psychology

#314 Zanna Clay: Bonobo Societies, And Comparative Psychology

Mar 30, 2020

Dr. Zanna Clay is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Durham University. She is a comparative and developmental psychologist with expertise in primatology. She studies and compares great apes and young children in order to investigate the evolutionary and developmental basis of hominid social cognition and behavior. Her main interests are the development & evolution of social cognition and communication, focusing on empathy, language and social learning. More»
#312 Sven Nyholm - Humans and Robots: Ethics, Agency, and Anthropomorphism

Mar 26, 2020

Dr. Sven Nyholm is an Assistant Professor of Philosophical Ethics at Utrecht University. His main areas of research are applied ethics (especially the ethics of technology), ethical theory, and the history of ethics. More specifically, he has recently published on love-relationships and biomedical enhancements, sex robots, motivation-enhancements, accident-algorithms for self-driving cars, deep brain stimulation, happiness and well-being, meaning in life, and interpersonal respect and moral reasoning. His work also focuses on the ethics of automated driving, human-robot collaboration, deep brain stimulation (including its effect on the self), and disability and the goods of life. He is especially interested in how robotization and other types of automation affect traditional human values, as well as in existential questions raised by new technological developments. He has a new book coming out, Humans and Robots: Ethics, Agency, and Anthropomorphism. More»
#311 Renee Magnan: Health, Affect, Physical Activity, And Addiction

Mar 23, 2020

Dr. Renee Magnan is Associate Professor and Director of Experimental Training in the Department of Psychology at Washington State University. She applies social psychological theory to address issues in preventive health behaviors and health behavior promotion. Specifically, much of the research in her lab focuses on understanding the role that affect (e.g., worry) plays on health decisions and behavior (e.g., smoking cessation, exercise, cannabis). She is interested in both how one’s feelings about health behaviors may influence their decisions to engage in health behavior and also how health behaviors may influence one’s feelings. Both perspectives can provide important insight to identify targets for interventions to prevent negative health consequences and promote wellness. More»
#309 Robert Sapolsky: Human Behavior, Evolution, Morality, and Free Will

Mar 19, 2020

Dr. Robert Sapolsky is the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor of Biology and Professor of Neurology and of Neurosurgery at Stanford University. Dr. Sapolsky is the author of several informative and comical books that present cutting edge psychoneurobiological knowledge in an enjoyable, easy to read format. He's also a renowned researcher and award-winning professor at Stanford University. He’s the author of books like Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, The Trouble with Testosterone: And Other Essays on the Biology of the Human Predicament, A Primate's Memoir, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. More»
#307 Elizabeth Loftus: Memory, Eyewitness Testimony, and Recovered Memory Therapy

Mar 13, 2020

THIS IS AN AUDIO-ONLY INTERVIEW. More»
#306 Nadav Klein: Reputation, Prosociality, Moral Character, and Lie Detection

Mar 12, 2020

Dr. Nadav Klein is an Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD. His research focuses on the basic processes of judgment that affect how people make decisions, process information, and evaluate others and themselves. Some of the findings Nadav has explored are the surprising reputational benefits of being a little bit nice to other people, the ability of groups to detect lies, people's weak desire to be seen as moral and strong desire not to be seen as immoral, and people's overestimation of how much information they use to make decisions. More»
#305 Steven Pinker: The Enlightenment, Cultural Evolution, and the Human Mind

Mar 9, 2020

Dr. Steven Pinker is a Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. He conducts research on language and cognition, writes for publications such as the New York Times, Time and The Atlantic, and is the author of ten books, including The Language Instinct, How The Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Stuff of Thought, The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Sense of Style, and most recently, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. More»
#304 Bryony Cole: The Future of Sex, Relationships, and Technology

Mar 6, 2020

Bryony Cole is the host of sex tech podcast Future of Sex and works as a researcher and strategist in future human and technology fields. She is the world’s leading authority on sextech. Since launching the top-rated podcast, Future of Sex, Bryony has been on stages across the world, defining the direction of sextech for governments, technology and entertainment companies. Her wide body of research and annual Future of Sex report are considered the lead in industry insights. Bryony is an international speaker, published writer and producer, who has been featured on shows like Viceland and Technopia, and articles in Wired, TechCrunch, The New York Times, Playboy, Mashable, Motherboard, ABC, Financial Review, Brides, Glamour and many other global media. More»
#299 Thom Scott-Phillips: The Biological And Cultural Bases Of Language

Feb 24, 2020

Dr. Thomas Scott-Phillips is a Senior Research Scientist in the Social Mind Center and the Department of Cognitive Science, at Central European University, Budapest. In particular he studies communication, and how it makes us human. His first book, Speaking Our Minds, was reviewed as “The most important and the best book ever written on the evolution of language” and “The best linguistics book I’ve read in 10 years”. He’s written short pieces for outlets such as Aeon, Scientific American, The Conversation; and he has given public talks for TEDx, British Humanist Association, Skeptics In The Pub, Digital Science and others. His academic articles and broader interests span cultural evolution, primate communication, language acquisition, philosophy of language, and others. More»
#298 Michael Inzlicht: Self-Control, Gratification Delay, Ego-Depletion, And The Replication Crisis

Feb 21, 2020

Dr. Michael Inzlicht is a Research Excellence Faculty Scholar at the University of Toronto. His primary appointment is as Professor in the Department of Psychology, but he is also cross-appointed as Professor at the Rotman School of Management. Dr. Inzlicht conducts research that sits at the boundaries of social psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience. Although he has published papers on the topics of prejudice, academic performance, and religion, his most recent interests have been in the topics of self-control, where he borrows methods from affective and cognitive neuroscience to understand the underlying nature of self-control, including how it is driven by motivation. More»