All Episodes

#667 Justin Gregg - If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal; Evolution, Animal Intelligence, and Human Stupidity

Aug 19, 2022

Dr. Justin Gregg is a Senior Research Associate with the Dolphin Communication Project and an Adjunct Professor at St. Francis Xavier University, where he lectures on animal behavior and cognition. Originally from Vermont, Dr. Gregg studied the echolocation abilities of wild dolphins in Japan and the Bahamas. He is the author of If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal: What Animal Intelligence Reveals About Human Stupidity. More»
#666 Luana Maroja: Gene Exchange, Adaptation, Speciation, and Phylogeography

Aug 18, 2022

Dr. Luana Maroja is Professor of Biology at Williams College. She is interested in the evolution of barriers to gene exchange, speciation, population genetics and phylogeography. Her study systems are crickets (Gryllus), artic plants and butterflies (heliconius). More»
#665 Scott Grafton - Physical Intelligence; The Relationship Between the Body and the Mind

Aug 15, 2022

Dr. Scott Grafton is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California Santa Barbara. Dr. Grafton is interested in how people organize movement into goal-oriented action. The emphasis is on elucidating the cognitive architecture that underlies action representation. This is developed with studies of sequence and skill acquisition, motor simulation, sensorimotor transformation, on-line control and action observation experiments. He is the author of Physical Intelligence: The Science of How the Body and the Mind Guide Each Other Through Life. More»
#664 Summer Mengelkoch: Early Life Stressors, Life History, Physiology, and Decision-Making

Aug 12, 2022

Dr. Summer Mengelkoch has recently finished her PhD in experimental social psychology at Texas Christian University. She has just accepted a postdoc position at UCLA under George Slavich. She earned a B.A. from the University of Minnesota in 2013, and an M.S. From Texas Christian University in 2020. Dr. Mengelkoch seeks to better understand relationships between biology and behavior. To do so, she investigates relationships between biological factors (including hormones, hormonal contraceptive use, and immune function) and behaviors (including eating behavior, mate preferences, cognition, and decision-making). More»
#663 Johannes Mahr: Episodic Memory, Imagination, and their Social Functions

Aug 11, 2022

Dr. Johannes Mahr is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Schacter Memory Lab at Harvard University. He will be a professor of Philosophy at York University in Toronto. Before that, he was a Mind, Brain, and Behavior Fellow with a joint appointment in the Departments of Philosophy and Psychology at Harvard. He completed his PhD in Cognitive Science under the supervision of Gergely Csibra and Dan Sperber at Central European University. His work combines philosophical and empirical approaches to study episodic memory, imagination, and human communication. More»
#662 Christopher von Rueden: Leadership and Hierarchy from an Evolutionary Perspective

Aug 8, 2022

Dr. Christopher von Rueden is Associate Professor of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond. An anthropologist with expertise in traditional human societies, his research focuses on how humans form status hierarchies, why we evolved to do so, and the demographic and ecological factors that cause our hierarchies to be more or less coercive. Relatedly, he studies the role of leader-follower relationships in the evolution of human cooperation. In addition to his work on status and leadership, he has published on topics such as why humans differ in personality traits and why we have such unique life histories among primates. More»
#661 Kristina Durante: The Career-Family Trade-Off for Modern Women, and Changing Gender Norms

Aug 5, 2022

Dr. Kristina Durante is an evolutionary psychologist and Professor of Marketing, Marketing Department Vice Chair, and the marketing Ph.D. program coordinator at Rutgers Business School. She is a social psychologist interested in the biology of decision-making. Her research lies at the intersection of social psychology, evolutionary biology, and consumer decision-making. Her areas of expertise include women’s consumer choice and luxury spending, family consumer decisions, hormones and behavior, and the psychological consequences of ambiguity. More»
#660 William Costello: The Psychology of Involuntary Celibates (Incels), and Modern Mating

Aug 4, 2022

William Costello finished his MSc in Psychology: Culture and Evolution at Brunel University London in 2021. The topic of his thesis was incels. Later this year he will join Dr. David Buss's Evolutionary Psychology lab at the University of Texas at Austin, as a PhD student. He will retain an honorary research assistant role at Swansea University. He writes opinion pieces on a range of cultural issues including gender and identity politics, and his work has been featured in Quillette and Areo, and his academic research has been presented at several academic conferences around the world. More»
#659 Nick Chater & Morten Christiansen - The Language Game; Language as a Game of Charades

Aug 1, 2022

Dr. Nick Chater is Professor of Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School. He works on rationality and language using a range of theoretical and experimental approaches. More»
#658 Todd Kashdan - The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively

Jul 29, 2022

Dr. Todd Kashdan is Professor of Psychology at George Mason University. He has been named Distinguished Faculty Member of the Year at George Mason University and received the American Psychological Association's Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology. His new book is The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively. More»