan Ellenberg, the John D. MacArthur Professor of Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His writing has appeared in Slate, the Wall Street Journa...

215 - Jerks at Work - Tessa West from 2021-09-19T21:26

In this live taping of the podcast at Caveat in NYC, Dr. Tessa West, the author of Jerks at Work, conducts quizzes to see what kind of jerk you are and what kind of jerk most-easily persuades you i...

214 - Exploring Genius from 2021-09-03T16:49

Over the course of this audio documentary series, David McRaney explores the history and science of intelligence, IQ, and remarkable talent through interviews with dozens of intelligence experts an...

213 - Vaccine Hesitancy from 2021-08-23T22:42

In this episode of the You Are Not So Smart Podcast, we sit down with eight experts on communication, conversation, and persuasion to discuss the best methods for reaching out to the vaccine hesita...

212 - The Power of Us - Jay Van Bavel from 2021-08-08T14:05

In this episode, we sit down with psychologist Jay Van Bavel to discuss his new book, The Power of Us, an exploration of "the dynamics of shared, social identities. What causes people to develop so...

211 - QAnon and Conspiratorial Narratives from 2021-07-25T19:01

When we talk about conspiracy theories we tend to focus on what people believe instead of why, and, more importantly, why they believe those things and not other things. In this episode, we sit dow...

210 - Julia Shaw - The Memory Illusion (rebroadcast) from 2021-07-11T16:36

Our guest on this episode is Dr. Julia Shaw, the author of The Memory Illusion. Julia is famous among psychologists because she was able to implant false memories into a group of subjects and conv...

209 - Masks (rebroadcast) from 2021-06-28T01:38:20

In this episode of the You Are Not So Smart Podcast, we sit down with four experts on human behavior to try and understand how wearing masks, during the COVID-19 pandemic, became politicized. In t...

208 - The Extended Mind - Annie Murphy Paul from 2021-06-13T21:12:30

In this episode we sit down with Annie Murphy Paul, the acclaimed science writer, whose new book, The Extended Mind is all about how the brain is part of systems, and it is those systems that const...

207 - A Slight Change of Plans - Maya Shankar from 2021-05-30T22:09

A few weeks ago, Maya Shankar and her team reached out to me noting their new show, A Slight Change of Plans, which explores how various fascinating people have changed their minds, often after som...

206 - Narcissism from 2021-05-16T17:49

In this episode we explore what narcissism is and what is most-definitely is not. You will learn is that narcissists are not psychopaths, and vice-versa, but there is a form of narcissism which had...

205 - Unfollow - Megan Phelps-Roper from 2021-05-03T22:55:57

In this episode we sit down with Megan Phelps-Roper, the author of Unfollow, a memoir of her time in Westboro Baptist Church, and an exploration what it took to convince her to leave. I interviewed...

204 - On Being Certain - Robert Burton from 2021-04-18T23:25

In this episode, we sit down with neurologist Robert Burton, author of On Being Certain, a book that fundamentally changed the way I think about what a belief actually is. That’s because the book p...

203 - Transcend - Scott Barry Kaufman from 2021-04-04T21:33

In this episode we sit down with Scott Barry Kaufman, one of the most-influential and prolific psychologists working today, to discuss his new book, Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization...

202 - Desirability Bias (rebroadcast) from 2021-03-21T21:58:28

Confirmation bias is our tendency to seek evidence that supports our beliefs and confirms our assumptions when we could just as well seek disconfirmation of those beliefs and assumptions instead. ...

201 - Good Dog - Kate Leaver from 2021-03-07T19:22

In this episode we sit down with journalist and author Kate Leaver to explore her new book, Good Dog, which covers "the science and history of our extraordinary relationship with dogs and focusing ...

201 - Good Dog - Kate Leaver from 2021-03-07T19:22

In this episode we sit down with journalist and author Kate Leaver to explore her new book, Good Dog, which covers "the science and history of our extraordinary relationship with dogs and focusing ...

200 - Socks and Crocs (rebroadcast) from 2021-02-22T00:24

When facing a novel and uncertain situation, the brain secretly disambiguates the ambiguous without letting you know it was ever uncertain in the first place, leading people who disambiguate differ...

199 - Math Without Numbers - Milo Beckman from 2021-02-08T01:37

In this episode we explore the weirdness and wonder of Math Without Numbers with mathematician Milo Beckman who wrote a book about the math behind multiple infinities, strange topologies, and extra...

199 - Math Without Numbers - Milo Beckman from 2021-02-08T01:37

In this episode we explore the weirdness and wonder of Math Without Numbers with mathematician Milo Beckman who wrote a book about the math behind multiple infinities, strange topologies, and extra...

198 - Reflection and Insurrection from 2021-01-25T19:21:28

In this episode, we explore the psychological mechanisms that led to the the storming of the Capitol, an event that sprang from a widespread belief in a conspiracy theory that, even weeks later, st...

197 - Conspiratorial Thinking from 2021-01-11T01:20

Over the last few years, this show has devoted many shows to the psychology behind what we saw in the Capitol in January 2021. So, in this episode, we re-listen to three interviews on conspiratoria...

196 - Art (rebroadcast) from 2020-12-27T19:57:52

Moira Dillon studies how “the physical world in which we live shapes the abstract world in which we think,” and in this episode we travel to her Lab for the Developing Mind at NYU to sit down and a...

195 - Clearer Thinking - Spencer Greenberg from 2020-12-14T03:52

In this episode we sit down with Spencer Greenberg to discuss how to be better critical thinkers using his FIRE method and other insights from his website, ClearerThinking.org Patreon: http://patr...

195 - Clearer Thinking - Spencer Greenberg from 2020-12-14T03:52

In this episode we sit down with Spencer Greenberg to discuss how to be better critical thinkers using his FIRE method and other insights from his website, ClearerThinking.org

Patreon: htt...

194 - Because Internet - Gretchen McCulloch from 2020-11-29T22:54

Our guest in this episode is Gretchen McCulloch, who is a linguist, but also, I’d say a MEME-ologist, evidenced by that the fact that in her New York Times Bestselling book, Because Internet: Under...

194 - Because Internet - Gretchen McCulloch from 2020-11-29T22:54

Our guest in this episode is Gretchen McCulloch, who is a linguist, but also, I’d say a MEME-ologist, evidenced by that the fact that in her New York Times Bestselling book, Because Internet: Under...

193 - Gossip from 2020-11-16T04:09

In this episode we sit down with psychologist Robb Willer to discuss the psychology of gossip: how much we do it, why we do it, its major functions, and what life would be be like without it. Patr...

