The Replication Crisis Christmas Quiz w/ Mickey Inzlicht & Dave Pizarro
In this festive descent into methodological despair, Chris and Matt convene a secret cabal of elite psychology podcasters within the Decoding Cloister, operating under the distant yet reassuring gaze of Arch-Wizard Paul Bloom, whose role is largely ceremonial but nonetheless morally binding.Joining them are Dave Pizarro (Very Bad Wizards) and Michael Inzlicht (Two Psychologists Four Beers, emeritus), for what can only be described as an end-of-year audit of social psychology’s moral character.What follows is a mixture of intense hubris, disciplinary self-loathing, and revolutionary insights, delivered via one of the most sadistic Christmas quizzes ever devised. The quiz format allows the episode to do what psychology does best: create the feeling of measurement while hovering dangerously close to intuition.Alongside the quiz, we engage in some meta-commentary and sensemaking reflections on audience capture and the state of psychology-themed podcasts in 2025. In other words, it’s Christmas, so naturally everyone is discussing perverse incentives, damaged reputations, and the slow moral corrosion of institutions.So join us, won’t you? For the first International Congress on Psychology-Themed Podcasting and Gurus…LinksMickey's SubstackMickey's Work and Play LabTwo Psychologists Four BeersVery Bad WizardsUhlmann, E. L., Pizarro, D. A., & Diermeier, D. (2015). A person-centered approach to moral judgment. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(1), 72-81.Ovsyannikova, D., de Mello, V. O., & Inzlicht, M. (2025). Third-party evaluators perceive AI as more compassionate than expert humans. Communications Psychology, 3(1), 4.ReferencesAlter, A. L., Oppenheimer, D. M., Epley, N., & Eyre, R. N. (2007). Overcoming intuition: Metacognitive difficulty activates analytic reasoning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 136(4), 569–576.Aarts, H., & Dijksterhuis, A. (2003). The silence of the library: Environment, situational norm, and social behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(1), 18–28.Zimbardo, P. G. (1973). On the ethics of intervention in human psychological research: With special reference to the Stanford Prison Experiment. Cognition, 2(2), 243–256.Resnick, B. (2018, June 13). The Stanford Prison Experiment was massively influential. We just learned it was a fraud. Vox.Festinger, L., Riecken, H. W., & Schachter, S. (1956). When prophecy fails. University of Minnesota Press.<a...
Joining me, as usual, is the elder statesman of the podcast, Matthew Brine, psychologist extraordinaire.
Though this time, he's not the only legitimate psychologist.
Oh, and I'm Chris.
Yeah, I'm an anthropologist slash psychologist, right?
But we don't, everybody knows that.
The other thing is, lurking in the shadows, summoned a secret cabal of superstar psychology podcasters has gathered in our little decoding cloister.
I summoned them today under the instructions of the arch wizard Paul Bloom.
He conducts everything from afar.
And we have summoned the superstars of the psychology podcasting world to take stock of things.
Now, the majority could not attend because they had better things to do.
So you might be like, well, what about all these other people?
But we have with us Dave Pizarro from The Very Bad Wizards and Mickey Inslet, formerly, but still sort of honorary two psychologist for beers, both psychologists.
Dave Pizarro, moral psychologist and social psychologist, and Mickey Inslet, social psychologist and experimental psychologist.
That's what I'm going to say.
So thank you both for coming.
Thank you for joining us.
Thank you for having us.
I will say, much like the rest of my career, it's built on Paul Bloom saying no to things and then suggesting my no.
Just to be here, I assume Paul would say no.
So yeah.
That's how you introduce us, though, as the superstars of the psychology podcasting world.
I think this is it.
I think we're it.
There are too many others.
It's a small pond, but you know, yeah, the four of us are big fish.
I mean, Scott Barry Kaufman stopped doing his.
Well, that's why some of you here.
The pie just got bigger for us.
It's a kind of crisis meeting.
What are we going to do?
Scott Barry's out of the game.
The vacuum, the power vacuum that he's left.
Like, you know, a meeting of mob bosses.
Okay.
Scott Barry's out.
He's going to step into that territory.
Who's going to go to Sam Harris's parties and do mentalist tricks?
That's what you just got to do.
That's it.
No, but your other co-hosts were also within the side spot.
I feel they're more disagreeable.
I'd like to say yes.
Well, this is more disagreeable.
I mean, Tamler, maybe.
You all are a pushover.
Oh, yeah.
Maybe it's just his cancellation makes him seem like more nebonaire.
You know, you all shares a thing with Tamler, which is they care less about what people think than I do.
I'll say that much.
Oh, really?
Yeah, I think so.
That's why you all can take strong stances.
You know, like I'm just like, I'm just agreeing with everybody.
Like, say anything.
I'll agree with it right now.
I'm going to try that.
You don't agree with Tamler, though, all the time.
That's true.
That's true.
You guys have moderated with Viage, but The thing that when I was mentioning in the Patreon that I was going to talk to you guys, the main thing, David, will never, it's going to haunt you very dramatically relevant.
It's like people were just like, you know, ask him about the ghost thing.
And I'm like, he's not even the ghost guy.
He's not the creator.
It's that him.
I know.
I get Tamler shrapnel.
It's like crazy, you know?
I actually think that that is the lasting memory of a very bad wizard.
I think that's something to be proud of.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Wasn't there a show it was about like psychology and ghosts or something?
Oh, God.
Yeah.
Philosophy.
No, but I do, I do actually have like ceremonies and things that I intend to take you through.
I have been beavering away preparing a quiz.
I have a quiz.
Oh, and it's dramatically orientated for all three of you.
Ooh.
Okay.
Look at this.
I'm nervous.
Yeah.
We just hop on and Chris has done all the work.
Yeah.
That's that, Matt.
You familiar?
Yeah, this does feel familiar.
You guys should know that usually when we do quizzes, it's me versus Chris.
And someone like Ellen is as opposed to quiz.
And it's very, very unfair because, you know, although Chris struggles with abstract and conceptual thinking, he's when it comes to basic facts, he's got a mind like a steel trap.
Whereas, you know, I dwell in the realm of, you know, ideas more.
So he always wins.
So, but hopefully I do better this time.
But Matt, I think him winning is actually him losing because I've heard those quizzes.
And it's like knowing the minutia of like the bottom of the internet.
And Chris knows it because he's listened to it double speed, all of it.
I think you're the winner here, Matt.
Thank you.
Thank you.
That's right.
That's right.
I see his mind as like a very cluttered room, like a hoarder, you know?
Someone that's got a pathology.
You know, just rooms and rooms filled with boxes and little bits of newspapers and stuff.
That's that's that's Chris's mind.
That's slanderous.
But you know, I've got a question for you three so-called psychologists.
Are any of you teaching introductory statistics courses for psychologists this year?
Is that on your docket?
Any of you?
Above my pay grade.
I love your pay grade.
Oh, I just mentioned because I might have been teaching the introductory statistics course for psychologists.
So you know about means and standard deviations.
That's right.
I mean, if you've got some questions about regressions, you know, that's right.
But is it a Z test or a Z test?
Which one?
What is it?
It's Z test.
Z test.
That's right.
Don't ask Matt.
He'll be like, large scores.
It's Matt.
The pictures are to Z.
That doesn't sound right.
And I'm Chris's go-to.
This is the price I have for being a co-host where he just comes to me, Matt, Matt, I'm teaching, I'm teaching, I don't know, whatever.
You know, regression with covariant controls.
Now, how did that work exactly?
Just give me the gist.
Like, why, why Google it?
Why ask an AI when you could just pick up the phone and call me?
You guys have an experience because I cut it out.
But Matt has attempted on several occasions to explain concepts where he's like, oh, this will be a really simple explanation.
But, you know, let me explain degrees of freedom.
And we spent like 40 minutes talking about degrees of freedom.
Okay, I've got to run this past you guys because I tried to illustrate the idea.
Look, you know, it's like imagine an aeroplane.
It could be oriented.
You know, it could be oriented in different directions.
It could be pointing this way or it could, or, you know, it could rotate this way.
So it's got like, you know, even in one spot, it's got like three degrees of freedom.
Picture yaw.
Yeah, pitch and your that kind of stuff.
That's right.
And Chris is going, like, but what kind of airplane is it?
And I'm going, no, no, that's not true.
That is the mind of a concrete thinker right there.
Was it?
I don't understand.
Look, Dave, you got the thing there.
So, like, Matt's illustration where he's like, This is, oh, this is simple, right?
Already you've got pitch and your.
I don't know.
Yeah, it's because it's moving in three dimensions.
The metaphor is supposed to be simpler than the concept that it's attempting to explain.
