February 10, 2025 • 43 mins
How do human beings work together and learn to be, well, human? Stepping out of our comfortable and cozy silos and learning to communicate our value in new contexts might just be the key to unlocking shared innovation.
In this episode, we explore this question with Cristine Legare, a psychology professor at the University of Texas at Austin interested in the interplay of the universal human mind and the variations of culture, who studies cognitive and cultural evolution and the design of social and behavioral change interventions.
The Center for Applied Cognitive Science, which Cristine founded and directs: https://www.centerforappliedcogsci.com/
Her website, where you can keep up with more of her work as well as her upcoming book on ritual: https://cristinelegare.com/
Cat also mentions the book How Infrastructure Works, which is by Deb Chachra and can be found here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/612711/how-infrastructure-works-by-deb-chachra/
Cat mentions an overlay journal she and her collaborators write to translate more scientific papers for software teams; it's called The Developer Science Review and you can read our issues here: https://dsl.pubpub.org/issues
Learn more about Ashley:
Learn more about Cat:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Cristine (00:00):
The human coalitional mind gravitates towards
homogenous in-groups.
It feels cozy, you don't getchallenged, you have the same
incentive structure.
But the truth is that the bestideas and solutions come from
very diverse, on all dimensionsby the way, groups of people who
(00:20):
have new ideas, who are thinkingabout the world in different
ways.
Cat (00:32):
The editing for this is going to be incredible which is
maybe a great way to introduceour next guest, Dr.
Cristine Legare, who's ascientist interested in how we
learn to become human.
Today we talk about havingintellectual openness.
Today we talk about curiosity.
Today we talk about coalitionsand stepping outside of the silo
(00:55):
to work together, which Ibelieve is one of the biggest
questions facing humanity today.
So yeah, we're probably going tosolve that in this episode.
Cristine (01:04):
I'm the founder and director of the Center for
Applied Cognitive Science, wherewe're studying how do you
harness insights about how themind works to inform the design
of more effective, culturallysensitive, social and behavioral
change interventions.
I'm also writing a book onritual and how understanding the
(01:25):
pervasive and essential role ofritual provides unique insight
into how to solve humanproblems, improve our
interpersonal interactions andour overall capacity to work
together to solve complexproblems.
Cat (01:42):
I wanted to maybe start with a small story about this
because I was thinking about thefirst time I knew who you were
as a person and I was a graduatestudent on UC San Diego campus
and I want to say you wereperhaps very early at your own
job.
and I, I have to disclose that Idon't actually remember like the
(02:04):
scientific content that you cameto share.
Right?
I'm sure you had shared someamazing experiment.
What I remember was walking intothis room and then walking out
of it thinking, Oh my gosh,psychology could be so much
bigger than I knew.
Like, I really didn't know howmuch we could go to other
countries, talk to other peopleexpand the boundaries of our
(02:27):
science.
And I mean, I was very early inmy scientific career.
So I was kind of just evenfiguring out.
I don't think I even knew maybewhat a scientific journal fully
was at all.
So I just thought I'd share thatthat that was my main memory of
you and I followed your workever since and it's continued to
expand my mind.
So I'm really glad you're here.
Cristine (02:47):
I'm delighted to be here and I'm glad there was some
impression left.
I appreciate that.
I, I
Cat (02:53):
know, memory is complicated.
Ashley (02:55):
Mm hmm.
Cristine (02:55):
It's true.
It's absolutely true.
And I think it's worth thinkingabout the kinds of, ultimately,
the impressions we want to make.
Because often we get so caughtup in the minutiae of what we do
and what we study, that weforget that human memory can't
retain everything.
No one's going to take awayevery detail of what you share.
So what's most critical and whatdo you most want to get across?
(03:18):
It's one of the reasons why Ilove podcasts because
Cat (03:20):
Mm.
Cristine (03:21):
much more savvy about what people really resonate with
and what they're excited to hearabout.
Cat (03:27):
Awesome.
I know that one of the thingswe're really excited to talk
about is just this question ofhow do we work together?
Like, what is a strategic way totry to work together?
And I feel like you, Ashley, I,we're all coming at this with
this being an imperative in ourslightly different but very
connected worlds, you know, inscience, education and
(03:50):
technology right now, um, in thecultures we live in more
broadly.
How do we work together?
So I don't, that's a really bigquestion to start you off with.
Um, but I'd love to hear alittle bit maybe about what
informs your perspective on thisquestion, the work that you do,
you know, your main areas offocus.
Cristine (04:09):
So, my interest in working together, I think that's
a lovely way to put it, is bothscholarly and practical.
So the types of scientificinterests that I have include
things like how we becomemembers of the complex cultural
environments that we're borninto.
(04:30):
I think my core scientificinterest is really the, how the
plasticity and flexibility ofour minds allow us to learn any,
any language, any body ofknowledge, any skill within the
human repertoire.
And that requires, you know,from a cognitive perspective,
plasticity, flexibility that noother species have.
(04:51):
So, I've always been interestedin understanding the diversity
of cultural contexts that humansinhabit.
And that requires studying morethan Euro American middle class
populations, as it turns out.
Um, which have, in the field ofpsychology, often been assumed
to be an acceptable prototypefor the universal mind.
(05:13):
Um, which is couldn't possiblybe further from the truth.
I mean, the populations thatWestern industrialized, highly
educated populations live in arehistorically incredibly
unrepresentative and, um, youknow, even globally
unrepresentative in many ways.
(05:34):
So, um, it's always beencritical to look outside of the,
you know, the population that Icurrently inhabit and try to
understand, not just describingcultural environments, but, um,
explaining them.
And that takes, that requires acomplex systems approach that
requires more than just onescientific discipline that
(05:57):
frankly requires more thanscience that requires working
across different sectors, um,people who do practice people
who apply the, you know,scientific Dare I say
policymakers, corporatepartners, nonprofits.
So the future requires tacklingbig challenges.
(06:19):
And that is, that's bigger thana discipline, subdiscipline
discipline, that's bigger thanscience.
And it requires, again, from apractical perspective, large
scale collaboration, um, of sortof unprecedented degrees.
Cat (06:33):
Mmm.
Preach.
I'm resonating with this so muchas someone who is at a
corporation.
Who does make recommendationsfrom my research about policy,
you know, the policy thatchanges the lives sometimes of
thousands or even hundreds ofthousands of groups of real
(06:55):
working humans in software andthen because software goes
everywhere in the world you knowin systematically unevenly
distributed ways, but it doesaffect so many things you know
the ripple effects of what wethink people need and who we
think people are are so massive.
(07:15):
I love the way that you put it.
This that what do we think isthe prototypical mind and how
much that has just not been aquestion that's been asked
enough.
I certainly feel like insoftware teams we're coming up
on that question constantly isthe prototypical problem solving
that the future needs the kindof thing that was 10 guys in a
(07:37):
basement 40 years ago or 30years ago or something.
I don't think so.
So I think a really interestingquestion for me is Oh, how do we
get those steps of breaking downthe silo going?
How do we as experts maybe stepout of our lanes of expertise
(07:58):
and even just begin to formthose partnerships?
Do you have any maybe stories orexamples on this?
Cristine (08:04):
Sure, I'd be happy to share my attempts at this.
I think before I go into thedetails.
Infrastructure that directlysupports cross sector
partnerships is essential.
So the National ScienceFoundation has funded what I
think of as immensely cuttingedge network partnerships.
(08:24):
Of network development grants.
So a lot of what NSF hashistorically funded is research,
critical, important, but thethese core complex challenges
require the time and space andculture building that's required
(08:45):
to understand different sectorswell enough to build the right
sorts of teams to tackle these,uh, you know, these complex
problems.
So assuming that thesepartnerships will just, or
networks of networks, just, youknow, organically happen, I
think is misguided.
There needs to be investment inbuilding these partnerships
because historically all sectorshave been very siloed.
(09:09):
You know, certainly this is trueof science and a lot of
academia, but this is true of alot of other sectors as well.
So we need infrastructure tobuild the space and time to
learn enough about other sectorsin order to work together
effectively.
Um, I can give you one exampleof a very early attempt that I'm
(09:31):
still working on, uh, which is,is I think interesting because
it's I'm working with us withinformal learning institutions
who specialize in scientificlearning.
Science education, you know,children's science museums.
One of my areas of expertise isthe development of scientific
(09:51):
reasoning.
I have expertise in childdevelopment and cognitive
development.
I did my dissertation on thedevelopment of causal reasoning.
These seem pretty close, quiteclose.
And I had, uh, I think verynaively assumed that building a
closer relationship with a moresynergistic relationship with a,
(10:12):
an informal learning institutionthat really specializes in early
childhood education would be aseamless process.