192 - The Dunning-Kruger Effect (rebroadcast) from 2020-11-01T22:11

In this episode, we explore why we are unaware that we lack the skill to tell how unskilled and unaware we are. The evidence gathered so far by psychologists and neuroscientists seems to suggest ...

191 - Livewired - David Eagleman from 2020-10-18T16:14

In this episode we sit down with neuroscientist David Eagleman to learn how brains turn noise into signal, chaos into order, electrical spikes into meaning, and how new technology can expand subjec...

191 - Livewired - David Eagleman from 2020-10-18T16:14

In this episode we sit down with neuroscientist David Eagleman to learn how brains turn noise into signal, chaos into order, electrical spikes into meaning, and how new technology can expand subjec...

190 - Learned Helplessness (rebroadcast) from 2020-10-04T14:23

Stuck in a bad situation, even when the prison doors are left wide open, we sometimes refuse to attempt escape. Why is that? In this episode learn all about the strange phenomenon of learned help...

189 - The Vaccine from 2020-09-21T04:08

In this giant episode, experts on vaccines, epidemiology, psychology, and science communication explain how we created so much confusion about COVID-19, and how we can avoid doing it again when a v...

188 - The Happiness Lab - Laurie Santos (rebroadcast) from 2020-09-06T21:30

In this episode, we welcome Yale psychologist Laurie Santos who discusses her new podcast, The Happiness Lab which explores how wrong and misguided we can be when we pursue the things we think will...

188 - The Happiness Lab - Laurie Santos (rebroadcast) from 2020-09-06T21:30

In this episode, we welcome Yale psychologist Laurie Santos who discusses her new podcast, The Happiness Lab which explores how wrong and misguided we can be when we pursue the things we think will...

187 - Bad Habits - Jud Brewer (rebroadcast) from 2020-08-24T01:12

In this episode, Dr. Jud Brewer, a neuroscientist and addiction psychiatrist, discusses bad habits and how to change them. He is the author of The Craving Mind: From Cigarettes to Smartphones to L...

187 - Bad Habits - Jud Brewer (rebroadcast) from 2020-08-24T01:12

In this episode, Dr. Jud Brewer, a neuroscientist and addiction psychiatrist, discusses bad habits and how to change them. He is the author of The Craving Mind: From Cigarettes to Smartphones to L...

186 - Maybe You Should Talk to Someone - Lori Gottlieb (rebroadcast) from 2020-08-10T00:03

In Lori Gottlieb's new book, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, she opens with a quote from James Baldwin that reads, "Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing i...

186 - Maybe You Should Talk to Someone - Lori Gottlieb (rebroadcast) from 2020-08-10T00:03

In Lori Gottlieb's new book, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, she opens with a quote from James Baldwin that reads, "Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing i...

185 - Masks from 2020-07-28T05:49

In this episode we explore the psychology behind why some people don't want to wear masks, why they get angry at the idea, and why they sometimes take to the streets and city council meetings to vo...

184 - The Blind Spots Between Us - Gleb Tsipursky from 2020-07-13T03:38

Our guest in this episode is Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, a disaster-avoidance expert who has spent more than 20 years training businesses how to de-bias themselves.  He is the author for Never Trust Your ...

184 - The Blind Spots Between Us - Gleb Tsipursky from 2020-07-13T03:38

Our guest in this episode is Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, a disaster-avoidance expert who has spent more than 20 years training businesses how to de-bias themselves. 

He is the author for Never Tru...

183 - Black Lives Matter from 2020-06-29T01:34

In this episode, members of the Association of Black Psychologists gather in a roundtable discussion to explore Black Lives Matter and the social movement taking place right now in The United State...

182 - The A/B Effect (rebroadcast) from 2020-06-15T18:00

So, you might think that, in general, as an idea, as a practice, the A/B test would be beloved, supported, and encouraged as a way to test out policies and practices and drugs and treatments, but n...

181 - Pluralistic Ignorance (rebroadcast) from 2020-06-01T04:42

There are several ways to define pluralistic ignorance, and that’s because it’s kind of a brain twister when you try to put it into words. On certain issues, the majority of the people believe that...

180 - Meltdown - Chris Clearfield from 2020-05-18T05:02

In this episode we sit down with Chris Clearfield, author of Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It Patreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmartSee omnystudio.com/listener for ...

180 - Meltdown - Chris Clearfield from 2020-05-18T05:02

In this episode we sit down with Chris Clearfield, author of Meltdown: Why Our Systems Fail and What We Can Do About It

Patreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart

See omnystudio...

179 - The Memory Illusion - Julia Shaw from 2020-05-03T22:27

Our guest on this episode of the You Are Not So Smart Podcast is Dr. Julia Shaw, the author of The Memory Illusion, Julia is famous among psychologists because she was able to implant false memorie...

179 - The Memory Illusion - Julia Shaw from 2020-05-03T22:27

Our guest on this episode of the You Are Not So S…

178 - Behind the Curve (rebroadcast) from 2020-04-19T23:56:37

In this episode, we sit down with the director and producers of the documentary film, Behind the Curve, an exploration of motivated reasoning and conspiratorial thinking told through the lives of p...

177 - COVID - 19 from 2020-04-05T16:39:37

Flatten the curve. That idea has spread through the population faster than COVID-19 ever could.That’s the power of culture, of human psychology, of brains interacting with brains. Of course, cultu...

176 - Socks and Crocs - Part Two from 2020-03-26T02:55:51

Priors are what neuroscientists and philosophers call the years of experience and regularity leading up to the present. All the ways a ball has bounced, all the ways a pancake has tasted, the way t...

175 - Socks And Crocs - Part One from 2020-03-08T22:09

Back in 2015, before Brexit, before Clinton vs. Trump, before weaponized Macedonian internet trolls, one NPR affiliate called The Dress, “The debate that broke the internet,” and The Washington Pos...

174 - Bad Advice - Paul Offit (rebroadcast) from 2020-02-24T03:03

In this episode, we sit down with vaccine expert Dr. Paul Offit to discuss his new book, Bad Advice or Why Celebrities, Politicians, and Activists Aren't Your Best Source of Health Information. Of...

174 - Bad Advice - Paul Offit (rebroadcast) from 2020-02-24T03:03

In this episode, we sit down with vaccine expert Dr. Paul Offit to discuss his new book, Bad Advice or Why Celebrities, Politicians, and Activists Aren't Your Best Source of Health Information. Of...

173 - Rule Makers, Rule Breakers - Michele Gelfand from 2020-02-10T03:26

In this episode, we sit down with psychologist Michele Gelfand and discuss her new book: Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World. In the book, Gelfand presents her ...

