Two Psychologists Four Beers - Episodes Tagged with “Activism”

Episode 25: Truth and Political Bias in Psychology (with John Jost)

Yoel Inbar, Michael Inzlicht, and Alexa Tullett — Wed, 03 Jul 2019 05:00:00 -0400

Yoel and Mickey welcome Professor of Psychology and Politics John Jost from New York University to the podcast. Author of the most influential political psychology paper of the last two decades, John talks about the role of psychology in politics and the role of politics in psychology. Is it fair to characterize conservatives as dogmatic, rigid, and close-minded? Given replication failures, are conservatives indeed more attuned to negative stimuli in their environments? Does the description of conservatives as resistant to change applicable in the Trump era? Should social scientists be advocates/activists, neutral fact-finders, or something in between? Why is the dominance of liberals in social psychology (and academia more broadly) not a problem?

Bonus: What is with all the homo-eroticism?

Special Guest: John Jost.

Links:

Juicy Ass - Flying Monkeys
Farmageddon (Raspberry & Black Raspberry - 2019) – Bellwoods Brewery
Modelo Especial | Casa Modelo Mexican Beer
Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition — Analyzing political conservatism as motivated social cognition integrates theories of personality (authoritarianism, dogmatism—intolerance of ambiguity), epistemic and existential needs (for closure, regulatory focus, terror management), and ideological rationalization (social dominance, system justification).
The Politics of Fear: Is There an Ideological Asymmetry in Existential Motivation? | Social Cognition — Although the association between fear of death and conservatism was not reliable, there was a significant effect of mortality salience (r = .08–.13) and a significant association between subjective perceptions of threat and conservatism (r = .12–.31).
Ideological Asymmetries and the Essence of Political Psychology - Jost - 2017 - Political Psychology - Wiley Online Library — Individuals are not merely passive vessels of whatever beliefs and opinions they have been exposed to; rather, they are attracted to belief systems that resonate with their own psychological needs and interests, including epistemic, existential, and relational needs to attain certainty, security, and social belongingness.
Ideological asymmetries in conformity, desire for shared reality, and the spread of misinformation. - PubMed - NCBI — Ideological belief systems arise from epistemic, existential, and relational motives to reduce uncertainty, threat, and social discord.
Neoliberal Ideology and the Justification of Inequality in Capitalist Societies: Why Social and Economic Dimensions of Ideology Are Intertwined
An Asymmetrical “President-in-Power” Effect | American Political Science Review | Cambridge Core — When political polarization is high, it may be assumed that citizens will trust the government more when the chief executive shares their own political views.
A quarter century of system justification theory: Questions, answers, criticisms, and societal applications - Jost - 2019 - British Journal of Social Psychology - Wiley Online Library — A theory of system justification was proposed 25 years ago by Jost and Banaji (1994, Br. J. Soc. Psychol., 33, 1) in the British Journal of Social Psychology to explain ‘the participation by disadvantaged individuals and groups in negative stereotypes of themselves' and the phenomenon of outgroup favouritism.
Do Needs for Security and Certainty Predict Cultural and Economic Conservatism? A Cross-National Analysis — We examine whether individual differences in needs for security and certainty predict conservative (vs. liberal) position on both cultural and economic political issues and whether these effects are conditional on nation-level characteristics and individual-level political engagement.
Political Diversity in Social and Personality Psychology — A lack of political diversity in psychology is said to lead to a number of pernicious outcomes, including biased research and active discrimination against conservatives.
The Ideology of Social Psychologists (and Why it Matters) | SPSP
We tried to publish a replication of a Science paper in Science. The journal refused. — Our research suggests that the theory that conservatives and liberals respond differently to threats isn’t actually true.

Episode 9: Giving the Finger (with Alice Dreger)

Yoel Inbar, Michael Inzlicht, and Alexa Tullett — Wed, 12 Sep 2018 06:00:00 -0400

Yoel and Mickey welcome author, journalist, historian, and bioethicist Alice Dreger to the show. Alice, who wrote Galileo’s Middle Finger, discusses how her upbringing, her academic background, and her own Galilean personality led her to piss so many people off in the service of serving both truth and justice. Can academics pursue both truth and justice? What is a Galilean personality? Do activists pollute science? Why did Alice refuse to be lumped in with the so-called Intellectual Dark Web? How can we improve the way newspapers work?

Bonus: Why did Yoel and Mickey create an (Alice approved) drinking podcast?

Special Guest: Alice Dreger.

Links:

Corona Extra | LCBO
Glutenberg Craft Brewery
Alice Domurat Dreger
Galileo's Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and One Scholar's Search for Justice (9780143108115): Alice Dreger: Books
Criticism of a Gender Theory, and a Scientist Under Siege - The New York Times — In academic feuds, as in war, there is no telling how far people will go once the shooting starts.
Why I Escaped the ‘Intellectual Dark Web’ - The Chronicle of Higher Education — Pissing off progressives isn’t intellectual progress
East Lansing Info

Episode 7: When Does the Left Go Too Far?

Yoel Inbar, Michael Inzlicht, and Alexa Tullett — Wed, 15 Aug 2018 06:00:00 -0400

Yoel and Mickey ask how to know when the political Left has gone too far. Assuming the Left can indeed go too far--turning off even other progressives who feel abandoned by their natural political home--Yoel and Mickey riff on ways this might manifest. The conversation includes a discussion of identity politics, the problems with subjectivity, the challenge of balancing the desire for justice with the desire for truth, and the inherent problem of being both a scientist and activist. Before debating the supposed sins of the Left, Yoel and Mickey discuss a new paper overturning the cause of the so-called negativity bias (i.e., the notion that bad is stronger than good).

Bonus: Mickey makes a risky hypothesis about German beers. Can any listeners provide evidence that disconfirms Mickey’s bold claim?

Links: