In this episode, the story of Clever Hans, the horse who changed psychology for the better. We also sit down with psychologist and magician Matt Tompkins. Matt is the author of The Spectacle of Illusion, a book about the long history of the manipulation of our own magical thinking and how studying deception can help us better understand perception, memory, belief, and more.

How Minds Change

David McRaney’s BlueSky

David McRaney’s Twitter

YANSS Twitter

Matt Tompkins

The Spectacle of Illusion

Prisoners of Silence

Clever Hans

Wilhelm von Osten

Carl Sagan Quote

Science of Magic Association

Society for Psychical Research

Skeptical Inquirer Magazine

Houdini's Debunking

In this episode, we sit down with three disinformation researchers whose new paper found something surprising about both our resistance and our susceptibility to both true news we wish was fake and fake news we wish was true.

Our guests are three of the scientists exploring a newly named cognitive distortion, one that every human being is prone to exhibiting, one that is so common and so easily provoked that nefarious actors depend on it when distributing disinformation and propaganda.

Samuel Woolley, Katie Joseff, and Michael Schwalbe will share their methods, findings, and takeaways. They will also explain the troublesome nature of something they are calling concordance over truth bias – a distortion that most often appears in those who have the most (undeserved) confidence in their own (not-so-objective) objectivity.

- How Minds Change

- Show Notes

- Newsletter

- David McRaney's BlueSky

- David McRaney’s Twitter

- YANSS Twitter

- Why Do We Share Our Feelings With Others?

- Concordance Over Truth Bias

- Samuel Wooley

- Katie Joseff

- Michael Schwalbe

- Geoffrey Cohen

This episode’s guest is Mónica Guzmán, the author of I Never Thought of It That Way – a book with very practical advice on how to have productive conversations in a polarized political environment via authentic curiosity about where people’s beliefs, opinions, attitudes, and values come from. It's also about how to learn from those with whom we disagree by establishing the sort of dynamic in which they will eagerly learn from us as well.

- How Minds Change

- Show Notes

- Newsletter

- David McRaney's BlueSky

- David McRaney’s Twitter

- YANSS Twitter

- Mónica Guzmán’s Website

- Mónica Guzmán’s Twitter

- I Never Thought of it That Way

- Braver Angels

- My Article on Intellectual Humility