Speaker 1: Welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we give you insights
Speaker 1: into the mind, brain, behavior and creativity. I'm doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, and in each episode I have a conversation
Speaker 1: with a guest. You will stimulate your mind and give
Speaker 1: you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world
Speaker 1: to live in. Hopefully we'll also provide a glimpse into
Speaker 1: human possibility. Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast today.
Speaker 1: It's great to have Kia Santa Maria on the podcast.
Speaker 1: Kara is an Emmy and Knight Foundation Award winning journalist,
Speaker 1: science communicator, television personality, author, and podcaster. She's a correspondent
Speaker 1: on National Geographics flagship television series Explorer, and she's the
Speaker 1: creator and host of a weekly science podcast called Talk
Speaker 1: Nerdy with Kira Santa Maria. Kara also co hosts the
Speaker 1: popular Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast and host the
Speaker 1: new podcast Fix That for You. Additionally, she co authored
Speaker 1: the Skeptics Guide to the Universe book with her podcast
Speaker 1: co host, and she is the spokesperson for National Geographics
Speaker 1: Almanac twenty nineteen. Kara is a founding member of the
Speaker 1: Nerd Brigade and co founded the annual Science Communication Retreat
Speaker 1: Pound Si Calm Camp Kara, So I don't know I
Speaker 1: know how to read that, Kars, Yes Camp, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: calm Camp. Kara. So great to chat with you today. Oh,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. And that's only one fiftieth of
Speaker 1: your bio. That's most of it. It's most of it.
Speaker 1: It's like previously, Cara, and then it goes on for
Speaker 1: five hundred pages. Well, yeah, that is what I'm up
Speaker 1: to write this very moment. I guess you could say. Good.
Speaker 1: So do you approve of the things I highlighted? Uh? Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: of course, I mean other than the fact, which you know,
Speaker 1: this is right, the psychology podcast, So other than the
Speaker 1: fact that I am now back in school working on
Speaker 1: my PhD. I'm assuming that's probably what we'll mostly talk
Speaker 1: about today. Some of my other stuff is I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess it's relevant, but definitely the psych side of
Speaker 1: things has been taking over my life lately, as grad
Speaker 1: school does. Yeah, that seems like a fair representation of
Speaker 1: grad school. Yeah, so you're fielding graduate university, is that right? Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And tell me about your topic, like what are you
Speaker 1: immersed in? Because when you know gradsten, you're in your dissertation.
Speaker 1: That's like all you think about, and that's like all
Speaker 1: you see, like everything you see in the world. Like
Speaker 1: I know when I was working my dissertation was like,
Speaker 1: how does this relate to my dissertation? Yeah, So the
Speaker 1: good news for me is I'm like not quite there yet.
Speaker 1: So I'm only a second year PhD student. Because I
Speaker 1: mean to rewind a little bit. I did my undergrad
Speaker 1: like a million years ago in psychology with a minor
Speaker 1: in philosophy, and then I went straight into graduate school.
Speaker 1: Actually took one year off and worked for a neuropsychologist
Speaker 1: in clinical practice kind of as a psych tech doing assessments.
Speaker 1: And then after that I took that year off, I
Speaker 1: started a master's degree in a completely different department. So
Speaker 1: I ended up earning my master's degree in neuroscience in
Speaker 1: the biology department where we were doing neurophysiology research, so
Speaker 1: multi electrode array electrophizz research with like mouse brains, not
Speaker 1: even brains, primary tissue, so mouse neurons that we were
Speaker 1: growing little flat nerve cell networks with, and so it
Speaker 1: was like a one to eighty. And then after I
Speaker 1: did that degree, I spent ten years as a science communicator,
Speaker 1: just working you did the field. Yeah, and so then
Speaker 1: I decided to go back to school after I had
Speaker 1: been away for a decade. So now I'm thirty five
Speaker 1: years old. I'm in my second year of my PhD.
Speaker 1: Really starting a PhD in clinical psyche if you don't
Speaker 1: have a master's in a clinical program, in many ways,
Speaker 1: is really starting from the very beginning, you know, because
Speaker 1: my master's is in like a hard science, so none
Speaker 1: of my credits transferred, none of my because I don't
Speaker 1: have a master in California, I can't even be a
Speaker 1: psych tech yet until I earn my pass through masters
Speaker 1: towards my PhD because my masters is not in a
Speaker 1: clinical program. So yeah, I'm in the middle of my
Speaker 1: second year and I'm mostly inundated in coursework. I'm seeing
Speaker 1: patients regularly, and I'm starting to think about my dissertation.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of the stage I'm at. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: your dissertation will be your topic will be something clinical related. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean my interest area right now and hopefully my
Speaker 1: next practicum and then fine tuning from there. I mean,
Speaker 1: fingers crossed, I'll get an internship in a hospice setting.
Speaker 1: I'm very interested in death and dying psychotherapy. So ultimately
Speaker 1: the plan, the goal is to work with people when
Speaker 1: they're in that final stage of life. And my likely
Speaker 1: dissertation topic will have to do with the concept of
Speaker 1: dying well in America from a multidisciplinary perspective, So it'll
Speaker 1: be probably a qualitative dissertation where I sit with people
Speaker 1: who are have terminal illnesses and I talk to them.
Speaker 1: I just interview them and spend a fair amount of
Speaker 1: time just talking to them about what dying means to them,
Speaker 1: how they can have you know, a quote unquote good death,
Speaker 1: and what their cultural background, how their cultural background informs
Speaker 1: the process of dying in America. Yeah, I mean, this
Speaker 1: topic of the good death is something that's definitely on
Speaker 1: my mind as well. And in the field of positive psychology,
Speaker 1: some people are trying to try to look at these
Speaker 1: various factors and if you can actually not just do
Speaker 1: the research, but actually be a clinician and work one
Speaker 1: on one with people in our end of life. I
Speaker 1: mean that what a wonderful way to live a good life,
Speaker 1: What a good life that is to help people the
Speaker 1: good death? Oh absolutely, I mean people ask all the time, like,
Speaker 1: how could you want to do this. It sounds so depressing.
Speaker 1: How could you want to spend all this time? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm with you, like you get it. Hopefully people who
Speaker 1: are listening get it. It's how often is it that
Speaker 1: the work that you do gets to be interpersonal and
Speaker 1: gets to be as helpful to the people that you're
Speaker 1: working to help as it is to you. You know,
Speaker 1: how often is it that we get out of our
Speaker 1: work the same amount of meaning and the same amount
Speaker 1: of profundity, and really just the same amount of knowledge
Speaker 1: and information as we put into it. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: such a lucky and privileged position to be in, and
Speaker 1: so I'm really looking forward to it. I mean, right now,
Speaker 1: I'm working with adolescent youth, specifically girls in residential facility setting,
Speaker 1: and it's tough work. It's very tough work. It's incredibly fulfilling,
Speaker 1: but it's very very tough. And I think it's funny
Speaker 1: when people say to me, like, how could you want
Speaker 1: to work around death? It sounds so hard, And I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I wish you could spend a day with me at
Speaker 1: work right now. And I'm spending time around youth, I know,
Speaker 1: and these are end of life youth, No, No, these
Speaker 1: are youth that are in the foster care system with
Speaker 1: sever your mental illness, but more often than not, they've
Speaker 1: really just been victimized by life circumstances, abuse, neglect, childhood
Speaker 1: sexual abuse, commercial sexual exploitation of children. But the biggest
Speaker 1: issue with this is that there's no buy in for therapy.
Speaker 1: They don't want to be in therapy. Lots of them
Speaker 1: don't even want to talk, and so don't trust to
Speaker 1: you too, right, I mean, yeah, I mean you end
Speaker 1: up spending so much time building rapport, building trust. You
Speaker 1: have to be very smart and very savvy about how
Speaker 1: you do therapy with children, first of all, but with
Speaker 1: adolescents it's even an extra layer than with children because
Speaker 1: they're street smart, they're savvy, but oftentimes they have emotional
Speaker 1: dysregulation issues or developmental delays, where on the surface, you're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a real savvy seventeen year old girl who has
Speaker 1: a lot of life experience, But you get down underneath
Speaker 1: the layers and you look at all of the abuse
Speaker 1: and neglect and the lack of developmental health, the lack
Speaker 1: of healthy attachment, and you realize, although it's a seventeen
Speaker 1: year old girl who's super street smart and savvy. She's
Speaker 1: got the kind of the emotional flexibility of a child,
Speaker 1: and she's struggling in very deep ways. And you know,
Speaker 1: we think of adult therapy as you know, you're in
Speaker 1: an office and someone comes to you and they're like,
Speaker 1: I have these issues and I want to give you
Speaker 1: all my money so that you'll help me with my issues,
Speaker 1: and I'm here of my own volition. When you're working
Speaker 1: in residential treatment, you're in the place where the kids live.