But what I learned prettyrapidly is that this nonprofit
organization has a completelydifferent institutional culture,
different goals.
(10:32):
different incentives than theacademic culture that I'm most
familiar with.
And it took years of getting toknow these different cultures,
you know, these differentcultural norms, expectations, et
cetera, before we really startedto make progress.
This wasn't a fast process.
(10:54):
I think loose and largely selfserving collaborations.
You can get those off the groundpretty easily, right?
All I'm interested in doing iscollecting data at their
establishment.
Cat (11:07):
As much data as you can get
Cristine (11:08):
to do.
It's not a partnership.
I am gathering information thereand analyzing it in ways that
are very scientificallyspecific, discipline specific,
publishing it in journals, peerreviewed journals, which is our
incentive system, and going onmy merry way, right?
That's making honestly no impacton their organization at all.
(11:32):
They're not reading thosejournals we know up until really
recently they didn't even haveaccess to those journals.
How in the world could they readthem even if they wanted to?
But say they did have accessusing you know, I'm using multi
level modeling of really complexdata sets, there's not training
in that sector, um, typically,to understand that.
(11:54):
So, it's taken more than adecade in order to really get to
a point where, frankly, I ambecoming useful to them, and not
just they are useful to me.
Scientists have to be part ofthat translation process.
Ashley (12:10):
I love that so much.
I love too that you're just likenaming the hard work and the
time that goes into this becauseI think that that is such a
barrier for people like whomight for you, you know, your
example like show up at a museumand be like, okay, I know
something about scientificreasoning.
Let me tell you how to structureyour whole exhibit about how the
brain works for kids like as ifthey're just going to be like,
(12:32):
yes, come on in expert like,please do the thing.
We are aligned.
Um, and that's not how it works.
And I think you're totallyright.
And as someone too, who likeI've, I interned at my local
science museum in Philadelphiawhen I was like transitioning
into grad school and have donelike a lot of informal science
communication myself, likeseeing the ways in which there
(12:52):
are just these like massivebarriers between what's going on
in academia and what actuallygets translated and you know,
put into practice, like they'rethere.
And I think you're so right thatit takes time and it takes
effort and it takesacknowledgement of the different
kinds of cultures that exist inthese spaces.
Cristine (13:10):
It also requires really creating new incentives.
So we, you know, buildingcommunity partnerships is not
something that's historicallybeen incentivized or even valued
in academia.
So it is labor that I do becauseI'm interested in being useful
(13:32):
to these organizations and youknow, assisting in translating
evidence into practice.
But there's a lot of this effortand work that has to be done
that isn't directly incentivizedat all.
And that's what, that's one ofthe reasons I mentioned we need
(13:52):
networks and infrastructure thatsupport these relationships.
Otherwise, these partnershipsare going to be limited to
people who are unusually drivento collaborate in these ways and
willing to tolerate a lot ofwork, um, that isn't directly
(14:12):
incentivized.
Ashley (14:14):
Totally.
Cat (14:15):
think about this a lot.
I think about this because I runa team, a lab, you know, of
scientists, and we have explicitgoals of using community based
methods, and we set out thesevalues like, okay, we're going
to work with softwarepractitioners as if they are
also experts, but they're notour kind of experts, and there
needs to be some coming togetherhere, and Whew, you can say all
(14:40):
that, you can write it all down,you can, you know, you can have
the abstract level of the value,but working it out has been a
process of years, continues tobe, I feel like we've only
scratched the surface, but I'mjust deeply, profoundly
interested in this question ofinfrastructure.
There's a book that I lovecalled How Infrastructure Works,
which is about physicalmaterials infrastructure but I
(15:02):
read it sometimes and I thinkabout the structure of
incentivizing my scientists tohold a community event where we
hold space for practitioners andwe ask them what they want us to
research.
And then how do I make that worklegible to our leadership, which
we have done with ourdepartment.
And how do I make it somethingthat will show up on a
(15:24):
performance review for ascientist, which we have done
inside of our organization.
And I was pretty clear from thebeginning.
That if something cannot havewords, cannot have a category,
cannot, you know, dare I say,have metrics, which is a really
bad word in a lot of these humanfacing, roles, but I think it's
(15:45):
so protective to measure yourwork and show it over time
earlier than you think you needto.
Can we show the effort?
I've thought a lot about thatinside of a corporate structure.
And I think it's just been theabsolute heart of why we keep
doing the work we're doing andthen why we have trust with our
audience at all.
So that was pretty like, youknow, open disclosure about how
(16:09):
I thought about this.
But I think it's really usefulin this moment.
Yeah, and it can be done.
That's something that I just tryto tell other leaders this can
actually happen.
It might even be closer than youthink some of these levers that
you have to pull and it'ssometimes been painful and
sometimes been like a littleembarrassing because I've been
in a room with executives andsaid, I don't know how to
(16:31):
incentivize this for my people,but I know we need to do it.
Can you please help meunderstand the language here?
Understand how you would measurethis.
And I've talked to salesleaders, marketing leaders, all
kinds of people who softwareengineers typically don't, you
know, really have in the roomwith them.
And you might be surprised thatthat has been a source of
wisdom, you know, for a researchteam, but it really has.
Cristine (16:55):
I love that you use the word protective because
that's actually similar to howI've justified the need to do
research on children's learningin these spaces and to show
evidence of learning and todocument that in scientifically
rigorous ways, it's protectivefor these institutions, you
(17:18):
know, which are immenselyvaluable for our communities
that makes getting fundinginvestment for, you know,
resources much more likely.
So it is, there's a practicalvalue to, um, spending the time
and effort to really show thatwhat you're doing is of value.
(17:38):
And I think there's lots ofdifferent versions of showing
your value.
I was thinking about, you know,the other day that the, the
divide between, you know, basicand applied science in academia
has, or scholarship even, hasbeen really, really destructive
and that that has, I think,actively contributed to the
(17:59):
siloing of scholarship.
Including science from practicein that the most intellectually
rigorous and the most talenteddo the work that is most removed
from anything of practicalvalue.
Um, don't misread that I thinkthere's no value of basic
science.
There certainly is.
Um, but from my perspective, thegold standard is being able to
(18:22):
show what you're studying isactually effective in a real
world environment.
What higher standard of valuecould there possibly be?
So no discipline should beimmune to showing value, not
just to people in theirdiscipline through the
incentives that are valued inthat discipline, but to other
(18:45):
disciplines and to othersectors.
Why is any discipline or sectorabove showing broader value?
I think, um, I think we allshould do that.
And that is a critical piece ofhow to collaborate across
sectors to translate what yourvalue is to others, um, an
(19:07):
essential skill.
And we're not going to be taughtthat as part of the core
training in our sector.
Um, you have to learn that inthe trenches with a lot of
humility in collaboration withpeople who work in spaces that
are very different from yours.
Cat (19:25):
Yeah, I feel like this is, this is just making me think
about how much when you meet aperson and they might just have
such a different background or,or be working in such a
different context.
But sometimes for me, as someonewho considers herself
interdisciplinary, you know,and, and apply, this is like
very healing to the, the innergrad student.
(19:46):
Um, you meet this personsometimes and you're like, oh,
we're in it together, aren't we?
You know, we have both pitchedour papers to multiple journals
because there isn't really onethat names what we're doing as a
category.
We have both, um, put our papersup as pre prints and then, and
then, you know, read them out ata bar as Ashley's done, you
(20:09):
know, in some of her informallearning spaces and said, I, I
will take on this challenge ofbeing a translator, even though
it wasn't in my training and I'mnot going to let that stop me.
And I do think there's like abeautiful camaraderie, a
beautiful, like we're here onthe edge, solidarity.
Uh, but gosh, like it's reallyhard also.
(20:31):
It's really draining.
And if we are in a world thatdoesn't always have these
pathways built up, I've thoughta lot about how do I stay here
long enough to be the change andto make other people do this,
help other people do this aswell, I should say.
So do you have any thoughts onthat, on the resiliency of
living in the margins betweenall these worlds?
Cristine (20:52):
I think you've already touched on it, you've gotta find
kindred spirits.
And assuming that those kindredspirits are in your sub
discipline.
Buried in the same sector thatyou operate in, it seems very
limiting.
I was on a, a, uh, kind ofwebinar as part of the Global
Science of Learning andEducation Network that, um,
(21:12):
Professor Andrea Chiba from, um,She's one of the founders and
directors of this, and she's abehavioral neuroscientist.
She works on the, you know, the,the neural structures using
rodent models, um, studiesregulation and balance and, um,
unbelievably brilliant woman.