173 - Rule Makers, Rule Breakers - Michele Gelfand from 2020-02-10T03:26

In this episode, we sit down with psychologist Mi…

172 - Team Human - Douglas Rushkoff (rebroadcast) from 2020-01-27T04:37

In this episode of the You Are Not So Smart Podcast we sit down with one of the original cyberpunks, the famed journalist, documentarian, media theorist, all-around technology superstar and weirdo,...

172 - Team Human - Douglas Rushkoff (rebroadcast) from 2020-01-27T04:37

In this episode of the You Are Not So Smart Podcast we sit down with one of the original cyberpunks, the famed journalist, documentarian, media theorist, all-around technology superstar and weirdo,...

171 - Partisan Brains from 2020-01-13T05:59:09

Jay Van Bavel studies “from neurons to social networks...how collective concerns -- group identities, moral values, and political beliefs -- shape the mind and brain,” and in this episode we travel...

170 - Mark Sargent from 2019-12-30T04:12:01

In October of 2019 I sat down with prominent Flat Earther Mark Sargent in Stockholm, Sweden at the Gather Festival to try and understand the reasoning behind his beliefs, and non-beliefs, that run ...

169 - Art from 2019-12-15T22:38:36

Moira Dillon studies how “the physical world in which we live shapes the abstract world in which we think,” and in this episode we travel to her Lab for the Developing Mind at NYU to sit down and a...

168 - Not a Scientist (rebroadcast) from 2019-12-02T04:17:34

Our guest in this episode of the You Are Not So Smart Podcast is Dave Levitan, a science journalist with a new book titled: Not a Scientist: how politicians mistake, misrepresent, and utterly mangl...

167 - How to Talk to People About Things (rebroadcast) from 2019-11-18T04:50:25

In this episode, we sit down with negotiation expert Misha Glouberman who explains how to talk to people about things -- that is, how to avoid the pitfalls associated with debate when two or more p...

166 - Prevalence Induced Concept Change (rebroadcast) from 2019-11-04T03:00:34

In this episode we explore prevalence induced concept change. In a nutshell, when we set out to change the world by reducing examples of something we have deemed problematic, and we succeed, a host...

165 - The Friendship Cure (rebroadcast) from 2019-10-21T01:23:32

On this episode, we welcome journalist Kate Leaver to talk about her new book The Friendship Cure in which she explores the crippling, damaging, life-threatening impact of loneliness and the severe...

164 - Meetings - Steven Rogelberg from 2019-10-07T02:21

You probably hate meetings -- most people do -- and much of their awfulness feels inevitable which makes meetings seem unnecessary, but psychologist and organizational scientist Steven Rogelberg sa...

164 - Meetings - Steven Rogelberg from 2019-10-07T02:21

You probably hate meetings -- most people do -- a…

163 - The Happiness Lab from 2019-09-23T04:35

In this episode we welcome Yale psychologist Laurie Santos who discusses her new podcast, The Happiness Lab which explores how wrong and misguided we can be when we pursue the things we think will ...

162 - The Elaboration Likelihood Model (rebroadcast) from 2019-09-09T02:27:25

In this episode we sit down with psychology legend Richard Petty to discuss the Elaboration Likelihood Model, a theory he developed with psychologist John Cacioppo in the 1980s that unified the stu...

161 - Bad Habits from 2019-08-25T15:10

In this episode, Dr. Jud Brewer, a neuroscientist and addiction psychiatrist, discusses bad habits and how to change them. He is the author of The Craving Mind: From Cigarettes to Smartphones to L...

160 - Maybe You Should Talk to Someone from 2019-08-12T04:14:48

In Lori Gottlieb's new book, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, she opens with a quote from James Baldwin that reads, "Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing i...

159 - Uncivil Agreement (rebroadcast) from 2019-07-28T22:47

In this episode, we welcome Lilliana Mason on the program to discuss her new book, Uncivil Agreement, which focuses on the idea: “Our conflicts are over who we think we are, rather than reasoned di...

158 - The AB Effect from 2019-07-15T04:39

So, you might think that, in general, as an idea, as a practice, the A/B test would be beloved, supported, and encouraged as a way to test out policies and practices and drugs and treatments, but n...

157 - Pluralistic Ignorance from 2019-07-01T04:09:53

There are several ways to define pluralistic ignorance, and that’s because it’s kind of a brain twister when you try to put it into words. On certain issues, the majority of the people believe that...

156 - Selfie (rebroadcast) from 2019-06-16T22:06:44

In this episode, we sit down with author Will Storr to talk about his new book -- Selfie: How We Became so Self-Obsessed, and What it is Doing to Us. The book explores what he calls “the age of pe...

155 - Live in New York - Post Truth from 2019-06-03T03:56:44

You Are Not So Smart, live in New York, at The Bell House, in Brooklyn -- David McRaney and three experts and a bunch of YANSS fans got together for a deep dive into how we turn perception into rea...

154 - The Marshmallow Replication (rebroadcast) from 2019-05-20T13:20:22

The marshmallow test is one of the most well-known studies in all of psychology, but a new replication suggests we've been learning the wrong lesson from its findings for decades. -- Show Notes at...

153 - Happy Brain (rebroadcast) from 2019-05-06T05:33:22

- Live Show Tickets: www.eventbrite.com/e/you-are-not-s…ets-58457802862 What makes you happy? As in, what generates happiness inside the squishy bits that reside inside your skull? That's what aut...

152 - Status Quo Rationalization (rebroadcast) from 2019-04-21T20:31:57

- Live Show Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/you-are-not-so-smart-with-david-mcraney-tickets-58457802862 When faced with an inescapable and unwanted situation, we often rationalize our predic...

151 - Behind the Curve from 2019-04-08T06:06:38

In this episode we sit down with the director and producers of the documentary film, Behind the Curve, an exploration of motivated reasoning and conspiratorial thinking told through the lives of pe...

150 - Belief Change Blindness (rebroadcast) from 2019-03-25T03:03:55

When was the last time you changed your mind? Are you sure? In this episode we explore new research that suggests for the majority of the mind change we experience, after we update our priors, we ...

149 - Bad Advice from 2019-03-11T05:02:04

In this episode, we sit down with vaccine expert Dr. Paul Offit to discuss his new book, Bad Advice or Why Celebrities, Politicians, and Activists Aren't Your Best Source of Health Information. Of...

148 - Rule Makers, Rule Breakers from 2019-02-25T06:21:30

In this episode, we sit down with psychologist Michele Gelfand and discuss her new book: Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World. In the book, Gelfand presents her ...

147 - The Replication Crisis (rebroadcast) from 2019-02-10T20:40:24

"Science is wrong about everything, but you can trust it more than anything." That's the assertion of psychologist Brian Nosek, director of the Center for Open Science, who is working to correct w...

