121 - Joshua Hartshorne: Does a Similar Native Tongue Speed Up English Learning for Kids?

Eric chats with Paul Bloom, Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto. He is the author of seven books, including his latest “Psych: The Story of the Human Mind.” Countless people around the world have been introduced to psychology through his online courses “Introduction to Psychology” and “Moralities of Everyday Life.” In this chat, Eric and Paul discuss to what extent knowing about psychology actually helps us navigate everyday life with other people. Should psychology students ...

8 Juni 202353min

In this episode, Anjie chats with Deon Benton, an assistant professor of psychology and human development at Vanderbilt University. Deon directs the Computational Cognitive Development Lab, and he investigates causal learning in infants and children with a particular focus on those mechanisms and processes that support such learning. He uses both behavioral research and computational (connectionist) modeling to examine this topic. In this episode, he will share his re...

1 Juni 202348min

Eric chats with Shinobu Kitayama, Professor of Psychology and Director of the Culture and Cognition program at the University of Michigan. He is one of the world’s leading researchers on cultural differences and similarities in a variety of mental processes such as self, emotion and cognition. In this chat, Eric and Shinobu chat about how previous work in cultural psychology was limited mostly to differences between Westerners and East Asians. Shinobu summarizes work showing potential differe...

25 Maj 202354min

This week, we revisit one of our favorite episodes! Eric chats with Ovul Sezer, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at UNC Kenan-Flagler. Ovul’s research focuses on impression mismanagement, or the mistakes we make as we try to impress others. Her research has been featured in outlets such as Time Magazine and Forbes Magazine. In this episode, Ovul discusses her recent paper on Hiding Success: People are often reluctant to share good news with others, but Ovul’s research suggests ...

18 Maj 20231h 5min

Eric chats with Jon Freeman, Associate Professor of Psychology at Columbia. Jon’s lab studies how we perceive other people, such as how we categorize others into social groups and infer their emotion or personality via facial cues. In this chat, Eric and Jon chat about how we rapidly make up our mind about another’s character in less than a second, and how such first impressions can be false and succumb to various biases. How do we perceive another’s personality and do people make the same in...

11 Maj 20231h 1min

Bella chats with one of the co-founders of the podcast, Anjie Cao. Anjie is a 3rd-year graduate student in the psychology department at Stanford University, where she works with Dr. Mike Frank in the Stanford Language and Cognition Lab. In this episode, Anjie and Bella have a casual chat and talk about how Anjie and Eric started the podcast about two years ago and how this journey has been for her. Anjie also shares some behind-the-scene stories, such as where the name of the podcast co...

4 Maj 202336min

Eric chats with Josh Greene, Professor of Psychology at Harvard. Josh is a leading researcher of moral judgment and is the author of Moral Tribes. Several graduating classes have named him their favorite professor at Harvard! In this chat, Eric asks Josh how he has raised over 2 million $ for charity through Giving Multiplier. Listeners are invited to give to both their favorite and some of the most effective charities - and have their donation matched at a higher rate than usual at thi...

27 Apr 202347min

Rachel chats with Moshe Hoffman, a Lecturer and Independent Scholar at Harvard’s Department of Economics. Moshe uses game theory to explore the evolutionary bases of human behavior, from altruistic donations to our taste in music. His recent book, co-authored with Dr. Erez Yoeli, is “Hidden Games: The Surprising power of Game Theory to Explain Irrational Human Behavior.” In this episode, Rachel and Moshe discuss how incentives shape empathy, how saying "I love you" enables social coordinati...

21 Apr 202349min