Podcasts
YOU ARE NOT SO SMART
Exploration of current psychological research into how we make decisions, mostly laying bare how little we are in conscious control of what we do. No doubt the advertising industry is devouring this.
How I wish this kind of research had been going on when I was studying Psychology back in the 80s.
My favourite episodes
OVERCOMING RESISTANCE
Interview with the brilliant Norwegian academic, Per Espen Stoknes, who answers the question why, after so many years of overwhelming evidence, so many people either don't believe in global warming or don't see it as urgent. He details the psychological defence mechanisms we use to avoid uncomfortable news and how communicators can bypass them.
Full of deep insight, not only about the climate crisis, but how to frame arguments generally to minimise resistance.
THE BACKFIRE EFFECT
The last of a series of 4 podcasts on ‘the backfire effect’. If you present people with evidence that disproves something they passionately believe in, it often serves to reinforce their existing belief. For example if you present scientific evidence that the MMR vaccine does not cause autism to people who believe it does, some of them actually become less likely to vaccinate their children than if they had never seen the evidence in the first place.
TRIBAL PSYCHOLOGY
Fascinating, and slightly scary, research into the impact of the need for belonging on our reasoning. “We would rather be accepted by the group, than right”. It links to a whole load of other ideas and phenomena like confirmation bias and motivated reasoning.
THE ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD MODEL
Why compelling arguments work well in some cases and fail and others.
If people give full attention to an argument, such that they mentally engage in complex consideration of it, they may well be persuaded. If not, they are likely to accept or reject on the basis of other things, unrelated to logic, like the credibility or attractiveness of the person putting the argument.
PLURALISTIC IGNORANCE
A fancy name for the phenomenon whereby nobody thinks something is a good idea, but everybody thinks everybody else thinks it’s a good idea. The result is that everybody endorses it, despite their private misgivings. Not only is history littered with horrendous examples of this on a mass scale, but most organisations suffer from it.
ON BEING CERTAIN
Interview with Robert Burton, neuroscientist and author of ‘On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not’. He argues that the feeling of certainty is just that - a feeling - rather than something that can be changed using logic and evidence.