(21:34):
We have pretty different areasof expertise, uh, but when I met
her, I knew we had very much thesame kind of intellectual style
and willingness to work in aninterdisciplinary context.
She'd already had much moreexperience than me at that
point, working withpolicymakers.
Most people studying theneuroscience of rodent brains
(21:56):
are not working withpolicymakers and practitioners
and really getting in there totry to translate and do that.
So she invited me to be in awebinar with, um, a number of
different people, but one of theguests was a CEO of an EdTech
startup.
He's been, he's led manysuccessful EdTech companies.
(22:18):
And I could tell immediatelythere's some intellectual
synergy, right?
He's a PhD in biomedicalengineering, really different
expertise.
But the intellectual chemistrywas there.
We've subsequently collaboratedon a number of different
projects, and I think we'vewritten probably four or five
(22:39):
grant applications together.
This was, this was like sixmonths ago.
I don't know.
Maybe it was eight months ago.
We have very, very differentbackgrounds.
You've got to find your people.
Ashley (22:48):
I wonder if like one thing you're naming here and you
actually use this word earlieris like humility and you know,
there's like, um, this, thisidea of like walking into a new
space where you're going to knowless, like whether that space is
policy or how sciencecommunication works or whatever
it is like you, you know, as ascientist who does, you know,
maybe rodent research, like inyour example, like you don't
(23:10):
have training in that.
And so you have to walk intothese spaces with humility and
willingness to learn and kind ofbe, for a few moments, the
person who is not the smartestperson in the room.
Cristine (23:20):
Or for a few years.
Ashley (23:21):
Yeah.
Or for a few years, however longit takes.
Right.
And there's actually
Cat (23:25):
it's going I don't think
Cristine (23:26):
it's
Ashley (23:26):
gonna stop
Cat (23:27):
for me,
Ashley (23:27):
yeah, and I really think that's like what it takes to
live in these interdisciplinaryspaces.
And there's actually a reallynice paper recently on this
that, you know, when the publicsees this kind of intellectual
humility in scientists, theirtrust increases, right?
So it's like, and, and like,they showed this empirically,
and I think it's reallyinteresting because it's like,
(23:48):
we almost get trained asscientists to be really
defensive.
Like we walk in, like weliterally have a thesis defense
in which you defend with all ofyour might, everything you have
done, you know, so far in yourPhD.
And like, I think the reality isthe real work in the real world
requires humility, like asyou've named it.
Cristine (24:08):
Completely agree.
I think there's a lot ofsocialization that academics get
that we are somehow, um, Just,just that bit smarter than
everyone else and that bit moreinformed and that what we're
doing is so important that weare above justifying its value
(24:29):
to anyone outside of the coregroup of experts that we deem
worthy.
Uh, I think there's a lot ofthat kind of entitlement.
That is a product, not ofindividuals who are scientists,
but of a culture that as it'scalled ivory tower for a reason,
and I think that has beendestructive.
(24:50):
I think that if we want theworld to value science, which
has colossal, monumental,positive impacts on the world is
essential for so many, um,aspects of human functioning,
um, is critical for tackling thechallenges that we face as a
globe, if we want the world toappreciate the value, we better
(25:14):
make clear why it's practicallyuseful and not just
hypothetically prestigious orimportant in some way.
And the more you spend time withreally talented people in other
sectors, the less self importantyou feel.
Cat (25:30):
And that's a relief, isn't it?
Cristine (25:32):
Yeah.
Just as good at what they do asyou are what you, you do.
I want to know those people.
Those are my people.
Cat (25:39):
Same.
I found it a profound relief.
What a relief to not actuallyhave the world on your shoulders
because we really are all in ittogether and you don't have
Cristine (25:49):
So true.
Cat (25:50):
Pinning your identity to being the smartest person, which
at some point is going to failyou.
Um, I've shared in public beforethat I've had the experience of
being really profoundly ill.
And listen, if, if you don'tthink you're a biological
creature, which like, I think inacademia you're, we're so
dehumanized.
We're kind of like, we'reintellectual robots.
(26:11):
Um, being very ill will bringyou down to earth.
Like, I have, you know, you canhave this very smart mind, but
if your lungs are notfunctioning as my lungs were
not, that's a precondition.
And so I began to care a lotabout living in a world where
people had bodies, you know, notjust minds.
And then I was like, I'm apsychologist, you know, like we
(26:35):
live with this discipline that'sabout the human experience.
And yet we still so oftengravitate towards purely mind
based explanations.
Not the mind, as you've, you'vesaid, you know, the mind is
actually much bigger than ourprototypical version of it.
So
Cristine (26:51):
Absolutely.
Cat (26:52):
sorry, I'm rambling so many, I'm like resonating so
hard that this matters to me somuch that I'm just going in a
million directions, but
Cristine (26:59):
That's what I mean, you've got to find your people
Cat (27:01):
heh heh heh.
Cristine (27:03):
and be open in where you're going to find them.
Cat (27:06):
Yeah.
Cristine (27:07):
I mean, what are the chances that you're going to
share big picture, macro levelobjectives only with people who
have similar PhD level training.
Sure, you're going to findpeople in your discipline that
you resonate with, but why limityourself?
And I mean, we know from lotsof, of research on things like
(27:30):
cognitive and culturalevolution, that the more
diverse, the groups are in termsof expertise and experience, the
more we're going to come up withinnovative solutions.
There's scientific evidence forthis, right?
The human coalitional mindgravitates towards homogenous
(27:50):
in-groups It feels cozy, youdon't get challenged, people,
you have the same incentivestructure.
But the truth is that the bestideas and solutions come from
very diverse, on all dimensionsby the way, uh, groups of people
who have new ideas, who arethinking about the world in
(28:12):
different ways.
It's funny that I'm a professorin a psychology department in
many ways because I think ofmyself as a cognitive scientist,
um, focally, because cognitivescience is overtly
interdisciplinary, um, and mycore interest is in cognition
in, in many respects, but Ioften think my greatest
intellectual advantage assomeone working as a
(28:34):
psychologist in a psychologydepartment is not having an
undergraduate degree inpsychology because I didn't get
any instruction that certainquestions and ways of thinking
were off limits for me as amember of particular discipline.
No one, I didn't get that memo.
I didn't go to those classes.
Like this is how psychologiststhink about the world.
(28:56):
So instead I took I mean, I, Iwould have majored in
everything.
I only picked the major, the twomajors I had because my guidance
counselor was like, Legare, youknow, you need to graduate and
have majors to do that.
So you got to, so I picked thetwo most interdisciplinary
majors I could find.
That's been enormouslyinformative, um, for how I think
(29:18):
about the world.
Cat (29:21):
Oh, I love that too.
Yeah.
I gotta stop saying I love that,but I do.
There's the whole, just beaminglove at this whole episode.
I, something that I've livedthis running a research lab and
putting together aninterdisciplinary team.
And hiring people because there,there were no people who lived
at exactly the intersectionsthat I wanted, you know, to
study software engineers, but toalso have a background in social
(29:44):
science and kind of theempirical literature that I
wanted us to be able to buildfrom.
Um, and so I said, Oh, got it.
Okay.
I have to create a lab wherethose people have the room in
the space to develop thatexpertise.
And so, you know, we have thisDeveloper Success Lab that I
run, and we have PhDs inPsychology, but then we've also
(30:06):
had expert co authors, what Icall them, and I constantly use
the word expert because I thinkpeople are so often diminished
when they're the only personwithout a PhD on a research
team.
And, and, um, and bringing thosepeople in has been amazing, you
know, and I've seen and felt andlived myself the moments of
(30:26):
productive friction that happenand it's not always comfortable,
easy, you know, the comfortable,easy thing is to never use your
mind and to go on autopilot andto like learn one way of doing a
research project and then justnever question it again.
And we, I think, understood thatour audience just needed
(30:48):
something more.
And we were just profoundlymotivated to ask ourselves,
like, what is the negative spacethat no one's talking about with
software engineering teams,despite all the resources they
have, you know, and how do Ieven begin to know what that is?
I need to build a coalitionhere, like we need to have
someone who has been a softwareengineer and someone who's been
(31:11):
a scientist, and those twopeople need to be together long
enough to write something thatmatters and to do a project that
matters.
So
Ashley (31:20):
Yeah, you create space for that learning.
I think that that's like, and,space for that growth too, which
I think is like, again, thisstuff takes time.
It takes effort.
You have to intentionally createthe infrastructure for it.
And I think like Cat, you'vedone that on your team.
Like you have learning moments,like all together, like you look
at papers all together, youknow, and you're like, okay,
what is this doing?