146 - Tribal Psychology (rebroadcast) from 2019-01-28T03:43

The evidence is clear that humans value being good members of their tribes much more than they value being correct. We will choose to be wrong if it keeps us in good standing with our peers. In th...

145 - Team Human from 2019-01-14T04:51:29

In this episode of the You Are Not So Smart Podcast we sit down with one of the original cyberpunks, the famed journalist, documentarian, media theorist, all-around technology superstar and weirdo,...

144 - The Backfire Effect - Part Four (rebroadcast) from 2018-12-31T04:17:09

In 2017, YANSS did three episodes about the backfire effect, and by far, those episodes were the most popular that year. Then, in 2018, part four was the most popular. The backfire effect has his ...

143 - How to Talk to People About Things from 2018-12-17T03:45:35

In this episode, we sit down with negotiation expert Misha Glouberman who explains how to talk to people about things -- that is, how to avoid the pitfalls associated with debate when two or more p...

142 - Debate (rebroadcast) from 2018-12-03T05:16:40

In late 2014 and early 2015, the city of Starkville, Mississippi, passed an anti-discrimination measure that lead to a series of public debates about an issue that people there had never discussed ...

141 - Not A Scientist from 2018-11-19T23:15:52

Our guest in this episode of the You Are Not So Smart Podcast is Dave Levitan, a science journalist with a new book titled: Not a Scientist: how politicians mistake, misrepresent, and utterly mangl...

140 - Machine Bias (rebroadcast) from 2018-11-05T04:23:12

We've transferred our biases to artificial intelligence, and now those machine minds are creating the futures they predict. But there's a way to stop it. In this episode we explore how machine lea...

139 - The Friendship Cure from 2018-10-21T02:14:55

On this episode, we welcome journalist Kate Leaver to talk about her new book The Friendship Cure in which she explores the crippling, damaging, life-threatening impact of loneliness and the severe...

138 - Evil from 2018-10-08T06:07:59

In this episode, we sit down with psychologist Julia Shaw, an expert in memory and criminal psychology, to discuss her new book - Evil. In the book, she makes a case for something she calls "evil e...

137 - Narrative Persuasion (rebroadcast) from 2018-09-24T00:07:38

One of the most effective ways to change people’s minds is to put your argument into a narrative format, a story, but not just any story. The most persuasive narratives are those that transport us....

136 - Prevalence Induced Concept Change from 2018-09-10T05:51:36

In this episode we explore prevalence induced concept change. In a nutshell, when we set out to change the world by reducing examples of something we have deemed problematic, and we succeed, a host...

135 - Optimism Bias (rebroadcast) from 2018-08-26T22:27:14

In this episode, Tali Sharot, a cognitive neuroscientist and psychologist at University College London, explains our' innate optimism bias. When the brain estimates the outcome of future events, i...

134 - The Elaboration Likelihood Model from 2018-08-16T02:28:20

In this episode we sit down with psychology legend Richard Petty to discuss the Elaboration Likelihood Model, a theory he developed with psychologist John Cacioppo in the 1980s that unified the stu...

133 - Uncivil Agreement from 2018-07-30T03:58

In this episode, we welcome Lilliana Mason on the program to discuss her new book, Uncivil Agreement, which focuses on the idea: “Our conflicts are over who we think we are, rather than reasoned di...

132 - Practice (rebroadcast) from 2018-07-16T03:17:32

Is it true that all it takes to be an expert is 10,000 hours of practice? What about professional athletes? Do different people get more out of practice than others, and if so, is it nature or nurt...

131 - The Marshmallow Replication from 2018-07-02T08:55:01

The marshmallow test is one of the most well-known studies in all of psychology, but a new replication suggests we've been learning the wrong lesson from its findings for decades. -- Show Notes at...

130 - The Half LIfe of Facts (rebroadcast) from 2018-06-18T04:30:53

In medical school they tell you half of what you are about to learn won't be true when you graduate - they just don't know which half. In every field of knowledge, half of what is true today will o...

129 - Desirability Bias (rebroadcast) from 2018-06-04T04:30

Confirmation bias is our tendency to seek evidence that supports our beliefs and confirms our assumptions when we could just as well seek disconfirmation of those beliefs and assumptions instead. ...

128 - Happy Brain from 2018-05-21T11:32:43

What makes you happy? As in, what generates happiness inside the squishy bits that reside inside your skull? That's what author and neuroscientist Dean Burnett set out to answer in his new book, Ha...

127 - Selfie from 2018-05-07T05:40:50

In this episode, we sit down with author Will Storr to talk about his new book -- Selfie: How We Became so Self-Obsessed, and What it is Doing to Us. The book explores what he calls “the age of pe...

126 - Separate Spheres (rebroadcast) from 2018-04-22T17:53:01

Despite their relative invisibility, a norm, even a dying one, can sometimes be harnessed and wielded like a weapon by conjuring up old fears from a bygone era. It’s a great way to slow down social...

125 - Status Quo Rationalization from 2018-04-09T08:14:48

When faced with an inescapable and unwanted situation, we often rationalize our predicament so as to make it seem less awful and more bearable, but what if that situation is a new law or a new admi...

124 - Belief Change Blindness from 2018-03-26T06:38:15

When was the last time you changed your mind? Are you sure? In this episode we explore new research that suggests for the majority of the mind change we experience, after we update our priors, we ...

123 - Active Information Avoidance (rebroadcast) from 2018-03-11T22:17:21

Little did the champions of the Enlightenment know that once we had access to all the facts…well, reason and rationality wouldn’t just immediately wash across the land in a giant wave of enlightenm...

122 - Tribal Psychology from 2018-02-26T07:41:20

The evidence is clear that humans value being good members of their tribes much more than they value being correct. We will choose to be wrong if it keeps us in good standing with our peers. In th...

121 - Progress (rebroadcast) from 2018-02-12T04:39:09

Do we have the power to change the outcome of history? Is progress inevitable? Is it natural? Are we headed somewhere definite, or is change just chaos that seems organized in hindsight? In this ep...

120 - The Backfire Effect - Part Four from 2018-01-29T03:13:32

Last year on this show, we did three episodes about the backfire effect, and by far, those episodes were the most popular we’ve ever done. In fact, the famous web comic The Oatmeal turned them int...

119 - The Unpersuadables from 2018-01-15T07:39:39

Our guest for this episode, Will Storr, wrote a book called The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science. In that book, Storr spends time with Holocaust deniers, young Earth creatio...

118 - Connections (rebroadcast) from 2018-01-01T03:04:41

In this episode of the YANSS Podcast, we sit down with legendary science historian James Burke. For much of his career, Burke has been creating documentaries and writing books aimed at helping us ...

