Welcome back to the Lincoln Project. I'm your host, Ray Galen. Today, I'm joined by Dominic

Packer and Jay Van Bavill, co-authors of the book The Power of Us, harnessing or shared

identities to improve performance, increase cooperation, and promote social harmony. Dominic

is a professor of psychology at Lehigh University whose research investigates how people's

identities affect conformity and dissent, racism and ageism, solidarity, health, and leadership.

And Jay is an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at New York University. His

research investigates the psychology and neuroscience of implicit bias, group identity, team

performance, decision making, and public health. Jan Dominic both received their PhDs from

the University of Toronto where they bonded in a shared sub-basement office. I think

that's probably a different show, but we can get into that later on. Jay and Dominic,

welcome to the show. Thanks for having us. Yeah, thanks for having us.

So you should know, I am a huge fan just generally speaking of Richard Thaler, behavioral

economics. You know, I've read the Michael Lewis book. I you name it. I've nerded out

on it. So I'm really glad to have you guys here. But let's get into the book The Power

of Us. So in the book, you guys both drawn your research to answer this question about

how our personal identity really works. And you investigate how it is constantly changing.

Sometimes we don't even know it. And a lot of times it's against our own wishes. And

once the inner workings of identity are understood, we can use that knowledge to boost cooperation

or productivity, overcome bias, break political gridlock, and mobilize for change. Well, let's

hope so.

So what first got you all interested in this idea of identity? Dominic, let's start with

you. I think the thing that first intrigued me was trying to understand.

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