Stanford Psychology Podcast

Stanford Psychology

The student-led Stanford Psychology Podcast invites leading psychologists to talk about what’s on their mind lately. Join Eric Neumann, Anjie Cao, Kate Petrova, Bella Fascendini,  Joseph Outa and Julia Rathmann-Bloch as they chat with their guests about their latest exciting work. Every week, an episode will bring you new findings from psychological science and how they can be applied to everyday life. The opinions and views expressed in this podcast represent those of the speaker and not necessarily Stanford's. Subscribe at stanfordpsypod.substack.com. Let us hear your thoughts at stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter @StanfordPsyPod. Visit our website https://stanfordpsychologypodcast.com. Soundtrack: Corey Zhou (UCSD). Logo: Sarah Wu (Stanford)

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Episodes

141 - Michael Schwalbe and Geoff Cohen: When Politics Trumps Truths
07-11-2024
141 - Michael Schwalbe and Geoff Cohen: When Politics Trumps Truths
Anjie chats with Dr. Michael Schwalbe and Dr. Geoff Cohen. Michael is a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, from which he also received his PhD in social psychology. Geoff is a Professor of Psychology and the James G. March Professor of Organizational Studies in Education and Business at Stanford University. His research examines the processes that shape people’s sense of belonging and self-concept, and the role that these processes play in various social problems. In this episode, Michael and Geoff shared their most recent work on biases we have when consuming political news: people were more likely to believe and share news aligned with their political beliefs, compared to news that was true, even when the headlines were outlandishly fake. They also talked about the implications of these biases for democracy, misinformation, and how we might counteract our own tendencies to favor agreeable but untrue information.  Michael & Geoff’s paper: https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2025-33892-004.htmlStanford Report's coverage on the paper: https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2024/10/new-study-shows-that-partisanship-trumps-truthMichael’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelschwalbe/Geoff’s lab website: http://cohenlab.stanford.eduGeoff’s personal website: https://www.geoffreylcohen.com/bio Anjie’s: website: anjiecao.github.ioAnjie’s Twitter @anjie_cao Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com
140 - Julia Chatain: Embodied Learning and Educational Technology in Mathematics and Beyond
25-10-2024
140 - Julia Chatain: Embodied Learning and Educational Technology in Mathematics and Beyond
Adani chats with Dr. Julia Chatain, Senior Scientist at the Singapore-ETH Centre of ETH Zürich. Julia is a computer scientist and learning scientist responsible for building a new research program, “Future Embodied Learning Technologies” (FELT), focusing on exploring AI-powered embodied learning interventions to support low-progress learners and learners with special needs, both at the cognitive and the affective levels. Before that, she led the EduTech group at ETH Zürich, conducting Research and Development of educational technology through co-design with lecturers and students, with a focus on XR, AI-supported learning, and accessibility.In this episode, Adani and Julia discuss Julia’s recent work on embodied learning in mathematics, much of which was part of her doctoral research at ETH Zürich conducted with her advisors Prof. Manu Kapur and Prof. Robert Sumner. They also dive into her journey that led her to where she is now, and discuss what she is currently working on at the Singapore-ETH Centre and beyond!If you found this episode interesting at all, subscribe on our Substack and consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but will allow us to reach more people and make them excited about psychology.Julia’s website: https://juliachatain.com/Julia’s paper on Grounding Graph Theory in Embodied Concreteness with VR: https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000583039 Singapore-ETH Centre’s website: https://sec.ethz.ch/Julia’s Twitter @JuliaChatainAdani’s website: https://www.adaniabutto.com/Adani’s Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/adani.bsky.social Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :)stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com
138 - Hal Hershfield: Connecting with Your Future Self for a Better Tomorrow
26-09-2024
138 - Hal Hershfield: Connecting with Your Future Self for a Better Tomorrow
This week, Enna chats with Dr. Hal Hershfield, Professor of Marketing, Behavioral Decision Making, and Psychology at UCLA Anderson School of Management. In 2017, Hal was recognized as a 40 under 40 best business school professor. This year, he was voted as faculty of the year by MBA students at UCLA. Hal studies how thinking about time transforms the emotions and alters the judgments and decisions people make. His research concentrates on the psychology of long-term decision making and how time affects people’s lives — specifically at a moment when Americans are living longer and saving less.Hal earned his PhD at Stanford Psychology under the mentorship of Dr. Laura Carstensen, who is Enna’s PhD advisor currently. In this episode, Hal shares his journey in psychology, talks about his research on time and decision making as well as his recent book, Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today, an insightful and entertaining guide to grow into our ideal selves. Please join our substack (https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/) to stay connected with our community of listeners from all over the world! If you found this episode interesting, please consider leaving us a good rating. It just takes a minute but will allow us to reach more listeners to share our love for psychology. Hal’s website: https://www.halhershfield.com/ Hal’s book: https://www.halhershfield.com/yourfutureself Hal’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hal-hershfield/Hal’s Twitter: @HalHershfieldEnna’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ennayuxuanchen/ Enna’s Twitter: @EnnaYuxuanChenPodcast Contact: stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com Podcast Twitter: @StanfordPsyPod
131 - Johannes Eichstaedt: Is Social Media to Blame for Mental Illness? (REAIR)
25-04-2024
131 - Johannes Eichstaedt: Is Social Media to Blame for Mental Illness? (REAIR)
Anjie chats with Dr. Johannes Eichstaedt,  an Assistant Professor in Psychology, and the Shriram Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence at Stanford University. Johannes directs the Computational Psychology and Well-Being lab. His research focuses on using social media (Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, …) to measure the psychological states of large populations and individuals to determine the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that drive physical illness (like heart disease), depression, or support psychological well-being.  In this episode, Anjie and Johannes chat about how social media could be a lens to understand mental illnesses such as depression. Johannes also shares his thoughts on the emerging trends in social media, and how some powerful technocrats in Silicon Valley might have some huge blind spots in understanding human nature.  If you found this episode interesting at all, subscribe on our Substackand consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but will allow us to reach more people and make them excited about psychology. Links:  Johannes’s paper: Eichstaedt, J. C., Smith, R. J., Merchant, R. M., Ungar, L. H., Crutchley, P., Preoţiuc-Pietro, D., ... & Schwartz, H. A. (2018). Facebook language predicts depression in medical records. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(44), 11203-11208.Johannes’s Twitter: @JEichstaedtJohannes’s lab website: https://cpwb.stanford.edu/ Anjie’s: website: anjiecao.github.ioAnjie’s Twitter @anjie_cao Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/ Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com
130 - Laura Gwilliams:  The Needles that Unraveled the Brain’s Language and What We Can Learn from Them
11-04-2024
130 - Laura Gwilliams: The Needles that Unraveled the Brain’s Language and What We Can Learn from Them
Anjie chats with Dr. Laura Gwilliams.  Laura is an assistant professor at Stanford University, jointly appointed between Stanford Psychology, Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute and Stanford Data Science. Her work is focused on understanding the neural representations and operations that give rise to speech comprehension in the human brain. In this episode, Laura introduces her recent paper titled” Large-scale single-neuron speech sound encoding across the depth of human cortex”. She shares the insights we can derive from a recently developed technique called Neuropixels, which is essentially a tiny needle that can be placed into the human brain and record from hundreds of neurons at the same time. She also shares her personal journey into this line of work.  If you found this episode interesting at all, subscribe on our Substack and consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but will allow us to reach more people and make them excited about psychology. Laura’s paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06839-2Laura’s personal website:https://lauragwilliams.github.io/Laura’s lab website:https://gwilliams.sites.stanford.edu/ Anjie’s: website: anjiecao.github.ioAnjie’s Twitter @anjie_cao Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com
129 - Paul van Lange: Trust, Cooperation, And Climate Change (REAIR)
28-03-2024
129 - Paul van Lange: Trust, Cooperation, And Climate Change (REAIR)
Eric chats with Paul van Lange, Professor of Psychology at the Free University of Amsterdam and Distinguished Research Fellow at Oxford. He is well known for his vast work on trust, cooperation, and morality, applying these themes to everything from Covid to climate change. He has published multiple handbooks and edited volumes on these topics.In this chat, Eric and Paul talk about the psychological barriers that stop people from fighting climate change. What do trust and cynicism have to do with it? What are barriers to cooperation more generally? Why do selfish people often believe others are selfish too, but kind people don’t think everyone is kind? Might most strangers actually be nice, despite all the stranger danger we always hear about? Finally, Paul shares if all his work on trust and cooperation has changed how he looks at the world and compares research in psychology in Europe to the US.JOIN OUR SUBSTACK! Stay up to date with the pod and become part of the ever-growing community :) https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/If you found this episode interesting at all, consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but will allow us to reach more people and make them excited about psychology.Links:Paul's paper on climate changePaul's websitePaul's Twitter @PaulvanLangeEric's websiteEric's Twitter @EricNeumannPsyPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you think of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com