117 - Idiot Brain (rebroadcast) from 2017-12-18T03:47:30

In this episode we interview Dean Burnett, author of "Idiot Brain: What Your Brain is Really Up To." Burnett's book is a guide to the neuroscience behind the things that our amazing brains do poorl...

116 - Reality (rebroadcast) from 2017-12-04T02:37:19

Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality? For our guest in this episode, cognitive psychologist Donald Hoffman, that's his day job. Hoffman has developed a new theory of consciousness t...

115 - Machine Bias from 2017-11-20T06:15:20

We've transferred our biases to artificial intelligence, and now those machine minds are creating the futures they predict. But there's a way to stop it. In this episode we explore how machine lea...

114 - Moral Arguments (rebroadcast) from 2017-11-05T21:29:29

In this divisive and polarized era how do you bridge the political divide between left and right? How do you persuade the people on the other side to see things your way? New research by sociologi...

113 - Narrative Persuasion from 2017-10-23T02:24:48

One of the most effective ways to change people’s minds is to put your argument into a narrative format, a story, but not just any story. The most persuasive narratives are those that transport us....

112 - Change My View (rebroadcast) from 2017-10-08T23:39:11

For computer scientist Chenhao Tan and his team, the internet community called Change My View offered something amazing, a ready-made natural experiment that had been running for years. All they h...

111 - Collective Intelligence from 2017-09-25T04:31:08

If you wanted to build a team in such a way that you maximized its overall intelligence, how would you do it? Would you stack it with high-IQ brainiacs? Would you populate it with natural leaders? ...

110 - Sleep Deprivation and Bias from 2017-09-10T23:39:41

If you could compare the person you were before you became sleep deprived to the person after, you’d find you’ve definitely become...lesser than. When it comes to sleep deprivation, you can’t tru...

109 - The Search Effect (rebroadcast) from 2017-08-27T22:31:31

What effect does Google have on your brain? Here's an even weirder question: what effect does knowing that you have access to Google have on your brain? In this episode we explore what happens whe...

108 - Pandora's Lab from 2017-08-14T04:48:57

The facts don't speak for themselves. Someone always speaks for them. From the opioid crisis to the widespread use of lobotomies to quiet problem patients, celebrity scientists and charismatic do...

107 - Debate from 2017-07-31T02:59:44

In late 2014 and early 2015, the city of Starkville, Mississippi, passed an anti-discrimination measure that lead to a series of public debates about an issue that people there had never discussed ...

106 - The Climate Paradox (rebroadcast) from 2017-07-16T22:17:54

In this episode, psychologist Per Espen Stoknes discusses his book: What We Think About When We Try Not to Think About Global Warming. Stoknes has developed a strategy for science communicators wh...

105 - Optimism Bias from 2017-07-11T17:09:45

In this episode, Tali Sharot, a cognitive neuroscientist and psychologist at University College London, explains our' innate optimism bias. When the brain estimates the outcome of future events, ...

104 - Labels (rebroadcast) from 2017-06-19T21:06:22

We are each born labeled. In moments of ambiguity, those labels can change the way people make decisions about us. As a cognitive process, it is invisible, involuntary, and unconscious – and that’s...

103 - Desirability Bias from 2017-06-06T02:17:22

Confirmation bias is our tendency to seek evidence that supports our beliefs and confirms our assumptions when we could just as well seek disconfirmation of those beliefs and assumptions instead. ...

102 - WEIRD Science (rebroadcast) from 2017-05-22T02:00:47

Is psychology too WEIRD? That's what this episode's guest, psychologist Steven J. Heine suggested when he and his colleagues published a paper suggesting that psychology wasn't the study of the hum...

101 - Naive Realism (rebroadcast) from 2017-05-09T19:31:13

In psychology, they call it naive realism, the tendency to believe that the other side is wrong because they are misinformed, that if they knew what you knew, they would change their minds to match...

100 - The Replication Crisis from 2017-04-20T01:25:48

"Science is wrong about everything, but you can trust it more than anything." That's the assertion of psychologist Brian Nosek, director of the Center for Open Science, who is working to correct w...

099 - The Half Life of Facts from 2017-04-10T01:00:41

In medical school they tell you half of what you are about to learn won't be true when you graduate - they just don't know which half. In every field of knowledge, half of what is true today will o...

098 - Active Information Avoidance from 2017-03-27T22:58:05

The cyberpunks, the Founding Fathers, 19th Century philosophers, and the Enlightenment thinkers - they all looked forward to the world in which we now live, a multimedia psychedelic freakout in whi...

097 - Scams (rebroadcast) from 2017-03-11T19:46:10

Before we had names for them or a science to study them, the people who could claim the most expertise on biases, fallacies, heuristics and all the other quirks of human reasoning and perception we...

096 - Progress from 2017-02-25T03:48:48

Do we have the power to change the outcome of history? Is progress inevitable? Is it natural? Are we headed somewhere definite, or is change just chaos that seems organized in hindsight? In this ep...

095 - The Backfire Effect - Part Three from 2017-02-11T05:34:58

If dumping evidence into people’s laps often just makes their beliefs stronger, would we just be better off trying some other tactic, or does the truth ever win? Do people ever come around, or ar...

094 - The Backfire Effect - Part Two from 2017-01-29T01:49:52

If you try to correct someone who you know is wrong, you run the risk of alarming their brains to a sort-of existential, epistemic threat, and if you do that, when that person expends effortful thi...

093 - The Backfire Effect - Part One from 2017-01-13T05:55:31

We don’t treat all of our beliefs the same. The research shows that when a strong-yet-erroneous, belief is challenged, yes, you might experience some temporary weakening of your convictions, some...

091 - Learned Helplessness (rebroadcast) from 2016-12-15T02:57:54

Even when the prison doors are left wide open, we sometimes refuse to attempt escape. Why is that? In this rebroadcast of one of our most popular episodes we learn all about the strange phenomeno...

090 - Reality - Donald Hoffman from 2016-12-02T05:49:46

Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality? For our guest in this episode, cognitive psychologist Donald Hoffman, that's his day job. Hoffman has developed a new theory of consciousness t...

089 - Connections - James Burke from 2016-11-17T04:52:36

Legendary science historian James Burke returns to explain his newest project, a Connections app that will allow anyone to "think connectively" about the webs of knowledge available on Wikipedia. ...

088 - Moral Arguments from 2016-11-04T04:20:06

In this divisive and polarized era how do you bridge the political divide between left and right? You do you persuade the people on the other side to see things your way? New research by sociologi...

087 - Paranoia from 2016-10-20T06:08:22

Jesse Walker is the author of The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory, a book that explores the history of American conspiracy theories going all the way back to the first colonies. Wa...

