All Episodes

A talk with David Foster, who writes about polarization and media at knowthesystem.org and is the author of “Moderates of the World Unite!: Reworking the Political Media Complex.” Topics discussed include: the optimal approach for reducing toxic political polarization (cultural change vs systemic changes); defining the word ‘moderate’ and examining some of the negative connotations…

Elizaveta Friesem writes about media, communication, and social power (i.e., the concept of power that characterizes people and their relationships). I first interviewed her about media and polarization in 2021; we talked about her book Media Is Us: Understanding Communication and Moving Beyond Blame. Topics we discuss here include: Michel Foucault’s ideas about power (often…

A talk with Daniel Whiteson, a professor of physics and astronomy about free will. Daniel is also the co-author of “We Have No Idea,” about the many unknowns remaining in physics, and the co-host of the podcast Daniel and Jorge Explain The Universe.  Our talk focuses on something I think isn’t often discussed: what are the…

A talk with journalist Isaac Saul, founder of Tangle News (readtangle.com), which shares takes on current events from across the political spectrum and which I think is great, from a depolarization perspective. Here’s what Isaac said about why he started Tangle: “I started Tangle because I recognized that the news industry was broken. My work…

A talk with screenwriter/producer Brian Koppelman, known for many movies and TV shows, including the poker movie Rounders, the show Billions, and the series Super Pumped: The Battle For Uber. He’s also the host of the podcast The Moment. We talk about: his initial interest in poker; how they got the idea for Rounders; poker…

A talk with professional poker player Dara O’Kearney on the subject of poker tells (aka, behavioral patterns in poker). Dara is the co-host of The Chip Race, one of the most popular poker podcasts, and the author of several books, including GTO Poker Simplified. We talk about: the importance of poker tells compared to strategy; how Dara’s…

A talk with David Zulawski, who’s an expert in interrogation and interview techniques, the cofounder of Wicklander Zulawski and Associates, and the author of Practical Aspects of Interview and Interrogation. Topics discussed include: Why is the non-confrontational, rapport-focused technique he recommends the best one? Why is it important to downplay the significance of a crime?…

This is a talk with professional poker player Yakov Hirsch about the well known high-stakes poker incident where amateur Robbi Jade Lew was accused of cheating by professional player Garrett Adelstein. We give our takes on the hand, and the overall situation, and we talk about Robbi’s possible motivations and thought processes during this hand,…

A talk about trying to understand Trump’s anger at the liberal-leaning news media and how that relates to American polarization. This is from a video talk I had with Yakov Hirsch (twitter.com/yakovhirsch) in November of 2023 (the first part of this talk is here). A transcript is below. Other topics discussed include: Trump-Russia media coverage;…

A second talk with Yakov Hirsch, who writes about the Middle East conflict and about “Hasbara culture”: what he sees as the tendency of some Israel-defending people to be overly antagonistic and us-vs-them in their thinking (for example, unfairly framing criticism of Israel as “antisemitic”). If you haven’t heard our first talk, I recommend listening…

A talk with Kevin Arceneaux, whose research found that a surprising number of people (around 40%) either agreed with or did not disagree with statements like “When I think about our political and social institutions, I cannot help thinking ‘just let them all burn’?” In their paper, they called this a “need for chaos.” We…

A talk with Jon Michael Hoefling, a sports analyst, about reading behavioral tells and indicators in football, baseball, tennis, and other sports. We focus on a 2021 story that quarterback Ben Roethlisberger had a tell: how he positioned his foot before a play was a strong indicator of whether he’d run or pass. We also…

A reshare of a 2021 episode where I talked with Scott Stossel, author of “My Age of Anxiety: Fear, Hope, Dread, and the Search for Peace of Mind.” (Scott is also national editor of The Atlantic.) Scott’s book is a history of the condition and treatment of anxiety, and also a personal history in which…

A talk with psychologist Christopher Moyer about electrodermal activity (EDA), also known as galvanic skin response (GSR), which is what lie detectors measure. This is a reshare of a 2019 episode. A transcript is below. Topics discussed include: What are spikes in electrodermal activity actually telling us? We talk about its use in lie detectors.…