Speaker 1: You know, you're in their home. It's a privileged position.
Speaker 1: You're very lucky. You get to see all sorts of
Speaker 1: things that you never see in the lives of your
Speaker 1: patients when your patients are adults, so you get to
Speaker 1: have a broader clinical picture. But you're really invading in
Speaker 1: their space and you've got to tread lightly, and you've
Speaker 1: got to really build trust over long periods of time
Speaker 1: and get super creative, super creative about bringing therapeutic change
Speaker 1: into their lives. Because trust me when I say they
Speaker 1: do not want therapy. They want to have nothing to
Speaker 1: do with it, and they can smell it a mile away.
Speaker 1: When you start to try and get them to talk
Speaker 1: about their feelings, it's you know, it's it's a very
Speaker 1: interesting and i'd say emotionally challenging place to work for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I can relate to that. Teaching college students how to
Speaker 1: increase their well being and doing exercises where you have
Speaker 1: to get in touch with your emotions and stuff, and
Speaker 1: some students who may have had horrible traumatic experiences, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to work with that. And I would say, you know,
Speaker 1: I've I've done a lot of work in the college
Speaker 1: level the academic side, right, I've taught a lot of
Speaker 1: like psychology and biology courses and things like that, and
Speaker 1: I would say this is probably much more like trying
Speaker 1: to do mindfulness meditation with sixth graders. Yeah, that's the difference. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very difficult, or maybe fourth graders, you know, or
Speaker 1: even with college students. Yeah, I'm saying, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: true that college student struggle in their own way, but
Speaker 1: there is still a level of buy in, like those
Speaker 1: kids are there by choice. Yeah, yeah, which is like
Speaker 1: a very different position to be in for sure. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: so I want to like step back a second, because,
Speaker 1: like I mean, you've gone so many years of your
Speaker 1: life with broad science communication. I mean it's like I
Speaker 1: remember when you used to used to pop up on
Speaker 1: I used to blog for Hoffei and Post. I used
Speaker 1: to Worte for their science section, And I feel like
Speaker 1: I was constantly paired with like your new Talk nerdy columns.
Speaker 1: I feel like I've been integrably intertwined with you for years,
Speaker 1: so without actually ever talking to you, And so I
Speaker 1: became a fan, right, And it was very obvious for me,
Speaker 1: obvious from my perspective that you're just like this ravenously
Speaker 1: curious human being and like everything in science interests you.
Speaker 1: And what's that like to go from that very like
Speaker 1: general exploratory drive to like a very narrow specific topic.
Speaker 1: What was that like for you? What is it like
Speaker 1: to you? For you? I mean, it's still happening, right.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've fully narrowed down yet. I'm still
Speaker 1: in the corpsework phase of my PhD program, so it's
Speaker 1: still pretty broad. But I mean, even as you said,
Speaker 1: like narrowing down from all of science, which is basically
Speaker 1: like everything to clinical psychological science is a big change.
Speaker 1: And also understanding the difference in the epistemology of psychological
Speaker 1: science over you know, classical maybe we can think of
Speaker 1: as more quote unquote, and I hate using this term,
Speaker 1: but like hard sciences, you know, going from even neuroscience,
Speaker 1: which is a little bit more flexible, but describing things
Speaker 1: from astrophysics, for example, describing things from chemistry, from biomedical science,
Speaker 1: and now studying psychological science. It's different. The way that
Speaker 1: we collect data is different. I mean, we utilize heavy
Speaker 1: scientific principles. But there's an ongoing debate within the psychology
Speaker 1: field of whether we should be, you know, utilizing the
Speaker 1: medical model or what's considered the contextual model of psychology research,
Speaker 1: because you just can't do studies with people and with
Speaker 1: subjective states the same way you can with lab mice.
Speaker 1: You just can't, and so you have to get really
Speaker 1: creative about how you research things in psychology. And so
Speaker 1: it's been really interesting changing my perspective of one that
Speaker 1: is I think a little bit more staunch, a little
Speaker 1: bit probably more materialistic, more evidence based, imperial, empirical and flexible,
Speaker 1: into under standing a different type of empiricism with psychology
Speaker 1: and especially psychotherapy. It's been a change for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I mean you are now entering the world of
Speaker 1: empiricism and you'll be doing studies for your dissertation I
Speaker 1: imagine and seeing how messy humans are compared. I mean,
Speaker 1: rodents are messy too, but like humans are a real
Speaker 1: mess Oh yeah, I mean with with mouse studies, you
Speaker 1: can literally buy clones from a distributor. Ye, And you
Speaker 1: can do experiments and say, well, I know that genetically
Speaker 1: these forty mice that I was doing these experiments on
Speaker 1: were genetically identical to each other. Yeah, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: and so I know that I'm controlling for so many variables.
Speaker 1: They're reared the same way in the same laboratory, they
Speaker 1: eat this exact same diet every day, and they have
Speaker 1: all the same genes. Obviously, none of those things are
Speaker 1: true when you're working with people. We've had rich and
Speaker 1: and profound lives that are inextricably linked to our development.
Speaker 1: Like there's just no way to know when it comes
Speaker 1: to people, whether it's the nature or the nurture, or
Speaker 1: the both or the neither. When it comes to how
Speaker 1: somebody reacts to therapy, for example, there's just no way
Speaker 1: to know if these people are more capable of having
Speaker 1: a positive reaction to this type of therapy, then those
Speaker 1: people simply buy virtue of their diagnosis, or by virtue
Speaker 1: of their home life, or by virtue of their gender
Speaker 1: or their orientation, or I mean, gosh, I could like
Speaker 1: literally throw darts at a dartboard and list five thousand
Speaker 1: variables to have to worry about when you're doing psychology research.
Speaker 1: It's just such a different rol for them exactly, And
Speaker 1: that's the thing you just can't And so then you
Speaker 1: have to start getting really creative statistically to try and
Speaker 1: understand how those variables are intervening, you know, or the
Speaker 1: media your results. Are they moderating your results? What does
Speaker 1: this mean? Absolutely? Well, I noticed that you're getting a
Speaker 1: concentration in social justice and diversity as well, and I
Speaker 1: don't think every school has that concentration within a PhD.
Speaker 1: So that's right there. That's an interesting that you have
Speaker 1: that concentration. Can you tell me more about like what
Speaker 1: that concentration you hope to bring into your work? Oh? Yes,
Speaker 1: at Fielding, if you're in the psychology you know division
Speaker 1: and you are studying clinical psychology for your PhD, you
Speaker 1: can choose a concentration. You don't have to, but there
Speaker 1: are a few different concentrations that you can choose. Neuropsychology
Speaker 1: is probably the most intensive. It's the one that My
Speaker 1: background is in you know, I told you that I
Speaker 1: did an undergrad in psychomasters in neuroscience, and I actually
Speaker 1: did start a PhD about ten years ago for like
Speaker 1: a year in clinical neuropsychology. It was I was like
Speaker 1: not even twenty one years old, yet I had made
Speaker 1: a massive move from Texas to New York. I was
Speaker 1: very who it was a very tough time in my
Speaker 1: life and it just wasn't the right time to be
Speaker 1: in school. So I ended up leaving that And since then,
Speaker 1: you know, getting older, realizing that neuropsych is maybe not
Speaker 1: what I want to do for a living. I'm not
Speaker 1: really wanting to do a lot of assessment. I want
Speaker 1: to do more therapy. It's also very cutthroat, very competitive field.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the sexy field to be in
Speaker 1: right now. So you know, yeah, there's like a bunch
Speaker 1: of twenty two year old, fresh out of well maybe
Speaker 1: twenty six year old, you know, fresh out of undergrad
Speaker 1: graduate students working on these degrees, and really they're hungry.
Speaker 1: They don't have to work, they don't have lot, like
Speaker 1: I shouldn't say, they don't have lives, so they're not
Speaker 1: entrenched in their lives as much as older people are,
Speaker 1: and they're like, you know, willing to put in to
Speaker 1: neuropsychology and to compete in neuropsychology in a way that
Speaker 1: I'm just like not willing to do now that I'm older.
Speaker 1: It's just not what I want to do for a living.