086 - Change My View from 2016-10-09T05:52:57

For computer scientist Chenhao Tan and his team, the internet community called Change My View offered something amazing, a ready-made natural experiment that had been running for years. All they ...

085 - Misremembering - Julia Shaw (rebroadcast) from 2016-09-21T22:31:36

Julia Shaw's research demonstrates the fact that there is no reason to believe a memory is more accurate just because it is vivid or detailed. Actually, that’s a potentially dangerous belief. Sha...

084 - Getting Gamers - Jamie Madigan from 2016-09-08T03:55:43

Why do people cheat? Why are our online worlds often so toxic? What motivates us to "catch 'em all" in Pokemon, grinding away for hours to hatch eggs? In this episode, psychologist Jamie Madigan, ...

083 - Idiot Brain - Dean Burnett from 2016-08-25T02:21:30

In this episode we interview Dean Burnett, author of "Idiot Brain: What Your Brain is Really Up To." Burnett's book is a guide to the neuroscience behind the things that our amazing brains do poorl...

082 - Crowds (rebroadcast) from 2016-08-11T01:40:08

This episode’s guest, Michael Bond, is the author of The Power of Others, and reading his book I was surprised to learn that despite several decades of research into crowd psychology, the answers t...

081 - The Climate Paradox from 2016-07-28T04:05:52

In this episode, psychologist Per Espen Stoknes discusses his book: What We Think About When We Try Not to Think About Global Warming. Stoknes has developed a strategy for science communicators wh...

080 - Deep Canvassing from 2016-07-13T23:46:10

Oddly enough, we don’t actually know very much about how to change people’s minds, not scientifically, that's why the work of the a group of LGBT activists in Los Angeles is offering something valu...

079 - Separate Spheres from 2016-06-29T23:17:10

Common sense used to dictate that men and women should only come together for breakfast and dinner. According to Victorian historian Kaythrn Hughes, people in the early 19th Century thought the o...

078 - The Existential Fallacy from 2016-06-16T04:30:18

Hypothetical situations involving dragons, robots, spaceships, and vampires have all been used to prove and disprove arguments. Statements about things that do not exist can still be true, and can...

077 - The Conjunction Fallacy from 2016-06-02T05:39:36

Here is a logic puzzle created by psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. Linda is single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned wit...

076 - The Genetic Fallacy from 2016-05-19T05:19:24

We often overestimate and overstate just how much we can learn about a claim based on where that claim originated, and that's the crux of the genetic fallacy, according to the experts in this episo...

075 - Special Pleading / Moving the Goalposts from 2016-05-05T04:34:32

Sometimes you apply a double standard to the things you love, the things you believe, and the things crucial to your identity, and often you do so without realizing it. Special pleading is all ab...

074 - Begging The Question from 2016-04-21T03:02:44

If you believe something is bad because it is...bad, or that something is good because, well, it's good, you probably wouldn't use that kind of reasoning in an argument, yet, sometimes, without rea...

073 - Bayes' Theorem from 2016-04-08T06:45:59

We don’t treat all of our beliefs equally. For some, we see them as either true or false, correct or incorrect. For others, we see them as probabilities, chances, odds. In one world, certainty, in...

072 - The Dunning-Kruger Effect (Rebroadcast) from 2016-03-24T00:46:09

In this episode, we explore why we are unaware that we lack the skill to tell how unskilled and unaware we are. The evidence gathered so far by psychologists and neuroscientists seems to suggest ...

071 - The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy from 2016-03-09T18:48:53

When you desire meaning, when you want things to line up, when looking for something specific, you tend to notice patterns everywhere, which leads you to ask the question, “What are the odds?” Usua...

070 - The No True Scotsman Fallacy from 2016-02-25T08:21:28

When your identity becomes intertwined with your definitions, you can easily fall victim to something called The No true Scotsman Fallacy. It often appears during a dilemma: What do you do when a ...

069 - The Black And White Fallacy from 2016-02-11T07:15:25

Obviously, the world isn't black and white, so why do we try to drain it of color when backed into a rhetorical corner? Why do we have such a hard time realizing that we've suggested the world is...

068 - The Strawman Fallacy from 2016-01-28T09:56:36

When confronted with dogma-threatening, worldview-menacing ideas, your knee-jerk response is usually to lash out and try to bat them away, but thanks to a nearly unavoidable mistake in reasoning, y...

067 - The Fallacy Fallacy from 2016-01-14T05:41:07

If you have ever been in an argument, you've likely committed a logical fallacy, and if you know how logical fallacies work, you've likely committed the fallacy fallacy. Listen as three experts i...

065 - Survivorship Bias (rebroadcast) from 2015-12-17T23:58:16

The problem with sorting out failures and successes is that failures are often muted, destroyed, or somehow removed from sight while successes are left behind, weighting your decisions and percepti...

064 - Monkey Marketplace - Laurie Santos (rebroadcast) from 2015-12-03T02:14:16

Our guest in this episode of the You Are Not So Smart Podcast is psychologist Laurie Santos who heads the Comparative Cognition Laboratory at Yale University. In that lab, she and her colleagues ar...

063 - The Search Effect - Matthew Fisher from 2015-11-19T02:21:20

What effect does Google have on your brain? Here's an even weirder question: what effect does knowing that you have access to Google have on your brain? In this episode we explore what happens whe...

062 - Naive Realism - Lee Ross from 2015-11-05T07:26:02

In psychology, they call it naive realism, the tendency to believe that the other side is wrong simply because they are misinformed. According to Lee Ross, co-author of the new book, The Wisest On...

061 - Mindfulness - Michael Taft from 2015-10-22T05:40:34

You have the power to wield neuroplasticity to your advantage. Just as you can change your body at the atomic level by lifting weights, you can willfully alter your brain by...thinking in a certai...

060 - Reframing - Robert R. Morris from 2015-10-07T21:45:40

Reframing is one of those psychological tools that just plain works. It’s practical, simple, and with practice and repetition it often leads to real change in people with a variety of thinking prob...

059 - The Illusion Of Control - Michael And Sarah Bennett from 2015-09-23T20:15:22

In the show, you'll hear Michael elaborate on why that is. In this episode, our guests are Harvard-trained psychiatrist Michael I. Bennett and his comedy writer daughter Sarah Bennett whose new boo...

058 - Technology - Clive Thompson (Rebroadcast) from 2015-09-10T01:43:42

Is all this new technology improving our thinking or dampening it? Are all these new communication tools turning us into navel-gazing human/brand hybrids, or are we developing a new set of senses t...

057 - PTSD - Robert D. Laird from 2015-08-27T05:01:22

10 years after Katrina the residents of New Orleans and portions of Mississippi are still experiencing PTSD. In this episode we explore what causes this disorder, why it happens, what triggers the ...