127 - Guilherme Lichand:  Remote Learning Repercussions
29-02-2024
127 - Guilherme Lichand: Remote Learning Repercussions
Anjie chats with Dr. Guilherme Lichand. Guilherme is an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University, and a co-Director at the Stanford Lemann Center. His research interest explores the sources of education inequities in the global south, and in interventions with the potential to overturn them. In this episode, Guilherme talks about his recent paper titled “The Lasting Impacts of Remote Learning in the Absence of Remedial Policies: Evidence from Brazil”. He shares his insights on how remote learning could have negative, long-term impacts on the learning outcomes, especially in places without high quality access to the facilities required by remote learning. He also shares his thoughts on whether the same patterns could generalize to remote work – that is, does work from home have negative impacts on our productivity.  If you found this episode interesting at all, subscribe on our Substack and consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but will allow us to reach more people and make them excited about psychology. Guilherme’s paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4209299Guilherme’s personal website:https://lichand.info/ Anjie’s: website: anjiecao.github.ioAnjie’s Twitter @anjie_cao Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com
126 - Michele Gelfand: Culture and Conflict
15-02-2024
126 - Michele Gelfand: Culture and Conflict
Eric chats with Michele Gelfand, Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Michele’s culture lab studies the strength of cultural norms, negotiation, conflict, revenge, forgiveness, and diversity, drawing on many different disciplines. Michele is world-renowned for her work on how some cultures have stronger enforcement of norms (tight cultures), while others are more tolerant of deviations from the norm (loose cultures). She is the author of Rule Makers, Rule Breakers.In this chat, Eric and Michele discuss the latest insights into loose and tight cultures, what academic disciplines are tight versus loose, and how this framework explains phenomena as disconnected as Covid fears, the appeal of populist leaders, and why Ernie and Bert have so many disagreements. Michele then shares how she stays so passionate and productive, the barriers she has faced trying to be so interdisciplinary, how she deals with setbacks, and why she sometimes dresses up as a pickle.JOIN OUR SUBSTACK! Stay up to date with the pod and become part of the ever-growing community :) https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/If you found this episode interesting at all, consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but will allow us to reach more people and make them excited about psychology.LinksBook: https://www.michelegelfand.com/rule-makers-rule-breakersHow tight or loose are you? https://www.michelegelfand.com/tl-quizTight vs loose cultures: https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.1197754?casa_token=P4iNAMuyYeQAAAAA:gyWMq9sohJJ0LsH-bBRg844OqN8-e9AwiVb649lkXe8cXzCP5jcSmqtAojp-1Lfvg5itKyD2nPP8J4gCulture, threat, tightness and looseness: https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2113891119Eric's websiteEric's Twitter @EricNeumannPsyPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you think of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com
125 - Marginalia Episode: Cristina Salvador on Cultural Psychology in Latin America
01-02-2024
125 - Marginalia Episode: Cristina Salvador on Cultural Psychology in Latin America
Marginalia Episode is a collaboration between Stanford Psychology Podcast and Marginalia Science, a community committed to including, integrating, advocating for, and promoting members who are not typically promoted by the status quo in academia. In each Marginalia Episode, we feature a guest who has been featured in the Marginalia Science Monthly Newsletter. In this episode, Anjie chats with Dr. Cristina Salvador, an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University. Cristina examines how culture interfaces with biology to influence our thinking, feeling, and behavior. She analyzes the influence of culture at multiple levels, including the brain, everyday language use, implicit measures, and big data. In this episode, we start our conversation on her recent paper titled “Emotionally expressive interdependence in Latin America: Triangulating through a comparison of three cultural zones.”. To learn more about Cristina, you can read the Marginalia Science Newsletter attached below. Episode on Marginalia Science: https://www.stanfordpsychologypodcast.com/episodes/episode/7927b876/104-special-episode-marginalia-scienceMarginalia Newsletter featuring Cristina:https://marginaliascience.substack.com/p/newsletter-september-2023Cristina’s paper; https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2024-15733-001.pdfCristina’s lab website:https://sites.duke.edu/culturelab/ Crstina’s twitter: @cris_esalvadorAnjie’s: website: anjiecao.github.ioAnjie’s Twitter @anjie_caoPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com
