Opinion Science

Dr. Richard Petty is a professor of psychology at Ohio State University. He's probably best known for co-developing the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) of persuasion (but he's done a lot of other stuff, too). He was also my advisor in grad school. In the last episode of Opinion Science, Rich lent his voice to telling the story of the ELM. Go check that out if you haven't already. But my full conversation with Rich was also great and went in a few directions that just didn't fit into a general intro to the ELM. So, I present that full interview here. It gets a little inside baseball at some points, so be aware of that. But it's an interesting glimpse at the random ride that a career in science can be and the number of lucky moments that can steer the wheel. For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/ Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

In the 1980s, two social psychologists--Rich Petty and John Cacioppo--devised a new way to make sense of persuasion: the Elaboration Likelihood Model. Their work came on the heels of an era in psychology when people were fed up with persuasion research. The old studies were a mess, and it wasn't clear if it was even possible to understand how persuasion works. In the course of studying for an exam in graduate school, Rich and John started sketching out some ways to make sense of things. Over the next decade or so, those ideas blossomed into a fully formed theory that continues to inspire persuasion research today. In this episode, I bring you up to speed on the Elaboration Likelihood Models and the incredible stories of happenstance that made it all happen. The foundation of the episode includes an interview with Rich Petty, a psychology professor at Ohio State University. In the latter half of the episode, we hear from Pablo Briñol, psychology professor at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Plus, there are some bonus words from Bob Cialdini. If you want to dive really deep into the Elaboration Likelihood Model, check out the 1986 chapter in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). For the updated aspect of the model--"self-validation"--you can check out a recent paper by Pablo and Rich (Briñol & Petty, 2022). For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/ Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Drs. Sarah Gaither and Analia Albuja study racial identity and how we can overcome racial biases. They just published an important new study on the effects of random roommate assignments on students’ ability to develop diverse social networks. Our conversation focuses on two key research papers: Gaither & Sommers (2013); Albuja et al. (in press). And if you haven’t listened to my episode on the Contact Hypothesis (Episode 44), it pairs well with this one! For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/ Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Dave Fleischer is a political organizer who led the team that pioneered “deep canvassing,” which is a particularly effective form of face-to-face persuasion. It was developed on the ground, but when political scientists put it to a rigorous test, they found that these brief conversations with voters were having a lasting impact (Broockman & Kalla, 2016). On this episode, Dave shares his background in political campaigns and walks us through an actual example of deep canvassing that made a real difference to someone’s attitudes toward transgender people. If you want to know more, check out Dave’s Substack, where he’s written a lot of great articles about his team’s approach to persuasion. Also, doing my due diligence, I’ll link to the movie I mentioned in the intro--“Salesman” (1969)--if you want to dive into classic American cinéma verité. For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/ Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Christian Wheeler studies the intersection of opinions, communication, and personal identity. He’s a professor of management and marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In our conversation, we talk about the quirks of teaching in a business school, the promise of improv exercises for learning life skills, and his new research on the reputational benefits (or not) of being good at self-control and willing to listen to people with diverse viewpoints (Hussein & Wheeler, 2024). For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/ Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Aviva Philipp-Muller studies why people might pass on science. She’s an Assistant Professor of marketing at the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University. We talked about her research on people’s openness to science in consumer products and how they’re marketed. She also shared her perspective on how anti-science views are an issue of persuasion. Things that come up in this episode: 2016202120232022YouTube Channelhttps://www.ohiohistory.org/science-lectures/For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/ Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Aaron Barnes is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of Louisville College of Business. He studies how persuasion, branding, and consumer–brand relationships differ between cultures. In our conversation, we talk about Aaron's story and some of his research on how the influence of calling a product "top-rated" versus "best-selling" depends on culture (Barnes & Shavitt, 2024). For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/ Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