Speaker 1: But we have a lot of really bright students at
Speaker 1: Fielding who are focusing on neuropsychology. We also have I
Speaker 1: think a forensic science concentration our forensic psychology. I think
Speaker 1: there's a parent infant mental health concentration. I know I'm
Speaker 1: forgetting some of the concentrations that are offered, maybe violence prevention,
Speaker 1: but I really gravitated towards social justice and diversity because
Speaker 1: the concentration really is all about making sure that all
Speaker 1: everything you do in psychology, whether you're doing your research,
Speaker 1: whether you're taking classes, whether you're seeing patients, has that
Speaker 1: social justice and diversity lens. Right, We don't we don't
Speaker 1: just work with the dominant majority culture, nor should we
Speaker 1: we work And the dominant majority culture is no longer
Speaker 1: the majority, at least in America. It might have the
Speaker 1: dominant majority power, you know, when we're talking like white male, Protestant,
Speaker 1: hetero sexual, like we could list a bunch of features
Speaker 1: of you know, we could talk though about, you know,
Speaker 1: the privilege of those types of statuses within American society,
Speaker 1: but ultimate and the power that really the ultimate power
Speaker 1: that they wielded in almost every field, and how that's
Speaker 1: influenced American history and how that influences these kinds of relationships.
Speaker 1: But ultimately, when you are in a one on one
Speaker 1: interpersonal relationship with a patient, that patient comes with a
Speaker 1: beautiful and rich and diverse background. That patient is very
Speaker 1: likely not going to be a white, Protestant, male, heterosexual,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, middle income. You know, the list goes
Speaker 1: on and utilizing this narrative that we've long utilized in
Speaker 1: psychotherapy that like somehow that is the norm is first
Speaker 1: of all gross, but also does a massive disservice to
Speaker 1: positive mental health. And so, you know, social justice and diversity,
Speaker 1: the diversity angle is really about. It's about having kind
Speaker 1: of cultural multicultural competency. It's about understanding that everybody comes
Speaker 1: with their own story, and it's about understanding at least
Speaker 1: some of the basic norms from other cultures and understanding
Speaker 1: their interplay with mental health, because even things like depression
Speaker 1: and anxiety look different in different cultures, and they look
Speaker 1: different when there's a religious component to it, and they
Speaker 1: look different when you know, the languages are different, they're
Speaker 1: expressed in different ways. So that's the diversity side of it.
Speaker 1: But the social justice side, I think does go one
Speaker 1: step further and it really shows that a lot of
Speaker 1: psychologists are deeply passionate about advocacy and that you know,
Speaker 1: the best way to affect change beyond doing having a
Speaker 1: one on one relationship with a patient, is ensuring that
Speaker 1: the greater society is trending in an appropriate direction and
Speaker 1: that you know, we see patients falling through the cracks
Speaker 1: of systems, especially when we're working with Department of Mental
Speaker 1: Health or we're doing things that are uh prescribed, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, utilizing Medicare or something like that, and we
Speaker 1: see the holes and we see the problems, and the
Speaker 1: iteration start solving those problems. And it's important I think
Speaker 1: that if you're a psychologist, a psychotherapist that really cares
Speaker 1: about having a healthy and fair and equitable world, that
Speaker 1: there is a social justice component to your work that
Speaker 1: you advocate for those things even outside of the one
Speaker 1: on one psychotherapy room. Thanks Kara, like thanks for describing
Speaker 1: all of that. There's a lot of different really interesting threads.
Speaker 1: I think we can go from there. You said that,
Speaker 1: like neuroscience is really hot these days, and I would
Speaker 1: say social justice and diversity are really hot terms these
Speaker 1: days as well, especially among twenty one twenty year olds,
Speaker 1: I mean teaching college students. I mean it's very popular
Speaker 1: as well, these kind of concerns, So it's really it
Speaker 1: might be hot terms, but I don't think that they
Speaker 1: are as represented within university settings. I think that as
Speaker 1: a field, neuropsychology and neuroscience is sexy, right, That's a
Speaker 1: field like when somebody has done their basic training, whether
Speaker 1: it's the first couple of years of their undergrad or
Speaker 1: whether they had got an undergrad in a broader topic.
Speaker 1: I think those are like sexy fields to go into,
Speaker 1: same as theoretical cosmoy astrophysics. It's a very sexy field.
Speaker 1: It's what people are writing about in the media, it's
Speaker 1: what people are drawn to as an educational topic. I
Speaker 1: think that you're right, social justice and diversity are very important,
Speaker 1: and there are things that people are talking about like
Speaker 1: they're becoming the center of the conversation. I still think
Speaker 1: that we are lacking in an academic setting, We are
Speaker 1: lacking institutional opportunities for people to actually focus on those
Speaker 1: things as a career. Well, you should come to Barnhard
Speaker 1: colleges because there's a lot of deep interest in social
Speaker 1: justice and diversity. Thereat maybe it varies by maybe it varies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, obviously I think my background, in
Speaker 1: my perspective comes from comes from public universities. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: the universities where most people have the most opportunities to attend.
Speaker 1: And it's not to say that there's no opportunities there,
Speaker 1: and it's not to say that there aren't amazing professors
Speaker 1: who are focusing on these things, but like you said
Speaker 1: early on social justice and diversity, Oh, most people don't
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to concentrate in that. It's like, I know,
Speaker 1: it's not a common concentration. Yeah, I mean, you raise
Speaker 1: a really good point about just general accessibility to scientific
Speaker 1: the science process, to being able to show up at
Speaker 1: the table, and there are lots of different inroads we
Speaker 1: could take in discussing that. Maybe I could ask you,
Speaker 1: you know, as a woman in science, have you personally
Speaker 1: faced what have been some of the major hurdles for you, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean all women in science have faced hurdles. I
Speaker 1: mean that's like kind of like do you breathe every
Speaker 1: day when you when you wake up? I mean yeah, like,
Speaker 1: all women in science face hurdles. This is a common
Speaker 1: it's a common concern, I mean in psychology less. So
Speaker 1: that's simply because psychology opened its doors to women earlier
Speaker 1: on in the process. I mean, it's still the case
Speaker 1: that when you look at at very early psychological history,
Speaker 1: it was dominated by men, and even at the highest
Speaker 1: levels at some universities, the tenured faculty, the board seats,
Speaker 1: things like that. Even within psychology, you do see a
Speaker 1: higher degree of men at the highest highest levels. But
Speaker 1: for the most part, in psychological science it's hugely dominated
Speaker 1: by women. I mean, the vast majority of degrees are
Speaker 1: are conferred upon women. There's a lot of female faculty,
Speaker 1: and psychology has always been kind of ahead of the
Speaker 1: curve when it comes to general I think, not just
Speaker 1: social acceptance, but advocacy right for gender and orientation differences.
Speaker 1: So I think that you also see a lot of
Speaker 1: transgender individuals working within psychology. I think also people by
Speaker 1: nature of their life struggles are drawn to understanding the
Speaker 1: condition of the mind and understanding how they can help people.
Speaker 1: So you also see you know, I think women, people
Speaker 1: of color, maybe nonconforming individuals who are drawn to working
Speaker 1: within psychology to try and understand those issues a little
Speaker 1: bit more deeply. But yeah, back when I was an undergrad,
Speaker 1: when I was working on my masters in neuroscience, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm lucky in many senses that I wasn't in like
Speaker 1: a physics department or computer science department, where those odds
Speaker 1: are just so much worse. But there were definitely institutional
Speaker 1: barriers difficulties that I had to deal with, sexist professors,
Speaker 1: sexually inappropriate professors, of course. So I mean I think
Speaker 1: that this is like a no brainer. Almost every woman
Speaker 1: that you'll talk to can either remember at least one instance,
Speaker 1: or she might have to dig deep because she's like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I just kind of normalized that, or I
Speaker 1: just kind of forgot about that, you know. Oh I
Speaker 1: didn't want to let that get to me, so I
Speaker 1: just kind of put it in its box and dealt
Speaker 1: with it in that way. It wasn't really that big
Speaker 1: a deal. But later in life, I think when we reflect,
Speaker 1: we're like, oh, yeah, that was totally shitty that thing
Speaker 1: that happened, or I didn't get a fair shake in
Speaker 1: that situation. Did I I'm now realizing that we justify,
Speaker 1: we normalize, We do everything we can do cognitively to
Speaker 1: not feel like we're being treated unfairly because you can't.
Speaker 1: You just can't like persist with that kind of uncomfortable
Speaker 1: dissonance every day. So it's hard. It's hard for a
Speaker 1: lot of I think it's getting way better. Obviously, more
Speaker 1: and more women have amazing women role models. But you know,
Speaker 1: ask any any woman who's worked science, and especially ask
Speaker 1: a woman of color, or especially ask a transgender person
Speaker 1: of color. Yeah, they deal with some shit. Well, thank
Speaker 1: you for talking about that experience. Something popped up on
Speaker 1: my screen when I was looking at this whole Neil
Speaker 1: deGrasse Tyson controversy, people saying that, like he touched you
Speaker 1: inappropriately or something like what was that about? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't really have an open statement about that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that what they're referring to is an on
Speaker 1: stage on stage, right, this is something that happened in public.
