Opinion Science

Episódios

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  #119: The Power of Confident Uncertainty with Demi Oba 03.08.2026 56min

  Demi Oba is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Harvard Business School. He studies the nature of communication. In our conversation, Demi shares some recent research on the different types of "hedges" people make when expressing uncertainty in a claim. These types of uncertainty matter for how persuasive a person can be. In fact, sometimes, being the right kind of uncertain can be more influential than expressing confidence. Join me over at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/OpinionScience ...
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  #118: Making Moral Arguments with Jae-Hee Jung 06.07.2026 54min

  Jae-Hee Jung is an assistant professor at Rice University, where she studies party politics, political behavior, and political psychology in Western democracies. Her research focuses on the strategic use of moral rhetoric (i.e., appeals to fundamental notions of right and wrong) and how it shapes political competition and voter psychology. We talk about her work analyzing political manifestos, the psychological mechanisms like pride that mobilize a party's base, and the surprising finding tha...
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  #117: Happiness As a Tool for Behavior Change with Liz Dunn & Jiaying Zhao 01.06.2026 54min

  Elizabeth Dunn and Jiaying Zhao are professors at the University of British Columbia, where they study social psychology and climate behavioral science, respectively. Together, they explore the intersection of human happiness and environmental action, challenging the traditional "guilt and shame" narratives that dominate climate communication. We talk about their new book: Leave the Lights On: How Joyful Decisions Can Save Our Species, which explores how you can address climate change by taki...
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  #116: Change Beliefs, Change Opinions? with Yamil Velez 04.05.2026 59min

  Yamil Velez is an assistant professor of political science at Columbia University, where he studies what makes political opinions hard to shift. He’s been using innovative new methods to test important ideas about how people arrive at their views and what it takes to change them. We talk about the relationship between beliefs and opinions, why correcting misinformation doesn’t necessarily move opinions, and what happens when persuasive messages are tailored to the specific reasons people hold...
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  #115: Raising Color-Conscious Kids with Sylvia Perry 06.04.2026 1h

  Sylvia Perry is a social psychologist and Associate Professor at Northwestern University, where she directs the Social Cognition and Social Identity Lab. She studies the psychological mechanisms that shape how people recognize and confront their own biases, as well as how those biases are transmitted across generations. We talk about her research on racial socialization, specifically focusing on how white parents navigate—or frequently avoid—conversations about race with their children. Sylvi...
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  #114: Making Immigration Popular with Alex Kustov 02.03.2026 1h 6min

  Alex Kustov studies public opinion about immigration—why it’s so durable, why it becomes so politically explosive, and what (if anything) can make it more popular. We talk about the surprisingly stable foundations of immigration attitudes, why only a small fraction of people are categorically opposed, and how partisanship shapes the debate. Alex also explains what he calls the “altruist’s dilemma”: why people who are genuinely altruistic can still be skeptical of immigration, and how pol...
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  Introducing Mind Games 10.02.2026 17min

  I'm excited to share a preview of a new podcast I think you’d enjoy: Mind Games. What if you could hypnotize yourself into a better you? Or.... secretly hypnotize others into giving you anything you want? That’s the promise of NLP. Mind Games is an investigation into the world of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or NLP, a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology that has quietly shaped industries, institutions, and belief systems around the world. Part science experiment, part investigatio...
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  #113: Psychology in the Age of AI with Steve Rathje 02.02.2026 1h

  Steven Rathje is a postdoc at New York University and an incoming assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He studies the psychology of technology, which includes how people engage with a variety of digital tools, especially those with social implications. We talk about his work on what makes content go viral online and the consequences of AI chatbots that are more agreeable than maybe they ought to be. Along the way, we see how basic principles of psychology govern social life in t...
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  #112: Thinking Categorically with Greg Murphy 05.01.2026 1h 4min

  Greg Murphy studies the psychology of concepts. How do we use language to understand things, and how do we sort the world into categories? In our conversation, we consider what makes a category, why we love them, and where they steer us wrong. Dr. Murphy released a book on this topic a few years ago: Categories We Live By How We Classify Everyone and Everything Join me over at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/OpinionScience Learn more about Opinion Science and catch up on all the episodes at ...
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  #111: You Don't Know What You Like with Paul Eastwick & Eli Finkel 01.12.2025 58min

  Paul Eastwick and Eli Finkel are two social psychologists who study the gears and levers of romantic relationships. What do people find attractive in a partner? How do relationships evolve over time? And critically, do romantic movies get any of this stuff right? Paul and Eli host the podcast, Love Factually, which dissects popular romantic films from the standpoint of behavioral science. What do they get wrong? What do they get right? On the show this month, we talk about the podcast, how sc...
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  #110: The Value of Entertainment with Sara Grady 03.11.2025 52min