David Halpern is the President & Founding Director of the Behavioral Insights Team. It started as a "nudge unit" in the British government but has gone on to become its own company with offices around the world. We talked to David in 2021 when we were gathering interviews for our podcast series, They Thought We Were Ridiculous: The Unlikely Story of Behavioral Economics. But he had a lot of great insight on the role of behavioral science in public policy, so I wanted to share our full conversation as a standalone episode. Several years ago, David wrote a great book about the Behavioral Insights Team and what it's learned about applying behavioral science at scale. That book is: Inside the Nudge Unit: How Small Changes Can Make a Big Difference (and I really enjoyed it). For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/ Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Daniel Kahneman was a titan in social science. He transformed our understanding of decision-making, he taught a generation about social psychology, he won a Nobel prize. It's hard to overstate his influence. He passed away last week, and the field is mourning the loss. Along with the hosts of the podcast Behavioral Grooves, I interviewed Kahneman back in 2021, and we used that interview as a foundation of our podcast series, "They Thought We Were Ridiculous: The Unlikely Story of Behavioral Economics." I had already been considering releasing the full interview as a standalone episode of Opinion Science, and under the circumstances, it felt like sharing it now was a nice tribute to the man who had contributed so much. I hope listening to this is a comforting and warm reminder of his impact on behavioral science. This isn't a typical Opinion Science episode, though, because the interview was mostly for research and pulling soundbites. We didn't set out for it to be a polished standalone interview. As a result, we go down rabbit holes, get technical, assume shared knowledge, etc. So, I make no promises that you'll follow every moment of the interview if you're not already familiar with Kahneman's work, but it might still be a fun listen anyway. Thanks again to Danny Kahneman for reminiscing about the early days of his career with us. For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/ Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Andy Guess studies how social media platforms shape people’s political views. He’s an assistant professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University. Last summer, he was part of a big team that released four papers on their analyses and experiments in social media all at the same time. The research was in collaboration with Meta, the company responsible for Facebook and Instagram. Andy and the team were able to dissect how often people on these platforms are exposed to political opinions, particularly from people whose opinions differ from their own. They were also able to conduct experiments on these platforms. By turning some of the knobs and levers, could they influence people’s engagement on these platforms and even change their political views? The four big research papers that all came out together are: ScienceHow do social media feed algorithms affect attitudes and behavior in an election campaign?ScienceReshares on social media amplify political news but do not detectably affect beliefs or opinionsScienceAsymmetric ideological segregation in exposure to political news on FacebookNatureLike-minded sources on Facebook are prevalent but not polarizingFor a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/ Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Sendhil Mullainathan does a lot of things, and he does them well. He’s a professor of Computation and Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. I originally talked to Sendhil for our podcast series, They Thought We Were Ridiculous. He was well-positioned to give his perspective on a contentious, interdisciplinary field of social science called “behavioral economics.” But nowadays, behavioral economics is mainstream, but Sendhil has continued to study big questions that cut across the typical academic boundaries between disciplines. We talk about AI, economics, and racial bias. You can listen to our full series on behavioral economics here (Sendhil’s voice pops up in episodes 3 and 4). Also, the study we discuss testing racial discrimination in hiring practices was first reported in this 2003 paper in American Economic Review. For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/ Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