Animal behavior researcher Daniel Mills talks about various aspects of the human-pet relationship, with a focus on his research. Transcript below. Topics include: dogs’ abilities to read human emotions and how they do that; the effects of pets on our mental health; animals’ ability to perceive images on a TV screen; the differences between the…

Joel Berman is a practitioner of Compassionate Listening (compassionatelistening.org). Joel has travelled to the Middle East and talked with Israelis and Palestinians about their experiences and grievances. Topics discussed: Joel’s experiences in the Middle East; what the Compassionate Listening methodology entails; the bravery required for conflict resolution work; and both of our experiences being introverts…

A talk with two people with door-to-door sales experience: Conrad Smith and Dave Mock. We talk about the tricks and strategies they used to close sales, and the psychological factors in why those strategies work. Topics discussed: verbal and physical sales scripts some companies use, and why they work; the use of ambiguous language in…

Vanessa Otero is the creator of a popular and well respected media bias chart that ranks the bias of many news outlets, and she’s the founder of Ad Fontes Media. Topics discussed include: the process her team uses to determine media bias; recognizing that everyone is biased and that the best we can do is…

A talk with Yakov Hirsch, who thinks that some Jewish people have exaggerated ideas about the amount of antisemitism in the world, and overly pessimistic ideas about the nature of antisemitism. This can make some Jewish people see disagreement, criticism, and conflict too often through the lens of antisemitism. Hirsch ties this into the Israel/Palestine…

Maria Konnikova is the best-selling author of the books The Biggest Bluff, The Confidence Game, and Mastermind: How To Think Like Sherlock Holmes. Topics we talk about include: the human desire for certainty and story/narrative, and our discomfort with ambiguity and uncertainty; how she decided to get into poker and write The Biggest Bluff; why…

A talk with orchestra conductor Ming Luke (mingluke.com). Topics discussed include: what a conductor’s body language and gestures can communicate to the orchestra; how small differences in gestures can sometimes result in significant musical differences; the difference in conducting styles that can exist between conductors; the role conductors play and the benefits they bring; the…

This episode is about what I refer to as “behavior bullshit.” There are many self-proclaimed behavior experts spreading bad, misleading, and irresponsible concepts about human behavior, and some of these people are quite popular. This episode focuses on Jack Brown (Twitter: @drgjackbrown), one of the more egregious offenders amongst behavior bullshitters. Other topics discussed include:…

For the purposes of depolarization, it’s important to understand the us-vs-them narratives that surround us. This is a talk with Rich Logis (perfectourunion.us), who describes his journey as going “from ultra-MAGA to Never-Trump.” Rich was a vocal pro-Trump activist, who’d written many political op-eds and had his own political podcast, and who switched to being…

A talk with Martina Dove (martinadove.com), author of the book The Psychology of Fraud, Persuasion and Scam Techniques, about some common scams you and people you know might encounter (phishing scams, “pig butchering” scams, romance scams, wrong-number-text scams, and more). We discuss how these scams work, and some strategies for avoiding them.  Episode links: Apple…

Craig Malkin (drcraigmalkin.com) is the author of the popular book Rethinking Narcissism: The Secret to Recognizing and Coping with Narcissists, in which he describes the spectrum of narcissism: how it can be healthy to have positive illusions about one’s self and one’s life, as long as those illusions don’t become pathologically unhealthy and toxic. Transcript…

A talk with Bill Doherty, a relationship therapist (thedohertyapproach.com) and the co-founder of Braver Angels, a political depolarization-aimed group (braverangels.org). A transcript is below. Topics discussed include: Bill’s approach to couples counseling; thoughts on dealing with the common situation where one partner is much more interested in healing the relationship than the other; the importance…

A talk with anesthesiologist Ashita Goel about her work. Topics include: the sometimes strange behaviors of people under anesthesia; the hypnotic and “truth serum”-like effects of anesthesia; factors in determining drug dosage; the various states one can put people into; why anesthesiologists often seem outgoing and fun; the viral video of the man who woke…

A talk with psychology researcher Mikey Biddlestone (Twitter: @biddlepsych), who specializes in studying conspiracy theory beliefs, about some psychological factors that can make beliefs in conspiracy theories more likely. We talk about “just world” beliefs (beliefs that the world is largely just and fair) and how those might relate to conspiracy-minded thinking. Other topics discussed:…