  Sara Grady studies the function of entertainment—why we watch, play, and listen to the media that fill our lives. She's an assistant professor of Communication at Ohio State University. In our conversation, we explore what entertainment actually does for us, what it means to connect with fictional characters, and how storytelling shapes our relationships and well-being. Sara also shares her path from film production to media psychology and why understanding stories only deepens their magic.&n...
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  #109: The Realities of Political Persuasion with David Broockman 06.10.2025 53min

  David Broockman is a political scientist at UC Berkeley who digs into one of democracy’s core questions: can political messages really change minds? He’s spent his career running careful studies of persuasion, from door-to-door conversations to the effects of cable news, and testing whether the confident claims of political consultants actually hold up. In our conversation, David shares the path that brought him into political science and the “credibility revolution” that reshaped how researc...
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  SciComm Summer #26: Lulu Miller on Leading with Story 11.08.2025 52min

  Lulu Miller has done a lot of things and done them very well. She is currently the co-host of Radiolab and its family-friendly spinoff, Terrestrials. She also co-created Invisibilia with Alix Spiegel and wrote the beautiful book, Why Fish Don't Exist. In our conversation, I try to learn Lulu's secrets when it comes it sharing science across media. I've been a fan of her work for a long time, so it was great to get to talk with her! (If you're here as a Radiolab fan, you should also check out ...
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  SciComm Summer #25: Sarah McAnulty on Art and Community in Science Communication 04.08.2025 51min

  Sarah McAnulty is a squid biologist and a science communicator. She's come up with all sorts of creative ways to bring science to the people, especially through local community engagement initiatives. Learn more about Skype a Scientist: https://www.skypeascientist.com/ You can find the rest of this summer's science communication podcast series here. Join me over at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/OpinionScience Learn more about Opinion Science and catch up on all the episodes at http://opini...
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  SciComm Summer #24: Joe Palca on NPR Science Reporting 28.07.2025 51min

  Joe Palca reported on science for NPR for years. He found his sweet spot, capturing people's interest and filling them in on curious new findings in just a few minutes. His path to this job wasn't all that direct, and in our conversation, he shares how he got there and what he's learned along the way. Listen to his 2019 story on the "electric dipole moment": Scientists Studying EDM To Find Why Everything In The Universe Exists : NPR You can find the rest of this summer's science communic...
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  SciComm Summer #23: Alison Fragale on Giving Keynote Talks 21.07.2025 54min

  Alison Fragale is an organizational psychologist who gives keynote talks and leads workshops outside academia. She talks frankly about what it takes to book speaking engagements, design powerful talks that make a difference, and juggle a speaking schedule with other commitments. She also just released a book -- Likable Badass: How Women Get the Success They Deserve. You can find the rest of this summer's science communication podcast series here. Join me over at Patreon: https://www.patreon.c...
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  SciComm Summer #22: Alex Dainis on Producing Online Videos 14.07.2025 1h 1min

  Alex Dainis is a freelance science communicator and video producer. She's been making science videos on YouTube for years, including recent work for the American Chemical Society. In 2024, she was received an Award for Excellence in Science Communications from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine and the Schmidt Foundation. We talk about how she started down this road and decided to make it her full-time work after graduate school, including the challenges of freelanci...
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  SciComm Summer #21: Joel Bervell on Short Form Video 07.07.2025 52min

  Joel Bervell recently graduated from medical school, which is when he gained fame as an influencer helping the public navigate good medical science. He’s out there breaking down myths about medicine, particularly shining a light on racial disparities in health and treatment. He recently won a Peabody award, consults with the White House, has given interviews on various media platforms, and has given talks all over. He hosts the podcast, The Dose. And he developed an animated children’s ...
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  SciComm Summer #20: Adam Cole on Making "Howtown" 30.06.2025 55min

  Kicking off the 3rd season of Hot SciComm Summer is Adam Cole. Adam started at NPR’s Science Desk in 2011 where he started making short videos and radio pieces. In 2014, he launched the YouTube channel Skunk Bear with NPR, which was a venue for fun, quirky, visual forays into science stories big and small. After NPR, he did work for Vox, including their Netflix series, “The Mind, Explained” in 2019. Most recently, Adam’s work came on my radar again because he’s one half of the new YouTube cha...
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  Introducing "SciComm Summer"...Season 3! 23.06.2025 1min

  You didn't think #HotSciCommSummer was done, did you? Join me for a whole new season of Hot SciComm summer, a special laid-back podcast series featuring writers, podcast producers, video producers, speakers, and more. Get ready to hear from seven more top-notch science communicators and hear how they got into this area, how they approach their communication, and what you can learn about doing it yourself. The new season is still aimed at science journalists and scientists interested in sharin...