Speaker 1: It's not something that there's any sort of what's the
Speaker 1: word I'm looking for, Sorry, it's still kind of early
Speaker 1: on the East Coast. I have a late late night
Speaker 1: in the clinic last night, but it's it's not something
Speaker 1: where people are I watched that clip, so I was
Speaker 1: just cry guessing what happened. So I mean, you can
Speaker 1: make your own come to your own conclusions about how
Speaker 1: you felt about that. I mean, I think that at minimum,
Speaker 1: we can say that there are people in this world
Speaker 1: who have a frustration. Oh, that's not the right word
Speaker 1: to use. At minimum, there are people in this world
Speaker 1: who I think to need to learn and could stand
Speaker 1: to use some training on better boundaries. At maximum, you
Speaker 1: could probably make some other kinds of pointed statements about it.
Speaker 1: But it's hard for me to say. Neil's a friend.
Speaker 1: He's always been a friend, He's always been an advocate
Speaker 1: and a supporter. He has a lot of other issues
Speaker 1: going on with regards to those kinds of accuation statements.
Speaker 1: I have no idea what happened when he was in college,
Speaker 1: and I am not in a position to talk about
Speaker 1: any of those things. But he's got a lot that
Speaker 1: he's that people need to figure out with regards to him.
Speaker 1: Just like, honestly, this is happening left and right. I
Speaker 1: mean it happened with Lawrence Krauss. We saw a massive Lawrences. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot you could read out. Yeah, with the
Speaker 1: physicist Lawrence Kraus. I mean, left and right, we're seeing
Speaker 1: icons and idols and people that it makes you throw
Speaker 1: your hands up there enrollgalized and go not you too,
Speaker 1: really that guy too? I mean it's it's so disenheartening
Speaker 1: when you find out, oh that professor acted inappropriately. Oh
Speaker 1: that professor you know across the boundary. Oh yeah, that
Speaker 1: one person who I always really looked up to, not
Speaker 1: so much a saintists we thought, I mean, go back
Speaker 1: to Bill Cosby, go back to any of these examples,
Speaker 1: and it's it's yeah, it's it's the me too era,
Speaker 1: and people are getting hip to it. Some people don't
Speaker 1: want to believe it, of course, not the sacred cows.
Speaker 1: These these narratives that we had for a long time
Speaker 1: that certain people were perfect, and not only are they
Speaker 1: not perfect, but potentially you know, engaging in pretty horrible
Speaker 1: criminal activity. Yeah. That sounds like two separate things, right,
Speaker 1: because like, no one's perfect. But then there's this extra
Speaker 1: thing of like there's some people that are definitely abusing
Speaker 1: their power, and that's a very serious, you know, thing
Speaker 1: that we need to be aware of well. And I
Speaker 1: think what we're learning too is that historically it's not
Speaker 1: that there are quote so bad apples, which I think
Speaker 1: has always been the dominant narrative. It's that the culture
Speaker 1: itself is allowing for an institutional problem and it just
Speaker 1: has to change. And that's a function of the same
Speaker 1: people maintaining the same social currency, the same power, and
Speaker 1: the same privilege for basically all of human history. And
Speaker 1: that looks like changes are being made. Yeah, of course
Speaker 1: they are, but it's not going to happen overnight. It's
Speaker 1: not going to happen asily as we'd like. There's a
Speaker 1: horrible backlash that's coming from it, where the victims are
Speaker 1: actually suffering, they're being double victimized by being you know,
Speaker 1: raked over the coals in the court of public opinion.
Speaker 1: And it's a really sad situation. These you know, women
Speaker 1: who are speaking up in the Me too movement, not
Speaker 1: just women, I mean, I hate to say that women, men, boys,
Speaker 1: transgender individuals, basically just vulnerable individuals who are finally saying
Speaker 1: in is enough. I'm speaking up. Other people are speaking
Speaker 1: up to their strength in numbers. They're getting showed up
Speaker 1: and eaten alive in the court of public opinion. And
Speaker 1: it's just it's so sad to watch. It's so frustrating,
Speaker 1: and then you wonder why people don't come forward. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so what do you think about the argument some people
Speaker 1: are like, we really should have like, you know, there's
Speaker 1: this whole camp of people that are like due process,
Speaker 1: due process, that's really what is important. We shouldn't like,
Speaker 1: we shouldn't like quote, believe all women, you know, we
Speaker 1: should actually have due process. And because how are those
Speaker 1: things two different things? That's what I don't understand, Like,
Speaker 1: of course we should believe women and we should have
Speaker 1: due process. I guess if you believe all women without
Speaker 1: the due process process, then you're not believing in due process.
Speaker 1: I guess that would be the argument. That's a terrible argument.
Speaker 1: Due process is a legal distinction. You can believe somebody
Speaker 1: and still not send somebody to prison until they have
Speaker 1: due process. I don't understand. And that's the thing that
Speaker 1: I see all the time is these internet like like
Speaker 1: these these trolls on the Internet being like and I'll
Speaker 1: see this a lot where it's like, you know, I
Speaker 1: can't believe this person said this horrible thing, like you know,
Speaker 1: or so and so is protesting against somebody saying something
Speaker 1: in public and blah blah blah, or like one time
Speaker 1: I tweeted something like I am so sick of hearing
Speaker 1: the term social justice warrior. I'm so sick of hearing
Speaker 1: the term you know, X, Y, and Z used as
Speaker 1: a pejorative, and I got literally like thousands of angry trolls,
Speaker 1: I mean, just the troll army came out of the
Speaker 1: woodwork and they're like, they're like, you're trying to shut
Speaker 1: down free speech. And it's like, do you understand what
Speaker 1: the First Amendment is? Like you're free to say whatever
Speaker 1: you want, and I'm free to tell you I don't
Speaker 1: like it. I don't understand when people mix up legal
Speaker 1: distinctions with casual conversation, like exactly the I think false
Speaker 1: equivalents that you were, you know, passing along there, that
Speaker 1: you were saying that people are saying, yes we can
Speaker 1: believe all women and yes we can also have due process,
Speaker 1: and both of those things can exist at the same
Speaker 1: time and they're not diametrically opposed, just like you have
Speaker 1: you know, not you personally I'm using the Royal You,
Speaker 1: some white nationalist asshole has the you know, freedom to
Speaker 1: spout hate, and you know, they also have to suffer
Speaker 1: the consequences when people say, we're not going to stand
Speaker 1: for that, and we're going to not have you speak
Speaker 1: at our you know, private event, or we're going to
Speaker 1: speak our minds and write op eds skewering you, or
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about your hate organization and cite
Speaker 1: the Southern Poverty Law Center and and bring to people's
Speaker 1: attention what clandestine activities you're trying to do to to
Speaker 1: infringe upon the rights of ethnic minorities in this country. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that it's like people need to
Speaker 1: understand that the legal distinctions are the legal distinctions and
Speaker 1: the social distinctions are the social distinctions, and they can
Speaker 1: happen at the same time. Well, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: you made a really good point about I mean, believing someone.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's still free speech. Like, if we believe
Speaker 1: in free speech, we should give free speech to those
Speaker 1: who believe whatever they want to believe. Well, and also
Speaker 1: we need to be you know, we need to understand
Speaker 1: the evidence based process. Right. I'm a huge advocate of
Speaker 1: evidence based thinking. I am a scientist, I you know,
Speaker 1: this is I work on the Skeptics Guide to the Universe.
Speaker 1: We wrote a whole freaking book about it. We do
Speaker 1: a podcast about it. Yeah, it's my thing. And I
Speaker 1: do believe that a complaint against another individual is a
Speaker 1: form of evidence. It's it's you know, legally binding, it's standing.
Speaker 1: This is this is statements. This is how police do
Speaker 1: their work. This is you know, when we talk about
Speaker 1: the difference between laboratory evidence and forensic evidence, obviously they're
Speaker 1: different protocol in their different standards. But when a woman
Speaker 1: makes an accusation against a man, that's a form of evidence.
Speaker 1: And I do think it's important to look at it
Speaker 1: that way. And I think that when we actually look
Speaker 1: at the data as a whole, we start to realize
Speaker 1: that those data show that the vast majority of these
Speaker 1: kinds of statements are true. And people love to cherry pick,
Speaker 1: and they love to cite that one time that that
Speaker 1: woman made a false statement against somebody because she was
Speaker 1: revengeful because they had a bad breakup and she just
Speaker 1: really wanted to ruin his life. Of course that's going
Speaker 1: to happen. Of course, that's and we sho that to
Speaker 1: be true as well. We should, but we should also
Speaker 1: look at the frequency of these events, and let's not
Speaker 1: normalize these things, and let's not say that that's the
Speaker 1: fifty to fifty of it all. It's just like when
Speaker 1: we see these false equivalencies in the news about climate science, right,
Speaker 1: and we see, okay, well, here's the climate scientist talking
Speaker 1: about all of these things that humans have done to
Speaker 1: cause a warming of the climate, and here's a denier
Speaker 1: sitting down right next to them giving the opposite view.