(31:40):
And let's all look at it fromour different respective angles,
but grow in one direction.
Cat (31:44):
Kristen Foster-Marks, who's the head of developer experience
at Depot now, and who was withmy lab as an expert software
practitioner for a while, hadthis moment where she pushed all
of us in the best way and said,you all do these very rich,
wonderful lit reviews.
I've sat here and seen it.
You know, how much you work on aproject is engaging with the
(32:07):
literature, situating yourthought, you know, with all of
these studies.
And I just remember so manymoments she looked at me and
said, Cat, no one is going to goread these studies you're
citing.
No one is.
We have to translate this forthe audience, and the audience
really wants to know, like,what's the science I can trust?
What do you all think about it?
(32:28):
And, um, can we put thistogether, you know, in a format
that people would, understand?
And so we created this overlayjournal where we, um, take
original scientific articles andwe allow people access into
them.
But we also write little blogposts essentially about them
kind of breaking down.
Why do we think you know thatthis is useful?
(32:50):
How does this steer ourthinking?
And it's just one little drop inthe bucket of science
translation.
But the reason I share this isbecause I thought that no one
would be interested in this.
I was just like, I, I can't,this seems so, I don't know,
nerdy, like, it seems so, like,I'm stuck doing the work
already, I was so deep doing thework of, like, writing the
(33:13):
scientific artifact.
And it took this wisdom fromsomeone who was living on the
other side to say, trust me.
I want you to do this.
Please do this.
And I was like, all right, youknow, I'll answer that call any
day.
Um, and it has been verypopular.
Cristine (33:28):
There's a, I think a huge demand for designing, uh,
new cultures, because that'swhat you're doing, that you're
creating a different culturewithin an institution, and that
process deserves documentation,because it's not an easy thing
(33:48):
to do.
And I think there's an enormousdemand in many different
institutional spaces.
To learn how others have doneit, even if it's quite a
different space.
Still, just some kind of aroadmap for how to do this
effectively.
What works, even morecritically, what didn't work.
(34:10):
Holding really a kind of lens upto what this process looks like,
I think is essential.
It prevents people fromreinventing the wheel.
It gives people hope that it'spossible, um, all institutions
have, and you've, you've notused this language, but you've
described it have rituals thatpeople readily adopt where
(34:35):
ritual animals, we have a ritualgrammar.
It allows for groups to functioneffectively.
It also stymies collaborationbetween groups.
It stymies change.
It has critical functionalities,the transmission of values and
norms within groups and thingsof that sort.
All institutions have these, andhaving transparency about that
(34:58):
allows you to create differentinstitutions with different
practices and rituals and thingsof that sort.
You have to kind of reallyexpose what's there and how it
works in order to be able tochange it.
It's a big part of what my coreinterest is.
And science is, we're full ofrituals.
We are absolutely full of them.
We get our ideas, and then wetranslate them into a study, and
(35:21):
then we write that study up, andit's got like a intro, and a
methods, and, and then wepublish it, and then only the
people right within ourdiscipline ever read it, and
then we say congratulations tous, and we put it as a citation
on our CV, and we feel wonderfulabout ourselves.
And get lots of pellets forthat, for people within our
discipline.
one.
Um, that's a ritual and it's,that's its own kind of
(35:44):
incentive.
Um, in no way do I mean totrivialize the scientific
process and there areadvantages, right?
There are many, there are manydisciplines, not disciplines,
but sectors, for example, whocollect massive amounts of data
and don't publish it.
They use it for, you know,certain important reasons in
particular ways, but it meansthat those data aren't
(36:08):
accessible, right?
Our, one of our great strengthsis making information
accessible.
The whole paywall and all that,that really, that was like,
really a step in the wrongdirection for many, many years,
but we're correcting that.
Cat (36:21):
Counter to our values, really.
Cristine (36:24):
But in principle, having peer reviewed data
accessible is our superpower.
So it's not all rituals are bad,but there are always strengths
and weaknesses for all of theincentive structures that any
institution has.
Ashley (36:42):
God, I love anthropology for just putting names on things
like,
Cristine (36:46):
Isn't it great?
Me too.
Ashley (36:48):
like, yeah, rituals.
Absolutely.
We have them
Cristine (36:51):
I wasn't trained that you're supposed to just stay in
your own.
I sample and borrow shamelesslyfrom anywhere that I think
provides useful insight.
Rituals don't belong to,shouldn't belong to
anthropology.
Culture shouldn't belong toanthropology.
That is culture belongs to allhumans in all ways at all times.
(37:14):
And I think the siloing.
of something like ritual is thatpeople thought this was just
like a religious ceremony, whichby the way, of course is a
ritual, but ritual is thebehavioral grammar of all human
groups.
All organizations have ritualsand they have functions and they
have strengths, but they alsohave limitations and
(37:36):
understanding how things work isthe only way to try to change
them or even figure out if theyshould be changed in the first
place.
You know, going back to, youknow, your point about humility,
you need to expose yourself tocritically honest feedback and
(37:57):
figure out how to respond, andin many cases, figure out how to
communicate your value much moreclearly.
That's the only way you learnhow to do it.
You've gotta, there's avulnerability there.
And it also allows you to buildconfidence, right?
Confidence is is earned, It'snot granted, you've, you've
(38:19):
gotta put yourself in situationswhere like, okay, I figured out
how to respond to that.
Um, I've thought through adifferent way to, to present
information.
Uh, here's something we canimprove.
All, all of that requires.
I don't know any other way toachieve it.
Cat (38:35):
Yeah.
Ashley (38:36):
agree.
I mean, this is one of thereasons I like teaching
actually, is because when youhave, when you teach in a way
that it's a two way street, notjust a like lecture, you know,
sage on the stage situation.
And you actually hear back fromstudents.
They'll give you their honestopinions about what's working
and what's not and what'sconfusing.
And, you know, why in the heckdoes this matter?
(38:57):
Right.
And they'll ask you those thingsand they'll push you on it.
And it forces you to reconsiderwhy are we teaching this and
how?
And I, yeah, I love that aspectof teaching.
Cat (39:10):
I think sometimes an interesting way in for people is
to flip like the direction ofpower they think about, or the
direction of insight they thinkabout.
This is just, I don't know ifyou'll resonate, but this is a
trick of mine is when I did myfirst big study about
developers, and it was aqualitative study.
I interviewed them, which isvery challenging and new for me
because I really came up throughthe quantitative rituals, and I
(39:32):
just wanted to talk to people.
I just wanted to hear more, youknow, and, um And there was this
big conversation in softwarethat was like, Um, Oh, we love
learning.
We're upskill all day long.
We're through our whole careers.
We love learning.
And I put out this study thatwas like Do you love learning?
Because it doesn't seem likeyou're acting like people who
(39:54):
love learning.
Um, you know.
And the flip that I think wasvery successful in this
particular piece of sciencecommunication was I said, yes, a
lot of people talk about juniordevelopers and what they won't
get if we don't have learningcultures on our teams.
They won't get mentorship.
They won't get support.
But I would like you to imagineto yourself, what do the very
(40:16):
senior engineers no longer getif they are in a culture when
they can't talk to newcomers andthey're in a culture where they
can't mentor people?
What are they missing?
And what are they losing?
And I framed a bunch of talkswith that beginning and I saw
these conversations.
Very established, very importantstaff engineers kind of just
melt, like a little bit, justlike, Oh, my gosh, somebody sees
(40:42):
that I really miss having peopleto talk to, and that this is
actually something that we needin our fields.
And that was such a beautifulcommunication device that worked
a lot for me.
Cristine (40:55):
It also requires the wisdom that you don't always
know where you're going to comeup with new and fresh ideas.
As spaces that we work in havebecome more and more
competitive, and there's such a,you know, major expectation for
(41:17):
productivity that that oftenpushes us towards a more
incremental, you know, pebblecounting approach of this is
something I know how to do.
This is something that islabeled as a product in my
institutional culture.
Um, I'm aiming this to, towardspeople who are very, very
(41:40):
familiar with this form ofoutput.
And the reality is that youcan't be, you shouldn't be, I
think, overly strategic in wheregood ideas are going to come
from.
Um, one of the, I think mostinteresting ideas that I've had
in recent years came during alecture I went to on ancient
(42:01):
Egyptian rituals.
and noticing parallels betweenrituals in other places,
including other populations Iwas studying.
And I went to that talk, notbecause I thought I would, of
course I had no idea I was goingto, that insight would come out
of that talk.
I just thought, who doesn't wantto go to a talk on ancient
(42:22):
Egyptian religion?
