Two Psychologists Four Beers

About the show

Two psychologists endeavor to drink four beers while discussing news and controversies in science, academia, and beyond.

Two Psychologists Four Beers on social media

Episodes

  • Episode 98: Inspired Science (with Spencer Greenberg)

    November 23rd, 2022  |  1 hr 10 mins
    habit formation, importance hacking, inspired science, replication, trace alcohol content

    Spencer Greenberg - founder of the behavioral science startup incubator Spark Wave and host of the Clearer Thinking podcast - joins Yoel and Alexa to provide an alternative perspective on open science and to reveal an exciting new project.

  • Episode 97: Getting Into Grad School

    November 9th, 2022  |  57 mins 49 secs
    cake beer, grad school admissions, gre, mastodon migration, top hats

    Who gets into grad school? Alexa and Yoel discuss the mechanics of the graduate admissions process, consider what they would change, and revisit the merits of the GRE.

  • Episode 96: So, What Do You Do?

    October 26th, 2022  |  1 hr 12 mins
    aerial silks, exclusive societies, hot toddies, occupational prestige, socioeconomic status

    In a recent paper, authors Hughes, Srivastava, Leszko, and Condon asked participants rank over 1,000 jobs on their level of "prestige." We discuss this work, its implications, and what it reveals about the human traits we value.

  • Episode 95: What are Teachers Good For? (with Paul Bloom)

    September 28th, 2022  |  1 hr 7 mins
    critical thinking, half-gorilla-half-dolphin, recycled jokes, student emails, teaching

    Paul Bloom joins Yoel and Alexa to talk about what they've learned about teaching. They swap stories, discuss goals, and speculate about whether they've gotten better or worse over time.

  • Episode 94: Individualism, Interdependence, and Student Loans

    September 14th, 2022  |  59 mins 4 secs
    beerfail, communes, household repairs, rugged individualism, student debt forgiveness, sweden

    Alexa and Yoel consider what it means to live in an individualistic society, and the various possible ways of depending on others. They also reflect on their own degree of individualism, and consider whether they'd prefer to depend on others (and be depended on) more. But first, Yoel explains his beef with student loan forgiveness.

  • Episode 93: Facing a Social Media Mob (with Stefan Uddenberg)

    August 24th, 2022  |  1 hr 14 mins
    accent control, facial perception, in the air, physiognomy, twitter

    Yoel and Alexa are joined by Stefan Uddenberg, who sheds new light on the past episode "A Face for Podcasting." Stefan, an author on the paper "Deep Models of Superficial Face Judgments," gives an insider's take on why the paper became controversial, how the response impacted him, and why he does the work that he does.

  • Episode 92: Should SPSP Stay Out of It?

    August 3rd, 2022  |  1 hr 13 mins
    anti-racism, boycotts, conferences, liquid peanut butter, sentimental value, spsp

    Alexa and Yoel discuss the Society for Personality and Social Psychology's (SPSP's) recent efforts to organize a more anti-racist and politically engaged conference. The co-hosts consider the debate around boycotting Georgia, as well as SPSP's new evaluation criteria that reward equity, inclusion, and anti-racism in submissions.

  • Episode 91: Decriminalizing Mental Illness

    July 20th, 2022  |  1 hr 21 mins
    asparagus canning jars, deadlifting, law, making it, mental health

    Alexa and Yoel are joined by Jennifer Cox and Lauren Kois, co-directors of the Southern Behavioral Health and Law Initiative. They discuss ways that those with mental illness face unique challenges within the legal system, and explain how their work pushes for a shift away from criminalization and towards more comprehensive mental health support.

  • Episode 90: Freelance Kinkology (with Aella)

    July 6th, 2022  |  1 hr 26 mins
    freelance social science, kink, lsd, the outdoors, twitter

    Alexa and Yoel chat with Twitter pollster and freelance social scientist Aella. Their conversation raises some deep and perplexing questions: What experiences predict interest in BDSM? How do you know if you're truly open to being wrong? And are there some questions that shouldn't be asked?

  • Episode 89: What's Wrong with Social Media?

    June 22nd, 2022  |  1 hr 23 mins
    big potato, social media, structural stupidity, well-being

    Mickey returns to join Alexa and Yoel in a discussion of the evils of social media (or lack thereof). The three cohosts dissect two articles - one by Haidt and another by Orben and Przybylski - in an effort to decide whether social media poses a serious threat to our well-being.

  • Episode 88: Many Many Labs

    June 8th, 2022  |  1 hr 14 mins
    50 cent, expertise, many labs, replication, vermont

    Alexa and Yoel discuss what they've learned from Many Labs 1 through 5. They consider how these multi-lab replication projects have demonstrated, time and time again, the value of replication to the scientific enterprise.

  • Episode 87: The Distracting Nature of Nudges

    May 18th, 2022  |  1 hr 11 mins

    "Nudging" has received attention as a way to achieve broad societal change by promoting small, individual adjustments, like recycling, or counting our steps. Yoel and Alexa consider Chater and Loewenstein's claim that nudging fails by distracting us from more fruitful system-level change.