A talk with Barry Prizant (barryprizant.com), author of the influential book Uniquely Human: A Different Way of Seeing Autism, and co-host of the Uniquely Human podcast (www.uniquelyhuman.com). The focus of our talk is on understanding the experiences and behaviors of autistic people. Topics discussed include: understanding the underlying causes behind the sometimes seemingly inexplicable behaviors…

A talk with Simonne Mastrella, author of the research paper Acting Anxious: The Impact of Candidates’ Anxious Nonverbal Behavior on Interview Performance Ratings. Topics discussed include: the design of the study; her findings; whether results differed by gender or by the nature of the job; how perceptions of anxiety and “warmth” are related; and the…

A talk with political theorist Robert Talisse, (Twitter: @RobertTalisse) author of the book Sustaining Democracy: What We Owe To The Other Side. His book is one of the best I’ve read about both American polarization and about the challenges of democracy: I highly recommend it. A transcript of this talk is included below. Topics we…

Aviation security professional Philip Baum (www.avsec.com) talks about analyzing behavior for aviation security and risk assessment purposes, and for security purposes in general. Transcript below. Topics discussed include: looking for deviations from the baseline behaviors normal in an environment; successes of behavioral analysis for security purposes; what can make some of this work controversial; thoughts…

A talk with poker player Lara Eisenberg, who won the 2021 World Series of Poker Ladies Event, and who got 2nd place in a 2022 World Poker Tour event for $481,000. Topics we talk about include: how her thoughts about poker tells have changed over time; some specific behaviors from a poker hand from the…

A talk with social psychologist Anne Wilson (annewilsonpsychlab.com) about memory and how we define who we are. Topics discussed include: the nature of self; the nature of memory; the fallibility of our memories; the theory of temporal self appraisal (which is about how we experience ourselves as being close to or far away in time…

A short update about my book Defusing American Anger being released, and a few other small notes. You can get the book at www.american-anger.com. Episode links: Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts

A talk with Calvin Wayman (Twitter: @calwayman), who was raised in a fundamentalist Mormon cult, with four mothers and 44 siblings. This world was everything and everyone he’d known. At the age of 30, he left that world, and was as a result suddenly isolated from everything that had previously given his life meaning. We…

A talk with Nadja Heym, a psychology researcher who specializes in dark traits, like psychopathy, narcissism, and sadism, and who has researched so-called “dark empaths”: people with dark traits who have a good amount of empathy. We delve into some nuance in the area of psychopathy. Topics discussed include: How she defines psychopathic traits; The…

When trying to convince people of the problem of polarization and the necessity for depolarization endeavors, a common objection from politically passionate people goes, “But the other side is horrible, so polarization makes sense.” In this episode, I talk about what is probably the primary counterpoint to that objection: that us-vs-them anger, in a non-obvious…

A talk with racecar driver Andy Lally, who specializes in endurance GT (sportcar) racing. Topics we talk about include: What’s the breakdown in skill versus chance in an average race? What are the considerations when trying to pass other drivers, or trying to prevent drivers from passing? Where’s the boundary between acceptable behavior versus behavior…

A talk with Herman Ilgen, who’s been a negotiator for more than 30 years and who is the founder of the Institute for Nonverbal Strategy Analysis (INSA). Ilgen has researched how facial expression patterns may be connected to personality traits. His paper was titled “Personal Nonverbal Repertoires in facial displays and their relation to individual…

Credit Casey Martin, Ithaca Voice In the small town of Caroline in central New York state, there seems to be a war going on. A large sign in the town reads, “There’s a war in the valley, time to pick a side.” The divide is over proposed zoning laws. Rebecca Schillenback is a resident who…

A talk with psychologist Jessica Maxwell (www.jessmaxwell.com) about her research on sexual relationships. We talk about “growth” versus “destiny” views about sex: in other words, whether someone sees sexual satisfaction as something one must work on, or if one sees it as largely an issue of destiny–something that’s either present or it’s not. Other topics…