How fascinating is that bysomeone who is an absolute world
expert?
And I really try to communicatethe need to be intellectually
open.
and follow your curiosity.
Maybe some would argue spendingan hour of my time on ancient
Egyptian religion, unnecessary,inefficient.
(42:45):
I think that's short sighted.
Spend a little time exploringnew spaces, following your
curiosity, get curious aboutsome things.
You get to a point in yourcareer where you have very
little curiosity left.
Your capacity for discovery,innovation, contribution
similarly limited, no matterwhat field you're in.
The human coalitional mind gravitates towards
homogenous in-groups.
It feels cozy, you don't getchallenged, you have the same
incentive structure.
But the truth is that the bestideas and solutions come from
very diverse, on all dimensionsby the way, groups of people who
(00:20):
have new ideas, who are thinkingabout the world in different
ways.
Cat (00:32):
The editing for this is going to be incredible which is
maybe a great way to introduceour next guest, Dr.
Cristine Legare, who's ascientist interested in how we
learn to become human.
Today we talk about havingintellectual openness.
Today we talk about curiosity.
Today we talk about coalitionsand stepping outside of the silo
(00:55):
to work together, which Ibelieve is one of the biggest
questions facing humanity today.
So yeah, we're probably going tosolve that in this episode.
Cristine (01:04):
I'm the founder and director of the Center for
Applied Cognitive Science, wherewe're studying how do you
harness insights about how themind works to inform the design
of more effective, culturallysensitive, social and behavioral
change interventions.
I'm also writing a book onritual and how understanding the
(01:25):
pervasive and essential role ofritual provides unique insight
into how to solve humanproblems, improve our
interpersonal interactions andour overall capacity to work
together to solve complexproblems.
Cat (01:42):
I wanted to maybe start with a small story about this
because I was thinking about thefirst time I knew who you were
as a person and I was a graduatestudent on UC San Diego campus
and I want to say you wereperhaps very early at your own
job.
and I, I have to disclose that Idon't actually remember like the
(02:04):
scientific content that you cameto share.
Right?
I'm sure you had shared someamazing experiment.
What I remember was walking intothis room and then walking out
of it thinking, Oh my gosh,psychology could be so much
bigger than I knew.
Like, I really didn't know howmuch we could go to other
countries, talk to other peopleexpand the boundaries of our
(02:27):
science.
And I mean, I was very early inmy scientific career.
So I was kind of just evenfiguring out.
I don't think I even knew maybewhat a scientific journal fully
was at all.
So I just thought I'd share thatthat that was my main memory of
you and I followed your workever since and it's continued to
expand my mind.
So I'm really glad you're here.
Cristine (02:47):
I'm delighted to be here and I'm glad there was some
impression left.
I appreciate that.
I, I
Cat (02:53):
know, memory is complicated.
Ashley (02:55):
Mm hmm.
Cristine (02:55):
It's true.
It's absolutely true.
And I think it's worth thinkingabout the kinds of, ultimately,
the impressions we want to make.
Because often we get so caughtup in the minutiae of what we do
and what we study, that weforget that human memory can't
retain everything.
No one's going to take awayevery detail of what you share.
So what's most critical and whatdo you most want to get across?
(03:18):
It's one of the reasons why Ilove podcasts because
Cat (03:20):
Mm.
Cristine (03:21):
much more savvy about what people really resonate with
and what they're excited to hearabout.
Cat (03:27):
Awesome.
I know that one of the thingswe're really excited to talk
about is just this question ofhow do we work together?
Like, what is a strategic way totry to work together?
And I feel like you, Ashley, I,we're all coming at this with
this being an imperative in ourslightly different but very
connected worlds, you know, inscience, education and
(03:50):
technology right now, um, in thecultures we live in more
broadly.
How do we work together?
So I don't, that's a really bigquestion to start you off with.
Um, but I'd love to hear alittle bit maybe about what
informs your perspective on thisquestion, the work that you do,
you know, your main areas offocus.
Cristine (04:09):
So, my interest in working together, I think that's
a lovely way to put it, is bothscholarly and practical.
So the types of scientificinterests that I have include
things like how we becomemembers of the complex cultural
environments that we're borninto.
(04:30):
I think my core scientificinterest is really the, how the
plasticity and flexibility ofour minds allow us to learn any,
any language, any body ofknowledge, any skill within the
human repertoire.
And that requires, you know,from a cognitive perspective,
plasticity, flexibility that noother species have.
(04:51):
So, I've always been interestedin understanding the diversity
of cultural contexts that humansinhabit.
And that requires studying morethan Euro American middle class
populations, as it turns out.
Um, which have, in the field ofpsychology, often been assumed
to be an acceptable prototypefor the universal mind.
(05:13):
Um, which is couldn't possiblybe further from the truth.
I mean, the populations thatWestern industrialized, highly
educated populations live in arehistorically incredibly
unrepresentative and, um, youknow, even globally
unrepresentative in many ways.
(05:34):
So, um, it's always beencritical to look outside of the,
you know, the population that Icurrently inhabit and try to
understand, not just describingcultural environments, but, um,
explaining them.
And that takes, that requires acomplex systems approach that
requires more than just onescientific discipline that
(05:57):
frankly requires more thanscience that requires working
across different sectors, um,people who do practice people
who apply the, you know,scientific Dare I say
policymakers, corporatepartners, nonprofits.
So the future requires tacklingbig challenges.
(06:19):
And that is, that's bigger thana discipline, subdiscipline
discipline, that's bigger thanscience.
And it requires, again, from apractical perspective, large
scale collaboration, um, of sortof unprecedented degrees.
Cat (06:33):
Mmm.
Preach.
I'm resonating with this so muchas someone who is at a
corporation.
Who does make recommendationsfrom my research about policy,
you know, the policy thatchanges the lives sometimes of
thousands or even hundreds ofthousands of groups of real
(06:55):
working humans in software andthen because software goes
everywhere in the world you knowin systematically unevenly
distributed ways, but it doesaffect so many things you know
the ripple effects of what wethink people need and who we
think people are are so massive.
(07:15):
I love the way that you put it.
This that what do we think isthe prototypical mind and how
much that has just not been aquestion that's been asked
enough.
I certainly feel like insoftware teams we're coming up
on that question constantly isthe prototypical problem solving
that the future needs the kindof thing that was 10 guys in a
(07:37):
basement 40 years ago or 30years ago or something.
I don't think so.
So I think a really interestingquestion for me is Oh, how do we
get those steps of breaking downthe silo going?
How do we as experts maybe stepout of our lanes of expertise
(07:58):
and even just begin to formthose partnerships?
Do you have any maybe stories orexamples on this?
Cristine (08:04):
Sure, I'd be happy to share my attempts at this.
I think before I go into thedetails.
Infrastructure that directlysupports cross sector
partnerships is essential.
So the National ScienceFoundation has funded what I
think of as immensely cuttingedge network partnerships.
(08:24):
Of network development grants.
So a lot of what NSF hashistorically funded is research,
critical, important, but thethese core complex challenges
require the time and space andculture building that's required
(08:45):
to understand different sectorswell enough to build the right
sorts of teams to tackle these,uh, you know, these complex
problems.
So assuming that thesepartnerships will just, or
networks of networks, just, youknow, organically happen, I
think is misguided.
There needs to be investment inbuilding these partnerships
because historically all sectorshave been very siloed.
(09:09):
You know, certainly this is trueof science and a lot of
academia, but this is true of alot of other sectors as well.
So we need infrastructure tobuild the space and time to
learn enough about other sectorsin order to work together
effectively.
Um, I can give you one exampleof a very early attempt that I'm
(09:31):
still working on, uh, which is,is I think interesting because
it's I'm working with us withinformal learning institutions
who specialize in scientificlearning.
Science education, you know,children's science museums.
One of my areas of expertise isthe development of scientific
(09:51):
reasoning.
I have expertise in childdevelopment and cognitive
development.
I did my dissertation on thedevelopment of causal reasoning.
These seem pretty close, quiteclose.
And I had, uh, I think verynaively assumed that building a
closer relationship with a moresynergistic relationship with a,
(10:12):
an informal learning institutionthat really specializes in early
childhood education would be aseamless process.
But what I learned prettyrapidly is that this nonprofit
organization has a completelydifferent institutional culture,
different goals.
(10:32):
different incentives than theacademic culture that I'm most
familiar with.
And it took years of getting toknow these different cultures,
you know, these differentcultural norms, expectations, et
cetera, before we really startedto make progress.
This wasn't a fast process.
(10:54):
I think loose and largely selfserving collaborations.
You can get those off the groundpretty easily, right?
