129 - Desirability Bias (rebroadcast)

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 peop...

19 Apr 20201h 21min

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, culture an...

5 Apr 20202h 2min

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 the ...

26 Mar 20201h 7min

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 Post r...

8 Mar 202036min

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.Offit h...

24 Feb 20201h 7min

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 resea...

10 Feb 20201h 13min

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, Do...

27 Jan 20201h 11min

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 to...

13 Jan 20201h 27min