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Three psychologists talk about doing science. With Sanjay Srivastava, Alexa Tullett, and Simine Vazire.
Episodes
Wednesday Nov 14, 2018
Wednesday Nov 14, 2018
Scientists, like all humans, care about more than one thing in life. Scientists want to discover true or useful things about the world. But we are not indifferent to money, prestige, loyalty to friends and family, or other important things. How should scientists deal with situations where more than just our pure scientific ideals are on the line? In this episode we discuss conflicts of interest. What are conflicts of interest anyway? What are commonly occurring ones? Why does our field of psychology seem to have an underdeveloped set of norms and regulations for dealing with them? And how can and should we change to do better? Plus: We answer a letter about how little or how much guidance to give undergrads to develop their own research interests.
Links:
- Understanding Financial Conflicts of Interest by Dennis Thompson
- What (and Where) Is the Ethical Code Concerning Researcher Conflict of Interest? (ungated link) by Anthony Greenwald
The Black Goat is hosted by Sanjay Srivastava, Alexa Tullett, and Simine Vazire. Find us on the web at www.theblackgoatpodcast.com, on Twitter at @blackgoatpod, on Facebook at facebook.com/blackgoatpod/, and on instagram at @blackgoatpod. You can email us at letters@theblackgoatpodcast.com. You can subscribe to us on iTunes.
Our theme music is Peak Beak by Doctor Turtle, available on freemusicarchive.org under a Creative Commons noncommercial attribution license. Our logo was created by Jude Weaver.
This is episode 46. It was recorded on October 31, 2018.
Wednesday Oct 31, 2018
Wednesday Oct 31, 2018
Personality tests are perennially popular - good ones and bad ones alike. In this episode we talk about personality testing in the public sphere. What do we think accounts for their popularity. What do people get out of taking them? What distinguishes good ones from bad ones? And we spend a little time trying to guess each other's Big Five profiles. Plus: A letter about raising open science when you're applying to graduate school.
The Black Goat is hosted by Sanjay Srivastava, Alexa Tullett, and Simine Vazire. Find us on the web at www.theblackgoatpodcast.com, on Twitter at @blackgoatpod, on Facebook at facebook.com/blackgoatpod/, and on instagram at @blackgoatpod. You can email us at letters@theblackgoatpodcast.com. You can subscribe to us on iTunes.
Our theme music is Peak Beak by Doctor Turtle, available on freemusicarchive.org under a Creative Commons noncommercial attribution license.
This is episode 45. It was recorded on October 16, 2018.
Wednesday Oct 17, 2018
Wednesday Oct 17, 2018
p-values. Love them or hate them, they are everywhere in science. In this episode we talk about some of our thoughts and feelings about this ubiquitous statistics. What are the drawbacks and benefits to dichotomizing results into "significant" and "nonsignificant"? What do we think of other statistical approaches as alternatives or complements, like effect size estimation or Bayes factors? Do we ever actually care about what p-values actually represent (the probability of data given a hypothesis)? And with no small trepidation, we wade into the Alpha Wars, a.k.a. the discussion and debate around a trio of papers representing different views on how p-values should be used in research. Plus: We respond to a letter about suppressing research findings when they conflict with your morals
Links:
The Black Goat is hosted by Sanjay Srivastava, Alexa Tullett, and Simine Vazire. Find us on the web at www.theblackgoatpodcast.com, on Twitter at @blackgoatpod, on Facebook at facebook.com/blackgoatpod/, and on instagram at @blackgoatpod. You can email us at letters@theblackgoatpodcast.com. You can subscribe to us on iTunes.
Our theme music is Peak Beak by Doctor Turtle, available on freemusicarchive.org under a Creative Commons noncommercial attribution license.
This is episode 43. It was recorded on October 3, 2018.
Wednesday Oct 03, 2018
Wednesday Oct 03, 2018
"Public trust in science is declining" is a common refrain - but it turns out that it isn't true, or at best it's complicated. In this episode we discuss whether, when, and why the public should trust science. Why is public trust in science important anyway? How should people decide whether to trust research they cannot technically evaluate? Should scientists avoid criticizing each other in public because it will erode our public image? What is a scientific consensus, when should you take one as a valid indicator, and when shouldn't you? Plus: We answer a letter about preparing for the job market when you have focused your training on methods and skills rather than a coherent subject area.