All I'm interested in doing iscollecting data at their
establishment.
Cat (11:07):
As much data as you can get
Cristine (11:08):
to do.
It's not a partnership.
I am gathering information thereand analyzing it in ways that
are very scientificallyspecific, discipline specific,
publishing it in journals, peerreviewed journals, which is our
incentive system, and going onmy merry way, right?
That's making honestly no impacton their organization at all.
(11:32):
They're not reading thosejournals we know up until really
recently they didn't even haveaccess to those journals.
How in the world could they readthem even if they wanted to?
But say they did have accessusing you know, I'm using multi
level modeling of really complexdata sets, there's not training
in that sector, um, typically,to understand that.
(11:54):
So, it's taken more than adecade in order to really get to
a point where, frankly, I ambecoming useful to them, and not
just they are useful to me.
Scientists have to be part ofthat translation process.
Ashley (12:10):
I love that so much.
I love too that you're just likenaming the hard work and the
time that goes into this becauseI think that that is such a
barrier for people like whomight for you, you know, your
example like show up at a museumand be like, okay, I know
something about scientificreasoning.
Let me tell you how to structureyour whole exhibit about how the
brain works for kids like as ifthey're just going to be like,
(12:32):
yes, come on in expert like,please do the thing.
We are aligned.
Um, and that's not how it works.
And I think you're totallyright.
And as someone too, who likeI've, I interned at my local
science museum in Philadelphiawhen I was like transitioning
into grad school and have donelike a lot of informal science
communication myself, likeseeing the ways in which there
(12:52):
are just these like massivebarriers between what's going on
in academia and what actuallygets translated and you know,
put into practice, like they'rethere.
And I think you're so right thatit takes time and it takes
effort and it takesacknowledgement of the different
kinds of cultures that exist inthese spaces.
Cristine (13:10):
It also requires really creating new incentives.
So we, you know, buildingcommunity partnerships is not
something that's historicallybeen incentivized or even valued
in academia.
So it is labor that I do becauseI'm interested in being useful
(13:32):
to these organizations and youknow, assisting in translating
evidence into practice.
But there's a lot of this effortand work that has to be done
that isn't directly incentivizedat all.
And that's what, that's one ofthe reasons I mentioned we need
(13:52):
networks and infrastructure thatsupport these relationships.
Otherwise, these partnershipsare going to be limited to
people who are unusually drivento collaborate in these ways and
willing to tolerate a lot ofwork, um, that isn't directly
(14:12):
incentivized.
Ashley (14:14):
Totally.
Cat (14:15):
think about this a lot.
I think about this because I runa team, a lab, you know, of
scientists, and we have explicitgoals of using community based
methods, and we set out thesevalues like, okay, we're going
to work with softwarepractitioners as if they are
also experts, but they're notour kind of experts, and there
needs to be some coming togetherhere, and Whew, you can say all
(14:40):
that, you can write it all down,you can, you know, you can have
the abstract level of the value,but working it out has been a
process of years, continues tobe, I feel like we've only
scratched the surface, but I'mjust deeply, profoundly
interested in this question ofinfrastructure.
There's a book that I lovecalled How Infrastructure Works,
which is about physicalmaterials infrastructure but I
(15:02):
read it sometimes and I thinkabout the structure of
incentivizing my scientists tohold a community event where we
hold space for practitioners andwe ask them what they want us to
research.
And then how do I make that worklegible to our leadership, which
we have done with ourdepartment.
And how do I make it somethingthat will show up on a
(15:24):
performance review for ascientist, which we have done
inside of our organization.
And I was pretty clear from thebeginning.
That if something cannot havewords, cannot have a category,
cannot, you know, dare I say,have metrics, which is a really
bad word in a lot of these humanfacing, roles, but I think it's
(15:45):
so protective to measure yourwork and show it over time
earlier than you think you needto.
Can we show the effort?
I've thought a lot about thatinside of a corporate structure.
And I think it's just been theabsolute heart of why we keep
doing the work we're doing andthen why we have trust with our
audience at all.
So that was pretty like, youknow, open disclosure about how
(16:09):
I thought about this.
But I think it's really usefulin this moment.
Yeah, and it can be done.
That's something that I just tryto tell other leaders this can
actually happen.
It might even be closer than youthink some of these levers that
you have to pull and it'ssometimes been painful and
sometimes been like a littleembarrassing because I've been
in a room with executives andsaid, I don't know how to
(16:31):
incentivize this for my people,but I know we need to do it.
Can you please help meunderstand the language here?
Understand how you would measurethis.
And I've talked to salesleaders, marketing leaders, all
kinds of people who softwareengineers typically don't, you
know, really have in the roomwith them.
And you might be surprised thatthat has been a source of
wisdom, you know, for a researchteam, but it really has.
Cristine (16:55):
I love that you use the word protective because
that's actually similar to howI've justified the need to do
research on children's learningin these spaces and to show
evidence of learning and todocument that in scientifically
rigorous ways, it's protectivefor these institutions, you
(17:18):
know, which are immenselyvaluable for our communities
that makes getting fundinginvestment for, you know,
resources much more likely.
So it is, there's a practicalvalue to, um, spending the time
and effort to really show thatwhat you're doing is of value.
(17:38):
And I think there's lots ofdifferent versions of showing
your value.
I was thinking about, you know,the other day that the, the
divide between, you know, basicand applied science in academia
has, or scholarship even, hasbeen really, really destructive
and that that has, I think,actively contributed to the
(17:59):
siloing of scholarship.
Including science from practicein that the most intellectually
rigorous and the most talenteddo the work that is most removed
from anything of practicalvalue.
Um, don't misread that I thinkthere's no value of basic
science.
There certainly is.
Um, but from my perspective, thegold standard is being able to
(18:22):
show what you're studying isactually effective in a real
world environment.
What higher standard of valuecould there possibly be?
So no discipline should beimmune to showing value, not
just to people in theirdiscipline through the
incentives that are valued inthat discipline, but to other
(18:45):
disciplines and to othersectors.
Why is any discipline or sectorabove showing broader value?
I think, um, I think we allshould do that.
And that is a critical piece ofhow to collaborate across
sectors to translate what yourvalue is to others, um, an
(19:07):
essential skill.
And we're not going to be taughtthat as part of the core
training in our sector.
Um, you have to learn that inthe trenches with a lot of
humility in collaboration withpeople who work in spaces that
are very different from yours.
Cat (19:25):
Yeah, I feel like this is, this is just making me think
about how much when you meet aperson and they might just have
such a different background or,or be working in such a
different context.
But sometimes for me, as someonewho considers herself
interdisciplinary, you know,and, and apply, this is like
very healing to the, the innergrad student.
(19:46):
Um, you meet this personsometimes and you're like, oh,
we're in it together, aren't we?
You know, we have both pitchedour papers to multiple journals
because there isn't really onethat names what we're doing as a
category.
We have both, um, put our papersup as pre prints and then, and
then, you know, read them out ata bar as Ashley's done, you
(20:09):
know, in some of her informallearning spaces and said, I, I
will take on this challenge ofbeing a translator, even though
it wasn't in my training and I'mnot going to let that stop me.
And I do think there's like abeautiful camaraderie, a
beautiful, like we're here onthe edge, solidarity.
Uh, but gosh, like it's reallyhard also.
(20:31):
It's really draining.
And if we are in a world thatdoesn't always have these
pathways built up, I've thoughta lot about how do I stay here
long enough to be the change andto make other people do this,
help other people do this aswell, I should say.
So do you have any thoughts onthat, on the resiliency of
living in the margins betweenall these worlds?
Cristine (20:52):
I think you've already touched on it, you've gotta find
kindred spirits.
And assuming that those kindredspirits are in your sub
discipline.
Buried in the same sector thatyou operate in, it seems very
limiting.
I was on a, a, uh, kind ofwebinar as part of the Global
Science of Learning andEducation Network that, um,
(21:12):
Professor Andrea Chiba from, um,She's one of the founders and
directors of this, and she's abehavioral neuroscientist.
She works on the, you know, the,the neural structures using
rodent models, um, studiesregulation and balance and, um,
unbelievably brilliant woman.
(21:34):
We have pretty different areasof expertise, uh, but when I met
her, I knew we had very much thesame kind of intellectual style
and willingness to work in aninterdisciplinary context.
She'd already had much moreexperience than me at that
point, working withpolicymakers.
Most people studying theneuroscience of rodent brains
(21:56):
are not working withpolicymakers and practitioners
and really getting in there totry to translate and do that.
So she invited me to be in awebinar with, um, a number of
different people, but one of theguests was a CEO of an EdTech
startup.
