YANSS 191 – David Eagleman discusses his new book, Livewired, exploring how technology can take advantage of brain plasticity to add new senses and expand subjective reality in ways never before possible

In this episode, we sit down with neuroscientist David Eagleman to learn how brains turn noise into signal, chaos into order, electrical spikes into meaning, and how new technology can expand subjective reality in ways never before possible. In his new book, Livewired, Eagleman explores how brains come into the world “half baked” so they can...

Oct 2020

YANSS 190 – How we can escape the psychological trap of learned helplessness

Stuck in a bad situation, even when the prison doors are left wide open, we sometimes refuse to attempt escape. In psychology, learned helplessness is a state of mind that can develop if you try and fail, and then try and fail again. After a few rounds of learning in this way you start to believe that it’s not the situation, or the problem, or...

Oct 2020

YANSS 189 – Why we must use social science to fight misinformation, partisanship, conspiratorial thinking, and general confusion when we finally have a vaccine for COVID-19

In this episode of the You Are Not So Smart Podcast, we sit down with four experts on vaccines, epidemiology, psychology, and science communication to try and understand how we created so much confusion about COVID-19, and how we can avoid doing so again when a vaccine is ready for widespread, public distribution. Also in the show, you will...

Sep 2020

YANSS 188 – Why we are so terrible at figuring out what it takes to makes us happy

In this episode we welcome Yale psychologist Laurie Santos who discusses her new podcast — The Happiness Lab — which explores how wrong and misguided we can be when we pursue those things that we think will make us happy (or avoid those things that we think will make us sad). Based on the psychology course she teaches at Yale — “Psychology and...

Sep 2020

YANSS 187 – How to use brain science to escape the ‘event horizon of the black hole of anxiety’ and rid yourself of bad habits

In this sprawling, strange, and mind-bending episode, Dr. Jud Brewer, a neuroscientist and addiction psychiatrist, discusses the biological origins of our bad habits and how we can change them using new techniques derived from his lab’s research. Well, he tries to talk about that, but I keep interrupting him to try and solve the great mysteries...

Sep 2020

YANSS 186 – What therapy is, what it isn’t, and the difference between idiot compassion and wise compassion

In Lori Gottlieb‘s new book, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, she opens with a quote from James Baldwin that reads, “Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.” It’s a book about therapy, what is is, what it isn’t, and how people do and do not change their...

Sep 2020

YANSS 185 – Why the reason some people refuse to wear masks during a pandemic has little to do with the masks themselves

In this episode of the You Are Not So Smart Podcast, we sit down with four experts on human behavior to try and understand how wearing masks, during the COVID-19 pandemic, became politicized. In the show, we take a take a deep dive into tribal psychology, which, in essence, says that humans are motivated reasoners who alter their thinking, feeling,...

Aug 2020

YANSS 184 – How to improve your relationships by systematically de-biasing your brain

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, a behavioral economist and disaster avoidance expert who works with businesses and organizations to help them de-bias themselves. In the show, we will go through a few of the most-common cognitive biases and learn how to de-bias ourselves within our personal lives to improve relationships and our...

Jul 2020

YANSS 183 – A roundtable discussion of Black Lives Matter with the members of the Association of Black Psychologists

This episode is a roundtable discussion with members of the Association of Black Psychologists exploring Black Lives Matter and the related social movements related place right now in The United States at the time of this recording Dr. Marva Robinson Dr. Marva Robinson, is the Midwestern regional representative for the Association...

Jul 2020

YANSS 182 – Why we find A/B testing icky when it comes to policies, practices, medicine, and social media

In 1835, at a tavern in Bavaria, a group of 120 people once met to drink from a randomized assortment of glass vials. Before shuffling them, they divided the vials into two sets. One contained distilled water from a recent snowfall and the other a solution made by collecting 100 drops of that water and dropping into the pool a grain of salt,...

Jul 2020