Social Science Bites

Daniel Yon on the Brain as Scientist

The human brain works very hard behind the scenes even in the most mundane aspects of daily life, like enjoying a nice day or determining the meaning of chit-chat with a friend. Ferreting out the basis and structures of

Tom Gilovich On the Spotlight Effect

Tom Gilovich finds it fun to study the whys and wherefores of how human beings make sense of the information delivered by the world around them. And why not, he explains to interviewer David Edmonds in this Social Scienc

Ellora Derenoncourt on the US Racial Wealth Gap

This Social Science Bites podcast offers a dollop of good news and heaping helping of bad. The good news is that since the end of American Civil War the economic condition of Back Americans has improved, using as a compa

Steven Pinker on Common Knowledge

There is a value to shared knowledge that tends to go unrecognized because it's so ubiquitous. Nonetheless, experimental psychologist Steven Pinker explains in this Social Science Bites podcast, common knowledge underlie

Mukulika Banerjee on Indian Democracy

A key insight social anthropologist Mukulika Banerjee had while observing electoral behavior in a Bengali village was that -- at least in the India of that moment -- elections were sacred. This was not a religious epipha

Paul Bloom on Empathy

In 2016 psychologist Paul Bloom wrote a book titled Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion (a naming decision he still wrestles with). In the book, as in his career and in this Social Science Bites podcast, Bl

Devyani Sharma on Accents

What does your accent – and yes, every speaker has one – say about you? Or perhaps the better question is, what do others hear in your accent? These are the sorts of questions that Devyani Sharma, a professor of language

Frank Keil on Causal Thinking

As a practical matter, how much effort do you put into pinning down the causes behind daily occurrences? To developmental psychologist Frank Keil, who studies causal thinking, that answer is likely along the lines of 'no

Setha Low on Public Spaces

Having been raised in Los Angeles, a place with vast swathes of single-family homes connected by freeways, arriving in Costa Rica was an eye opener for the young cultural anthropologist Setha Low. "I thought it was so co

Victor Buchli on Life in Low-Earth Orbit

As an anthropologist, Victor Buchli has one foot in the Neolithic past and another in the space-faring future. A professor of material culture at University College London, his research has taken him from excavations of

Ramanan Laxminarayan on Antibiotic Use

Let's say you were asked to name the greatest health risks facing the planet. Priceton University economist Ramanan Laxminarayan, founder and director of the One Health Trust, would urgently suggest you include anti-micr

Leor Zmigrod on the Ideological Brain

Flexibility is a cardinal virtue in physical fitness, and according to political psychologist and neuroscientist Leor Zmigrod, it can be a cardinal virtue in our mental health, too. How she came to that conclusion and ho

David Autor on the Labor Market

When economic news, especially that revolving around working, gets reported, it tends to get reported in aggregate – the total number of jobs affected or created, the average wage paid, the impact on a defined geographic

Bruce Hood on the Science of Happiness

Are university students unhappy? We won't generalize, but many are, and this was something Bruce Hood noted. Being an experimental psychologist who teaches at the University of Bristol, an opportunity presented itself. W

Jens Ludwig on American Gun Violence

Let's cut to the chase: "The overwhelming majority of murders in the United States involve guns," says economist Jens Ludwig. "And in fact, most of the difference in overall murder rates between the United States and oth

Crystal Abidin on Influencers

A new people has emerged in the digital age, that of 'internet famous' celebrities. And that new people has a class of social scientist focused on studying them, the digital anthropologist. Crystal Abidin, a professor at

Katy Milkman on How to Change

Everyone, we assume, wants to be their best person. Few of us, perhaps, none, hits all their marks in this pursuit even if the way toward the goal is generally apparent. If you want to know how to do a better job hitting

Janet Currie on Improving Our Children's Futures

There is a natural desire on the part of governments to ensure that their future citizens -- i.e. their nation's children -- are happy, healthy and productive, and that therefore governments have policies that work to ac

Joshua Greene on Effective Charities

Julia Ebner on Violent Extremism

As an investigative journalist, Julia Ebner had the freedom to do something she freely admits that as an academic (the hat she currently wears as postdoctoral researcher at the Calleva Centre for Evolution and Human Scie