Links:
- A Credibility Crisis in Food Science by James Hanblin in The Atlantic
- The Complex Interface between the Public and Science by Carrie Funk at Scientific American
- Why We Should Trust Science, Naomi Oreskes's TED talk
- What Is the Value of Social Science? Challenges for Researchers and Government Funders by Arthur Lupia in PS: Political Science and Politics
- The War Over Supercooled Water by Ashley G. Smart in Physics Today
The Black Goat is hosted by Sanjay Srivastava, Alexa Tullett, and Simine Vazire. Find us on the web at www.theblackgoatpodcast.com, on Twitter at @blackgoatpod, on Facebook at facebook.com/blackgoatpod/, and on instagram at @blackgoatpod. You can email us at letters@theblackgoatpodcast.com. You can subscribe to us on iTunes.
Our theme music is Peak Beak by Doctor Turtle, available on freemusicarchive.org under a Creative Commons noncommercial attribution license.
This is episode 43. It was recorded on September 27, 2018.
Wednesday Sep 19, 2018
Wednesday Sep 19, 2018
Getting tenure and being promoted to associate or full professor are huge milestones in an academic career path. In this episode we talk about what comes afterward. What does it feel like and how long does that last? Do you keep going in the same direction or pause to take stock and make a switch? What new responsibilities and other surprises come at you and how do you handle them? And now that you have more autonomy, how can you be less beholden to other people's ideas of what defines success? Plus: We answer a letter about finding eminent scientists for awards and lectures when you have doubts about how people have acquired their eminence.
The Black Goat is hosted by Sanjay Srivastava, Alexa Tullett, and Simine Vazire. Find us on the web at www.theblackgoatpodcast.com, on Twitter at @blackgoatpod, on Facebook at facebook.com/blackgoatpod/, and on instagram at @blackgoatpod. You can email us at letters@theblackgoatpodcast.com. You can subscribe to us on iTunes.
Our theme music is Peak Beak by Doctor Turtle, available on freemusicarchive.org under a Creative Commons noncommercial attribution license.
This is episode 42. It was recorded on September 10, 2018.
Wednesday Sep 05, 2018
Wednesday Sep 05, 2018
Conferences are expensive, carbon-belching, superficial prestige-fests. At least, that's what some people will tell you. In this episode we consider some of the arguments against academic conferences. Are they really worth the costs to the individual and to the planet? Can you actually communicate scientific substance in a conference or a talk? Are keynotes just warmed-over nuggets from your old Psych 101 class? And what are you even supposed to get out of conferences anyway? We discuss these arguments and relay some of our own dissatisfactions, but we also talk about why we keep going anyway. Plus: We answer a letter about breaking in to academic Twitter.
Link:
The Black Goat is hosted by Sanjay Srivastava, Alexa Tullett, and Simine Vazire. Find us on the web at www.theblackgoatpodcast.com, on Twitter at @blackgoatpod, on Facebook at facebook.com/blackgoatpod/, and on instagram at @blackgoatpod. You can email us at letters@theblackgoatpodcast.com. You can subscribe to us on iTunes.
Our theme music is Peak Beak by Doctor Turtle, available on freemusicarchive.org under a Creative Commons noncommercial attribution license.
This is episode 41. It was recorded in two parts, on August 24 and September 3, 2018.
Wednesday Aug 22, 2018
Wednesday Aug 22, 2018
In this episode we tell personal stories about being different, and we reflect on how our identities and experiences - in life and in professional spheres - have been shaped by that. Sanjay talks about growing up multiracial and trying to figure out what that meant while the world was trying to define it for him. Simine talks about not conforming to gender expectations and the assumptions and reality about sexual orientation that go with that. Alexa talks about how her understanding of her own romantic and sexual attractions and interests evolved over time and how she started dating women. Along the way we identify some common themes in our experiences: Feeling constrained by the neat little boxes the world gives us, even when it's an expanded set of boxes. The tension between wanting to assert an important part of your identity and not wanting to claim experiences that the world will assume you had. And the importance of getting to tell your own story.
Plus: This week's letter is about what to do when reviewers and committee members send you on wild goose chases. And we have a very serious discussion about pooping in the woods.
