Charlan Nemeth on In Defense of Troublemakers

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4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 27 August 2018

⏱️ 83 minutes

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Summary

Psychologist Charlan Nemeth of the University of California, Berkeley and author of In Defense of Troublemakers talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the ideas in the book--the power of groupthink, the power of conviction, and the opportunity for an authentic, persistent dissenter to have an impact on a group's decision. The conversation concludes with a discussion of the challenges of doing careful research in modern times.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:08.0	I'm your host, Russ Roberts, of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:12.6	Our website is econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this podcast, and find
0:17.6	links and other information related to today's conversation.
0:20.5	We'll also find our archives where you can listen to every episode we've ever done going
0:24.8	back to 2006.
0:27.0	Our email address is mailadycontalk.org.
0:29.0	We'd love to hear from you.
0:31.0	Today is August 16, 2018, and my guest is psychologist and author, Charlene Nemeth.
0:40.1	She has a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California Berkeley.
0:44.3	Her latest book is, In Defense of Trouble Makers, The Power of Descent in Life and Business,
0:50.2	which is our topic for today.
0:51.7	Charlene, welcome to Econ Talk.
0:53.6	Thank you very much.
0:55.2	This book is about decision-making, in particular how our awareness of what others say and believe,
1:00.9	how those others affect our own decisions.
1:03.4	Let's start with the power of the majority.
1:06.0	How is my decision a opinion affected by knowing what the majority believes or if there's
1:10.2	some kind of consensus?
1:13.7	That's probably the most powerful phenomenon in social psychology in all honesty, is that
1:20.1	back in the 1950s, even the classic studies by Solomon Ash had shown that even when you're
1:28.1	making judgments about things that have factual evidence right in front of your eyes, even
	...

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