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This is a podcast aimed at better understanding other people and better understanding ourselves. 

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I’m Zach Elwood. I talk to people from a wide range of professions and backgrounds about their views on behavior and psychology. Some episode compilations you might like:

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About me

I’m most known for my work on poker tells (aka, poker behavior). My first poker tells book, Reading Poker Tells, has been translated into eight languages. I’m also known for my work on political polarization (for example, my book Defusing American Anger). My independent research on deceptive online activity has been featured in NY Times, Washington Post, Buzzfeed, and more.

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Episode deep Dives

Deep dives include summaries, transcripts, source and resource links, and listening options.

“Opinion cascades” show some political party stances may be due to chance and initial conditions, with Dr. Michael Macy

In this episode of the podcast, I interview Dr. Michael Macy of Cornell University, whose research on “opinion cascades” show how some political group stances on issues can be rather arbitrary and due to initial conditions (a good summary of the study). Similar to how in many complex systems, slightly different initial conditions can lead…

How does Facebook increase political animosity and polarization?, with Jaime Settle

In this episode of the People Who Read People podcast, I interview Jaime Settle, a political scientist and professor at William and Mary. A transcript of this talk is below. Settle is the author of Frenemies: How Social Media Polarizes America. In that book, she summarizes thinking on American political polarization and describes the research…

Understanding extreme political polarization, its causes and effects, with Dr. Jennifer McCoy

In this episode of the People Who Read People podcast, I interview Dr. Jennifer McCoy (her Twitter), a specialist in political polarization, democracy creation and destruction, and mediation. She has authored or edited six books and dozens of articles, and has acted as mediator in 2002 in Venezuala after a failed coup again Hugo Chavez. Her…

Examining the political impacts of violent protests and riots, with Dr. Omar Wasow

In this episode of the People Who Read People podcast, I interview Dr. Omar Wasow (here’s his Twitter), an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics at Princeton University, and author of a paper entitled “Agenda Seeding: How 1960s Black Protests Moved Elites, Public Opinion, and Voting.” In that research, he found that civil rights-related…

A talk with a militant Portland-based antifa/BLM protester

In this episode, I interview a self-described anti-fascist who has frequently taken part in the more militant and unlawful aspects of the BLM-focused protests and riots that have occurred in Portland, Oregon in the wake of George Floyd’s death. This person has also taken part in physical confrontations with alt-right pro-Trump groups, like the Proud…

Did Cambridge Analytica really perform ‘a great hack’? A talk with Dave Karpf

On this episode of the People Who Read People podcast, I talk with Dave Karpf, (twitter: @davekarpf), a political scientist and associate Professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University. There’s a good chance you’ve heard about how Cambridge Analytica used access to the Facebook data of millions of U.S. citizens and advanced…

Evaluating psych patients in emergency room settings, with Rob Tarzwell

On this episode, I talk with Dr. Rob Tarzwell, a psychiatrist and psych researcher. I talk to him about his 15 years as a psychiatric doctor in emergency room (ER) settings. We talk about some of the strategies and processes involved in trying to distinguish psych conditions from other types of conditions in the ER,…

Examining factors behind offensive speech, with Dr. Timothy Jay

A talk with Dr. Timothy Jay, a psychologist and expert on the phenomenon of cursing. He has written several books, including Why We Curse, Cursing in America, and We Did What? (here is Dr. Jay’s Amazon author page). A transcript is below. On social media, we often see videos of someone saying or doing rude,…

Can you predict schizophrenia by analyzing language?, with Dr. Neguine Rezaii

The latest People Who Read People podcast episode is an interview with Dr. Neguine Rezaii, a psychiatrist and psychology researcher, about her team’s 2019 research using machine learning finding speech patterns in young adults that were predictive of later psychosis and schizophrenia diagnosis. The two language patterns found in the subjects’ speech were 1) a…