Two Psychologists Four Beers

Episode Archive

Episode Archive

111 episodes of Two Psychologists Four Beers since the first episode, which aired on May 19th, 2018.

  • Episode 86: A Face For Podcasting

    May 1st, 2022  |  1 hr 5 mins
    deep fakes, electable babies, face perception, physiognomy, trust

    Yoel and Alexa discuss a study that examines how people infer traits from facial features. They consider various criticisms of the work, and evaluate whether the benefits outweigh the risks.

  • Episode 85: People Dealing With the Pandemic Pretty Well, Study Finds

    April 20th, 2022  |  1 hr 7 mins
    millenials, netflix, pandemic stress, pegging, satisficing vs. maximizing

    Alexa and Yoel discuss an NPR article and APA report examining stress and decision-making during the pandemic. In the process, they consider how the original data is eventually shaped into a pop-psych-friendly narrative.

  • Episode 84: Check Your Values?

    April 6th, 2022  |  1 hr 8 mins
    cheap cheese, democracy, light bud light with lime, peeping through holes, scientific values, w. e. b. du bois

    Alexa and Yoel debate whether or not science should be value free. They consider whether such a scenario would be possible or desirable, and how well it describes contemporary social psychology

  • Episode 83: Grand Challenges

    March 23rd, 2022  |  1 hr 15 mins
    activist scientists, decolonization, grand challenges, taxes

    Yoel and Alexa respond to an APS survey identifying the "grand challenges" of psychological science. They consider whether they agree with the list - which includes diversity, theory building, and science communication - and how likely psychology is to make progress.

  • Episode 82: Psychology Worth Knowing

    March 9th, 2022  |  1 hr 15 mins
    hazy india pale lagers, investing, motivated reasoning, naive realism

    We each list the top three social psychological effects that have the most potential to improve people's daily lives. And, we consider why they might not be having the impact they could.

  • Episode 81: Against Retribution

    February 23rd, 2022  |  1 hr 10 mins
    law, responsibility, retribution, truckers, valentine's day

    Alexa and Yoel discuss a recent article, solo-authored by Alexa, that argues for abandoning retribution as a goal of the criminal justice system. In the article, Alexa claims that "who is blameworthy?" is a question for the social sciences, but one they're ill-equipped to answer.

  • Episode 80: The C-Word (with Julia Rohrer)

    February 9th, 2022  |  1 hr 26 mins
    alcohol-free beer, causal inference, directed acyclic graphs, structured abstracts

    Personality psychologist and methodologist Julia Rohrer joins the show to talk about causal claims, strategic ambiguity, and how tough it is to tell what empirical claims many psychology papers are making.

  • Episode 79: All About Authenticity

    January 26th, 2022  |  1 hr 21 mins
    authenticity, dr. oz, self-presentation, the self

    Alexa and Yoel talk authenticity. What is it? Is it good to have it? And why does Alexa score higher on it than Yoel? Plus, Alexa drinks some listener-supplied beer, with favorable results.

  • Episode 78: Meehl on Theory

    January 12th, 2022  |  1 hr 8 mins
    meehl, methods, spielraum, tandem bikes, theory, zelda

    Alexa and Yoel do a deep dive into Paul Meehl's paper on theory evaluation, "Appraising and Amending Theories: The Strategy of Lakatosian Defense and Two Principles that Warrant It." It's a classic of methodology and philosophy of science, but what can it tell us about how to do better research?

  • Episode 77: Against Method?

    December 8th, 2021  |  1 hr 14 mins
    dolly parton, feyerabend, method, philosophy of science

    Alexa and Yoel tackle Paul Feyerabend, the wild man of philosophy of science. What can we learn from his provocative "anything goes" argument for methodological anarchy? And, more generally, what can working scientists learn from philosophers of science?

  • Episode 76: Preregistration (What is it Good For)

    November 17th, 2021  |  1 hr 7 mins
    cardi b, field experiments, methods, preregistration, researcher degrees of freedom

    Alexa and Yoel talk about objections to preregistration. Does preregistration imply that researchers can't be trusted? Does it mean that they can't use their best judgment? When might preregistration be unhelpful? We also discuss how preregistration would have helped in a recent paper testing Cardi B's maxim that "hoes don't get cold."

  • Episode 75: Beyond Experiments

    November 3rd, 2021  |  1 hr 7 mins
    causal inference, nobel prize, non-experimental data

    Alexa and Yoel talk about a paper purporting to show that winning the Nobel Prize increases your lifespan. In the process, they dip their toes into non-experimental causal inference.