He's been, he's led manysuccessful EdTech companies.
(22:18):
And I could tell immediatelythere's some intellectual
synergy, right?
He's a PhD in biomedicalengineering, really different
expertise.
But the intellectual chemistrywas there.
We've subsequently collaboratedon a number of different
projects, and I think we'vewritten probably four or five
(22:39):
grant applications together.
This was, this was like sixmonths ago.
I don't know.
Maybe it was eight months ago.
We have very, very differentbackgrounds.
You've got to find your people.
Ashley (22:48):
I wonder if like one thing you're naming here and you
actually use this word earlieris like humility and you know,
there's like, um, this, thisidea of like walking into a new
space where you're going to knowless, like whether that space is
policy or how sciencecommunication works or whatever
it is like you, you know, as ascientist who does, you know,
maybe rodent research, like inyour example, like you don't
(23:10):
have training in that.
And so you have to walk intothese spaces with humility and
willingness to learn and kind ofbe, for a few moments, the
person who is not the smartestperson in the room.
Cristine (23:20):
Or for a few years.
Ashley (23:21):
Yeah.
Or for a few years, however longit takes.
Right.
And there's actually
Cat (23:25):
it's going I don't think
Cristine (23:26):
it's
Ashley (23:26):
gonna stop
Cat (23:27):
for me,
Ashley (23:27):
yeah, and I really think that's like what it takes to
live in these interdisciplinaryspaces.
And there's actually a reallynice paper recently on this
that, you know, when the publicsees this kind of intellectual
humility in scientists, theirtrust increases, right?
So it's like, and, and like,they showed this empirically,
and I think it's reallyinteresting because it's like,
(23:48):
we almost get trained asscientists to be really
defensive.
Like we walk in, like weliterally have a thesis defense
in which you defend with all ofyour might, everything you have
done, you know, so far in yourPhD.
And like, I think the reality isthe real work in the real world
requires humility, like asyou've named it.
Cristine (24:08):
Completely agree.
I think there's a lot ofsocialization that academics get
that we are somehow, um, Just,just that bit smarter than
everyone else and that bit moreinformed and that what we're
doing is so important that weare above justifying its value
(24:29):
to anyone outside of the coregroup of experts that we deem
worthy.
Uh, I think there's a lot ofthat kind of entitlement.
That is a product, not ofindividuals who are scientists,
but of a culture that as it'scalled ivory tower for a reason,
and I think that has beendestructive.
(24:50):
I think that if we want theworld to value science, which
has colossal, monumental,positive impacts on the world is
essential for so many, um,aspects of human functioning,
um, is critical for tackling thechallenges that we face as a
globe, if we want the world toappreciate the value, we better
(25:14):
make clear why it's practicallyuseful and not just
hypothetically prestigious orimportant in some way.
And the more you spend time withreally talented people in other
sectors, the less self importantyou feel.
Cat (25:30):
And that's a relief, isn't it?
Cristine (25:32):
Yeah.
Just as good at what they do asyou are what you, you do.
I want to know those people.
Those are my people.
Cat (25:39):
Same.
I found it a profound relief.
What a relief to not actuallyhave the world on your shoulders
because we really are all in ittogether and you don't have
Cristine (25:49):
So true.
Cat (25:50):
Pinning your identity to being the smartest person, which
at some point is going to failyou.
Um, I've shared in public beforethat I've had the experience of
being really profoundly ill.
And listen, if, if you don'tthink you're a biological
creature, which like, I think inacademia you're, we're so
dehumanized.
We're kind of like, we'reintellectual robots.
(26:11):
Um, being very ill will bringyou down to earth.
Like, I have, you know, you canhave this very smart mind, but
if your lungs are notfunctioning as my lungs were
not, that's a precondition.
And so I began to care a lotabout living in a world where
people had bodies, you know, notjust minds.
And then I was like, I'm apsychologist, you know, like we
(26:35):
live with this discipline that'sabout the human experience.
And yet we still so oftengravitate towards purely mind
based explanations.
Not the mind, as you've, you'vesaid, you know, the mind is
actually much bigger than ourprototypical version of it.
So
Cristine (26:51):
Absolutely.
Cat (26:52):
sorry, I'm rambling so many, I'm like resonating so
hard that this matters to me somuch that I'm just going in a
million directions, but
Cristine (26:59):
That's what I mean, you've got to find your people
Cat (27:01):
heh heh heh.
Cristine (27:03):
and be open in where you're going to find them.
Cat (27:06):
Yeah.
Cristine (27:07):
I mean, what are the chances that you're going to
share big picture, macro levelobjectives only with people who
have similar PhD level training.
Sure, you're going to findpeople in your discipline that
you resonate with, but why limityourself?
And I mean, we know from lotsof, of research on things like
(27:30):
cognitive and culturalevolution, that the more
diverse, the groups are in termsof expertise and experience, the
more we're going to come up withinnovative solutions.
There's scientific evidence forthis, right?
The human coalitional mindgravitates towards homogenous
(27:50):
in-groups It feels cozy, youdon't get challenged, people,
you have the same incentivestructure.
But the truth is that the bestideas and solutions come from
very diverse, on all dimensionsby the way, uh, groups of people
who have new ideas, who arethinking about the world in
(28:12):
different ways.
It's funny that I'm a professorin a psychology department in
many ways because I think ofmyself as a cognitive scientist,
um, focally, because cognitivescience is overtly
interdisciplinary, um, and mycore interest is in cognition
in, in many respects, but Ioften think my greatest
intellectual advantage assomeone working as a
(28:34):
psychologist in a psychologydepartment is not having an
undergraduate degree inpsychology because I didn't get
any instruction that certainquestions and ways of thinking
were off limits for me as amember of particular discipline.
No one, I didn't get that memo.
I didn't go to those classes.
Like this is how psychologiststhink about the world.
(28:56):
So instead I took I mean, I, Iwould have majored in
everything.
I only picked the major, the twomajors I had because my guidance
counselor was like, Legare, youknow, you need to graduate and
have majors to do that.
So you got to, so I picked thetwo most interdisciplinary
majors I could find.
That's been enormouslyinformative, um, for how I think
(29:18):
about the world.
Cat (29:21):
Oh, I love that too.
Yeah.
I gotta stop saying I love that,but I do.
There's the whole, just beaminglove at this whole episode.
I, something that I've livedthis running a research lab and
putting together aninterdisciplinary team.
And hiring people because there,there were no people who lived
at exactly the intersectionsthat I wanted, you know, to
study software engineers, but toalso have a background in social
(29:44):
science and kind of theempirical literature that I
wanted us to be able to buildfrom.
Um, and so I said, Oh, got it.
Okay.
I have to create a lab wherethose people have the room in
the space to develop thatexpertise.
And so, you know, we have thisDeveloper Success Lab that I
run, and we have PhDs inPsychology, but then we've also
(30:06):
had expert co authors, what Icall them, and I constantly use
the word expert because I thinkpeople are so often diminished
when they're the only personwithout a PhD on a research
team.
And, and, um, and bringing thosepeople in has been amazing, you
know, and I've seen and felt andlived myself the moments of
(30:26):
productive friction that happenand it's not always comfortable,
easy, you know, the comfortable,easy thing is to never use your
mind and to go on autopilot andto like learn one way of doing a
research project and then justnever question it again.
And we, I think, understood thatour audience just needed
(30:48):
something more.
And we were just profoundlymotivated to ask ourselves,
like, what is the negative spacethat no one's talking about with
software engineering teams,despite all the resources they
have, you know, and how do Ieven begin to know what that is?
I need to build a coalitionhere, like we need to have
someone who has been a softwareengineer and someone who's been
(31:11):
a scientist, and those twopeople need to be together long
enough to write something thatmatters and to do a project that
matters.
So
Ashley (31:20):
Yeah, you create space for that learning.
I think that that's like, and,space for that growth too, which
I think is like, again, thisstuff takes time.
It takes effort.
You have to intentionally createthe infrastructure for it.
And I think like Cat, you'vedone that on your team.
Like you have learning moments,like all together, like you look
at papers all together, youknow, and you're like, okay,
what is this doing?
(31:40):
And let's all look at it fromour different respective angles,
but grow in one direction.
Cat (31:44):
Kristen Foster-Marks, who's the head of developer experience
at Depot now, and who was withmy lab as an expert software
practitioner for a while, hadthis moment where she pushed all
of us in the best way and said,you all do these very rich,
wonderful lit reviews.
I've sat here and seen it.
You know, how much you work on aproject is engaging with the
(32:07):
literature, situating yourthought, you know, with all of
these studies.
