Two Psychologists Four Beers
Episodes
Episode 128: Why Do We Care About Faculty Diversity? (with Azim Shariff)
06 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Many academics care about diversity in faculty hiring, but why? Azim Shariff joins the show to talk about his new paper where he describes rationales ...
Episode 127: The Great Canadian Euthanasia Experiment (with Mickey Inzlicht)
09 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Mickey and Yoel talk about Canada's controversial euthanasia law (called MAID: medical assistance in dying). Since its introduction in 2016, an in...
Episode 126: Using AI to Improve Science (with Paul Litvak)
10 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Paul Litvak joins the show to talk about how AI tools can help us measure research quality and assess evidence in the scientific literature. His first...
Episode 125: Citation Diversity Statements? (with Mickey Inzlicht)
04 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Mickey is back and fired up about citation diversity statements. We talk about a recent editorial from Nature Reviews Psychology encouraging authors t...
Episode 124: Civic Honesty Around the Globe (with David Tannenbaum)
09 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
David Tannenbaum (Associate Professor of Management at the University of Utah) joins the show to talk about one of Yoel's favorite papers: a massive f...
Episode 123: RE-RELEASE: What are Teachers Good For? (with Paul Bloom)
03 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Episode 122: When to Quit (with Paul Bloom)
07 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Episode 121: A New Paradigm for Psychology?
07 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Episode 120: Transparent Replications (with Spencer Greenberg)
06 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Returning guest Spencer Greenberg joins the show to talk replications, what psychologist think of terror management theory (and other controversial to...
Episode 119: The Future of DEI in Higher Ed (with Amori Mikami)
07 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It's been a tumultuous time for DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) efforts in higher education. Whether due to political pressure, internal argume...
Episode 118: Do We Have a Purity Problem? (with David Pizarro)
01 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Arguably, the last 25 years of moral psychology have been about people's judgments of "purity violations"--ostensibly harmless acts that "are disgusti...
Episode 117: Good News for the Chronics (with Mickey Inzlicht)
06 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On-again off-again co-host Mickey Inzlicht joins the show to debrief about the recent SPSP (Society for Personality and Social Psychology) conference....
Episode 116: Can We Do Science Without Ideology? (with Moin Syed)
23 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Cultural and developmental psychologist and open science advocate Moin Syed joins the show to talk what he thinks people get wrong about ideology, div...
Episode 115: What's Wrong with Living in a Bubble? (with Mickey Inzlicht)
04 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Occasional co-host Mickey Inzlicht joins the show to talk about the 2024 election, Bluesky, and his crusade against yard signs. We discuss prediction ...
Episode 114: Psychology Worth Doing (with Paul Bloom)
11 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Episode 113: The Road to Cincinnati (with Adam Mastroianni)
21 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Researcher and writer Adam Mastroianni joins the podcast to talk about why he left academia, what conventional scientific research might be missing, a...
Episode 112: All About ADHD (with Amori Mikami)
02 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
University of British Columbia professor and ADHD expert Amori Mikami joins the show to talk attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). What is ...
Episode 111: We Are So Back
31 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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 br...
Episode 110: RE-RELEASE: Destigmatizing Mental Health (with Andrew Devendorf)
04 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew Devendorf joins Alexa and Yoel to discuss his work on "me-search" (or self-relevant research) within clinical psychology. He talks about the pr...
Episode 109: RE-RELEASE: Against Mindfulness
27 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Playing devil's advocate, Yoel and Mickey mount a criticism against the scientific study of mindfulness. What is mindfulness? Can we measure it? Is mi...
Episode 108: RE-RELEASE: We Need to Talk About Fraud
20 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 fr...
Episode 107: Against Anti-DEI Rhetoric
30 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jennifer Gutsell joins Alexa to discuss the controversy surrounding Yoel's experience interviewing at UCLA. They focus on a post, written by Alexa, i...
Episode 106: We Need to Talk About Fraud Again
23 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 f...
Episode 105: Patchwork Politics
17 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In heated political debates, people are often accused of being hypocrites, lacking consistent foundational values. Today, Yoel and Alexa discuss a rec...
Episode 104: Quantifying the Narrative of Replicable Science
29 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Yoel and Alexa discuss a recent paper that takes a machine learning approach to estimating the replicability of psychology as a discipline. The resear...
Episode 103: Psych (with Paul Bloom)
08 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Alexa and Yoel chat with Paul Bloom about his newest book, Psych: The Story of the Human Mind (https://amzn.to/3ZrycHk). The book, built from Paul's p...
Episode 102: Destigmatizing Mental Health (with Andrew Devendorf)
08 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew Devendorf joins Alexa and Yoel to discuss his work on "me-search" (or self-relevant research) within clinical psychology. He talks about the pr...