Speaker 1: When that's not the fifty percent opinion, it's the one
Speaker 1: percent opinion. And I think it's the same thing when
Speaker 1: it comes to these false accusations. It's so in the
Speaker 1: drastic minority. But what ends up happening is people go,
Speaker 1: why would we believe all women A bunch of them
Speaker 1: are lying, And it's like, no, a very small minority
Speaker 1: of them are lying, and it's not the norm, and
Speaker 1: we need to remember that. So it's very important. So
Speaker 1: it seems like you're saying, like taking account based rates
Speaker 1: is extremely important your reasoning about these sorts of things
Speaker 1: and reasoning about everything, Well, oh, I one hundred percent
Speaker 1: everything I'm saying we should apply that same principle of
Speaker 1: the importance of you know, Bayesian thinking. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people have made a really good point that
Speaker 1: that we should be more Bayesian thinkers than not, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think that, Yeah, it's important because you know,
Speaker 1: it shows I think a lot of people in the
Speaker 1: kind of new skeptic community use it as a cover
Speaker 1: for misogynistic thinking, and it's it's a big bummer to
Speaker 1: see that coming out. There's a lot of kind of
Speaker 1: new libertarian thinkers in then, in the new skeptic movement
Speaker 1: who are like who think that liberalism or think that
Speaker 1: conservatism is somehow not evidence based. Like they look at
Speaker 1: it like, oh, we should just stick to the science,
Speaker 1: and the science means you should be a libertarian, which
Speaker 1: does not compute at all, because you know, moral distinctions
Speaker 1: aren't evidence based, and those kinds of stratifications have so
Speaker 1: much more to do with them looking at evidence. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of them have to do with with ethics
Speaker 1: and morality and these very inner you know, personal distinctions,
Speaker 1: philosophy things like that. But yeah, when it comes to
Speaker 1: this kind of Asian thinking, as you mentioned, of course,
Speaker 1: we just we cannot think in black and white you know,
Speaker 1: no pun intended, and we cannot think in these like
Speaker 1: staunched sort of oppositional, paradoxical, diametric terms. It's just first
Speaker 1: of all, not evidence based at all. It's not appropriate
Speaker 1: to the data that we're working with, and it's really
Speaker 1: not I mean, it's a way that human beings, as
Speaker 1: we've learned so much from from psychology studies, an it's
Speaker 1: a natural, fundamental, I think comfortable way to think is
Speaker 1: to look at things kind of on a spectrum or no,
Speaker 1: not on a spectrum. Is to look at things as
Speaker 1: if it's like either or It's hard work, right, It
Speaker 1: requires some neuropsychological work and also requires having the data,
Speaker 1: the correct data that will be your priors, because a
Speaker 1: lot of people are biased and start with incorrect priors,
Speaker 1: don't they. Oh yeah, I mean they yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: because these confirmation bias, right like you, as well as
Speaker 1: just narratives, having certain bleeding in certain narratives that don't
Speaker 1: perform to the data. And then what happens is you
Speaker 1: have that narrative, you know, you've experienced anecdote, and so
Speaker 1: you say here, I'll pick one from my own life.
Speaker 1: Preas drivers are the literal worst right. I live in
Speaker 1: la I so apologize if you drive a Prius. I
Speaker 1: have a lot of friends to drive press pre I
Speaker 1: pre uh PRES's I don't know so. But what ends
Speaker 1: up happening is you're like, oh, Prius drivers are the
Speaker 1: worst because you get cut off by a Prius driver
Speaker 1: because there's one in your neighborhood who like drives fourteen
Speaker 1: miles an hour and you're stuck behind them every time
Speaker 1: you're trying to get to your house after a long
Speaker 1: day of work. And then you just start noticing that
Speaker 1: every time you're getting pissed at a driver, it happens
Speaker 1: to be a Prius. And really that's confirmation bias. It's
Speaker 1: because you have a heightened interest in the preses, you
Speaker 1: notice them more often, You consider the hits and not
Speaker 1: the misses. You know, all of those things that the
Speaker 1: movie Pie so beautifully illustrated. But that's confirmation bias, and
Speaker 1: it's natural. It's what we all do. It actually takes
Speaker 1: a lot of work to realize we're falling victim to
Speaker 1: these to this confirmation bias. It's it's sort of i'd
Speaker 1: say one of the dominant cognitive biases that we fall
Speaker 1: victim to and we have to be really careful not to,
Speaker 1: but it's not easy. You'll fall into it very readily.
Speaker 1: You're saying so many really interesting things, and I know
Speaker 1: that I can have a really really unique, great conversation
Speaker 1: with you because you're you live both these worlds that
Speaker 1: I am also interested in social just as well as truth,
Speaker 1: and so I know we can have these open conversations.
Speaker 1: So I absolutely agree we need to be careful. What
Speaker 1: I struggle with is, like, how do we, like, you know,
Speaker 1: take these priors into account. And at the same time,
Speaker 1: I want to reduce my own bias to discriminate, Like
Speaker 1: I don't want to treat maybe believe all men, but
Speaker 1: I also don't want to like not believe all So
Speaker 1: I believe all women, but I don't want to not
Speaker 1: believe all men either, Like I want to like treat
Speaker 1: individuals as individuals and not like generalize an individual too
Speaker 1: maybe a stereotype or even like the prior of a group.
Speaker 1: So I struggle with like wanting to have that level
Speaker 1: of nuance. I was worrying if you if you think
Speaker 1: there's a good way of striking that balance, I think
Speaker 1: you have to strike a balance. I think that you
Speaker 1: have to I mean, otherwise life is going to feel
Speaker 1: incredibly chaotic to you. You know, you can't walk around
Speaker 1: like you're on LSD every day that everything is brand
Speaker 1: new and that you're not informed by previous to try
Speaker 1: it for a week, yeah, a week, No, you don't
Speaker 1: trust me. You can try it for like eight hours,
Speaker 1: so that you don't want to try it for But
Speaker 1: there is this experience right where like you want to
Speaker 1: have fresh eyes with everybody in every situation is a
Speaker 1: brand new situation, and I'm going to go into it unbiased,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to go into it with no previous judgments.
Speaker 1: And you know, as a as a clinician, that's what
Speaker 1: I have to do with my patients, of course, but
Speaker 1: that's an effortfull opportunity I have. I get to spend
Speaker 1: an hour once a week, maybe multiple times a week
Speaker 1: with the same individual, and I go into that with
Speaker 1: a non judgmental stance, and I go into that trying
Speaker 1: to be as unbiased as possible and say, this person
Speaker 1: is is their own person. I might think I know
Speaker 1: what's going on in you know, latin X culture. This
Speaker 1: person's Latin EX experience is different than another person's Latin
Speaker 1: X experience, or as much as I think I know
Speaker 1: what goes on in the mind of a young gay
Speaker 1: man who hasn't yet come out to his parents, this
Speaker 1: young gay man's coming out experience is different than any
Speaker 1: other young gay man's coming out of experience. And yes,
Speaker 1: of course that's the ideal, and that's the goal, and
Speaker 1: that's what you have to do in therapy to be
Speaker 1: a I think of a valuable clinician and to do
Speaker 1: right by your patients. But in life that is nearly
Speaker 1: impossible with every single person you meet, with every single
Speaker 1: experience you have, our decisions are informed by previous judgments.
Speaker 1: They have to be. It's the only way we can survive.
Speaker 1: And so I think then you have to strike a balance.
Speaker 1: And as much as I appreciate this, you know, and
Speaker 1: I kind of just hate these I think these social movements,
Speaker 1: you know, trust all women, not all men. Black lives Matter,
Speaker 1: Blue Lives Matter, and of course I'm talking about the
Speaker 1: more progressive movement coupled with Black Lives Matter. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's pretty about we're talking about police officers. Oh gotcha, Okay,
Speaker 1: I actually need to hear I haven't heard of that one. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: it's pretty loaded and that's the thing, like you often
Speaker 1: will see a progressive social movement and then you'll see
Speaker 1: a conservative counter. You're saying, like a counter, yeah, and
Speaker 1: you're against that. No, no, no, I understand the nature
Speaker 1: of these things. I understand how they work. But I'm saying,
Speaker 1: as much as I think that there is importance in
Speaker 1: in fighting for a cause, you also start to see
Speaker 1: all the tribalism that comes out in these pithy hashtags.