124 - Oriel FeldmanHall: Punishment, Forgiveness, and Predicting Emotions
12-01-2024
124 - Oriel FeldmanHall: Punishment, Forgiveness, and Predicting Emotions
This week, Rachel chats with Oriel FeldmanHall,  Professor of Cognitive, Linguistics, and Psychological Sciences at Brown University. Oriel's lab leverages methods from behavioral economics, social psychology, and neuroscience to explore the neural bases of social behavior, and the role of emotion in shaping social interactions. She has won numerous awards, including the Cognitive Neuroscience Society’s Young Investigator Award for outstanding contributions to science, the Association for Psychological Science’s Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions, and the American Psychological Association’s Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology. In this episode, Oriel provides an introduction to the world of affective science, explaining how her team measures and studies emotion. She describes how the emotions that we expect to feel—and the inaccuracies in our predictions—shape our judgments and behavior, and the complex relationship between emotion and depression. We also discuss the hazards of sharing scientific findings on twitter, and how some of the best research questions originate in coffee shops.  JOIN OUR SUBSTACK! Stay up-to-date with the podcast and become part of the ever-growing community 🙂 https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/  If you found this episode interesting, please consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a minute but will allow us to reach more listeners and make them excited about psychology.  Links: Link to the paper we discussed Check out more of Professor Oriel FeldmanHall's work at the FeldmanHall lab website!  Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPod Podcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/  Let us know what you think of this episode or of the podcast by sending us an email at stanfordpsychologypodcast@gmail.com
123 - Jacqueline Gottlieb: Are You Curious About Curiosity?
07-12-2023
123 - Jacqueline Gottlieb: Are You Curious About Curiosity?
This week, Julia chats with Jacqueline Gottlieb, Professor of Neuroscience in the Kavli Institute for Brain Science and the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Institute for Mind, Brain, and Behavior at Columbia University in New York. Since joining the Columbia Faculty in 2001, she has spearheaded pioneering research on the neural mechanisms of attention and curiosity, using computational modeling combined with behavioral and neurophysiological studies in humans and non-human primates. In this episode, Professor Gottlieb unlocks the fundamental forces governing curiosity. She begins by explaining the ambiguity inherent in uncertainty and the balance between potential risks and rewards. Then, she reviews a recent study that suggests that we don’t always reason optimally about uncertainty. After discussing potential reasons why we might struggle with decision making surrounding uncertainty, she highlights key personality factors from the study that were associated with more successful decision making. Finally, she closes by sharing her hopes for the future of the field.JOIN OUR SUBSTACK! Stay up-to-date with the podcast and become part of the ever-growing community 🙂 https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/ If you found this episode interesting, please consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a minute but will allow us to reach more listeners and make them excited about psychology.Links:Link to the paper we discussedCheck out more of Professor Gottlieb’s work at her lab website! Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/ Let us know what you think of this episode or of the podcast by sending us an email at stanfordpsychologypodcast@gmail.com
122 - Michal Kosinski: Studying Theory of Mind and Reasoning in LLMs.
30-11-2023
122 - Michal Kosinski: Studying Theory of Mind and Reasoning in LLMs.
Xi Jia chats with Dr. Michal Kosinski, an Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. Michal's research interests recently encompass both human and artificial cognition. Currently, his work centers on examining the psychological processes in Large Language Models (LLMs), and leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Big Data, and computational techniques to model and predict human behavior. In this episode, they chat about Michal's recent works: "Theory of Mind Might Have Spontaneously Emerged in Large Language Models" and "Human-like intuitive behavior and reasoning biases emerged in large language models but disappeared in ChatGPT". Michal also shared his scientific journey and some personal suggestions for PhD students.If you found this episode interesting at all, subscribe on our Substack and consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but will allow us to reach more people and make them excited about psychology.Michal's paper on Theory of Mind in LLMs: https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.02083Michal's paper on reasoning bias in LLMs: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43588-023-00527-xMichal's personal website: https://www.michalkosinski.com/Xi Jia's profile: https://profiles.stanford.edu/xijia-zhouXi Jia's Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/LauraXijiaZhouPodcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com