Episode 101: An Outside Perspective on Implicit Bias
18 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Alexa and Yoel discuss the much trodden topic of implicit bias from a less trodden perspective: that of the general public. Offering insight into the ...
Episode 100: What Happened at Perspectives on Psychological Science?
23 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Yoel and special guest Rachel Hartman discuss the recent ouster of Klaus Fiedler, the former Editor in Chief of the journal Perspectives on Psychologi...
Episode 99: Is MTurk Too Good To Be True?
07 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In a recent article, psychologists Webb and Tangney document their experience collecting psychology data online using Amazon's crowdsourcing platform ...
Episode 98: Inspired Science (with Spencer Greenberg)
23 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Yoel and Alexa are joined by Spencer Greenberg, founder of the behavioral science startup incubator Spark Wave and host of the Clearer Thinking podcas...
Episode 97: Getting Into Grad School
09 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
With grad school application deadlines around the corner, Alexa and Yoel discuss how, exactly, that process works. Big picture, they talk about their ...
Episode 96: So, What Do You Do?
26 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Yoel and Alexa discuss a recent paper, written by Hughes, Srivastava, Leszko, and Condon, that created and validated a new index of "occupational pres...
Episode 95: What are Teachers Good For? (with Paul Bloom)
28 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Paul Bloom joins Yoel and Alexa to talk about the glamour and humiliation of teaching psychology at the college level. They discuss how they've change...
Episode 94: Individualism, Interdependence, and Student Loans
14 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Inspired by a recent Atlantic article ("The Myth of Independent American Families" by Stephanie H. Murray) Alexa and Yoel consider what it means to li...
Episode 93: Facing a Social Media Mob (with Stefan Uddenberg)
24 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Yoel and Alexa are joined by Stefan Uddenberg, a social perception researcher and author of the paper "Deep Models of Superficial Face Judgments." Thi...
Episode 92: Should SPSP Stay Out of It?
03 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) starts gearing up for their 2023 conference, Alexa and Yoel debate some of the organizatio...
Episode 91: Decriminalizing Mental Illness
20 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Yoel and Alexa chat with Jennifer Cox and Lauren Kois, co-directors of the Southern Behavioral Health and Law Initiative. Established in 2020, the ini...
Episode 90: Freelance Kinkology (with Aella)
06 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Independent researcher Aella joins Yoel and Alexa to talk about her experiences doing freelance social science. Their discussion touches on some far-r...
Episode 89: What's Wrong with Social Media?
22 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mickey returns with the hot takes you know and love. He joins Yoel and Alexa to discuss Jonathan Haidt's recent Atlantic article, "Why the Past 10 Yea...
Episode 88: Many Many Labs
08 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Earlier this year, the last of five "Many Labs" projects was accepted for publication at Collabra: Psychology, representating the culmination of a nea...
Episode 87: The Distracting Nature of Nudges
18 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Originating within the behavioral sciences, "nudging" has received attention as a way to achieve broad societal change by promoting small, individual ...
Episode 86: A Face For Podcasting
01 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Yoel and Alexa discuss a recent study that examines the facial features that people perceive as "smart," "dorky," "trustworthy," or a number of other ...
Episode 85: People Dealing With the Pandemic Pretty Well, Study Finds
20 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Originally, Yoel and Alexa set out to discuss a study examining stress and decision-making during the pandemic. However, they get sidetracked by the w...
Episode 84: Check Your Values?
06 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Alexa and Yoel fight some more, this time over whether or not science should be value free. They consider a position taken by W. E. B. Du Bois, who ar...
Episode 83: Grand Challenges
23 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Yoel and Alexa discuss the "grand challenges" of psychological science, as identified in a recent survey of APS members. While usually nauseatingly ag...
Episode 82: Psychology Worth Knowing
09 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Yoel and Alexa embrace their credulous sides and consider concepts from psychology that have importance for people in their private and public lives. ...
Episode 81: Against Retribution
23 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Alexa moonlights as a guest and answers Yoel's questions about her recent paper, in which she argues that the criminal justice system should abandon r...
Episode 80: The C-Word (with Julia Rohrer)
09 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Personality psychologist and methodologist Julia Rohrer joins the show to talk about causal claims, strategic ambiguity, and how tough it is to tell w...
Episode 79: All About Authenticity
26 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Alexa and Yoel talk authenticity. What is it? Is it good to have it? And why does Alexa score higher on it than Yoel? We talk about a draft paper exam...
Episode 78: Meehl on Theory
12 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Alexa and Yoel are back with more amateur philosophy of science. This time, we do a deep dive into a paper by the legendary Paul Meehl: "Appraising an...
Episode 77: Against Method?
08 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Alexa and Yoel tackle Paul Feyerabend, the wild man of philosophy of science. What can we learn from his "anything goes" argument for methodological a...