A talk with Philip Furley, who has done a lot of research on behavior and psychology in sports. A transcript is below. Topics discussed include: how an athlete’s body language can influence teammates, opponents, and even judges; behaviors and strategies of penalty kickers and goalkeepers in soccer; some specific behaviors from the recent World Cup;…

A talk with Brian Dunning, who you might call a professional skeptic. He has been doing the Skeptoid podcast since 2006, and is the creator of multiple books and video projects aimed at promoting critical thinking and skepticism. We talk about the reasons why we’re so often drawn to pseudoscience, bullshit, and no/low-evidence ideas in…

Wilfred Reilly is a political scientist, Kentucky State University professor, and author of the 2019 book Hate Crime Hoax. I wanted to talk to Reilly about the nature of hate crimes in America. One reason I wanted to discuss this is because our perceptions of hate crimes, and racism more generally, are a factor in…

A talk with journalist and author James Kirchick (jameskirchick.com) about antisemitism. Topics discussed include: the origins of various varieties of American antisemitism, controversial statements about Jewish people from Kanye West and Whoopi Goldberg; Donald Trump; Israel; George Soros; Louis Farrakhan; Black Hebrew Israelites; the term “globalist”, and more. For a follow-up episode about antisemitism, see…

A talk with conflict resolution specialist Guy Burgess, who, along with his wife Heidi Burgess, run the project www.beyondintractability.org. Guy and Heidi wrote a paper in 2022 titled “Applying conflict resolution insights to the hyper‐polarized, society‐wide conflicts threatening liberal democracies.” A transcript of this talk is below. I talk with Guy about: how conflict resolution…

A talk with Blake Mobley about the business of recruiting: matching job seekers with companies that are hiring. Blake is the co-founder and managing director of recruiting company Keeper Recruiting (keeperrecruiting.com), which specializes in biotech. Topics discussed include: what the process of recruiting is like; how Keeper Recruiting learns pertinent details about job seekers; the…

I was interviewed on Mahima Samraik’s podcast Breaking The Facts about my struggles with anxiety and mental issues as a young man, which led to me dropping out of college in the middle of my second year of college. We talk about what that experience was like; recommendations for people dealing with similar problems; and…

A talk with psychologist Richard Bentall, author of the well known book “Madness Explained: Psychosis and Human Nature,” which is an examination of the psychological causes of the symptoms associated with psychosis, schizophrenia, mania, and other mental issues. Richard Bentall is a Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Sheffield. A transcript of this…

A talk with Larry Hart (Twitter: @coachlarryhart), a football coach at the University of Houston, and the author of the book The Recruit’s Playbook. Topics discussed include: common behavioral patterns (tells) in American football that are used to get an edge on opponents and teams; reading signals that opponent coaches give to players; the importance…

A talk with cultural psychologist Steven Heine (twitter: @StevenHeine4) about how we react to our sense of meaning being threatened. What happens when our mental framework of how the world works doesn’t hold up and things seem chaotic? What happens when our sense of what’s meaningful in our lives is threatened? A transcript is included…

A talk with Andrew O’Donohue, co-author of Democracies Divided: The Global Challenge of Political Polarization. Andrew has studied how societal conflicts play out in many countries, and the harm resulting from those conflicts. Transcript is included below. Topics discussed include: common objections people have to thinking about polarization or considering it a problem; what American…

A talk with research Sabrina Hoppe, who specializes in machine learning and cognitive science. Hoppe was part of a team who worked on a 2018 paper titled Eye movements during everyday behavior predict personality traits. Transcript of this talk is below. We talk about that research and what was found. Topics include: how that study…

A talk with addiction specialist Dr. Casey Grover about behavioral indicators of so-called “drug-seeking behavior,” which is when people try to deceptively convince doctors to prescribe them drugs. Grover hosts the podcast Addiction in Emergency Medicine and Acute Care. We talk about: why Casey thinks “drug-seeking” is a bad, unhelpful term; what behavioral clues doctors…

This is a reshare of a 2020 talk I did with psychology researcher Neguine Rezaii. We talk about her research using machine learning to find patterns in language used by teenagers who were at risk of schizophrenia that were correlated with later schizophrenia diagnosis. The two language patterns found in the subjects’ speech were 1)…

