Me. Welcome to the You Are Not So Smart Podcast, episode 171. Oh, oh, oh, oh.

Oh, and do me. Oh, oh. A few weeks back I traveled to NYU and sat down with several scientists there one at a time to just sort of talk, talk about their work, talk about science.

It's a different format from what I usually do on the show and that these conversations go wherever

they go. It's something I've enjoyed doing a lot lately, visiting

scientists in their offices and talking about what they're working on at the moment,

what's on their minds right now, and asking questions about what I'm interested in,

sometimes just on the day that I visited.

And I'll be doing more of that all year.

I love it.

In this episode, the guest is Jay Van Bevel, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at New York University in New York City,

an expert on psychology, social psychology, social neuroscience, attitudes, evaluation,

intergroup relations, moral psychology, professional development, and so on.

His work right now focuses on identity, moral values, and political beliefs, and how those things intermingle

and how they shape the mind and the brain.

In the conversation, we talk about fake news, intergroup hypocrisy, theory of mind, identity, dating apps, morals,

post truth, post trust, what makes a message go viral on Twitter, accuracy goals versus motivated reasoning, and more.

This was recorded in his office, so the audio will sound like audio recorded in an

office, and I'm a little under the weather in the interview so I'll sound a

little loopy at times but I think you're going to enjoy this because Jay recently

produced a paper titled The Partisan Brain, an identity-based model of political

belief that I just keep going back to when I wonder why people are so resistant to facts

in these strange times. And we talk about that a lot.

...