Episode 76: Preregistration (What is it Good For)
17 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Alexa and Yoel talk about objections to preregistration. Does preregistration imply that researchers can't be trusted? Does it mean that they can't us...
Episode 75: Beyond Experiments
03 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Alexa and Yoel talk about a paper purporting to show that winning the Nobel Prize increases your lifespan. In the process, they dip their toes into no...
Episode 74: Pleasurable Suffering (with Paul Bloom)
13 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Paul Bloom joins us to talk about why we want to suffer. Sometimes it's a means to an end, but sometimes we desire it for its own sake. Among other t...
Episode 73: We Need to Talk About Fraud (with Joe Simmons)
29 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 fr...
Episode 72: The Climate Survey (with Danielle McDuffie)
15 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Danielle McDuffie is a graduate student in psychology at the University of Alabama. This is the story of how she ran a graduate student climate survey...
Episode 71: The Good Life
01 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Alexa and Yoel discuss a new paper (Oishi & Westgate, 2021) arguing that psychological richness is an overlooked aspect of the good life. In the pro...
Episode 70: Older
11 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Alexa and Yoel tackle the most dreaded subject: getting older. Have they become better researchers and people over the years? Are they happier and mor...
Episode 69: How to Self-Care
21 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Alexa and Yoel go deep on self-care. What is it, how do you do it, and why does the term raise Yoel's hackles? How hard do we actually work, and shoul...
Episode 68: How (Not) to be a Hater
07 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Alexa and Yoel discuss "The Anticreativity Letters," a satirical article by Richard Nisbett that advises young psychology researchers to (among other ...
Episode 67: Getting Drunk (with Ted Slingerland)
23 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Mickey and Yoel welcome repeat guest Ted Slingerland to talk about his new book "Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization," ...
Episode 66: How is Open Science Doing?
09 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Yoel and Alexa discuss progress in open science over the past 10 years. Is the scientific reform glass half-full or half-empty? Where have we made pro...
Episode 65: Our Social Media Prisms
26 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Mickey, Alexa, and Yoel break down "Breaking the Social Media Prism," a new book arguing that social media reinforces our pre-existing political belie...
Episode 64: Quick Fixes (with Jesse Singal)
28 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Journalist and podcaster Jesse Singal joins the show to talk about the enduring popularity of social-psychological quick fixes and how they go wrong. ...
Episode 63: Legalize It (with Carl Hart)
24 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Neuroscientist and addiction researcher Carl Hart joins the show to talk drug legalization. Why does he think all drugs should be legal? What are some...
Episode 62: Actually Against Academia (with Lee Jussim)
24 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Lee Jussim joins the show to argue that we have been too soft on academia. We discuss problems in psychology and the social sciences including ideolog...
Episode 61: Bullshit, Misinformation, and What to Do About It (with Gord Pennycook)
27 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Psychologist Gordon Pennycook joins the show to talk bullshit and misinformation. What is bullshit, and why do some people fall for it more than other...
Episode 60: 2020 Silver Linings
30 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Mickey and Yoel follow up on two recent episodes ("Against Academia?" and "Racism and Sexism on Campus"). Then they review some of the less-bad aspect...
Episode 59: Talking about Talking (with Katie Kinzler)
16 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Psychologist Katie Kinzler joins the show to talk language. How do children and adults make judgments about people based on how they talk? Is there a ...
Episode 58: Sexism and Racism on Campus (with Anne Wilson)
02 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Repeat guest Anne Wilson joins the show to talk about two recent papers about bias in psychology and on campus. Is gender and racial bias pervasive? O...
Episode 57: Against Academia?
11 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Mickey and Yoel tackle the pros and cons of academia. As an academic, is it taboo to say you love your job? How hard do we work anyway? If we ran the ...
Episode 56: The Kindness of Strangers (with Michael McCullough)
21 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Psychologist Michael McCullough joins the show to talk forgiveness, punishment, and how we came to care about the welfare of people we don't know. Als...
Episode 55: All In (with Maria Konnikova)
07 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Psychologist and author Maria Konnikova joins the show to talk poker, life, and what one teaches you about the other. She talks with us about working ...
Episode 54: Being WEIRD (with Joe Henrich)
23 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Yoel and Mickey interview one of the most influential social scientists of our generation, Harvard University's Joe Henrich. Why are people from the W...
Episode 53: The COVID debate (with Robb Willer and Simine Vazire)
09 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Robb Willer and Simine Vazire join the podcast to debate whether social science, in its current form, can usefully contribute to our response to the C...
Episode 52: Cold Takes (with Neil Lewis, Jr.)
26 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Yoel and Mickey welcome Neil Lewis, Jr. of Cornell University to the podcast. Is psychology ready to be applied to help the response to the COVID-19 p...
