Stanford Psychology Podcast

Eric chats with Marilynn Brewer, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Ohio State University. Marilynn is one of the world’s leading scholars on social identity, intergroup relations, and social cognition. She has been president of various psychological associations and former Director of the Institute for Social Science Research at UCLA.

In this episode, Eric and Marilynn talk about why people care so much about belonging to a group....

Bella chats with professor Cameron Ellis.

Cameron is an assistant professor in the psychology department at Stanford University, where he leads the Scaffolding of Cognition Team. Cameron’s research focuses on understanding the infrastructure of human cognition and how it’s constructed during infancy. In other words, what is it like to be an infant? To study this, Cameron and his team use neuroscience and cognitive science methods su...

Anjie chats with Dr. Wayne Wu. Wanye is an associate professor at the Department of Philosophy and the Neuroscience Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. He works on attention, perception, action, and schizophrenia at the interface between philosophy and cognitive science. In this episode, Wayne shares his recent work “On Attention and Norms: An Opinionated Review of Recent Work”. He also talks about attention in real life – for...

Eric chats with Martha Nussbaum, Distinguished Service Professor in law and philosophy at the University of Chicago. She is one of the most influential philosophers alive and has written about various topics such as Roman philosophy, existentialism, feminism, and emotions. She has won more awards than could be listed here, including the prestigious Berggruen Prize and Holberg Prize. Most recently, she is the author of “Justice for ...

Eric chats with Dacher Keltner, Professor of Psychology at UC Berkeley and Co-Director of the Greater Good Science Center. Dacher has worked on many topics such as compassion, power, and social class. He has introduced hundreds of thousands of people to “The Science of Happiness” through his online course and podcast with the same name. He has written multiple best-selling books, most recently on awe.

In this chat, Eric asks Dacher ...

Anjie chats with Dr. Kimberly Chiew with us. Kimberly is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Denver. She directs the Motivation, Affect, & Cognition Lab. She is broadly interested in examining affective and motivational influences on goal-directed cognition. In this episode, Kimberly chats bout her paper “Remembering Election Night 2016: Subjective but Not Objective Metrics of Autobiograp...

Eric chats with Sa-Kiera Hudson, Assistant Professor at University of California Berkeley Haas School of Business. Kiera studies hierarchies: How hierarchies are formed, how they are maintained, and how they intersect.

In this episode, Eric and Kiera chat about her work on social dominance orientation. Why do some people feel justified to discriminate against minorities? Kiera explains that a desire for social dominance leads to les...

Anjie chats with Dr. Hu Chuan-Peng, a faculty member of the School of Psychology, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China. His research interests include self-cognition (i.e., how humans process self-related information) and mental health, his team uses three broad approaches: meta-science, modeling, and measurement. In addition, he is also one of the founding members of the Chinese Open Science Network, a grassroots network for ...

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Eric chats with Delroy Paulhus, Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia. He famously co-created the term dark triad, describing everyday villains: psychopaths, narcissists, and Machiavellians. He and his collaborators have recently added a fourth factor: sadism.

In this episode, Eric ...

Bella chats with professor Laura Schulz.

Laura is a Professor of Cognitive Sciences in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department at MIT. She is also the director and principal investigator of the Early Childhood Cognition Lab. Laura’s research focuses on understanding the infrastructure of human cognition and how it’s constructed during early childhood. For example, Laura and her lab study children’s causal reasoning, social cogni...

Bella chats with professor Melissa Kibbe.

Melissa is an associate professor of Psychological & Brain Sciences at Boston University, where she directs the Developing Minds lab. Her lab studies infants and children’s development of object, numerical, and future-oriented cognition. She is also a passionate advocate for promoting equity and justice in science and academia.

In this episode, we discussed Melissa’s research on how infan...

Eric chats with Robert Cialdini, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University and the world’s leading scholar on the psychology of influence. His books on influencing and persuading others have been translated into 44 languages and have sold over 7 million copies.

In this episode, Eric and Bob talk about Bob’s adventurous and amusing journey into psychology and studying influence. If you want to influen...

Bella chats with professor Russ Poldrack.

Russ is the Albert Ray Lang professor of psychology at Stanford University, where he directs the Poldrack lab. Russ also serves as the director of the Stanford Center for Reproducible Neuroscience and the SDS center for Open and Reproducible science. Russ and his lab use cognitive, computational, and neuroimaging approaches to study how decision-making, executive control, and learning and me...

Anjie chats with Dr. Johannes Eichstaedt,  an Assistant Professor in Psychology, and the Shriram Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence at Stanford University. Johannes directs the Computational Psychology and Well-Being lab. His research focuses on using social media (Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, …) to measure the psychological states of large populations and individuals to determine the thoughts,...

Eric chats with Juliana Schroeder, Associate Professor in the Management of Organizations at Berkeley Haas. She studies how people think about the minds of other people, and how they are often wrong trying to understand what others are up to. Her work has been discussed in outlets ranging from Vice to The Atlantic and Forbes.

In this episode, Eric and Juliana chat review her exciting recent work on “undersociality.” Talking to other...

Anjie chats with Dr. Maria Arredondo, Assistant Professor at the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, and the Department of Psychology at University of Texas at Austin. Maria studies how infants, toddlers, and school-age children acquire their language(s). She is especially interested in why some children can become proficient bilinguals, while others struggle. 

In this episode, Anjie and Maria discuss how ...

Eric chats with Tessa West, Associate Professor of Psychology at New York University. Tessa is a leading expert in the science of interpersonal communication. Her work has been covered by various outlets such as the New York Times and Time Magazine. She is most recently the author of “Jerks at Work: Toxic coworkers and what to do about them.”

In this episode, Eric and Tessa chat about why some people are jerks at work. How do you de...

Bella chats with professor Julia Leonard. Julia is an assistant professor in the department of psychology at Yale University, where she directs the Leonard Learning Lab. Julia and her lab use cognitive, developmental, and computational approaches to study the factors that support both children's approach to learning and their capacity to learn. 

In this episode, we discussed Julia's recent research on young children's...

Eric chats with Robin Dunbar, Emeritus Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at Oxford. Robin has famously studied the evolution of the human brain, arguing that our brain developed to understand the complex social world we have created for ourselves. Most know him for “Dunbar’s number,” or the limit to the number of individuals we can maintain stable relationships with. Robin has received more awards than could be counted, includin...