This is a rebroadcast of a 2018 episode where I interviewed Mark McClish about statement analysis: analyzing written and spoken speech for hidden meaning. McClish is the author of the books I Know You Are Lying and Don’t Be Deceived. He’s a law enforcement trainer and a former US Marshal. Episode links: YouTube Apple Podcasts…

A talk with Bill Ottman, co-founder and CEO of the social media platform Minds (minds.com), which is known for its minimal content moderation, “free speech” approach. Ottman and other Minds contributors (including Daryl Davis, a black man known for deradicalizing white supremacists via conversations) recently wrote a paper titled The Censorship Effect, which examined how…

A talk with political scientist Leonie Huddy about research into American racism and prejudice. I wanted to talk with Huddy about headlines like this 2012 one from USA Today: “U.S. majority have prejudice against blacks.” I wanted to ask her if such framings were justified based on the research, or if they were, as it…

A talk with Dino Levy about his team’s lie detection research, which used monitoring of facial muscles and machine learning to detect lies at an impressively high 73% success rate. Their paper was titled “Lie to my face: An electromyography approach to the study of deceptive behavior.” Topics discussed include: The setup of the study,…

Brandon Sheils (twitter: @brandonsheils) is a professional poker player and poker coach who recently did a scientific study of poker behavior (aka “poker tells) as part of his seeking a Masters degree in Psychology at the University of Nottingham. Brandon also has a poker-focused YouTube channel. Topics discussed in our talk include: the challenges of…

Abe Rutchick (rutchick.com, twitter: @aberutchick) talks about his psychology research that showed that killing is easier at a distance, how the experiment was designed, and about antisocial behavior in general being more likely when at a distance. A transcript is below. Other topics discussed: how his killing-at-a-distance research relates to our behaviors online; research he…

A talk with John Wood Jr. (twitter: @johnrwoodjr), who’s an ambassador with the depolarization group Braver Angels (braverangels.org) and who ran for Congress as a Republican in 2014 against Maxine Waters. Topics discussed include: American polarization and how it’s increased since the 1950s; what drew John to conservative politics; what the labels “liberal” and “conservative”…

An interview of psychologist Kirk Schneider (kirkjschneider.com). We talk about existential psychology and the power of being able to better understand and recognize the core anxieties we all have about existence, such as our fear of death, meaninglessness, isolation, and freedom. A transcript is below. Other things we talk about: the awe and mystery of…

A talk with Elizabeth Stokoe (twitter: @lizstokoe), who researches and writes about conversation analysis (CA), and who is the author of the book ‘Talk: The Science of Conversation.’ This is my second talk about CA (see my talk with Saul Albert). Transcript included, below. Topics include: What are some of the most useful things Stokoe…

A talk with political scientist Thomas Pepinsky (tompepinsky.com) about how many Trump supporters really, actually believe the 2020 election was illegitimate or rigged, and what might America be like if Trump had succeeded in overturning the election. (Transcript included, below.) Other topics discussed include: What can we deduce from U.S. surveys that show high distrust…

A reading of a piece I wrote called ‘How social media divides us.’ I recommend the written piece over the podcast version. Much of the mainstream focus on how social media may be amplifying our divides has been on product features (e.g., content recommendation algorithms, or reaction emoji choices). This piece examines the idea that…

Hod Lipson (hodlipson.com) is a roboticist who works in the areas of artificial intelligence and digital manufacturing. I talk to Hod about the nature of self-awareness. Topics discussed include: how close we are to self-conscious machines; what he views as likely building strategies that will yield self-aware machines; what it takes for something to be…

In this episode, I give some thoughts on the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict and how some of the anger and emotion around that is caused by political us-vs-them polarization. If you’re someone who has a lot of emotion and anger about the verdict, and you’re someone who wants America to heal, I think you should give…

In this episode of the People Who Read People podcast, I talk to sociology researcher Saul Albert (twitter @saul, website: saulalbert.net) about conversation analysis: the scientific analysis of how humans talk to each other. Topics discussed include: what conversation analysis (CA) is and how it’s done; some interesting CA findings described in Elizabeth Stokoe’s book…

