Behavioural Science Uncovered

Jan 14 2025 36 ep. 34 mins 63

Behavioural Science Uncovered Podcast artwork

In this podcast we talk with behavioural scientists about their research. We focus on the story behind the papers and discuss the research process from the idea to publication.

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Lying and Memory Lapses with Marie-Claire Villeval

Jan 14 2025 39 mins

In this episode, we speak with Marie-Claire Villeval about her paper, "Unethical Amnesia Responds More to Instrumental Than to Hedonic Motives," co-authored with Fabio Galeotti and Charlotte Saucet. The research investigates whether memory lapses after lying are more commonly driven by hedonic motives—such as preserving one's moral self-image—or by instrumental motives, like an

Designing Information Provision Experiments with Chris Roth

Nov 25 2024 43 mins

In this episode, we talk with Chris Roth from the University of Cologne about his paper "Designing Information Provision Experiments". In this paper, Chris and his co-authors review the literature on information provision experiments and derive best practices for designing such experiments. We also discuss determinants of research productivity.

The No Club: Putting a Stop to Women’s Dead-End Work with Lise Vesterlund

Oct 28 2024 36 mins

In this episode, we talk with Lise Vesterlund about her book “The No Club: Putting a Stop to Women’s Dead-End Work”, co-authored with Linda Babcock, Brenda Peyser, and Laurie Weingart. The book discusses how women are disproportionately assigned non-promotable tasks in the workplace and offers strategies for resisting these burdens to achieve more equitable professional advan

Do Virtue Signals Signal Virtue? with Matt Lowe

Sep 30 2024 40 mins

In this episode, we talk with Matt Lowe about his randomised controlled trial, "Do Virtue Signals Signal Virtue?", co-authored with Deivis Angeli. The research examines whether tweets about racial justice predict real-life actions, finding that while people who tweet about racial justice are generally more likely to act in line with those values, the sincerity of these signals dimi

The Curious Culture of Economic Theory with Ran Spiegler

Apr 22 2024 50 mins

In this episode, we talk with Ran Spiegler about his book "The Curious Culture of Economic Theory". The book is a collection of essays about how the professional culture of economics shapes the way theory is done. Our interview focuses on Chapter 8, in which Ran describes the story behind his American Economic Review paper "Search Design and Broad Matching" co-authored with Kfir El

Team incentives and escape rooms with Simeon Schudy

Dec 03 2023 39 mins

In this episode, we talk with Simeon Schudy about his working paper "The Effect of Incentives in Non-Routine Analytical Team Tasks", co-authored with Florian Englmaier, Stefan Grimm, Dominik Grothe and David Schindler (forthcoming in the Journal of Political Economy). Using a novel experimental setup, escape rooms, this paper investigates the effect of incentives on performance in

Enabling or Limiting Cognitive Flexibility with Marta Serra-Garcia

Mar 08 2023 40 mins

In this episode, we talk with Marta Serra-Garcia Marta Serra-Garcia about her American Economic Review paper "Enabling or Limiting Cognitive Flexibility? Evidence of Demand for Moral Commitment," co-authored with Silvia Saccardo. This paper investigates the nature and flexibility of self-serving beliefs in decision environments where morals and personal incentives are in conflict.

Cash Transfers & Psychotherapy with Johannes Haushofer

Dec 04 2022 21 mins

In this episode, we talk with Johannes Haushofer about his paper “The Comparative Impact of Cash Transfers and a Psychotherapy Program on Psychological and Economic Well-being” co-authored with Robert Mudida and Jeremy Shapiro. This paper explores the possible interactive or synergetic effects between cash transfers and a psychotherapy intervention in Kenya. We discuss the surp

Social Learning with Ben Golub

Jul 07 2022 53 mins

In this episode, we talk with Ben Golub about his paper “Signaling, Shame, and Silence in Social Learning” co-authored with Arun Chandrasekhar and He Yang. This paper studies how signaling, and shame-related concerns can reduce social learning. Throughout the conversation, Ben also shares helpful pieces of advice for young researchers ranging from working on multiple projects t

Obviously Strategy-Proof Mechanisms with Shengwu Li

Apr 01 2022 23 mins

In this episode we talk with Shengwu Li about his paper Obviously Strategy-Proof Mechanisms . In this paper Shengwu introduces the notion of an "obviously dominant strategies", which describes a strategy that is not only dominant but can also recognised as weakly dominant by an agent with cognitive limitations.