Yeah, but I've got a question that if anyone asked me, I would, I mean, I would be like in fear of my life.
Like, I can't explain it.
Like, what is a p-value?
Oh, say it.
I know.
Because I always, I know, it's one of those things where no matter how many times you read it or you know, the probability of making errors, right?
Hey, I think the problem is it's the probability of observing a statistic under the null hypothesis.
Yeah.
In a universe where the effect doesn't exist, what are the chances that you observe this?
Yeah, yeah.
There's no better rage bait for statisticians than to say it's like the odds that this finding was due to pure chance.
It's like 5% chance to be wrong.
That's exactly.
I mean, and this is what gets Bayesians all hot under the collar, right?
Because they want to be.
Yeah, we need the probability of the model, not the probability of the data.
It's like, oh, it's the same thing.
It's roughly, you know, it's still fine.
Don't worry about it.
This is this is like you know, when teaching statistics or something like that, um, there's like the level for undergraduates, right?
But there's always like whenever I was preparing the stuff, because I had to prepare the stuff for this course this year, I, you know, did all this additional research, right?
To be like epic.
And then Bessel's correction, right?
Bessels, oh my god, Bessel's correction, right?
And so like the easy way is just say, like, and take away one, right?
Just do that if it's a if it's a sample and it's not the population.
But then someone is always like, but why?
But why?
And you're like, well, well, okay, let's try it.
And then somebody came up to me in the brick and was like talking to me about the philosophical statistical reasoning behind Bessel's correction.
And you know that thing where you're like, I'm pretty sure this is correct, but like I have to answer confidently, but not say something that's completely wrong.
So yeah, I think I walked that tightrope.
But yeah, that's how would you have done, Matt?
Would you have answered that?
Like, I would have given another metaphor.
I would have given that.
It's like a submarine.
Well, actually, I did.
I have tried to explain this to you.
And I and I encouraged you to imagine a situation where you just have two points and you're calculating the mean.
Underwater.
Right.
And then, you know, once you have the mean, it's kind of like one degree of freedom's been used up.
Like, it's not.
I know this.
All right.
I know this.
Of course, I've like I've got better YouTube videos.
I would have thought Bessel's test was whether two women ever talk to each other without talking about a man.
That's yeah, that's that's a variation.
It's uh it's like Bayesians, you know, they've got different interpretations, but you know, okay, so look, I have I have the quiz, which I'm going to give you, but before that, there was also two general big picture questions, right?
That I wanted to put to both of you as peers in our field, right?
Div, you are the, yeah, the three of you, they are, but but I'm ignoring Matt really for this purpose.
But like, Div, you, I checked, and your podcast started in 2012.
If my fact-checking is not wrong, right?
Now, Mickey, you're Johnny come lately like us, but you're still earlier than us, right?
And in that, so in that time, you've been around the block.
We've all had Sam Howards on our podcast.
We've all done that.
But how are you feeling about the state of podcasting or psychology, podcasting, academic themed podcasting in general?
Is it tired?
Are we in late stage psychology podcasting now?
Or is this the golden era where you're afraid of the newcomers coming up with their hot shows like us?
I think Dave, you should answer this.
You're the godfather here.
Spin-offs of you.
Yeah, this is like all in the CBW universe.
Yeah, we're like that autistic kid in St. Else.
What was that show?
Where it's all every TV show after is a figment of his imagination.
You know that?
Remember that theory?
That's what all of you podcasts are.
Just a figment of our neurodivergent imagination.
I think along with maybe generally less excitement about our field in the eyes of the public, things have slowed down a bit, you know, but I think I guess I guess Yoel has stuck really well to covering psychology topics.
I think more maybe than we have at least.
But it really is like when you're when we've done whatever that many years of podcasting, we just realized like we were going to get bored talking about stuff.
So that's when we started talking about movies.
And then we were like, okay, let's throw something else in the mix.
Let's think about short stories or books.
You know, now we're talking about the fucking Odyssey.
And I have always viewed it as, like, am I having fun doing this?
Then great.
If we can have like, if we can drag an audience that supports us through all of this stuff, then I'm happy.
And I'll say that like our stopping to worry about downloads and growth that came really after stopping to do advertising has been the best thing for my mental health ever.
Like now I don't, I don't care.
Like I don't even check our numbers anymore.
Like it's wonderful.
And so I think that that makes me a little resistant to thinking broadly about whether or not this is like a dying.
The truth is there's, there are so many podcasts that are vying for our attention that like just to like have the same audience size that we had five years ago is an amazing feat in my book.
But what do you think, Mickey?
Mickey?
Yeah, so I'm, you know, I think, Chris, the way you described it, Johnny come lately, I think true.
And also I haven't, you know, Yoel is really the one who's carried it through.
And I just, every once in a while, when I have an idea, I'm like, yeah, let's go on.
And you all seem to say yes whenever I introduce such a lot of people.
You're like, ma.
Well, you know, you said something, David, which I find interesting, which is you said, as long as you're having fun, you're going to continue doing it.
And I think for me, that's why to some extent I stopped.
It wasn't so much that I wasn't having fun.
It was.
I loved chatting with Yoel, but the effort reward ratio, at least for me personally, wasn't there.
I think also we were covering like more controversial space.
And, you know, 2020 energy was, you know, strong.
And at one point, I just felt like was getting not so safe to just talk and speak my mind.
Now I actually don't care that much anymore.
I actually feel like the The splitting of social media like into like different camps has actually been freeing to some extent.
So I'm much less concerned about someone being angry on Blue Sky.
Like, who fucking cares about Blue Sky?
Yeah.
So, but shout into the void, buddy.
Cancel this.
Yeah.
So, but, you know, I must say it's been, I still today, even though I'm like really like hardly ever podcasting anymore.
When I go to any conference, people talk to me first and foremost about the podcast more than any, like any of my projects, which is like somewhat deflated because I work a lot harder on the projects that I do on the podcast, but it's really powerful and I still think it is.
So, but, but Chris, I want to know, and I want to understand the origin of this question.
Clearly, do you think that we're kind of like we're past, we're past peak podcasting, psychology podcasting, at least?
Yeah, I want to hear that.
But before you answer, Chris, I just wanted to say one thing just to like not be misleading, because as Mickey said, the reward to like effort ratio, honestly, if we weren't making money, I would have stopped a long time ago because it's a lot of work.
But if it were making money and not fun, I would have stopped too.
It's a two conditions.
I'll just say, I feel that you, as the elder Steasman, should respond to that before me.
But I just want to say, Dave, that the refreshing thing about you saying that is like me and Matt have been ranting recently that like all the people we cover are making an incineroent.
We're not complaining about that.
We're complaining that they make an incinero to money and then they present it, that that is the least important.
Oh my God.
Like what it's about is the mission, the, you know, the subscribe to my channel and we might just get through this.
We might, you know, there's a chance we'll change the law.
And, you know, Matt and I have been very clear from the start, just like you said there and Mickey, you described that like it's fun for us.
That's why we're primarily doing that.
And if it wasn't, like, it would have stopped, we would have lost motivation a long time ago.
So it's just also refreshing to hear someone where you still enjoy it, but you're like, and it's really nice, you know, to get paid by people for it because it's so rare to hear people kind of acknowledge that that does help.
Right.
But I have an actual amount in my head that if I stop making that much, then both Tamler and I are like, yeah, then it won't be worth it.
Wow, that's a good idea.
It's like Eric Weinstein's repping.
Like if you don't donate it, there's a chance that it's whatever, twice my weekly salary, you know?
So like $73.
Anyway, sorry.
I want to hear what Chris or sorry.
Yeah, what Matt or Chris would say.
Well, I think it is refreshing because it's true for us too.
Like if we'd mainly do it because it's fun, but if we weren't getting paid a little bit of money, then we'd be producing content a lot more haphazardly.
You know, we'd just be whenever we felt like it could be whenever, you know, because we are fundamentally very lazy.
So yeah, so, but the rest of them, like, you know, Lex Friedman, he's you're lazy, I think.
Chris didn't like that.
Who do you think that's?
I'm fundamentally lazy.
Sorry.
Matt, I'm with you.
I'm lazy too.
Yeah, I think it's important.
It's good.
It helps you focus your efforts on.
But yeah, the other ones, like, you know, Lex Friedman, his mission is to, no, he doesn't care about money.
He's just spreading lashings of love all over the world.
And Gary, he's economic.
He's he's got a mission to save the world from the billionaires.
Anyway, we are skeptical.
But I think the state of psychology podcasting, I mean, I guess we're jaded because we look at, you know, what most people listen to, like the, you know, the most popular podcast in the world, like Huberman or Joe Rogan or Chris Williamson.