056 - Magicians And Scams - Brian Brushwood from 2015-08-12T23:23:50

Before we had names for them or a science to study them, the people who could claim the most expertise on biases, fallacies, heuristics and all the other quirks of human reasoning and perception we...

055 - WEIRD People - Steven J. Heine from 2015-08-01T03:45:40

Is psychology too WEIRD? That's what this episode's guest, psychologist Steven J. Heine suggested when he and his colleagues published a paper suggesting that psychology wasn't the study of the hum...

054 - The Self - Bruce Hood (rebroadcast) from 2015-07-16T17:26:45

Is the person you believe to be the protagonist of your life story real or a fictional character? In other words, is your very self real or is it an illusion? According to psychologist Bruce Hood, ...

053 - Adaptive Learning - Ulrik Christensen from 2015-07-02T05:23:58

Can new computer programs rid us of the cognitive errors that lead to learned helplessness in the classroom? In this episode Ulrik Christensen, senior fellow of digital learning at McGraw-Hill Educ...

052 - Learned Helplessness from 2015-06-23T01:35:57

Stuck in a bad situation, even when the prison doors are left wide open, we sometimes refuse to attempt escape. Why is that? In this episode learn all about the strange phenomenon of learned helple...

051 - Work - Laszlo Bock from 2015-06-05T03:22:56

Work often sucks, but it doesn't have to. In this episode we interview Lazlo Bock, head of People Operations at Google, who helped his company make work suck less, way less, by introducing new poli...

050 - Happy Money - Elizabeth Dunn (rebroadcast) from 2015-05-22T19:49:15

It’s peculiar, your inability to predict what will make you happy, and that inability leads you to do stupid things with your money. Once you get a decent job that allows you to buy new shoes on a ...

049 - Rejection - Jia Jiang from 2015-05-08T05:40:21

What if you could give yourself a superpower? That's what Jia Jiang wondered when he began a quest to remove the fear of rejection from his brain and become the risk-taking, adventurous person he a...

048 - Contact from 2015-04-25T22:29:47

Can you change a person's mind on a divisive social issue? The latest science says...yes. But it will require two things: contact and disclosure. In this episode you'll travel to Mississippi to see...

047 - Public Shaming - Jon Ronson from 2015-04-08T16:41:49

Public shaming is back. Once done in town squares, the subjects of our ridicule locked in pillories and unable to avoid the rotten fruit and insults we hurled at them, now the shaming takes place o...

046 - Inbetweenisode 11 - Steven Novella from 2015-03-26T17:08:33

In this inbetweenisode you will hear an excerpt from a lecture I gave at DragonCon2014 and an interview with neurologist and host of The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe Steven Novella who discusses...

045 - Doctors - Danielle Ofri from 2015-03-12T01:31:41

In this episode, we talk to Danielle Ofri, a physician and author of "What Doctors Feel" - a book about the emotional lives of doctors and how compassion fatigue, biases, and other mental phenomena...

044 - Inbetweenisode - James Burke And Matt Novak (Rebroadcast) from 2015-02-25T23:01:55

This episode is a rebroadcast of two interviews from episode 20 all about how we are very, very bad at predicting the future both in our personal lives and as as a species. The first interview is...

043 - Misremembering - Julia Shaw and Dan Simons from 2015-02-11T15:47:43

Did Brian Williams lie, exaggerate, or misremember? How certain are you that your most vivid memories are real? How easily could someone implant a false memory into your mind? In this episode you'l...

042 - Bodily Resonance - Lara Maister from 2015-01-28T18:53:09

Scientists are using rubber hands and virtual reality to transfer people's minds into avatars designed to look like members of groups and subcultures to which the subjects do not belong, and the re...

041 - Inbetweenisode - The Game/Ceiling Crasher from 2015-01-15T01:20:11

In this episode, two stories, one about a football game that split reality in two for the people who witnessed it, and another about what happened when a naked man literally appeared out of thin ai...

040 - Monkey Marketplace - Laurie Santos from 2015-01-06T01:41:07

How far back can we trace our irrational behaviors and cognitive biases? Evolutionarily speaking, why do we even do these things? Can we blame our faulty logic on our cultures and institutions, or ...

039 - Blind Insight - Ryan Scott from 2014-12-17T18:47:48

Is it possible to for different parts of your mind to learn how the world works at different rates? Is it possible that the unconscious part of you can know something long before the conscious you ...

038 - Inbetweenisode - The Halo Effect from 2014-12-09T18:59:59

One salient trait can cause you to misjudge every other trait when evaluating a new hire, a love interest, a colleague, or even a potential purchase. Learn more about the power of the halo effect i...

037 - Motivation - Daniel Pink from 2014-11-23T19:00:03

What motivates you to keep going, to reach for your dreams, to persist and endure? Psychology has, over the last 40 years, learned a great deal about human motivation and drive. In this episode we ...

036 - The Dunning-Kruger Effect from 2014-11-10T07:21:23

Have you ever been confronted with the fact that you were in over your head, or that you had no idea what you were doing, or that you thought you were more skilled at something than you actually we...

035 - Inbetweenisode - The Sunk Cost Fallacy from 2014-11-02T22:57:53

Are you throwing good money after bad? Are you stuck in a job, a relationship, a degree, or some other situation that you know you should abandon but fear you'll have wasted years of time and effor...

034 - The Post Hoc Fallacy from 2014-10-14T14:24:53

Do you believe in magical amulets? Apparently, in 2011, enough people did to allow one company to earn $34 million making and selling them to professional athletes, celebrities, and even a former p...

033 - Belief - Will Storr from 2014-09-30T03:46:42

Do you think that everything you believe is true? If not, then what are you wrong about? It is a difficult question to answer, and it leads to many others. Where do our beliefs come from, and how d...

032 - Ego Depletion from 2014-09-13T02:39:39

Many see willpower as something you develop like a muscle, something you can strengthen through practice and mental exercise, but the latest research suggests willpower runs on an internal battery,...

031 - Extinction Burst from 2014-08-27T23:36:51

Why do you so often fail at removing bad habits from your life? You try to diet, to exercise, to stop smoking, to stop staying up until 2 a.m. stuck in a hamster wheel of internet diversions, and ...

030 - Practice - David Epstein from 2014-08-14T03:46:10

Is it true that all it takes to be an expert is 10,000 hours of practice? What about professional athletes? Do different people get more out of practice than others, and if so, is it nature or nurt...

029 - Labels - Adam Alter from 2014-08-01T04:38:19

I did something this week that I’m sure many people secretly do every day. I stopped, talked to myself for a moment, and checked to see how much slack was in the leash I keep on my tongue. I was r...