Links:
- R for Data Science by Garrett Grolemund and Hadley Wickham
- Hannah Gadsby: Nanette (trailer; full video available on Netflix)
- Up From Pain by Charles Blow, New York Times
- Are Jews White? by Atiya Husain, Slate
The Black Goat is hosted by Sanjay Srivastava, Alexa Tullett, and Simine Vazire. Find us on the web at www.theblackgoatpodcast.com, on Twitter at @blackgoatpod, on Facebook at facebook.com/blackgoatpod/, and on instagram at @blackgoatpod. You can email us at letters@theblackgoatpodcast.com. You can subscribe to us on iTunes.
Our theme music is Peak Beak by Doctor Turtle, available on freemusicarchive.org under a Creative Commons noncommercial attribution license.
This is episode 40. It was recorded August 16, 2018.
Wednesday Aug 08, 2018
Wednesday Aug 08, 2018
We aren't analyzing you right now, we can't help you with your problems, and regardless of whether your Uncle Horace would make a great case study we aren't interested in meeting him. So what are these psychology degrees good for anyway then? In today's episode we talk about how our training and work as psychologists has influenced us as people. Are psychologists are good or bad at relating to others (and how much of the answer is about self-selection versus causation)? Has being a researcher made us more analytical outside of our research? How do we react when people bring up astrology or the Myers-Briggs? Plus: We respond to a letter about when doing more replications turns into beating a dead horse.
The Black Goat is hosted by Sanjay Srivastava, Alexa Tullett, and Simine Vazire. Find us on the web at www.theblackgoatpodcast.com, on Twitter at @blackgoatpod, on Facebook at facebook.com/blackgoatpod/, and on instagram at @blackgoatpod. You can email us at letters@theblackgoatpodcast.com. You can subscribe to us on iTunes.
Our theme music is Peak Beak by Doctor Turtle, available on freemusicarchive.org under a Creative Commons noncommercial attribution license.
This is episode 39. It was recorded August 2, 2018.
Wednesday Jul 11, 2018
Wednesday Jul 11, 2018
On today's episode we are joined by Ellen Evers, an assistant professor of marketing at the Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley. We talk with Ellen about working at a business school, and how it is similar and different from being in a psychology department; how people in different fields think about rationality, and how that plays out in her own interdisciplinary work; and how the larger conversation around open science and replicability has made its way into decision research and marketing. Plus: We answer a letter about dealing with a helicopter advisor as an early-career researcher.
Link:
- Ellen Evers homepage
The Black Goat is hosted by Sanjay Srivastava, Alexa Tullett, and Simine Vazire. Find us on the web at www.theblackgoatpodcast.com, on Twitter at @blackgoatpod, on Facebook at facebook.com/blackgoatpod/, and on instagram at @blackgoatpod. You can email us at letters@theblackgoatpodcast.com. You can subscribe to us on iTunes.
Our theme music is Peak Beak by Doctor Turtle, available on freemusicarchive.org under a Creative Commons noncommercial attribution license.
This is episode 38. It was recorded July 3, 2018.
Wednesday Jun 27, 2018
Wednesday Jun 27, 2018
In this episode we talk about situationism in psychology. What are some of the different definitions of situationism? Is it a theory? An agenda? An ideology? We talk about the evidence for various assumptions or predictions of situationism, the historical and political context in which it arose, the relation of situationist ideas to a historical rift between social and personality psychologists, and how situationism affects the field today. Plus: We respond to a letter about planning new research when you have doubts about what you are building on.
Links:
- Jedi Counsel episode "Ask Us Anything", where two actual clinicial psychologists respond to our previous letter from a clinical graduate student about podcasting
- The Actor–Observer Asymmetry in Attribution: A (Surprising) Meta-Analysis, by Bertram Malle
- About Situationism at the Situationist blog
- Simine's letter to Invisibilia
The Black Goat is hosted by Sanjay Srivastava, Alexa Tullett, and Simine Vazire. Find us on the web at www.theblackgoatpodcast.com, on Twitter at @blackgoatpod, on Facebook at facebook.com/blackgoatpod/, and on instagram at @blackgoatpod. You can email us at letters@theblackgoatpodcast.com. You can subscribe to us on iTunes.
Our theme music is Peak Beak by Doctor Turtle, available on freemusicarchive.org under a Creative Commons noncommercial attribution license.
This is episode 37. It was recorded June 18, 2018.