And their content is constantly sprinkled with pop psychology, right?
They love it.
So when you listen to those podcasts, then you kind of come away with the feeling like public understanding of psychology has never been worse.
Like it's better to know nothing about IQ or evolutionary psychology or whatever it is than to know what these people know, which is worse than nothing.
So anyway, that's a downer.
Sorry.
And as far as like the podcasting landscape goes, I think the like interesting thing for me is when we started, there was this very clear thing where people wanted to categorize you as like where in regards to the IDW, where are you?
Are you an opponent?
Are you adjacent?
Are you like a member?
We were sometimes classified as IDW-like, as I think you both have been at times.
Well, Mickey, Mickey is a card-carrying, you know, he goes to these Quillette parties and you were at the Quillette.
The thing that redeemed him from the Quillette party was that him and you all did a very funny like report and basically came back and like, they're all fucking weirdos.
I met some weird people for sure.
I mean, it was fun being in this crazy party and taking a cab with Claire Lehman and like minus 20 degrees in January in Toronto.
But I met some strange, unsavory characters.
And that was just legism.
That's interesting because I've got a friend, I own her Italia, who is definitely much more...
And I thought they're at Quillette now.
Yeah, yeah.
She works there now.
She's constantly hanging out at Quillette parties.
And, yeah, I mean, she's much more IDW adjacent than me, but I've seen a lot of photos, and I was just curious.
Are they...
Are they weirdos or are they normies?
And I think you're helping resolve that a little bit for me.
Can I also mention just it did remind me of the old spirit of Twitter and pylons and whatnot that recently on Okinawa Reddit, somebody had dug out and went like, what is the relationship between the podcast and Iona Italia, the person that Matt just mentioned, right?
And Quillette, right?
And for this, they had dug up my tweets, like two or three tweets where Iona had mentioned me.
And she was mostly complaining about things I'd said about Sam Harris.
That was the thing.
But this was presented like, look at this connection.
Like there's a subtle connection.
And the thing is, Iona has a rather contentious relationship with me.
I wouldn't say I'm her favorite person, but mildly, she's blocked me on several occasions.
I can't imagine anybody who wouldn't like you, especially.
I know.
But the thing that got me was like the Twitter archaeologist that had done that had not noticed that Matt had all these, you know, very open interactions.
I think they even skinny tipped together.
Look at that.
Yeah.
I did not want to know that, but thank you.
But I was like- I can't erase that image from my mind now.
Yeah.
Now I'm like Homer, like stupid, sexy Matt, like just thinking about Matt.
But the thing is that Matt seems to get away with it.
Like people don't seem to, like, he just is accepted that he's Paul Bloom's Teflon.
Paul Bloom's Teflon.
Paul Bloom is like fucking magic, man.
He could have hung out with Jeffrey Epstein and people would be like, ah, but you got to love Paul.
He did not hang out with Jeffrey Epstein for the reality.
I highlighted that Paul had did an interview with Diana Freshman, right?
And it was put up on what is that thing?
The Brace Science blog that I don't know if it still exists, Apogia or something like that.
Do you remember the name?
Aporia.
Aporia.
Yeah.
And, but we were very clear when we were talking about that.
Like, you know, even when we're talking about Paul, we like Paul and stuff.
I was still like, we got to make sure that we're not, you know, we're not saying it in a super negative way, right?
And like, I talked to Paul about it, but like, that's the thing with, you know, if I was talking about you two, I wouldn't mind being like, yeah, and I think Dave's into race science.
So that makes that makes sense that he would have been there.
But with so if Paul backstory about that is that he recorded that podcast like a year earlier, and it was, yeah, I think he was surprised that it got posted later.
Yeah.
Here I am defending Paul, but I, but I want to, I love it.
See, you're doing that.
My neighbor and Diana, Diana Fletchman as well.
Like, so the thing is, Aporia offered me a paid blogging position, which I mentioned as well, right?
Just that.
You think race is nothing but a social construct.
Whereas I'm like, give me your 23andMe if you want me to talk to you.
They were going to use me to whitewash their race realist.
So that's the thing.
They were like, you know, you're a critical voice, but it will be.
But they were offered like £1,500 a month, which is, you know, yeah, that's like, you know, it's a million Canadian dollars, I think.
Yeah.
That's right.
In Australian, it's like a year's salary.
So, you know, but yeah, so the thing I wanted to mention is that you can buy 18 acres in Australia per month.
I think that the Matt lives on 18 acres.
But the IDW thing, obviously, like it's faded.
But the good point about that is like, well, it's good and bad.
Like our podcast used to be more niche.
And now it's like all the people we're talking about are hanging around with Trump or like, you know, on the TV appointed health director or whatever.
And you're like, so now the bar has gotten really low.
And people in the IDW, you know, went in, as we've covered endlessly with the Weinsteins and whatnot, they went into completely mental spaces where initially, you know, Jordan Peterson and whatnot were holding on the veneers of respectability.
But now it feels like, yeah, that there's, there's not really that question anymore because everybody's busy.
Like, who's who's complaining about Colette?
Like, I guess people.
Can I ask you guys, has your podcast grown as a sort of a function of the national prominence of the people that you criticize?
No.
No, I mean, no, Matt, do you know?
You don't know.
Do you?
I don't know.
You don't know any of that.
Yeah, I'm like Nikki.
I never look.
Sorry.
Don't tell me, Chris.
Don't tell me.
I never look.
Chris occasionally tells me.
But I think my general impression is we've been stagnating in terms of that kind of thing for quite some time.
Is that the word stagnating?
Is that a technical tone?
We're not stagnating.
Not stagnating.
We've just had a large, like we had a significant period of growth, mainly when I'm dead.
Yeah.
Making more efforts.
Like it was, it was basically when we took out the banter and put it into a separate bonus podcast, right?
Then but after that, it's just the same trajectory.
So it doesn't really matter.
I mean, if we do an episode where if we had Sam Harris or something on again, we get a bunch of downloads for that episode, but it doesn't translate into like.
But it's totally fine.
Like what you said before, David, is exactly right and exactly how we approach it, which is when we're looking to talk to someone, like we want to talk to Julian Wara, for instance, about science and epistemology and stuff like that.
That's who we're keen to talk to next.
And it's like, we don't care.
Is that going to juice?
Is that going to be hot?
Of course not, right?
We don't care.
It's liberating.
But don't speak down, Julia.
She's a very good guest.
She's great.
She's awesome.
She is awesome.
I know she's awesome, but that's the thing.
Awesome by our lights.
And we don't care about the other thing.
It's just interesting how normal, like normal people.
And, you know, and I'm not really digging them that hard because we all have day jobs, right?
So, you know, so largely we have.
Some of us more than others.
Some of us more than others.
That's true.
I think you probably work harder than me.
Dave, isn't your full-time job a podcaster now?
You're a bitch.
God's a bitches.
Seven classes a semester.
Seven classes.
Seven classes.
Oh my God.
You need that.
No, that's true.
Three universities, seven classes.
Oh, my God.
And Matt's like, oh, what?
What's a class?
What are you doing here?
You mean your load is like one and one and one and one and one?
Wait, how many ones do you have?
Yeah.
No, don't you have like grad students that do that for you?
Generally, Matt's response.
You don't grade, right, though?
I do create.
I had to grade 100 students assignments for the whole year.
Yeah, you think they're giving this guy TAs?
Hey, I hear Chat GPT is good for grading.
Well, I wouldn't know about that.
No comment, hey, Chris.
The TAs that I got were overworked to the point of refusing to create assignments.
Yeah, that was a problem.
But yeah, why was I completing the point?
Yeah, so Mike, you said we all have jobs on Aggregate.
That's right.
It's luxury not to be like that.
But, you know, most podcasts are, you know, it's a small business.
You know, it doesn't matter if you're super successful or not.
But, and so I, you know, you have to understand it from their point of view.
And, but they do have 100% focus on what is going to maximize clicks and downloads and subscriptions and all that stuff.
And same goes with their decisions about advertising.
You know what I mean?
Everyone's doing the cheesy voiceover reads.
And it's so jarring to hear someone like Jordan Peterson go straight from railing against, you know, insipid socialism or something like that to, yeah, you know, now meandies, you know, they'll keep you snug and tight.
At least with the Kratom advertisements, Dave, I knew you were doing the Kratom.
Yeah, right, right.
Exactly.
I know we trade it for him.
Yeah.
I would endorse a whiskey.
I want to get approached.
If there's any whiskey distilleries, any managers of whiskey distillers listening, I would endorse that.
I would do it.
A mechanical keyboard reached out to us and asked, I'd endorse that.
Yeah, I said I'll endorse that.
