Two Psychologists Four Beers

This is a re-release of Episode 95, which was recorded in September 2023.

Paul Bloom joins Yoel and Alexa to talk about the glamour and humiliation of teaching psychology at the college level. They …

Paul Bloom takes over the show to interview Yoel about loss of faith: when to give up on a theory, and which of his own findings he no longer believes. But it's not all doom and gloom! They also talk…

Yoel is joined by a mysterious pseudonymous duo called Slime Mold Time Mold, who are proposing a new paradigm for psychology based on principles from cybernetics. This means thinking of the behavior …

Returning guest Spencer Greenberg joins the show to talk replications, what psychologist think of terror management theory (and other controversial topics), and a machine-learning tool he developed t…

It's been a tumultuous time for DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) efforts in higher education. Whether due to political pressure, internal arguments, or both, many prominent institutions are rev…

Arguably, the last 25 years of moral psychology have been about people's judgments of "purity violations"--ostensibly harmless acts that "are disgusting or degrading to one’s spiritual nature." From …

On-again off-again co-host Mickey Inzlicht joins the show to debrief about the recent SPSP (Society for Personality and Social Psychology) conference. We then dissect a new paper purporting to show w…

Cultural and developmental psychologist and open science advocate Moin Syed joins the show to talk what he thinks people get wrong about ideology, diversity, and open science. We talk about what role…

Occasional co-host Mickey Inzlicht joins the show to talk about the 2024 election, Bluesky, and his crusade against yard signs. We discuss prediction markets, Democratic declines with non-college vot…

Paul Bloom joins the show to talk about a recent paper in which he argues that much of developmental psychology is not worth doing. We also talk about where he thinks psychology has succeeded, and wh…

Researcher and writer Adam Mastroianni joins the podcast to talk about why he left academia, what conventional scientific research might be missing, and how he ended up writing a succesful science bl…

University of British Columbia professor and ADHD expert Amori Mikami joins the show to talk attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). What is it, how has our understanding of it changed over …

Mickey joins Yoel for the first new episode in nearly a year. We talk what's been up with the show, plans for the future, and what it feels like to briefly be (almost) internet-famous.

In the second…

Andrew Devendorf joins Alexa and Yoel to discuss his work on "me-search" (or self-relevant research) within clinical psychology. He talks about the prevalence of mental health difficulties within the…

Playing devil's advocate, Yoel and Mickey mount a criticism against the scientific study of mindfulness. What is mindfulness? Can we measure it? Is mindfulness-based therapy effective? Can mindfulnes…

Yoel and Alexa are joined by Joe Simmons to talk about fraud. We go in-depth on a recent high-profile fraud case, but we also talk about scientific fraud more generally: how common is it, how do you …

Jennifer Gutsell joins Alexa to discuss the controversy surrounding Yoel's experience interviewing at UCLA. They focus on a post, written by Alexa, in which she pushes back against defenses of "view…

Harkening back to episode 73, Alexa and Yoel discuss recent evidence of fraud documented in the Data Colada blog post "Clusterfake." The post is the first in a series of four, which will collectively…

In heated political debates, people are often accused of being hypocrites, lacking consistent foundational values. Today, Yoel and Alexa discuss a recent paper by David Pinsof, David Sears, and Marti…

Yoel and Alexa discuss a recent paper that takes a machine learning approach to estimating the replicability of psychology as a discipline. The researchers' investigation begins with a training proce…