To look into the future of Behavioral Economics, we talked to three young researchers who are pushing the field further. A new generation of researchers is striving to understand decision-making in the developing world, how brains process economic decisions, and how bigger, more transparent scientific methods can shed light on basic principles of choice. This is the fifth episode of a special series called: "They Thought We Were Ridiculous: The Unlikely Story of Behavioral Economics." *Correction: During Rahul Bhui's section of the episode, we mistakenly said that people "don't take as many risks when they're framed as potential losses…even though they're relatively happy to take risks when they're framed as potential gains." We accidentally got this flipped! In truth, research on prospect theory shows that people tend to be risk-seeking in the loss domain but risk-averse in the gain domain. For more information, check out the Opinion Science webpage for this series: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/they-thought-we-were-ridiculous/ For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/ Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Eventually, Behavioral Economics emerged as an influential perspective. It’s become mainstream in Economics, and it’s helped inform programs and policies that affect real people every day. This is the fourth episode of a special series called: "They Thought We Were Ridiculous: The Unlikely Story of Behavioral Economics." For more information, check out the Opinion Science webpage for this series: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/they-thought-we-were-ridiculous/ For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/ Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Behavioral Economics was using psychology to understand economics, but what did economists and psychologists think about their unexpected marriage? Slowly, this fledgling field weathered a flurry of criticism from both sides as it doggedly held onto data-driven ideas about economic decision-making. This is the third episode of a special series called: "They Thought We Were Ridiculous: The Unlikely Story of Behavioral Economics." For more information, check out the Opinion Science webpage for this series: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/they-thought-we-were-ridiculous/ For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/ Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky were two psychologists with big ideas about how people made decisions. Their careful research launched a brand new way of understanding people’s choices, and it helped fan the flames of Behavioral Economics. This is the second episode of a special series called: "They Thought We Were Ridiculous: The Unlikely Story of Behavioral Economics." For more information, check out the Opinion Science webpage for this series: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/they-thought-we-were-ridiculous/ For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/ Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

For years, neoclassical economists have made an unusual assumption—that people are rational decision-makers. But a few social scientists have dared to challenge that assumption. They’ve collected observations, analyzed data, and presented their perspective. Their work would usher in a new era of Economics. This is the first episode of a special series called: "They Thought We Were Ridiculous: The Unlikely Story of Behavioral Economics." For more information, check out the Opinion Science webpage for this series: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/they-thought-we-were-ridiculous/ For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/ Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Coming February 26th! I team up with the guys at Behavioral Groovesto produce a 5-part podcast series on behavioral economics. We tell the story of how some young social scientists took issue with assumptions that economists were making about how people make decisions, and they ended up transforming the field. Their insights went on to shape governments and businesses around the world. The whole series will drop on the Opinion Science podcast feed on February 26th. See you then! For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/ Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Jack Dovidio's work is at the heart of how we currently understand the psychology of prejudice. He's spent his career considering where prejudice comes from, how people express it, how it biases people's judgments and behaviors, and what we could do to address it. He's an emeritus professor at Yale University, and he's also just a really pleasant guy to talk to. In our conversation, we cover his early days as a social psychologist studying when people will help each other out, his research on "aversive racism," and his work studying the effects of racial bias in medical treatment. The new book out by Jack, Lou Penner, and others is: "Unequal Health: Anti-Black Racism and the Threat to America's Health" Things that come up in the intro: The Nature of PrejudiceGallupPew20152005For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/ Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Jim McNulty is a professor of psychology at Florida State University. He studies close relationships, and in this episode, we talk about his research on "automatic partner attitudes." When someone sees their romantic partner, their feelings about that person spring automatically to mind. And sometimes those feelings conflict with what they openly SAY they feel about their partner. Jim shares his findings from studies that measure people's feelings toward their partners. Things that come up in this episode 2013202020172024For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/ Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

Happy New Year! For the first time in the show's history, this episode's a day late. Sorry, dear listeners. So it's 2024, and what better way to kick off the new year than to dive into some nostalgia for 2023 already? As has become tradition around here, I compiled some clips of favorite moments on the podcast from the last year. As I say every year, it’s not truly a “best of” per se because I really am attached to every episode. Instead, I’ve chosen some clips that highlight the kind of show this is, including some of the things that made this year especially special. If you’re new to the show, this is a great place to start! And if you’ve been listening since the beginning, join me on some fun memories from this year. -Andy Featured 2023 episodes: Episode 72: Fighting Against Misinformation with Sander van der LindenEpisode 77: Opinions in the Brain with Uma KarmarkarEpisode 83: The Fundamental Nature of Opinion with Russ FazioEpisode 85: Having Curious Conversations with Mónica GuzmánSciComm Summer #18: Alie Ward on Making OlogiesSciComm Summer #19: Latif Nasser on Making RadiolabFor a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/ Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.