I responded to them and they just didn't reply.
And I was like, he responded too fast.
Yeah.
We don't want to.
You know, I'll take anything.
I'll take whatever you just send me a keyboard.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we're very content.
And actually, Div, I'll mention that it was from talking to you because when we started the podcast, like I asked you and Mickey about like, you know, what is what are downloads?
Like, what's a, not what are downloads, but like what is the reason?
It's like a plane in like three-dimensional space.
But I remember that like when we started, Mickey, I think you said if you get the 10 episodes, then that will like, you'll probably stick around.
And then the other thing, Dave, that I heard you and Tamler talk about, I can't remember if it was on the air if you told me privately, but whichever way was like that you guys would like kind of note the temperature in your audience.
And if they got kind of like hyped up about culture war stuff, you would like hit them with like a you know philosophy article or whatever.
Yeah, but yeah, like some, you know, cough, you know, Kafka or something, you know, something just to like completely like, we just wanted to lose those people for a bit, you know?
Yeah.
And that's something we have really lived by, which is like when people think, you know, that we are the anti, you know, like IDW style podcast or whatever, then we've tried to like put someone that's intentionally going to annoy people that are only interested in that, right?
Like Chomsky or Naomi Klein or that kind of thing.
And that's been very good because it means that you do get people who are like, oh, you know, screw these guys.
Yeah.
I thought they were on my team and we're not.
But in the long run, it's just it's so much more enjoyable because having those people in your audience, I think, is incredibly annoying.
Yeah.
Like if you're if you're heating what they want you to do.
So there you go.
You're so this is your strategy for how to combat audience capture.
Yes.
Yeah.
Endlessly disappointing every chance you get.
That's the secret.
I mean, I mean, I, so we, with three psychologists for beers, I don't think we had that problem.
Um, but uh, I found with my sub stack.
You were full head or exactly.
Went in whatever we felt like doing.
But I found with my sub stack, it's actually quite interesting because the stuff that I like is completely different than the stuff that gets lots of downloads.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
And I've struggled with trying to make sure I get that balance right.
I still want to write stuff that I like, but also, you know, I don't want to completely, you know, not give my audience what they want.
And in my case, what they want is a science.
So I'm a subscriber.
I like the gossip about the conferences.
You want to hear what I really think of that conference?
Sign up.
Oh, what did he really think?
Yes, you and Paul Bloom have good payrolls where, you know, it's just enough to be like, oh, he's going to be spicy.
And then like.
They don't have ALA level paywalls, though.
Oh, yeah, that's right.
Not yet.
Give it a year.
So, well, that's good.
That's good.
You've kind of satisfied my curiosity about that.
And I feel I've eased you in.
You're all comfortable.
Now you're relaxed.
And now you're ready.
You're prepared for the Replication Crisis Christmas Quiz.
It's a replication crisis.
And it's time for a play.
That's what's coming.
All right.
I might say well on this one.
We'll see.
We'll see.
I need to keep a little tally here of Marks because Matt tries to cheat very often.
So we got to.
Is it like speed?
Like, what are the rules here?
No, you, you'll answer independently.
So, you know, just keep an eye on, you know, maybe utilize your psychology, Machiavellian skills to throw people off if you want, whatever.
You know, I'll go third.
I'll go third then.
I'll answer third.
Oh, okay.
That's it.
All right.
Well, I'm playing with ChatGPT right now.
Here we go.
Oh, wait.
Chat GPT can't do this.
Well, you'll see.
Its suggestions were so shit.
So I did, of course, try to outsource it, but it failed.
All right.
In study three of the silence of the library, environment, situational norm, and social behavior, participants were primed with either an exclusive restaurant or a railway station environment.
All right, this is a well-known priming study from like the early 2000s.
Can we get an audio?
God, you damn you, Mickey.
It's two Dutch people, Erts and someone.
Ertson, what?
Don't you be googling it?
No, I'm not Googling.
I won't Google.
I will not cheat, I promise.
Arts and Dexter House, maybe?
I was going to say, is it?
It could be.
That sounds about right.
I thought I should write down the names of the studies, but for some of them, you're going to get it.
For this one, you're not.
So there's an experiment in it, okay?
But this is, you're just going to have to use your methodology, house.
They were primed with what?
They'll prime with a restaurant or a railway station.
Okay.
But here's the question.
The researchers then measured well-mannered behavior using an unobtrusive behavioral indicator.
There are four options.
Okay.
Which of these is the unobtrusive behavioral indicator?
A, the number of times participants wiped crumbs from the table while eating a biscuit.
B, the proportion of the biscuit eaten versus left unfinished, interpreted as restrained consumption.
C, the frequency with which participants aligned cutlery and napkins after consuming a small snack.
Or D, the care taken to avoid spilling liquid while drinking a glass of water provided during the task.
Which one?
Very good.
What are the options again?
I've lucked in my answer.
Yeah, I think I've got my answer.
Biscuit crumbs, proportion of biscuit, aligning cutlery or spilling liquid.
Okay.
Okay, Dave, the senior podcaster, you go for it.
I'm going to say aligning cutlery.
Aligning cutlery?
Yeah, I was lucked in on that one too.
You were lucky.
I promise I didn't just change my answer.
I feel my degrees of freedom have just been stolen.
And I also was going to say aligning cutlery.
The only thing that gave me pause was the use of the word cutlery.
If you think about a plan, right, you've got two.
I'm sorry, you're all wrong.
The answer was the number of times participants wiped crumbs from the table while eating a crumbly biscuit.
Well, you didn't say they were given a very crumbly biscuit.
Oh, I added that in because that would have been too easy for you.
I think none of us picked that one because shortbread?
You would have to do it.
I know if the biscuit was crumbly.
It didn't specify, but it did say it was crumbly.
Wait, did you mean cookie?
Because then it wasn't.
It says cookie with cutlery.
Neither of you are getting any marks.
You all got zero.
So it does extend.
But what if I didn't drop any crumbs?
That's a terrible.
You got a lot of questions.
That's a terrible observable indicator.
That is a terrible.
I agree.
That is listen.
You measure 12, you report the one that works.
It's a creative endeavor.
Okay, question two.
Question two.
There's only like 10 questions or so.
Okay.
There might be a couple extra.
Wait, Chris, I want you to tell us all, are these good studies?
Are these well-regarded studies or are these essentially two different questions, Matt?
Two different questions.
Are they good studies?
They're certainly highly cited studies.
That doesn't mean anything, does it?
Yeah.
Were they removed from Kahneman's second edition is the question?
Well, they're still in your textbooks.
You're under textbooks.
That's the problem.
Second question.
When questioned by reporter Brian Resnick about evidence that an experimenter encouraged a guard to behave more harshly, despite leader claims that guards' behavior emerged spontaneously, Philip Simbardo offered the following response.
Now, which of these is Simbardo's actual response?
Okay, you're going to have four options.
All right.
And pay attention to them.
Option one.
The guards were already showing dominance tendencies and any comments from staff simply aligned with behaviors they were predisposed to display.
That's option one.
Option two.
If a participant required encouragement to perform the role, that itself reveals something meaningful about authority and compliance.
That's option two.
Option three.
These are people we've hired who are doing it for a salary, $15 a day to play the role of a guard.
And the warden picks on this guy because he's doing nothing.
He's got to earn his keep as a guard.
That's option three.
And option four, I mean, what the fuck do people expect?
This was a powerful social situation, not a scripted play.
Focusing on one comment completely misses the point of the entire experiment.
I'm going to go with the last option just because it's the most important thing.
It's the first.
Yeah.
Okay.
Matt's locked in on option D. I'm going to go for option B. Option B.
Okay.
Okay.
I'm going for option A. Option A. That's right.
Okay.
The guards were already showing dominance.
Well, the good thing is you're all wrong again.
The correct answer is these are people we've hired who are doing it for a salary, $50 a day to play the role of a guard.
And the warden picks on this guy because he's doing nothing.
He's got to earn his keep as a guard.
Oh, my God.
Wow.
There you go.
I'm going to commend you, Chris, on how the high quality of the distractors.
These are good.
Yeah.
This is like you're, you must be good at balderdash.
Well, this is how I spent my morning.
Yeah.
And as you can see, ChatGPT is not good for this, not good for this.
When Amy Cubby contacted me, Chris Kavna, after a critical exchange on Twitter in 2018 with a request to interview me for her planned book on bullying, bystanding, and periphery, which of the following was not included in her email signature?
Option A. You have to know this, man.
You got to use your psychology skills, okay?
The three of these were there.
One of them was not in the email signature.
A, best-selling offer of presence.
B, TED speaker.
C, Harvard social psychologist and lecturer.