In this episode of the People Who Read People podcast, I talk to Rob Speiden (trackingschool.com), who’s an expert in “sign cutting,” which is the tracking of humans or animals over land using clues of physical disturbance. Rob teaches tracking and his site is at www.trackingschool.com. He wrote, along with Greg Fuller, a respected textbook…

A talk with researcher Emily Kubin (twitter: @emily_kubin) about her work reviewing more than 100 studies on how social media may be affecting political polarization. Transcript is below. Their paper is called “The role of (social) media in political polarization: a systematic review.” We discuss her research, why polarization is a problem in the first…

A conversation with Ben Tyler, professional musician, about how understanding behavior and psychology have played a role in his musical career. Ben’s own music project is called Small Skies (Twitter: @smallskies), and he has worked and toured with many other bands. Specific topics include: what cues and signals from other musicians is he making use…

If you pay a lot of attention to politics, but doing so makes you miserable, this might be one you want to listen to. I talk with Christopher Freiman (Twitter @cafreiman), political philosopher and author of the book Why It’s OK to Ignore Politics. For many people, voting and paying attention to politics is a…

A talk with Jennifer Cohn (Twitter @jennycohn1), election integrity advocate, about American election security. Since 2016, Jennifer has been warning that our elections are insecure in many ways; you can read some of her writings on this topic on Medium. Her stance hasn’t changed but, after Biden won and Trump claimed that the election was…

Elizaveta Friesem (www.elizavetafriesem.com) thinks and writes about media and our relationship to it. Her recently published book is Media Is Us and it examines the idea that media is not something “out there” but more something that is part of us, something that happens internally, similar to any other human communication. And perhaps this means…

Second interview of recently retired police captain James Mitchell (first episode link), who happens to be politically liberal. We continue tackling the question: when we see an American cop doing something that seems clearly over-reactive and overly violent, what are the factors that influenced that cop to behave that way? In our first talk, our…

In this episode, I interview Jon Michael Hoefling, a sports analyst and broadcaster, about a recent story that was making the rounds: a young man named Theo Ash, who has a popular TikTok where he analyzes football, had found a physical tell that Steelers’ quarterback Ben Roethlisberger had: how Roethlisberger positioned his foot before a…

For the purposes of political de-escalation and conflict-resolution (a frequent goal of mine with this podcast), it’s important to understand the more rational, well meaning arguments the “other side” has, and not perceive the other side as all as bad as its worst people. To that end, this is a talk with Carey Callahan aimed…

In this episode of the podcast, I interview Ashley Pallathra (twitter) and Edward Brodkin (twitter), co-authors of Missing Each Other: How to Cultivate Meaningful Connections. Our modern world seems increasingly isolated, in how we separate ourselves from others, in how many of our communal activities and institutions have gone away, in how we are increasingly…

In this episode of the People Who Read People podcast, I interview Brandon Singer, aka Nocturnal (his Twitch, his Twitter) about reading opponent behavior in the video game Apex Legends. We discuss: getting reads of how experienced players are, how much predicting behavior plays a role, how much tilt and mental considerations play a role.…

A talk with experienced tennis player and coach Carlos Goffi about the role that psychology and reading opponent behavior and mood can play in tennis. To learn more about Carlos, visit his site. He’s been coaching for more than 30 years, and has coached John McEnroe and John’s brother Patrick McEnroe, amongst many others. He’s…

First of two talks with James Mitchell, a retired police captain who worked in Prince George’s County, Maryland, and who happens to be politically liberal. We talk about excessive force by police in the United States, with the goal of understanding some of the factors that can lead to unjustified and too-aggressive police responses. (Here’s…

Note: there is an interview transcript towards the bottom of this page.  An interview with Nathan Filer (Twitter @nathanfiler), author of the non-fiction book The Heartland: Finding and Losing Schizophrenia and the fiction book The Shock of the Fall. Both of these books deal with topics of psychosis and, as Nathan refers to it in…

In this episode of the People Who Read People podcast, I interview an 8-year-old about such topics as: how she knows other kids want to be her friend; how she knows adults are upset with her; tricks she uses to watch more TV; the etiquette around Infection Tag (one of her favorite games); and her thoughts…