Speaker 1: And I think that these pithy hashtags just they simply
Speaker 1: can't encapsulate everything that we're talking about. So when you
Speaker 1: say not all men, which is a great example, and
Speaker 1: you want to say, okay, not all men. Sure, of course,
Speaker 1: not all men. I mean the hashtag says it all.
Speaker 1: Not all men are rapists, of course, not most men
Speaker 1: are not rapists. He said that I think most men
Speaker 1: are rapist. That's actually not true. That's actually I've talked
Speaker 1: to some feminists who actually think that most men are rapists.
Speaker 1: Most men, yeah, yeah, And I've pushed them on that
Speaker 1: and they've said most what is their percentage that they
Speaker 1: give you? And then I asked them percentage and they'll say, like, well,
Speaker 1: I saw statistics saying like one out of four, and
Speaker 1: I was like, well, even if that is true, and
Speaker 1: that's not most No, I know, and I've made that
Speaker 1: argument and I've gotten there, like convert from like the
Speaker 1: facts thing to the anecdote. They're like, well, I believe
Speaker 1: all individual anecdotes are just as valid. Then I'm like,
Speaker 1: then why do you even bring up the statistics then
Speaker 1: if you're gonna gonna ignore it. So I get these
Speaker 1: kinds of conversations. Yeah, but as you said, you I mean,
Speaker 1: you just said that some people will will say the
Speaker 1: word most most men, and then as I mentioned, they
Speaker 1: don't actually believe most men because they don't, because then
Speaker 1: they're saying, I hope not, I hope not. I think
Speaker 1: most men are are pretty I think most I think
Speaker 1: most humans are pretty fundamentally good. Yeah, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: a whole other conversation that we can have about beneficence
Speaker 1: and about you know, evil and good, and you know,
Speaker 1: there's a whole time I'm about to poiseh a whole
Speaker 1: paper on that topic in a couple they're heavy philosophical terms,
Speaker 1: but when it comes to I think a great example
Speaker 1: that you mentioned was not all men, right, that the
Speaker 1: hashtag of course, not all men is very You can
Speaker 1: unpack it a lot, so you can see this as
Speaker 1: an alternative to believe women. You can see it as
Speaker 1: an alternative to me too. You can see it as
Speaker 1: I think, a very fearful response to women's voices finally
Speaker 1: being heard. You can see it as a as a
Speaker 1: power play. You can see it as a struggle to
Speaker 1: maintain privilege. But you can also see it as somebody. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I do think there's a great uh uh interaction with
Speaker 1: Anita Hill and Stephen Colbert that I highly recommend everybody watch.
Speaker 1: And he was talking about like, you know, I'm hearing
Speaker 1: from a lot of men that they're fearful to even
Speaker 1: be in a room with a woman, or you know,
Speaker 1: they don't really know what to do or how to
Speaker 1: act because they don't want to be uh, they don't
Speaker 1: want to get in trouble and they're not sure what
Speaker 1: the bow are anymore and blah blah blah, and like
Speaker 1: should men be fearful to be around women now? And
Speaker 1: she's like, not if they're not raping that, you know,
Speaker 1: there's nothing to be fearful, and no, you don't have
Speaker 1: to be afraid. And so I think that the important
Speaker 1: thing to remember here again is this Beaijian reasoning. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and I agree with you on that for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And the important thing to remember is that, yes, there
Speaker 1: are going to be some people who say not all men,
Speaker 1: of course, not all men, but enough men, and that's
Speaker 1: the problem. And so yes, if a woman is walking
Speaker 1: down the street and a man approaches her and it's
Speaker 1: dark and she's alone, she has enough evidence in her life. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: the world we live in is that she has enough
Speaker 1: evidence that she needs to be alert and that she
Speaker 1: might be a little bit fearful. And that's a sad
Speaker 1: truth that it's safer to assume the worst of this
Speaker 1: man when I'm in a compromising situation than to assume
Speaker 1: the best because I need to worry about my own safety.
Speaker 1: I can totally see that viewpoint and totally rip me
Speaker 1: to shreads that this is a false analogy. Some police
Speaker 1: officers make that argument, you know, when they have like
Speaker 1: a young blackmail. You know, they'll say, like, well, it's
Speaker 1: safer to err on the side of stopping this if
Speaker 1: they're going to reach into their cote or something like,
Speaker 1: how is that not discrimination of the individual? Is my question?
Speaker 1: And I could be wrong, So I just wanted to
Speaker 1: open this up for conversation because I'm not a police
Speaker 1: officer and I don't have the opportunity to violate somebody's rights.
Speaker 1: That's the difference. That's a major difference. If I am
Speaker 1: a and I'm saying me personally, I actually offen air
Speaker 1: on the side of being too trusting, and I'm constantly
Speaker 1: being me too too. For sure. I'm constantly being having
Speaker 1: conversations with my friends and family and significant other about
Speaker 1: like be careful. Like I found a wallet on the
Speaker 1: street the other day. It was a young girl's wallet.
Speaker 1: It was like shaped like a stuffed animal. So at
Speaker 1: first I just thought it was like somebody had dropped
Speaker 1: a stuffed animal on the street. And I picked it
Speaker 1: up and saw that it had a zipper and was like,
Speaker 1: oh crap, and I kind of felt that there were
Speaker 1: things in it. So I opened it and I was like, shit,
Speaker 1: you know, some young girl dropped her wallet. There was cash,
Speaker 1: a bunch of credit cards, and a driver's license and
Speaker 1: I looked at as a provisional driver's license. The girl
Speaker 1: was barely nineteen, I think, And at first I was
Speaker 1: with a friend and she was like you can take
Speaker 1: it to the DMV. And I was like, I'm not
Speaker 1: doing that, Like, think about the fact this part girl's
Speaker 1: never gonna get her stuff back if I take it
Speaker 1: to the DMV. She's like, you could drop it in
Speaker 1: the mail and I looked and it was an address
Speaker 1: that was, you know, within five minutes of where I was,
Speaker 1: and I was like, no, I'm just gonna drive it
Speaker 1: to her house, like of course, you know, this poor
Speaker 1: girl is going to probably in a super panic mode.
Speaker 1: And so I called my boyfriend and I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: i'll be home in a few minutes. I just got
Speaker 1: to drop this wallet off blah blah blah, and and
Speaker 1: he's like, oh my gosh, be careful and I'm like
Speaker 1: it's a nineteen year old girl. Yeah, but you don't know,
Speaker 1: like just be careful, Like it's always that mentality. Just
Speaker 1: be careful. You never know what you're working in, right,
Speaker 1: And I'm really bad about being like what you're being paranoid?
Speaker 1: And of course it was totally fine. I went there.
Speaker 1: The girl was still out, but her mom was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, God, God bless you, like she was like,
Speaker 1: of course, but of course I knocked on the door.
Speaker 1: And the mom looked at me very reticently, who are you?
Speaker 1: Why are you here? And I was like mouthing to
Speaker 1: her through the door, I think your daughter dropped her wallet.
Speaker 1: And at first she was like, you know, what are
Speaker 1: you doing on my property? Like you could tell she
Speaker 1: was scared of me, Like who is this person? I
Speaker 1: don't know, because that's the culture we live in now.
Speaker 1: And finally I was like, you know, just do so
Speaker 1: and so live here? And she was like, why do
Speaker 1: you want to know? And I was like, she dropped
Speaker 1: this on the street. I found it, and her whole
Speaker 1: countenance changed and she was like, bless you, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: you did such a good thing. And It's like, no,
Speaker 1: I did a normal thing. I did the thing anybody
Speaker 1: I think you did the right thing. I mean the
Speaker 1: right thing. But I'm also like, yeah, that's the right thing,
Speaker 1: and everybody should have done that that It's not like
Speaker 1: an above and beyond thing. But ultimately I used this
Speaker 1: illustration as the fact that, like, people are paranoid and
Speaker 1: people are scared, and they have sometimes good reason to be,
Speaker 1: sometimes not so good reason to be. But a potential
Speaker 1: victim on the street has a certain level of vigilance.
Speaker 1: That's very different for a police officer. A police officer
Speaker 1: is armed, and I'm not saying that a police officer
Speaker 1: shouldn't also be vigilant because their job is incredibly dangerous.
Speaker 1: They go into unknown situations where they have blind spots
Speaker 1: and where there's a massive potential for violence and for
Speaker 1: danger on a regular basis. But going into assume that
Speaker 1: a young black man, by virtue of being black and
Speaker 1: by virtue of being young, is likely going to commit
Speaker 1: a crime or is likely is simply not based on
Speaker 1: the evidence. It's just not it's not based on the
Speaker 1: evidence too. For a woman taughtomaculy assume that a male
Speaker 1: is going to rape them by the same logic, maybe
Speaker 1: not rape but you, but based on their personal evidence.