D, international speaker on confidence and presence.
Only one was not in the email signature.
Which was it?
Can you say them again?
Because this is very interesting.
Best-selling offer of presence, previous book, TED speaker, Harvard social psychologist and lecturer, international speaker on confidence and presence.
I'm going C. Harvard social psychologist and lecturer?
Yeah, that was not there, Matt.
I'm also going to go with that, but you just, because was she at Harvard at that point?
I'm not sure.
She was at Harvard at that point.
But that could just be me doing my research.
So you're all lined up, CCC?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I knock you down.
I knock you down.
She did not include international speaker on confidence.
Was my next guess, you know.
Should have gone with my gut.
I was quite impressed with Ted's speaker.
That was it.
So, this was the intimidating email that I received after having a tussle on Twitter.
I'm just waiting for the book.
Oh, it's out.
It's out.
I'm not in it.
Is it out?
Really?
I didn't know.
I didn't know that.
It's out.
I don't know.
I believe it's out.
I think it was out a couple of years ago.
I don't think she was going to put me in as a bystander or a brave heart.
I think I was going to be, well, probably bully or bystander.
Probably one of those, actually.
But yeah.
So, well, your psychology skills have failed you so far.
Easy for me to keep track of the points, but that's okay.
I think there's too much.
I think it would be beautiful if we were tied at zero at the end of this.
I think that would be like amazing.
Your lives will have been well spent.
Okay.
In experiment three of overcoming intuition, metacognitive difficulty activates analytic reasoning.
Alter it all, 2007, Mickey.
Okay.
Say that again.
Alter it all.
Alter.
Okay.
2007.
The authors tested, well, our cues associated with cognitive difficulty and disfluency could reduce reliance on intuitive reasoning.
Okay.
So in experiment three, 20 Harvard undergraduates were asked to make judgment under conditions intended to induce greater cognitive effort, completing the author's logic, which is the thing that they actually investigated to do this, right?
Okay.
So they answered the questions, then they had to do something while they were answering it.
And it was designed to see if they could activate the association.
Okay.
So when answering questions, were they A presented in a distracting comic sounds font, which reduced performance in logic puzzles?
B requested to furrow their bra, which increased confidence in their judgment.
C asked to chew a flavorless gum, which improved their performance on a logic grids puzzle.
A flavorless gum, right?
That would be confusing.
D required to maintain eye contact with the experimenter, which suppressed heuristic responding.
Comic Sans.
I'm going to go, hey, Comic Sans.
You've got Comic Sans.
So these are going to increase cognitive load.
Is that right?
Yes.
Make it difficult.
Comic Sans.
Yeah.
Comic Sans.
Comic Sans font.
Furrow your bra as you answer the questions.
Chew your flavorless gum or maintain eye contact with the experimenter.
So still we.
So which did you say, Mickey?
Comic Sans.
Comic Sans, Dave?
Comic Sands.
Comic Sands.
Matt, are you going to be influenced like the famous Ash experiments?
I don't want.
Well, look, I'm going to do it.
No, I'm metagaming this, right?
I can either be a point behind you two or be zero with you two.
And that's probably, I'm probably not going to be able to.
You're going to get it right.
You've got three options.
I assume I'm not going to get it right.
I just think they're all equally silly.
So I'm going to go for Comic Sans too.
I think something good experiment would do.
I know that they did like to vary the font.
That's something that's not.
Yes, exactly.
I knew his fonts.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Usually the graded fonts like made them look lighter.
Well, well, so let me just say that you're wrong.
It was actually the furrowing the bra.
You had to furrow your.
See, I feel like you're cheating now because they have used comic sans before.
So like you're using real like.
Oh, no, sorry.
It wasn't comic.
Now what you're asking is whether we know it was experiment three.
No, no, no, no.
You are mistaking this for the Sharif and Norn Zion paper or the which one.
No, no, no, no.
Because no, Daniel Oppenheimer had a whole line of research with Alter looking at fonts.
Oh, correct, correct.
None of them were comic science.
I have it now.
Okay.
Oh, it was Helvetica.
Right.
Comic Sans is the joke font, okay?
That's the, it's easy to read.
You're right.
They do use that as a manipulation, but it's like a font that makes things like slightly harder to see.
It's still, it shouldn't work anyway, right?
But any, in any case, I. What I love about all these studies thus far is how ridiculous it makes social psychology seem.
The manipulations and measurements like our willy-nilly.
And this is like cowboy psychology.
Tamler would love this.
He's having a field day.
Well, let's get to like something that's a little bit more solid, something that's rock-solid finding in psychology that everybody knows.
In When Prophecy Feels, Festinger, Ricken, and Schachter report that the cult Martin's group, the cult of Martin or whatever it was called, the 33 people attending meetings in Eat Lansing, only eight were heavily committed, seven were somewhat doubtful, and 18 can hardly be called members, with beliefs ranging from partial acceptance to almost complete skepticism.
Okay, so this is from When Prophecy Feels, 1956.
That's how they described it.
One year later, in a theory of cognitive dissonance, how did Festinger describe the group?
Okay, so you heard the description there.
Now I have four options.
Option A, a small but committed subgroup were convinced of the prophecy with the larger group displaying diverse motivations.
Option A, a small but committed subgroup were convinced of the prophecy with the larger group displaying diverse motivations.
Option B, although several members expressed doubts, the majority of members maintained strong commitment to the prophetic message.
Option C, the group numbering 25 to 30 persons believed completely in the validity of these messages.
Option D, the group of approximately 30 people was largely committed, but had been infiltrated by a smaller group of skeptics, wastrels, and malingers.
All of the above.
I think with this, you have to game it out in terms of Christopher's psychology in choosing the options and choosing the questions.
And I think he wants to make social psychology look as bad as possible.
So therefore, I'm going to choose C based entirely on psychologizing.
Chris.
Okay.
And what was C again?
What was C, the C option?
That all of the members completely believed in the validity of the message.
I have one clarifying question.
Yes.
Is this from literally from 1957?
Or because there was a recent publication, like I think a month ago, revisiting this book.
So I just want to know which source you're looking at.
I am taking those quotes from that paper, which quoted from the original books.
So assuming that they quoted accurately, these are.
So you're looking at the recent paper.
I'm looking at the recent paper, but this is a quote from the original book that was in that recent paper.
Oh my God, that changes things.
I say D. D.
Okay.
Can you tell me what B is again?
Although several members express doubts, the majority of members maintain strong commitment to the prophetic message.
I'm going to go for B.
Okay.
Matt, congratulations.
Your first point.
You're on the board.
I should have followed Matt.
See, that's right.
You can't go wrong by psychologizing, Chris.
I don't know.
Chris's psychology.
One year later, black box, after saying the majority of the group didn't believe it had changed to everybody in the group.
You gotta understand what drives Chris.
He wants to, you know, show people up in in, in being inconsistent.
Hey, you've got one right, don't get confused.
I mean, you're not, we're not.
Darren Brian.
Yeah okay, no wonder you haven't taken a good look at geometric unity with this.
Yeah, uh.
Well, we're at the halfway point.
Matt is leading with one point.
Let's see if the second half of the quiz goes better for you.
Um, this is a short one, okay.
Harvard psychologist Mark Kaiser was caught fabricating data and committing other acts of scientific misconduct uh, leading to his resignation.
He then self-published a book that provided a novel and delicate explanation for why individuals engage in evil and why we uniquely evolved this capacity.
What was the title of his book?
Four options, the architecture of evil evilicious, dark instinct or born to transgress.
what was option a what was the first one yeah what was what the first one the architecture of evil evilicious dark instinct or born to transgress one of them is true evilicious okay evilicious that's the only one i think that's wrong
well i know chris's psychology yeah with wheels within wheels within maybe that's a strategy games within games uh i don't know i think i think what was it dark what was the third one dark instincts dark instinct the dark instinct podcast dark instincts is not a bad title is it um sounds like the dark triad
The Dark Continent.
Uh yeah, I think the Dark Triad.
I'm okay yeah, i'll go for that one.
I think that's a good title.
Dark instinct locked in, yeah, i'm doing the same.
Dark instinct okay well uh, the answer is evilicious.
It was right.
Did you see me raising my hands already?
I kind of knew that answer already.
Um, did you knew it?
But uh, I have very good stories about that whole thing.
Um, the whole affair oh yeah, that's it.
That's maybe it's maybe off here.
Yeah, maybe you can't explain.
Does it involve Capuchin sex?
It did not, but it definitely involved Mark Hauser giving a talk about his forthcoming book as Evil, most of the people in the room Evil, the worst title.
Yeah, he didn't have that title, but I heard about it.
