Two Psychologists Four Beers

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.

Episode 74: Pleasurable Suffering (with Paul Bloom)

October 13th, 2021  |  1 hr 24 mins

kidneys, mountain climbing, orgasms, parenting, suffering

Paul Bloom joins us to talk about why we want to suffer. Sometimes it's a means to an end, but sometimes we desire it for its own sake. Plus, a very special extra guest host.

Episode 73: We Need to Talk About Fraud (with Joe Simmons)

September 29th, 2021  |  1 hr 22 mins

data police, dishonesty, fraud, open data

Yoel and Alexa are joined by Joe Simmons to talk about fraud in behavioral science. How common is it, how do you detect it, and what can we do to prevent it?

Episode 72: The Climate Survey (with Danielle McDuffie)

September 15th, 2021  |  59 mins 21 secs

The story of how a graduate student climate survey at the University of Alabama led to a very contentious year.

Episode 71: The Good Life

September 1st, 2021  |  1 hr 6 mins

good life, happiness, meaning, richness

Alexa and Yoel discuss a new paper arguing that psychological richness is an overlooked aspect of the good life (well, overlooked by well-being researchers, anyway). Also, Alexa reviews an (accidentally-purchased) alcohol-free beer.