Speaker 1: A yes, if you look. I think the most updated
Speaker 1: numbers are that over half of women have been sexually
Speaker 1: assaulted in their lives. So hello, And let's add to
Speaker 1: that that if you do look at your own personal
Speaker 1: anecdotal experiences late at night, walking around, walking to your car,
Speaker 1: oftentimes being followed, being cat called, hearing specific verbalizations that
Speaker 1: are threatening is incredibly common for most women. Yeah, incredible,
Speaker 1: and I want to acknowledge that absolutely, and I think
Speaker 1: that's right. That is experience. Yeah, and you have to
Speaker 1: realize that that is her evidence. And again, like, be
Speaker 1: understanding when I say that a woman walking to First
Speaker 1: of all, I do have to put my foot down
Speaker 1: and say, I think it's pretty horrible that any would
Speaker 1: Beddy would be like, why would a woman want to
Speaker 1: be vigilant walking to her car? She has no evidence
Speaker 1: to support the fact that she needs to be vigilant,
Speaker 1: is like, who are you? First of all? So there's that,
Speaker 1: but even beyond that, a woman being vigilant walking to
Speaker 1: her car is not infringing upon your rights. And it
Speaker 1: is not claiming that she thinks that you are a rapist.
Speaker 1: It is her saying that. And it's not claiming that
Speaker 1: she thinks that every man with an ear shut her
Speaker 1: eyes as a rapist. It's her saying that there are
Speaker 1: certain men that look at her a certain way or
Speaker 1: that say certain things that make her uncomfortable, and so
Speaker 1: therefore she must be vigilant when she's walking to her
Speaker 1: car late at night. It's not all men, it's some men,
Speaker 1: and those men pose a serious threat. And I think
Speaker 1: that the sad truth is that it's not just the
Speaker 1: woman thinking that Very often, as I just described with
Speaker 1: the example of returning the wallet to the young woman's family,
Speaker 1: it's the men in our lives that reinforce that. And
Speaker 1: if you remember when a very famous case of a
Speaker 1: woman being kidnapped and raped and murdered in Australia recently,
Speaker 1: and there was a huge outcry from the community that
Speaker 1: these women were not feeling safe. The men were saying, well,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't be alone, you should travel in groups, you
Speaker 1: should have your cell phone handy shahlah. It was victim blaming.
Speaker 1: It was well, we're not going to make a statement
Speaker 1: that men shouldn't rape, and we're not going to make
Speaker 1: a statement that boys need to be more mindful or
Speaker 1: that you know, the perpetrators here are doing horrible things
Speaker 1: and we need to be more vigilant to make sure
Speaker 1: that the perpetrators do that. Let's put the onus on
Speaker 1: the victims. Well, maybe you shouldn't have worn such a
Speaker 1: short skirt. Maybe you should have had your eyes more
Speaker 1: open after yoga class. Maybe you should have kept to
Speaker 1: main streets instead of you know, taking that shortcut home.
Speaker 1: It's your behavior that led to this, and that is really,
Speaker 1: really unfortunate. So yes, there are things that we could
Speaker 1: always be doing that's vigilance to help reduce a risk
Speaker 1: of danger. But the onus is not on us to
Speaker 1: do those things. All those things are going to do
Speaker 1: is cause a high level of traumatic anxiety in our
Speaker 1: lives if we have to be hyper vigilant all the time.
Speaker 1: And so yes, we have to do those things. Within
Speaker 1: it's an unfortunate and undue burden that we have to carry.
Speaker 1: But not doing those things does not put us at
Speaker 1: a higher chance of getting raped. It just removes the
Speaker 1: lesser protections. And that's a very important distinction to make.
Speaker 1: If a rapist is going to rape a young woman
Speaker 1: and he has his eyes set on her, if she's
Speaker 1: got her eyes a little more open, if she's got
Speaker 1: her cell phone in her hand, if she's got her
Speaker 1: rape whistle, he's still going to rape her. It's going
Speaker 1: to happen. And if we actually do look at the evidence,
Speaker 1: if we actually do look at the things that, let's say,
Speaker 1: the correlates of rape, the things that make it more
Speaker 1: likely that a young woman is going to be raped,
Speaker 1: you know what those things are, Being in an abusive relationship,
Speaker 1: having abusive parents, having previously been victimized by commercial sexual
Speaker 1: exploitation of children. So having previously been trafficked means that
Speaker 1: you're more likely to be rape in the future. So basically,
Speaker 1: being a victim increases your chances of being a victim.
Speaker 1: And all of those things have to do with being
Speaker 1: a vulnerable situation. Low education, low access to resources, living
Speaker 1: in an unstable family where you don't have healthy attachments
Speaker 1: and you were never able to develop them. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're the vulnerable children that I see on a regular basis.
Speaker 1: It is not their fault. It is society's fault. It
Speaker 1: is their family's fault, it is their neighborhood's fault. It
Speaker 1: is oftentimes the educational system that failed them's fault. It
Speaker 1: is the legal system and the foster system that failed
Speaker 1: them and that made it so that they were more
Speaker 1: likely to be revictimized over and over and over. I
Speaker 1: cannot tell you how many times I have met young,
Speaker 1: bright eyed, beautiful girls who were victimized by their foster
Speaker 1: families or who were victimized within it should have been
Speaker 1: a secure and safe place, and that is the most
Speaker 1: likely reason that a young girl is going to be
Speaker 1: a victim of sexual abuse. Not because of anything she did. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you for making that point. And yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that common ground for certain for this is that in
Speaker 1: order to make systematic changes that will, on a societal level,
Speaker 1: decrease the chances that any woman will ever get raped,
Speaker 1: we need to know scientific we know all the factors
Speaker 1: that go into it. Yeah, and the truth is we
Speaker 1: also have to not fall victim to the logical fallacy
Speaker 1: wherein we move the goalpost. And that's something that I
Speaker 1: think we see a lot of it. Tell me more
Speaker 1: about that. We have that evidence. We have tons of
Speaker 1: forensic evidence, We have tons of big data about demographics
Speaker 1: about you know, we can look at who's most likely
Speaker 1: to be victimized in what situations are they most likely
Speaker 1: to be victimized. We know that it's the most vulnerable
Speaker 1: among us. We know it already, and yet I think
Speaker 1: people who don't look at that data often make the
Speaker 1: loudest arguments. That's a good point. I mean, I think that, like,
Speaker 1: when it really comes down to it, I think we're
Speaker 1: kind of saying the same thing. You just describe some
Speaker 1: factors that we know make things more likely, like being
Speaker 1: foster care, things like I think we're both one hundred
Speaker 1: percent agreed. We should never ever blame someone who is
Speaker 1: in foster care, you know, make it at all culpable
Speaker 1: for the incident. So I actually think we're saying something
Speaker 1: very similar. I'm just talking about, like, how can we
Speaker 1: have science informed understanding of how we can make kind
Speaker 1: of these systematic changes. Sure, but we also have to
Speaker 1: understand that science can only go so far, right, because
Speaker 1: as much as we have the evidence, we also have
Speaker 1: to appeal to legislators, and we have to see these
Speaker 1: institutional changes that are happening at a level that goes
Speaker 1: beyond the evidence. Legislators aren't often that interested in the evidence,
Speaker 1: and even if they are, they're also going to be
Speaker 1: really interested in appeals to emotion. And I think that
Speaker 1: we have to understand the psychology of individuals and we
Speaker 1: have to utilize that psychology. So we have to, you know,
Speaker 1: have a multi pronged approach to affecting social change. The
Speaker 1: social psychologists have been doing it for decades, right. Socialchologists
Speaker 1: are brilliant marketers because they understand how people think and
Speaker 1: they understand how to convince people of things. And so
Speaker 1: I think we need to utilize some of those lessons
Speaker 1: learned by the social psychologists in our approaches to legislative
Speaker 1: lobbying and in our approaches to science communication, for example.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's something we didn't even really get a
Speaker 1: chance to talk about, and we've gone over at this point,
Speaker 1: I'm going to have to run soon. But you know
Speaker 1: the idea of when you're talking to the general public
Speaker 1: about science, meeting them where they are and not always
Speaker 1: just throwing facts at them, because the knowledge deficit problem
Speaker 1: is not the problem, as we've proven time and time again.
Speaker 1: Can't just throw more facts of people and expect them
Speaker 1: to change their minds. It doesn't work that way. So
Speaker 1: I do want to be very respectful your time. So
Speaker 1: maybe this can be like kind of the last question,
Speaker 1: like what do you do if, like you do a
Speaker 1: research study and your dissertation and you objectively find the
Speaker 1: facts about something and it contradicts like a social justice narrative,
Speaker 1: Like what do you do with that conflict? What do
Speaker 1: you do when social justice narratives conflict with trying to
Speaker 1: do a thought experiment? Like what do you do in
Speaker 1: that situation? Well, the same thing you do anytime you
Speaker 1: do scientific experimentation and your hypothesis you end up confirming
Speaker 1: the null right. So let's say that there's any narrative.