Yeah yeah well um, this is a terrible title.
That is, I know, that's why it's delicious.
Like, did it sell like five copies or well Well, where's Mark Karser these days?
You know, he did, he went on to another career.
I can't remember what it was, but I saw him.
Yeah, is he still?
I thought he was still around.
He started like a consulting, education, consulting business.
Then it turned out that he had like literally copy-pasted the HTML from somebody else's website that had a similar company.
Like, if I'm, you know, not to mind slander or libel or whatever it is that we're doing here.
Wow.
Turtles all the way down.
You really have done yourself a disservice review.
I haven't looked at the book cover of Evil Delicious, by the way.
Okay.
I'm going to give away.
I encourage everyone to look it up.
That's incredible graphic design.
You would hardly know it's self-published.
His passion.
Self-published.
Nice.
Well, now we're approaching the curve.
We're coming towards the end, but we've got a tie, two-way tie.
Daryl Bam, a favorite of social psychologists the world over, known for his pioneering experiments on retroactive causality.
When Daryl Bam responded to Uli Schmak regarding the field replications of his precognition findings, he offered an explanation for why the later attempts did not reproduce the original effects.
So which of the following is Bam's actual defense?
Okay.
Four options.
A, that the erotic stimuli used in replication attempts were too mild, leading him to progressively introduce more explicit image and alter the trial structure mid-study.
So option one, more sexy trials.
B, that replication teams failed to reproduce the subtle experimenter participant rapport necessary for sci-fix to emerge.
C, that pre-cognitive effects fluctuate over time and therefore require adaptive experimental designs rather than fixed protocols.
Kind of like a ghost hunter.
D, that skeptics' expectations and analytic choices suppressed genuine precognitive effects through experimenter demand effects.
Which one?
My God, Chris, these are excellent questions.
All of them sound plausible.
Thank you, Vicky.
They are plausible.
And I will say that he may have offered these on other occasions, but to Uli Schimak, he specifically invoked.
What date?
One.
27th of March, 20.
Yeah, no, no.
I don't have that.
Yeah.
All right.
I have my answer already, but I don't want to.
Don't reveal it.
I don't want to.
You go first.
Stop you loitering around the edge.
I think B and D are just kind of very similar in terms.
They are similar, but subtly different.
Remind me of B again.
What are they again?
Well, B is that they didn't have the rapport with the participants necessary to produce it.
And D is that they're skeptics, right?
And that beams are skeptic, negative beams, which make the effects go away.
Yeah, I think I'll go for D. D?
Okay.
Yeah, me too.
Did you?
Do you have what about you?
Hey?
Dave seems confident.
On a roll.
He's right.
The erotic stimuli, not erotic enough in the replication.
Not erotic enough.
So, okay.
So it's a little unfair.
I feel like you're really in the erotic.
He was my colleague.
I feel like, what's that movie about the Indian kid who gets all the trivia questions right?
Slum dog millionaire.
I feel like I'm slumdog millionaireing these last two, having been there.
You're like on board with a replica.
You're the like Eric Weinstein behind the scenes.
You're like ground zero of the replication crisis.
A little bit.
Daryl Bem told me that.
And it was hilarious because so he was relying on this, you know, the Zion's priming stuff, but he was reversing the order, right?
So it was priming people after they gave their answer.
And he was using erotic primes.
So for the psychologists here, you may know.
Sorry, Chris.
The IAPS, the IAPS database of pictures.
I know that that is.
He first himself was using quote-unquote erotic pictures of women from the IAPS, which, if you know the IAPS, it was like pretty dated by that time.
It was like women wearing, you know, nude stockings and like very unshaven in a way that was lots of bush.
Yeah.
Like, you know, like very hairsprayy hair.
And Daryl Bem is gay.
And so the experiment wasn't working.
And he went to his son, who was not gay and said, I don't know why this experiment's not working.
And his son said, because those aren't sexy pictures, dad.
And so this prompted Daryl to go find actual sexy pictures.
And then, according to him, it worked.
See, this is well, this is what this quiz is for.
It's the deep psychology lore that you need.
This isn't the stuff you could get in an undergraduate degree, right?
The story behind the story.
Now, Matt, this next question, I'm going to ask you first, because if you get it, I will move to my second question.
But if you feel this, it just shows that you don't listen to me, right?
Because I talked about this at some length.
Why are you testing your partner?
I've got a backup question, but if he doesn't get it, we'll go to the YouTube.
So Martin's scientific ethos is widely known by the acronym kudos.
Okay.
In that acronym, you have universalism, disinterestedness, and organized skepticism.
That's the U-D-O-S.
What does the C stand for, Matt?
C. What are the other ones?
Martin's scientific norms.
There's four of them.
Yep.
You've got universalism.
Universalism.
Disinterestedness.
And organized skepticism.
Organized skepticism.
Yes.
What does the C stand for?
There's no options here, so if you don't...
Oh, you don't know, right?
You don't know.
This is the thing.
I don't.
I don't know.
I remember we talked about disinterestedness.
Well, this is great.
This is actually very good.
So now you're all in.
You're all in the game.
You can all make suggestions.
What is the C?
What is the fourth Martonian norm?
Care.
Oh, care.
Okay.
I don't know if Carrie is part of it.
I love universalism.
So I was like, give me that one.
Yeah.
You got that one?
I think I might have remembered it, but I'll say it.
I'll say my thing last.
And if I'm right, actually, I'll forgot the point.
I'll give you half a point.
Give me half a point.
Yeah.
It's the same.
Half a point will be communication.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
This is good.
Community.
I think that's warm.
Community.
Okay.
We'll switch.
I just thought of a C. That's so soft.
China.
China.
Well, China, Matt, do you want to reveal?
Well, I could be misremembering this, but I think it's actually like communism or something like that.
Correct, it is communism.
Yeah.
Communism.
So community.
I feel like Nikki gets a half point for community.
I think he does get a half point.
He does.
But you said China, so you should also.
We all get a half point.
Oh, no.
Where's that?
Mickey?
That's who said a half point?
Who said China?
I think, especially given the answer is communism, everybody should get half a point.
Everybody would get half a point.
Let's take one point and average it so that we all get 0.3.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Half points for all.
I'm on the board, man.
I'm just happy for this.
Well, so now this is a follow-up that you don't know, Matt.
Bruce McFarlane, 2023, argued that Martin's scientific norms have been supplanted by a new academic ethos.
Summarized by the acronym Decay.
In McFarlane's formulation, Decay stands for differentiationalism, egoism, and the A is advocacy.
So he cheated and used AY.
But what is the C in Bruce McFarlane's modern scientific norms?
But hold on, I want to understand: is this legit or is he taking a piss on?
I mean, it's a real article that was published.
I think he's unhappy with the way things have gone.
Careerism.
Right.
Okay.
Careerism.
I'm going to follow.
Oh, careerism.
Careerism.
So what are the other ones again?
Differentialism as opposed to universalism.
I love how you say that.
It's a dulcet.
Egoism as opposed to disinterestedness and advocacy.
Or sorry, I guess advocacy is the one against disinterestedness.
So egoism must be instead of universalism.
So what about the C?
Oh, maybe corporatism.
Which are you going with?
Corporatism, careerism.
Can I hedge?
Can I put like half on each?
I'm going to say he, I'm going to say he's stuck with communism.
Okay.
In a twist.
Mickey.
Crayons.
Crayons.
And Mickey gets it.
You all should have been thinking about academics and their thing, capitalism, capitalism.
Oh, inverse of communism.
Come on, corporatism.
Another one, or Matt, Matt.
Okay.
Well, you only put a half mark on it.
So you're all right.
We'll give you a market.
A quarter of it.
Give me half on the half.
You get to.
Yeah.
Well, you get two.
You're up to two marks now.
So he's tied with me now?
No, you're two and a third.
I'm two and a half.
Yeah, yeah.
A third.
You still have two thirds.
He made a call for half.
We've only got, it looks like one more question and then the two bonuses, the wild cards.
I'm still in here.
I'm just still in it.
Yeah, yeah.
Last point wins.
Yeah.
All right.
In K et al, 2004, a series of studies examined how exposure to business-related items like boardroom tables or briefcases influenced social cognition and behavior.
Which of the following was not reported in this research?
Okay.
So three of these were reported in this paper.
One was not.
A. Exposure to business-related objects increased the cognitive accessibility of competition-related concepts.
Okay.
They're all exposure to business-related objects.
B were more likely to interpret ambiguous social interactions as uncooperative.
That's B. Participants kept more money for themselves in the ultimatum game.
Or D, administered more intense sound blasts to other participants during a negative reinforcement learning task.
Okay, we're looking for the one that wasn't.