And I just remember so manymoments she looked at me and
said, Cat, no one is going to goread these studies you're
citing.
No one is.
We have to translate this forthe audience, and the audience
really wants to know, like,what's the science I can trust?
What do you all think about it?
(32:28):
And, um, can we put thistogether, you know, in a format
that people would, understand?
And so we created this overlayjournal where we, um, take
original scientific articles andwe allow people access into
them.
But we also write little blogposts essentially about them
kind of breaking down.
Why do we think you know thatthis is useful?
(32:50):
How does this steer ourthinking?
And it's just one little drop inthe bucket of science
translation.
But the reason I share this isbecause I thought that no one
would be interested in this.
I was just like, I, I can't,this seems so, I don't know,
nerdy, like, it seems so, like,I'm stuck doing the work
already, I was so deep doing thework of, like, writing the
(33:13):
scientific artifact.
And it took this wisdom fromsomeone who was living on the
other side to say, trust me.
I want you to do this.
Please do this.
And I was like, all right, youknow, I'll answer that call any
day.
Um, and it has been verypopular.
Cristine (33:28):
There's a, I think a huge demand for designing, uh,
new cultures, because that'swhat you're doing, that you're
creating a different culturewithin an institution, and that
process deserves documentation,because it's not an easy thing
(33:48):
to do.
And I think there's an enormousdemand in many different
institutional spaces.
To learn how others have doneit, even if it's quite a
different space.
Still, just some kind of aroadmap for how to do this
effectively.
What works, even morecritically, what didn't work.
(34:10):
Holding really a kind of lens upto what this process looks like,
I think is essential.
It prevents people fromreinventing the wheel.
It gives people hope that it'spossible, um, all institutions
have, and you've, you've notused this language, but you've
described it have rituals thatpeople readily adopt where
(34:35):
ritual animals, we have a ritualgrammar.
It allows for groups to functioneffectively.
It also stymies collaborationbetween groups.
It stymies change.
It has critical functionalities,the transmission of values and
norms within groups and thingsof that sort.
All institutions have these, andhaving transparency about that
(34:58):
allows you to create differentinstitutions with different
practices and rituals and thingsof that sort.
You have to kind of reallyexpose what's there and how it
works in order to be able tochange it.
It's a big part of what my coreinterest is.
And science is, we're full ofrituals.
We are absolutely full of them.
We get our ideas, and then wetranslate them into a study, and
(35:21):
then we write that study up, andit's got like a intro, and a
methods, and, and then wepublish it, and then only the
people right within ourdiscipline ever read it, and
then we say congratulations tous, and we put it as a citation
on our CV, and we feel wonderfulabout ourselves.
And get lots of pellets forthat, for people within our
discipline.
one.
Um, that's a ritual and it's,that's its own kind of
(35:44):
incentive.
Um, in no way do I mean totrivialize the scientific
process and there areadvantages, right?
There are many, there are manydisciplines, not disciplines,
but sectors, for example, whocollect massive amounts of data
and don't publish it.
They use it for, you know,certain important reasons in
particular ways, but it meansthat those data aren't
(36:08):
accessible, right?
Our, one of our great strengthsis making information
accessible.
The whole paywall and all that,that really, that was like,
really a step in the wrongdirection for many, many years,
but we're correcting that.
Cat (36:21):
Counter to our values, really.
Cristine (36:24):
But in principle, having peer reviewed data
accessible is our superpower.
So it's not all rituals are bad,but there are always strengths
and weaknesses for all of theincentive structures that any
institution has.
Ashley (36:42):
God, I love anthropology for just putting names on things
like,
Cristine (36:46):
Isn't it great?
Me too.
Ashley (36:48):
like, yeah, rituals.
Absolutely.
We have them
Cristine (36:51):
I wasn't trained that you're supposed to just stay in
your own.
I sample and borrow shamelesslyfrom anywhere that I think
provides useful insight.
Rituals don't belong to,shouldn't belong to
anthropology.
Culture shouldn't belong toanthropology.
That is culture belongs to allhumans in all ways at all times.
(37:14):
And I think the siloing.
of something like ritual is thatpeople thought this was just
like a religious ceremony, whichby the way, of course is a
ritual, but ritual is thebehavioral grammar of all human
groups.
All organizations have ritualsand they have functions and they
have strengths, but they alsohave limitations and
(37:36):
understanding how things work isthe only way to try to change
them or even figure out if theyshould be changed in the first
place.
You know, going back to, youknow, your point about humility,
you need to expose yourself tocritically honest feedback and
(37:57):
figure out how to respond, andin many cases, figure out how to
communicate your value much moreclearly.
That's the only way you learnhow to do it.
You've gotta, there's avulnerability there.
And it also allows you to buildconfidence, right?
Confidence is is earned, It'snot granted, you've, you've
(38:19):
gotta put yourself in situationswhere like, okay, I figured out
how to respond to that.
Um, I've thought through adifferent way to, to present
information.
Uh, here's something we canimprove.
All, all of that requires.
I don't know any other way toachieve it.
Cat (38:35):
Yeah.
Ashley (38:36):
agree.
I mean, this is one of thereasons I like teaching
actually, is because when youhave, when you teach in a way
that it's a two way street, notjust a like lecture, you know,
sage on the stage situation.
And you actually hear back fromstudents.
They'll give you their honestopinions about what's working
and what's not and what'sconfusing.
And, you know, why in the heckdoes this matter?
(38:57):
Right.
And they'll ask you those thingsand they'll push you on it.
And it forces you to reconsiderwhy are we teaching this and
how?
And I, yeah, I love that aspectof teaching.
Cat (39:10):
I think sometimes an interesting way in for people is
to flip like the direction ofpower they think about, or the
direction of insight they thinkabout.
This is just, I don't know ifyou'll resonate, but this is a
trick of mine is when I did myfirst big study about
developers, and it was aqualitative study.
I interviewed them, which isvery challenging and new for me
because I really came up throughthe quantitative rituals, and I
(39:32):
just wanted to talk to people.
I just wanted to hear more, youknow, and, um And there was this
big conversation in softwarethat was like, Um, Oh, we love
learning.
We're upskill all day long.
We're through our whole careers.
We love learning.
And I put out this study thatwas like Do you love learning?
Because it doesn't seem likeyou're acting like people who
(39:54):
love learning.
Um, you know.
And the flip that I think wasvery successful in this
particular piece of sciencecommunication was I said, yes, a
lot of people talk about juniordevelopers and what they won't
get if we don't have learningcultures on our teams.
They won't get mentorship.
They won't get support.
But I would like you to imagineto yourself, what do the very
(40:16):
senior engineers no longer getif they are in a culture when
they can't talk to newcomers andthey're in a culture where they
can't mentor people?
What are they missing?
And what are they losing?
And I framed a bunch of talkswith that beginning and I saw
these conversations.
Very established, very importantstaff engineers kind of just
melt, like a little bit, justlike, Oh, my gosh, somebody sees
(40:42):
that I really miss having peopleto talk to, and that this is
actually something that we needin our fields.
And that was such a beautifulcommunication device that worked
a lot for me.
Cristine (40:55):
It also requires the wisdom that you don't always
know where you're going to comeup with new and fresh ideas.
As spaces that we work in havebecome more and more
competitive, and there's such a,you know, major expectation for
(41:17):
productivity that that oftenpushes us towards a more
incremental, you know, pebblecounting approach of this is
something I know how to do.
This is something that islabeled as a product in my
institutional culture.
Um, I'm aiming this to, towardspeople who are very, very
(41:40):
familiar with this form ofoutput.
And the reality is that youcan't be, you shouldn't be, I
think, overly strategic in wheregood ideas are going to come
from.
Um, one of the, I think mostinteresting ideas that I've had
in recent years came during alecture I went to on ancient
(42:01):
Egyptian rituals.
and noticing parallels betweenrituals in other places,
including other populations Iwas studying.
And I went to that talk, notbecause I thought I would, of
course I had no idea I was goingto, that insight would come out
of that talk.
I just thought, who doesn't wantto go to a talk on ancient
(42:22):
Egyptian religion?
How fascinating is that bysomeone who is an absolute world
expert?
And I really try to communicatethe need to be intellectually
open.
and follow your curiosity.
Maybe some would argue spendingan hour of my time on ancient
Egyptian religion, unnecessary,inefficient.
(42:45):
I think that's short sighted.
Spend a little time exploringnew spaces, following your
curiosity, get curious aboutsome things.
You get to a point in yourcareer where you have very
little curiosity left.
Your capacity for discovery,innovation, contribution
similarly limited, no matterwhat field you're in.
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