You Are Not So Smart

Nov 24 2024 298 ep. 60 mins 18.2k
You Are Not So Smart Podcast artwork

You Are Not So Smart is a show about psychology that celebrates science and self delusion. In each episode, we explore what we've learned so far about reasoning, biases, judgments, and decision-making.

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301 - Cognitive Dissonance - Part Two

Nov 24 2024 57 mins  
In this episode we welcome Dr. Sarah Stein Lubrano, a political scientist who studies how cognitive dissonance affects all sorts of political behavior. She’s also the co-host of a podcast about activism called "What Do We Want?" and she wrote a book that’s coming out in May of 2025 titled don’t talk about politics which is about how to discuss politics without necessarily tal

300 - Cognitive Dissonance - Part One

Nov 10 2024 56 mins  
In this episode, the story of a doomsday cult that predicted the exact date and circumstances of the end of the world, and what happened when that date passed and the world did not end.

299 - Debunkbot

Oct 27 2024 69 mins  
Our guests in this episode are the scientists who created Debunkbot, a GPT-powered, large language model, conspiracy-theory-debunking AI that is highly effective at reducing conspiratorial beliefs. In the show you’ll hear all about what happened when they placed Debunkbot inside the framework of a scientific study and recorded its interactions with thousands of participants.

298 - Tribal - Michael Morris

Oct 13 2024 93 mins  
In this episode we sit down with renowned cultural psychologist Michael Morris to discuss his new book, Tribal, in which he makes the case for seeing humans as an "us" species, not a "them" species.

297 - Project Alpha - Brian Brushwood (rebroadcast)

Sep 29 2024 70 mins  
Brian Brushwood tells us how he put together the most recent season of The World's Greatest Con, his podcast about incredible scams and over the top chicanery. This season is all about how two teenagers pulled off an incredible hoax called Project Alpha, a con job and a publicity stunt meant to improve scientific rigor and methodology when it comes to studying the possibility of th

296 - Job Therapy - Tessa West

Sep 15 2024 55 mins  
Are you unhappy at your job? Are you starting to consider a change of career because of how your current work makes you feel? Do you know why?

295 - Easy Crafts for the Insane - Kelly Williams Brown

Sep 01 2024 75 mins  
In this episode we sit down with author Kelly Williams Brown, an old friend who (I recently learned) had attempted suicide, which is the subject of this episode – suicide prevention and awareness. In the show we learn about Kelly's latest book, Easy Crafts for the Insane, in which she recounts how, after she gained fame and success as a NYT bestselling author, her life came apart

294 - Living Constitutionally - A.J. Jacobs

Aug 18 2024 88 mins  
In this episode we sit down with A.J. Jacobs, a journalist who attempted to live for a year following the US Constitution's original meaning as if he were an originalist.

293 - Do Your Own Research - Sedona Chinn (rebroadcast)

Aug 04 2024 45 mins  
Sedona Chinn's research has found that the more a person values the concept of doing your own research, the less likely that person is to actually do their own research. In the episode we explore the origin of the concept, what that phrase really means, and the implications of her study on everything from politics to vaccines to conspiratorial thinking.

292 - The Society Library - Jamie Joyce

Jul 21 2024 83 mins  
Our guest in this episode is Jamie Joyce who is the president and executive director of The Society Library, an organization that extracts arguments, claims, and evidence from various forms of media to compile databases that map all the bickering and debating taking place across our species.