It wasn't there.
So they were shown like briefcases, right?
Look at these.
And then made to do various activities.
And which one were they not made to do?
Or which one did they not?
Can you repeat them?
Yep.
So you have increased accessibility of competition-related concepts, more likely to interpret ambiguous social interactions as uncooperative, kept more money for themselves in the ultimatum game, or administered more intense sound blasts to other participants during a negative reinforcement learning test.
They all sound plausible.
I want to say D, but I feel like it's a trick.
It's a trap.
I know.
That's what.
Yeah, that's what I feel too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
See, look at that face.
That's the face of a man that wants to stop you from the solo movies.
Try your luck.
I'm going to go for B. B. All right.
Yeah.
Oh, I've forgotten.
What was B again?
B is the ambiguous social interactions being interpreted more uncooperative.
Yeah, I think I'm going for B.
I actually like, yeah, I like B too.
We're all following.
You know, B. Should have stuck with your original, Matt.
D. Sound blasts.
I mean, that's the one that made sense.
That's the one that made sense.
Now it's just a quiz about what fucking way Chris is fuckering is.
Look, that was the most outlandish one, right?
You guys, this is your discipline.
Yeah.
That's the issue of that up.
The other thing.
I know, but that was such a commonly used dependent variable.
Yeah, but this doesn't mean the team.
Yeah, negative reinforcement learning tasks, though, that's a milgram.
I know.
But this is your fault, Chris.
That was the part that I thought was a bit weird.
I'll admit that, but if I didn't think you were trying to screw with us, I would have chosen D.
I think we should get some points given that.
No, you don't get any because I've just realized there's like this, the bonus round is slightly longer than I intended.
So this is this is bonus round because it's guru focused, not social psychologist.
Or is it?
Let's see.
Bonus round.
Here's a short review of a book I loved, Viral by Alina Chan and Matt Ridley, reviewed by Nicole Barboa.
Once you understand the research being done in Wuhan and the sloppiness of many labs, it seems extremely likely that COVID leaked from that lab.
Who said that?
Jonathan Haidt, Barry Scott Kaufman, Sam Harris, or Lee Jissom?
Who sent that?
Really?
Say the cordigan?
Here's a short review of a book I loved, Viral by Alina Chan and Matt Ridley, reviewed by Nicole Barboa.
Once you understand the research being done in Wuhan and the sloppiness of many labs, it seems likely that COVID leaked from that lab.
Is this the bonus round?
This is the bonus round.
Yeah.
Okay.
But everything is like.
There needed to be more fanfare to transition, but whatever.
It's your show.
There's going to be sound.
There's going to be music.
There is.
Andy will put in all music.
So you'll know I'm silly for even asking.
Bonus round.
And who are the candidates again?
You've got Jonathan Haidt, illustrious social psychologist, Barry Scott Kaufman, former Kaufman podcaster, Sam Harris, needs no introduction, and Lee Gerson.
SBK.
I'm locking in SBK.
SBK.
I don't know, man.
I could definitely not draw the knife.
It could be any of them.
It could be any of them.
I think it could be any of them.
But I'll put it in.
It's because you guys are jaded.
No, I'm going to say, God, I don't know.
It's because the jab has fucked you up.
We're just in PCs at this point.
Yeah, SBK.
I got SPC.
SBK, SBK.
It's another clean swip for Team Kavna.
That is Jonathan Haidt.
Jonathan Haidt.
Oh, wow.
Really?
Yes.
Bad choice, Mr. Haidt.
You should have listened to our podcast, but Ce La V. Even Matt didn't listen to the podcast.
What you're saying?
Listen, I just record.
Yeah.
Talk about an NPC.
No, look, I meant Jonathan Haidt should listen to our very good episodes that I don't want you got at.
I thought you meant that you had discussed Jonathan Height.
No, we had a podcast.
I'm not getting any special advantages.
Don't worry.
Okay.
This is a review of Brett Weinstein's Hunter Gallery's Guide to the 21st Century.
Okay.
Brett and Heather.
Sorry.
Yes.
Thank you.
Jesus.
Sexism much?
Well, can you hear her scolding you in that sexy voice?
I hear it every night.
But Razor Sharp and fun to read.
A Hunter Gallery's Guide to the 21st Century Secures Weinstein and Haynes' reputation as heroes who stood up not only for academic freedom, but also moral principles.
This book guides readers through the most pressing puzzles of our time, developing their conceptual toolkit without being didactic.
Okay.
I don't even need you to give me options.
I know it should, Richie.
No, no, Richie slander.
Yes, he wrote a very negative book review.
You're optimistic.
I know I've read it.
Same as before.
The same four people.
SBK, Sam Harris, Lee Jussum, and Jonathan Haidt.
Who vloged their book?
This is not a review.
It's a blurb.
Oh.
I'm going to go with Jonathan Haidt again.
Yeah, me too.
Just because the sick Chris seems so crazy.
Yeah.
I mean, who are they going to seek?
Who are they going to seek a blurb from?
That's the question.
Lee Johnson.
Come on.
Yeah, no, he's not going to sell Bucks.
SBK is going to sell Bucks.
Who are the other?
Was it fourth one?
Norris.
Sam Harris.
Oh, Sam Harris.
I don't think he would say that.
I'm going to go for Jonathan Hyde.
Yeah, Jonathan Hyde.
All right.
All right.
Okay.
You all got a point.
Good job.
Yes, we defeated the Chris.
That's it.
I feel I primed you by giving you the previous one.
I feel like I actually remember seeing that and having like a disappointing feeling in like the part of my stomach.
You know, yeah.
I did co-author.
My co-author, Jonathan Haidt, just wanted to drop someone.
Drop some names.
I know.
He does have bad judgment about these things.
He hasn't read any of these books.
Let's be honest.
But I hope he's done his name.
I hope not.
But okay, so these are the this is the bonus bonus questions.
They're very short and you shouldn't know them.
But if but if you do okay, yeah, if you do, I'll give you two points.
This is the wild card.
There could be a winner.
I'm still possible.
I can still win here.
That's what you're telling me.
Wait, what's the score?
I feel like you need to be reminding us what the score is.
Okay.
Oh, yeah.
The score coming into this is Matt has three because he got a half point, two half points.
Mickey has 1.5 and Pizarro is ahead by 3.5.
It's all the play for with these final two questions.
Which I'm out.
No, you're not out.
If you get out of the way, you'll be the dark horse.
You can do it.
Stefan Molyneux, famed anarcho-capitalist, anti-spanker philosopher, the biggest philosopher on the internet.
He was the leader of an online cult which promoted cutting off contact with family.
And the acronym for this was called D Fuing.
D-Fuing.
What?
What?
Your accent makes you incomprehensible to me.
D-Fooing?
D-F-O-O-I-N-G.
Fooing.
Okay.
Defooing.
What does that?
Now this is the question.
What does that stand for?
What is the F-O-O?
I mean, it's the multiple choice, I hope.
Okay, no, no.
So it's not, because he sold it.
Does each letter actually stand for a word or are there combos in there?
No, it's each one is a word.
Is it proper word?
F-O-O.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, proper word.
There's an F, there's an O, there's an O, there's an I.
Yes.
It's not like they spell out the word.
Three words.
Starting with F. D.
Well, I feel like I can at least help you here, which, like, this is about cutting off contact with family.
Yeah.
F for family.
Yeah, F for family.
Mickey gets one point.
Yeah, yeah.
Just be clear.
The next two words both start with O. Is that right?
Yes.
Yes, that's right.
Defooing.
Nikki, you got one point.
That'll bring you.
I'm there, man.
Yeah.
Okay.
Family over and out.
Oh.
Family over and out.
Over and out.
I like that.
But there's a D there.
Family over.
You said there's a D, D F O O?
No, no, no, no, forget about D. D is like D E D as in D E as in demolished Dr. D detached.
I see.
Okay.
God, O's.
How many words start with O?
That's right.
You might be able to get a point if you just say some of the words and start ocean onyx.
I like this.
You're not going to get it.
I love it.
Mickey, you're up to 2.5.
You're still.
It's a.
I'm in here, man.
The family of origin.
Oh, that's deep.
See, I should have actually known that because I haven't counted.
You guys shouldn't know this.
Matt just did an episode on it.
I'm actually proud of Matt for that because anything that goes in should go out immediately.
So I think he gets the points.
I'll give him my point.
You shouldn't be retaining any information about Stefan Molyneux in your head.
You just get it out of there.
What a horrible fucking message that is, too.
This is the last one.
Last one for all of you.
One of these is an actual title from a recent trigonometry YouTube video.
Which one is the real one?
Every time Constantine Kisson dropped the hammer.
