We're biased not only in our interpretation of information, but also in our gathering of information.

How do we choose which norms to follow, and how do we change them to build a more equitable society? Camilo Martinez joins to talk about the coherence of beliefs and the evolution, function, and overturning of norms. cohost: @pelinkasar.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWXq...

"The 'Authoritarian Stack'—a network of firms, funds, and political actors turning core state functions into private platforms. Based on an open-source dataset of over 250 actors, thousands of verified connections, and $45 billion in documented financial flows." www.authoritarian-stack.info

How can we make sense of the variety of beliefs that are prevalent in society? Peter Steiglechner talks to us modeling belief networks: the importance of including biases related to one's social identity and the groups they belong to, and how to reach consensus. www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuyD...

Hannah Metzler joins the podcast to talk about the role of emotions and personal identity when investigating the spread of misinformation, what makes certain beliefs appealing to people, and why negative content seems to be more engaging than positive content. www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cE_...

Barbora Valik came on to talk about the factors that lead to the violent mobilization of resistance movements, particularly as a strategy to call attention to their cause, and what needs to change for the violence to end. www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJO7... For podcast links www.monkeydancepod.com

Do not let Gavin Newsom redraw California's maps. All of a sudden the party that was campaigning on democracy is eager to suspend it. Newsom and Pritzker are asserting that the preservation of democratic values is naive, and accusing their detractors as attempting to take the moral high ground. 🧵

New paper! Takeaways: Social goals modulate the efficiency of information search in children and adults. The motivation to obtain social rewards can outweigh the drive for accuracy. The valuation of information is context-dependent and emerges in childhood. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

How do infants treat information they come across? I sit down with Velisar Manea to chat about how the infant mind develops, the types of biases evolution might have built in, and how they manage to be so adaptive. www.youtube.com/watch?v=etGL...

Sat down with Nicolas Goupil to chat about his work his work on early childhood memories, visual cognition, and hierarchies in groups. It's a wide ranging conversation and we cover a good bit of ground, from developmental cognitive neuroscience to social cognition. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-t1...

Pelin Kasar and Juliette Vazard both return to the podcast for a chat at the intersection of beliefs, biases, and curiosity. The conversation covers a lot of ground as we work through definitions and reach mutual understandings of each of the terms www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7am...

Had sociologist Arev Papazian on to chat about resource distribution and access! We get into the politics of these decisions, the winners and losers, and of course the environmental cost. www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NOk...

Professor Melissa Koenig explains how we learn from others: from the strategies we use to the biases we lean on when making epistemic decisions. We also chat about the role of science in society and the importance of not separating work and activism. youtu.be/4ver5ls0Tdc?...

Sitting down with Reto Schneider, veteran science journalist who has dealt with everything from the science of opinion formation to the origins of land ownership and seemingly everything in between. youtu.be/8UYBY5CPb94?...

Beautiful mug from @democracynow.org

Making sense of a series of graphic representations is not simple, but our brains manage to do it with little effort. We sit down with cognitive scientist Neil Cohn and chat about rethinking language, comic books, children's books, and a bunch of other fun stuff. youtu.be/ibfyl1VtNFM?...

There has been a massive student movement in Serbia over the past 5 months to put an end to the authoritarian government. What the students have accomplished in terms of organization in the past five months is incredible. Aleksandra Knežević joins to explain the situation. youtu.be/dommlfCsmhQ?...

Episode 25 is out! How does toxicity shape conversations? Gabriela Juncosa joins us to explain how political discourse unfolds in online spaces and whether toxic interactions shut conversations down or keep them going. And Phyllis Pearson joins to co-host! www.youtube.com/watch?v=66Qc...

🚨 Call for Papers! 🚨 Don't miss the chance to apply for the interdisciplinary graduate conference "From Minds to Movements - Foresight in Cognition and Activism" in Vienna!

Episode 24 is out! Phyllis Pearson joins Juliette Vazard and I to chat about what it means to be open minded, the difference between honest dialogue and gaslighting, and what it means to have epistemic agency and to ascribe that agency to others. youtu.be/El6zmByYrpw?...

We've been running The Monkey Dance podcast for a year now and it has been a blast. 23 episodes and counting. If you're based in Vienna (or passing through) and are interested in coming on then please reach out! www.youtube.com/@themonkeyda... Anywhere you get your podcasts www.monkeydancepod.com

How can we take a multidisciplinary approach to tackling gender inequality? With my co-authers Angarika Deb and Tamara Kusimova we focus on the economic, cultural, and cognitive processes underlying the perpetuation of inequalities within heterosexual households. brill.com/view/journal...

I'm really interested in the hierarchy of beliefs we maintain. Especially their impact on how we perceive information, how we gather information, and how the information impacts the beliefs themselves. I like to work in the overlap between social, developmental, and affective cognition. Let's chat!