Leila Ainge

speaker

1,507 appearances 7 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 10 Aug

Leila Ainge’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 7 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 5.

Appearances

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Psychologically Speaking with Leila Ainge · Evidence Over Ego: Why Curiosity Leads to Better Decisions · 29 Jul 2026 podcast

So modern psychology, though, when we talk about ego, tends to talk using different language.

Rather than thinking about ego, we're more likely to talk about identity and self-esteem or something called ego threat.

You know, and this happens when information challenges the way that we like to see ourselves.

It's really relevant because opinion-based information has social media as its megaphone, as its platform, and we are often challenged or outraged on a regular basis.

So if you're reading a post where you're discovering that you've got something wrong or you're receiving criticism from a stranger or hearing evidence that doesn't fit with your worldview or your existing beliefs, it's uncomfortable because none of us really enjoys being wrong unless

it's something that we're seeking out ourselves.

And even then we can feel really uncomfortable if we don't like what we read.

So this is where psychology helps us make sense.

We naturally look for evidence that confirms what we already believe.

We know this.

So brain studies show that we will remember compelling stories more easily than statistics.

We tend to trust confident people, even if confidence and competence aren't the same things.

And once we've invested time or money or part of our identity into an idea,

it becomes really hard to question it.

All of these shortcuts, these heuristics, are things that make it harder for us to separate what would be a classical ego from evidence.

So it doesn't make us irrational.

It just makes us very human.

And our brains have evolved to make decisions efficiently through shortcuts instead of perfection.

Otherwise, we would never get anything done.

So this brings me on to certainty.

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