028 - Crowds - Michael Bond from 2014-07-18T17:24:50

It is a human tendency that’s impossible not to notice during wars and revolutions – and a dangerous one to forget when resting between them. In psychology they call it deindividuation, losing you...

027 - Science Communication - Joe Hanson from 2014-07-09T17:12:05

I recently collaborated with Joe Hanson of the YouTube channel It’s Okay to be Smart and helped him write an episode about pattern recognition. I thought it would be great to bring him on the show ...

026 - Maslow's Hammer from 2014-06-20T02:59:05

“I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” You’ve heard the expression before. You’ve may have, like myself, smugly used it a few t...

025 - Enclothed Cognition - Hajo Adam from 2014-06-06T04:42:58

The clothes you wear have powers...over your mind. Your wardrobe doesn't just affect the way others see you, but it affects the way you see yourself. That results in changes in perception, attentio...

024 - Sleep - Richard Wiseman from 2014-05-24T21:11

Why do we sleep and why do we dream? Despite the fact that every human being spends roughly 1/3 of his or her life asleep, science has yet to crack the mystery of the phenomenon. Why do we sleep an...

023 - Inbetweenisode 4 - The Illusion of Asymmetric Insight from 2014-05-07T08:51:12

In the 1950s, in an effort to better understand group conflict, a team of psychologists nearly turned a summer camp into Lord of The Flies. The story of how and why it was so easy to turn normal b...

022 - Survivorship Bias - Megan Price from 2014-04-24T02:08:58

The problem with sorting out failures and successes is that failures are often muted, destroyed, or somehow removed from view while successes are left behind, weighting your decisions and perceptio...

021 - Inbetweenisode 3 - Christina Draganich from 2014-04-03T05:31:16

In this inbetweenisode, Christina Draganich explains how she came up with the idea to research placebo sleep, and she tells us how anyone with the right guidance can use science to expand our under...

020 - The Future - James Burke and Matt Novak from 2014-03-17T13:31:37

If you love educational entertainment – programs about science, nature, history, technology and everything in between – it is a safe bet that the creators of those shows were heavily influenced by ...

019 - The Placebo Effect - Kristi Erdal from 2014-03-01T01:07:04

How powerful is the placebo effect? After a good night’s sleep could a scientist convince you that you had tossed and turned, and if so, how would that affect your perceptions and behavior? What if...

018 - Inbetweenisode - The Benjamin Franklin Effect from 2014-02-19T03:35:24

Benjamin Franklin knew how to deal with haters, and in this episode we learn how he turned his haters into fans with what is now called The Benjamin Franklin Effect. Listen as David McRaney reads ...

016 - Conspiracy Theories - Steven Novella and Jesse Walker from 2014-01-16T23:32:36

Who is pulling the strings? Who is behind the coverup? Who holds the real power, and what do they want? How deep does the conspiracy to control your mind go? In this episode we discuss the history...

015 - Inbetweenisode - Narrative Bias from 2014-01-08T02:10:10

In this inbetweenisode I read an excerpt from my book, You Are Now Less Dumb, about a strange experiment in Michigan that tested the bounds of the self by throwing three very unusual men into a sit...

014 - Narratives - Melanie C. Green from 2013-12-24T02:51:45

In this episode we discuss the power of narratives to affect our beliefs and behaviors with Melanie C. Green, a psychologist who studies the persuasive power of fiction. According to Nielsen, the...

013 - Technology - Clive Thompson from 2013-12-04T14:16:09

The very fact that you are reading this sentence, contemplating whether you want to listen to this podcast, means that you are living out a fantasy from a previous generation's cyberpunk novel. Ho...

012 - Jealousy from 2013-11-21T08:15:55

Why do human beings experience jealousy, what is its function, and what are the warning signs that signal this powerful emotion may lead to violence? Once reserved for the contemplation of poets a...

011 - Culture from 2013-11-06T07:36:45

Is your state of mind from one situation to the next drastically altered by the state in which you live? According to cultural psychologists, yes it is. Studies show that your thoughts, perception...

010 - Perversion from 2013-10-16T02:35:12

In this episode we discuss sexual deviancy and perversion with Jesse Bering, author of "Perv: The Sexual Deviant in All of Us." Also, at the end, we eat a cinnamon cardamom snickerdoodle and discus...

009 - Arguing from 2013-09-27T03:11:06

On this episode we discuss the psychology of arguing and interview both Jeremy Shermer and Hugo Mercier. Afterward, I eat an orange chocolate chip cookie and read a news story about reading your pa...

008 - Video Games from 2013-08-30T00:00

In this episode, we discuss the how video games can help us understand our delusions and speak with Jamie Madigan, the curator of psychologyofgames.com. Also, at the end, we eat a white chocolate o...

007 - Common Sense from 2013-07-22T14:52

In this episode we discuss eyebeams and superseded scientific theories with Kevin Lyon, and at the end, we discuss vitamins and eat a fudgy oatmeal cookie. Patreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotso...

004 - Money from 2013-07-07T00:00

In this episode we speak with Elizabeth Dunn about better spending money to increase happiness. Later, we eat an apple toffee cookie and explore novelty in old churches. Patreon: http://patreon.co...

005 - Selling Out from 2012-10-06T00:00

In this episode, we discuss selling out, countercultures, and authenticity with Andrew Potter, the author of "The Authenticity Hoax." Afterward, I eat a Chewie Chewbacca Chocolate Chip vegan cookie...

004 - The Self from 2012-07-01T00:00

In this episode we discuss the self and interview Bruce Hood, author of "The Self Illusion." Also, at the end, we eat a chewy chocolate chip cookie and discuss therapeutic touch. Patreon: http://p...

003 - Confabulation from 2012-05-28T00:00

In this episode, we discuss confabulation with neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran, and at the end of the episode we taste a cranberry chocolate chip cookie while contemplating positive affirmations. ...

002 - The Illusion of Knowledge from 2012-05-08T00:00

In this episode of the You Are Not So Smart Podcast we discuss the illusion of knowledge with Christopher Chabris, co-author of "The Invisible Gorilla." After that, we eat a triple-ginger molasses ...

001 - Attention from 2012-04-22T00:00

In this episode of the You Are Not So Smart Podcast we discuss attention and interview co-author of "The Invisible Gorilla" Daniel Simons. Also, at the end, we eat an Oreo fudge cookie...

001 - Attention from 2012-04-22T00:00

In this episode of the You Are Not So Smart Podcast we discuss attention and interview co-author of "The Invisible Gorilla" Daniel Simons. Also, at the end, we eat an Oreo fudge cookie brownie and ...