Speaker 1: It doesn't need to be a social justice narrative. Let's
Speaker 1: say that the narrative is that this cancer cell behaves
Speaker 1: in this particular way under this external environment. And then
Speaker 1: you do the research and that's not what you find.
Speaker 1: You say, okay, it's one study. Now I've got to
Speaker 1: do more and see if I can replicate these findings.
Speaker 1: I iterate, and let's say you do fifteen studies and
Speaker 1: you systematically disprove a previously held belief, which is very
Speaker 1: rare in science because usually a theory held belief is
Speaker 1: based on multiple studies and it's based on concilience. So
Speaker 1: it's based on multiple studies from various fields coming together
Speaker 1: to start to form what's called a theory. Right, It's
Speaker 1: no longer just a hypothesis. There's multiple lines of evidence
Speaker 1: supporting it. So our best examples of theories are things
Speaker 1: like evolution via natural selection. It's an amazing theory. It
Speaker 1: holds so much water. Pretty much every field of science
Speaker 1: supports it, from everything from molecular phylogenetics to morphological comparisons
Speaker 1: of ancient bones to extant forms Darwin's finches and things
Speaker 1: like that. We have so much evidence that evolution happens
Speaker 1: via natural selection. That's a theory, so it's actually very
Speaker 1: rare that then somebody goes in the lab and they
Speaker 1: do an experiment and it's like, oh, it doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to happen via natural selection. It's like, oh, cool and weird,
Speaker 1: but probably a one off. So let's first make sure
Speaker 1: it's not a one off. And then once we see
Speaker 1: that we actually have some sort of new understanding, the
Speaker 1: start to build more experiments around it and try and
Speaker 1: learn it better. I mean, that's just how science works.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter what narrative the science is going up against.
Speaker 1: We know what we know based on the convergence of
Speaker 1: a lot of evidence. And if we have one study,
Speaker 1: we don't know that we have an inkling. We have
Speaker 1: an idea, but we need to learn more about it.
Speaker 1: Only after we have multiple studies from multiple labs, from
Speaker 1: multiple perspectives, I should even say, and maybe even from
Speaker 1: multiple fields, are we able to finally say, Okay, we're
Speaker 1: pretty confident that this is how the world is or
Speaker 1: this is how the universe is, And then how do
Speaker 1: you update the ideologies? Though in light of that evidence
Speaker 1: so that's where paradigm shifts come in. Right. If you've
Speaker 1: ever read Thomas Kuns The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, that's
Speaker 1: what that's about. And it's slow, right, because people are
Speaker 1: slower than the evidence. That's true because we are entrenched.
Speaker 1: And when I say we, everybody, we have these cognitive
Speaker 1: biases where we think something works a certain way because
Speaker 1: that's how we've been taught and it's a comfortable way
Speaker 1: of knowing because it fits with our own personal experience.
Speaker 1: And then when somebody turns it on its ear, it's
Speaker 1: very hard to let go and to say, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: going to start thinking sideways now when for so long
Speaker 1: I was thinking right side up. But also, let's be honest,
Speaker 1: most things don't get turned on their ears. Most things
Speaker 1: change iteratively. We learn a little, tiny new thing that
Speaker 1: makes us do a slight update, and it's much easier
Speaker 1: to do a slight update than it is to completely
Speaker 1: change your mind. And most things are iterative. Those paradigmatic
Speaker 1: shifts are they've only really happened, and you can kind
Speaker 1: of put a line in the sand between what you
Speaker 1: consider to be a big paradigm or not. But we're
Speaker 1: talking moving from a model where you know, the Earth
Speaker 1: was the center of the universe to a model where
Speaker 1: we now understand that we are but a speck of
Speaker 1: dust and the universe has multiple galaxies. Or we're talking
Speaker 1: about moving from a model where a higher power produced
Speaker 1: organisms in the form more lesson they generally are today,
Speaker 1: versus a model where there are natural pressures that were
Speaker 1: put on the actual DNA within the organisms, wherein these
Speaker 1: mutations that naturally occurred allowed for the more fit organisms
Speaker 1: to continue to survive. Those are massive paradigm shifts. Those
Speaker 1: things are pretty rare in science. I know you've also
Speaker 1: studied skepticism in science, and I think it relates to
Speaker 1: a lot of what we're talking about today. I just
Speaker 1: want to thank you so much for I've learned a
Speaker 1: lot of science from you over the years. So thanks
Speaker 1: for teaching really all so sweet here. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: a big fan of the whole Talk Nerdy series, A
Speaker 1: big fan. Yeah, And so Scott, I want to know, like,
Speaker 1: when did you so you are working as a as
Speaker 1: a psychologist, when did you get your PhD two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine? Oh wow, So it's been a while. So
Speaker 1: it's been a decade now. As a psychology. Yeah, rear Man. Now, yeah,
Speaker 1: so you're teaching and doing research. Yeah, I'm teaching at
Speaker 1: Columbia and doing research. That's right. And I created I
Speaker 1: created a new course called the Science of Living Well. Oh.
Speaker 1: I love that. I feel like students are just so
Speaker 1: stressed out these days, and I just have this big
Speaker 1: like urge to just want to like help students increase
Speaker 1: their well being and meaning in life. Yeah, it's so true.
Speaker 1: There's like so much that I think. You're right. Young people,
Speaker 1: even older people have to juggle now. That just wasn't
Speaker 1: you know? It is a slower pace prior to the Internet,
Speaker 1: and it was you know, information gathering required effort, full movement,
Speaker 1: but it also required putting space in between days, Like
Speaker 1: you know, you'd have to use a card catalog or
Speaker 1: you'd have to like check out a book from lo.
Speaker 1: You just couldn't get information as fast as we can now.
Speaker 1: And now, because we can have access so quickly, there's
Speaker 1: an expectation that we can react to it so quickly
Speaker 1: and that we fill every moment of the waking day
Speaker 1: with information gathering. That's so true. I'm trying to nobody
Speaker 1: stopping for mindfulness. Yeah, exactly, exactly effortful to do that.
Speaker 1: So I'm trying to I'm trying to bring back a
Speaker 1: feel that on the psychology of being that Abraham Masow
Speaker 1: and humanistic psychologist talked about on the fifties and sixties.
Speaker 1: And I feel like we need, we need a psychology
Speaker 1: of being because everyone is like, yeah, just what you said,
Speaker 1: Like everyone is just concert preoccupied with future plans. And
Speaker 1: it's so funny too, because that's where I know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm about to jump off. But that's where I think
Speaker 1: a lot of our cross overcomes. Because what we didn't
Speaker 1: talk about is that within the clinical fields, oftentimes you
Speaker 1: also choose an orientation. So you might be more of
Speaker 1: a psychodynamic therapist, you might be more of a cognitive
Speaker 1: behavioral therapist, you might be a really uh immersive therapist
Speaker 1: where you're what's the word, like an eclectic therapist, where
Speaker 1: you blend all these things together. But I tend towards
Speaker 1: and my school luckily offers a track in existential humanistic
Speaker 1: that's my thing, Yes, my thing exactly so, and that's
Speaker 1: the type of psychotherapy that I practice and that I'm
Speaker 1: really drawn to studying. So that's where I think a
Speaker 1: lot of our crossover PhD and if I can help
Speaker 1: support it in any way, let me know. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: so kind of thank you so much. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: probably actually going to take you up by good please do.
Speaker 1: And hey, thank you for the really open, honest, respectful conversation.
Speaker 1: I'm such a nerd that I just like to consider
Speaker 1: every single perspective on the table before I realize what
Speaker 1: I think. So I think that's completely fair, and I
Speaker 1: always appreciate the opportunity to be able to have these
Speaker 1: passionate conversations that you're right, are really respectful, and even
Speaker 1: when you either have different views or maybe one person's
Speaker 1: playing Devil's advocate and you're more doing it for the
Speaker 1: sake of debate. I love playing Devil's advocate for fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but either way, it's always great to be able to
Speaker 1: really flex those muscles and talk about talk about not
Speaker 1: just what the evidence show us, but based on that evidence,
Speaker 1: what we do truly believe, because those things, I think
Speaker 1: do go hand in hand. Yeah, these are really important
Speaker 1: topics and let's keep up the convo. Have a good day, Kara. Awesome,
Speaker 1: Thanks you TOOI Hie, thanks for listening to the Psychology podcast.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you'd like to
Speaker 1: react in some way to something you heard, I encourage
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