Every time Constantine Kissing went beast mode.
Every time Constantine Kissing engaged in full intellectual combat.
Every time Constantine Kisson unleashed the beast.
Which one is the real?
And this is an ad for trigonometry?
This was a video he put up like the video title.
Wait, are you asking which one is the real one or which one is real?
Which one's the real one?
Which one's real?
One of them is real.
I'm going to go for Unleash the Beast.
Unleash the Beast.
Okay, can you say the first two again?
Went Beast mode or dropped the Hammer?
Dropped the Hammer or dropped the Hammer.
Three, there's four of them.
So what's the other one?
He went.
So one is Went Beast mode.
Two is Drop the Hammer.
Three is Engaged in Full Intellectual Kama.
And four is Unleash the Beast.
I'm winning here now.
This is where I'm taking over the pack.
Beast mode.
Beast mode.
If you send that.
Is that what I said, Matt?
That's what I said.
No, I said Unleash the Beast.
You said Unleash the Beast.
Oh, I see.
Sorry.
Yeah, so I'll go with what was B?
Drop the Hammer?
Drop the Hammer.
I'm going to go with Drop the Hammer just to give these guys a chance.
All right.
Well, let me just tell you this will take a little minute.
It's, you know, it's a very specific style.
You can see the equations floating in the air around his head.
If my calculations are correct, the final score is as it should be.
Mickey, Dark Horse, comes in 4.5.
It was.
Hey.
Oh, DM.
You're taking part.
You're not showing off, not falling behind.
3.5.
Matt taking up the rear.
Last again.
That's it.
Always lost.
You know what's a crazy coincidence is how this lined up with our penis sizes almost exactly.
Isn't that weird?
Well, I think you all did pretty well.
And this is a you know, a good introduction for those who wonder what social psychologists are doing.
They are interested in, you know, potentially studying that.
This is give them a saying that these studies you were talking about weren't true.
Like, was this the implication that you were bringing to like because I thought we learned a lot about how priming works?
I taught priming yesterday and I taught you know the field replications a lot.
And one of the students put out his hand, kind of detected, and was like, so are we supposed to like believe these studies are real or like not?
And I was like, that's up to you.
But I did feel that I kind of like I'd done the rug pool because I showed them all the interesting studies with the results.
And then I, in the second class, took them through all the field replications.
So that's you're single-handedly eroding trust in the minds of the youth.
I'm building it up, baby.
The many love studies and all these, they also get that.
So they see the better stuff.
You guys are the good guys, right?
What's the current status of priming?
Is it still a thing?
I mean, cognitive priming, everybody, I mean, it's a very solid phenomenon, but it means something.
Social priming.
Yeah.
Semantic priming, clearly real.
And social priming is, you know, the thing we don't mention.
We now say reminders of something.
That's right.
Priming is that word we don't use anymore.
Yeah.
People stop doing the word gap things or unscramble sentences.
I feel like that is now fallen by the wayside.
I have a couple of those studies in my dark sorted history.
Yeah.
I did a file drawer.
It looks stuff back there, DF.
No, no, no.
Unfortunately, they're published.
Actually, I'd had a priming study by one of my PhD students, but before the current anti-vax thing was happening, we were studying anti-vax.
And, you know, there are these like psychological motivations, supposed psychological motivations for kind of an irrational kind of dislike of them, like disgust, contamination, and having your body pierce, whatever that's called.
And so, yeah, we body envelope violations.
Yeah, that kind of thing.
Yeah.
And so it's theoretically very, yeah, like it's very, like, it's very attractive that these exist.
And so we did a we did a priming thing and it was a big study and we tried really hard with the stimuli and everything.
You didn't try hard enough.
Yeah, we've been.
That's the thing.
I'm too, I'm too honest.
I'm too honest, David.
That's my problem.
I'm too good.
Too good a statistician to fool myself.
That's my problem.
And we reported a big fat null result.
I'm your man.
Like, I can make anything null validated.
Give it to me and it will, it will come out null.
So, well, I appreciate this was a good, you know, look, I will also say that, and this is honestly true, not you, Matt, because I don't cover addiction, but Mickey, I've been teaching your recent study about the AI and empathy all over the shop in Japan, promoting it all around.
And I've liked a whole bunch of your, you know, your studies, not just the Mia Copus around the willpower things.
And Dave, I also spend an entire week dedicated to person-centered morality.
Your papers around that.
And I think that's still a pretty rock-solid approach to moral psychology.
So you can't see.
I can't think of anything about my research you admire.
Okay.
All right.
Research.
It's so.
Well, when we publish a paper together, that's when we'll be there.
But you know, I love your research, Matt.
I love it.
It's, it's, I'm always telling my family about it.
Matt's on another study.
What happened to that paper that I helped you with the stats on?
Is that published yet?
Did you get that every time?
No, that was to go back.
That was helping the stats.
Yeah, I know.
It was like half a year ago.
Let's not, let's not exaggerate now.
It'll go back in.
I can't even remember any of Matt's work when I see him because all I can focus on is that silver fox hair.
I get that a lot.
I get lost in the lost of the curls.
Yeah.
You're not the only one.
And the AI makes images because Matt has great hair.
Yeah, it makes him.
It just makes him all.
That was mean.
That's not me.
It's the AI, right?
Are you going to post that AI image in the part of the episode?
Because I thought it was actually quite good.
You look very good.
You look very good.
I mean, I'm not sure it looked good, but it looked like me.
So I was like, wow, how did you?
You're a prominent.
Hold on.
I'm pulling this up right now.
I took your profile images from your academic.
Your academic pictures, Mickey, your whole lab looked incredibly attractive.
It's like you're all chads.
I was putting your co-authors' pictures up and it looked like I went to a photo shoot.
Glamour shop.
Chris, are you the blonde girl?
Yeah, that's me.
That's Helen.
That's Helen Lewis.
She's not here, but she was here.
We just didn't bring her wing.
you promised me there'd be a message for me because I'm a huge fan of Alan Lewis.
And I was, this is why I agreed to be on this podcast, man.
I thought I would chat with her.
Oh, yeah.
Let me just play it now.
We just really respect your work.
We just, she gave us a Christmas.
She gave us a Christmas Chris.
Let me just say, angry, angry woman.
That's all I could say about Helen.
Oh, yeah.
That joke lands more when you have heard the conversation with Helen.
But yes, yes.
So I forgot, Mickey, but she, you know, I already know that she likes you.
So that's it.
So you're you're conveying her love through you.
I'll take it.
Yes.
I did tell her afterwards that I forgot to do it.
So she doesn't know.
I want a personalized message in my inbox by the end of the week.
Chris said like, and you said love.
I just want to put it out there.
Hello, Mickey.
It's Helen Lewis.
We know that people get paid like 50 quid to do this on cameo.
So I hope you're sensible of the great honor that I'm doing to you here by wishing you a happy Christmas, saying that I am impressed with the number of beers you have relative to the number of psychologists that you have on your podcast.
And I wish you all the best for 2026.
Yeah, well, look, we'll have to do this again.
We've took up your time at the weekend.
Unlike me and Matt, who never have parties or cocktails, you guys were like, oh, on Friday, I've got a dinner party.
I'm going to an IDW function on Saturday.
I go dancing in the morning.
I'm glad you find amongst the dinner parties and the underground reapps to find the time to hang out with us and genuinely really appreciate it and still enjoy your guys' podcast and work.
So thanks for coming on and hanging out with us on a Friday evening.
In all sincerity, it was an honor.
Thank you guys.
Yeah, thanks for having us.
And I'm jealous of Dave for having met Matt.
I've met Chris now, but not Matt yet.
But one day, hopefully, dreams, dreams can come true.
I haven't met either of them.
Oh, that's right.
You can.
So there you go, Mickey.
You're the only one.
Although I've met Matt and I've even been naked with Matt in an on-sound.
Amazing.
I can thank you as well.
That picture was just released in the Epstein files.
That's right.
I just realized, like, everybody that meets Matt, most of them say that he got naked.
One way or another.
Do you just have tearaway clothes?
Like at all times?
I will say this.
This is a true story.
I own now a pair of chaps.
Askless ones?
Ashless?
Aslis.
I ride a motorcycle.
It's for they're heated.
They're electric chaps for the cold.
You got a little print about you, you know?
Well, you know, this is going to take time to upload.
So I know you guys will try to escape.
So I'm going to end now.
But it's very bad wizards.
Check out Two Psychologists for Beers.
Check out all their publications, including Matt's, if you want, if you're interested.
Mickey Substack.
Oh, Mickey Substack.
Oh, yeah.
Speaking now, you want all the gossip about all the conferences?