Episode 51: Against Orthodoxy
12 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
After over a year of (mostly) avoiding controversial topics, Yoel and Mickey dive in to talk about orthodoxy, dissent, and "cancel culture." Does the ...
Episode 50: The Upside of Feeling Bad (with Claudia Haase)
29 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For their 50th episode, Yoel and Mickey welcome Northwestern University psychologist Claudia Haase to the podcast to discuss relationships and mistake...
Episode 49: Why Buddhism is Wrong (with Evan Thompson)
15 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Yoel and Mickey have a far ranging conversation with University of British Columbia professor of philosophy, Evan Thompson. Despite growing up with a ...
Episode 48: Clocks and Garbage Cans (with Rachel Ruttan)
01 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Yoel and Mickey host Rachel Ruttan, who is an assisant professor of organizational behavior and human resources at the Rotman School of Management. Wh...
Episode 47: Talking about Racism (with Keith Maddox)
17 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Yoel and Mickey welcome back returning guest Keith Maddox from Tufts University to talk about his research on racism. What is shadeism? Can anything b...
Episode 46: Very Good Men (with Very Bad Wizards)
03 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Yoel and Mickey try to settle their feud with the boys from Very Bad Wizards, Tamler Sommers and David Pizarro. They discuss what psychology, philosop...
Episode 45: Being Human (with Scott Barry Kaufman)
13 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Yoel and Mickey welcome humanistic psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman to the show. Scott talks about his academic path from intelligence researcher to p...
Episode 44: Psychology in the Time of COVID-19
29 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Yoel and Mickey spend the first half of the episode discussing how thier lives have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. How has the pademic affect...
Episode 43: Penumbral Fuzz (with Nina Strohminger)
15 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Yoel and Mickey welcome Nina Strohminger, Assistant Professor of Legal Studies & Business Ethics at the Wharton School of Business, to the show. Nina ...
Episode 42: The Plague (with Joshua Tybur)
01 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Yoel and Mickey welcome evolutionary psychologist Joshua Tybur to the podcast to discuss COVID-19 and the function of disgust as part of the behaviora...
Episode 41: With and Without Children (with Elizabeth Page-Gould)
18 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Yoel and Mickey welcome return guest Elizabeth Page-Gould to the podcast to discuss adults with and without children. Why did Liz choose to have child...
Episode 40: Diversity, Death, and (Cohen's) D
04 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As Little Urban Achievers, Yoel and Mickey delight in discussing previews for The Jesus Rolls, a Big Lebowski spinoff starring John Torturo as Jesus Q...
Episode 39: Hot Takes (with Robb Willer)
19 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Yoel and Mickey welcome Stanford sociologist and psychologist Robb Willer to the show, who serves up hot takes about the replication crisis. Did the l...
Episode 38: Is There a Generalizability Crisis?
22 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Yoel and Mickey discuss a new paper by Tal Yarkoni suggesting that quantitative research in psychology is suffering from a generaliozability crisis. D...
Episode 37: The War on Christmas Holiday Special
25 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Yoel and Mickey declare war on Christmas, discuss US-Canada differences, and almost entirely avoid serious topics. Bonus semi-serious topic: are all t...
Episode 36: Psychological Science Meets the Real World (with Nick Hobson)
11 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Mickey and Yoel chat with Nick Hobson, a psychologist who has moved from academia to applying behavioral science in the real world. What are some of t...
Episode 35: Against Experiments
27 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Are many classic social psychology experiments more theater than science? Mickey and Yoel discuss "The Rise and Fall of Social Psychology," a book by ...
Episode 34: The Future of Social Psychology
13 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Mickey and Yoel take advantage of the SESP (Society for Experimental Social Psychology) conference to ask guests some hard-hitting questions about the...
Episode 33: What is Heterodox Academy? (with Debra Mashek)
30 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Mickey and Yoel talk with Debra Mashek, the executive director of Heterodox Academy, an organization working to increase open inquiry, viewpoint diver...
Episode 32: Measurement Schmeasurement (with Jessica Flake)
16 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Jessica Flake joins Mickey and Yoel to talk measurement. What is it, how do you do it well, and do social psychologists care about it? What does measu...
Episode 31: Is Ego Depletion Real?
02 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
By listener request, Yoel quizzes Mickey about ego depletion. How did we start studying it? How has the replication crisis changed how we think about ...
Episode 30: Evaluating Eminence
18 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Yoel and Mickey discuss the role of eminence in science. Is there a role for eminence in psychology? What makes a researcher eminent? Would we be bett...
Episode 29: Sacred Values
04 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Yoel and Mickey discuss sacred values. How are sacred valued different from other values? What are the hallmarks of values that have become sacrilized...