Cristina Bicchieri, “Norms in the Wild: How to Diagnose, Measure, and Change Social Norms” (Oxford UP, 2017)
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Hi everyone, this is Marshall Poe. I'm the founder of the New Books Network, and I'm also a historian. I used to be a history professor, and I love maps, so I'm especially happy to tell you that this episode is sponsored by What's Your Map, which was the winner of the Best Education Podcast at the 2025 British Podcast Awards. What's Your Map is hosted by historian and prize-winning author Professor Jerry Broughton. In each episode, he invites a guest to share a map close to their heart and unfurl the ideas, inspirations, and stories behind it. I can tell you I've listened and it's fascinating. The podcast is in its sixth series and is enjoyed by audiences around the globe. You can explore all the maps in the podcast online.
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Hi, and thanks for joining us for this episode of New Books in Philosophy. I'm Robert Talese. I'm professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University. I co-host the program with Carrie Figter, who is associate professor of philosophy at the University of Iowa. Today, my guest is Christina Bicchieri. Christina is the SJP Harvey Professor of Social Thought and Comparative Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania. She's also the director of the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics program at Penn. Her new book is titled Norms in the Wild, How to Diagnose, Measure, and Change Social Norms. The book is published by Oxford University Press. Now, as the title and subtitle indicate, the book is aimed at helping those who seek to affect change in collective behavior design more effective interventions.
Now, given the complexity of collective behavior, the task of designing interventions is delicate. One needs an adequately nuanced theory of norms in order to think clearly about how norms may be changed. So there's a lot to talk about. But let's begin by greeting our guest. Hello, Christina. Hello, happy to be here. Well, thank you for joining us on New Books in Philosophy. Why don't you start us off, as we normally do in these conversations, by telling us a little bit about yourself. Right.
I grew up in Milano, Italy, and I got interested in philosophy very early. In Italy, in schools, especially, you know, in the classics, they say, you study philosophy. and in particular, typically history of philosophy. And I remember I had an epiphany reading Kant. And then and there, I decided I would do philosophy. I would study philosophy. And so it's funny because, you know, then I went into a very different direction, into philosophy of science and social science. But it was Kant who, that really piqued my interest in philosophy. Then I studied, of course, philosophy in Italy, in Milano, and I got very interested in logic and philosophy of science. So there was a sharp division then between continental philosophy and, let's say, analytical philosophy.
And very few people were doing analytical philosophy, but I got very interested in it. But in particular, I got very, very interested in logic and philosophy of science. And so I specialized in that already, you know, in my university years. Then I went to Cambridge to do a PhD in philosophy of science, not in philosophy, because in Cambridge, then history and philosophy of science was completely separate from the philosophy department. We were doing really different things. And finally, I got... by real chance, because I didn't have any particular interest in going to the States, I confess. I got a fellowship at Harvard. I was nominated for a fellowship at Harvard.
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