On Wisdom

52: World Wide Wisdom (with Deepak Ramola)

January 5th, 2023  |  55 mins 12 secs

deepak ramola, emotions, happiness, life lessons, meaning, morality, perspective-taking, philosophy, project fuel, psychology, purpose, reasoning, social science, well being, wisdom, wise wall project, world wisdom map

Imagine gathering hard-earned lessons from survivors of human trafficking in Nepal, middle school children in Afghanistan, refugees in Europe, and even a man who has witnessed over 12,000 deaths. Deepak Ramola has been on such a lesson-gathering mission for a while, and he joins Igor and Charles to discuss the life lessons he has collected, who gets to define moral behaviour, and how we might change our culture to encourage more perspective-taking. Igor highlights the challenge of stepping outside ourselves in the heat of the moment, Deepak asks some challenging questions about love, and Charles learns the surprising value of proverbs as tools of reflection.

51: Tricky Colleagues and Contagious Emotions (with Tessa West)

November 15th, 2022  |  57 mins 48 secs

affect contagion, emotions, happiness, jerks at work, meaning, new york university, philosophy, physiological synchrony, psychology, purpose, reasoning, social science, tessa west, well being, wendy berry mendes, wisdom

How do we respond wisely to foolish behaviour in the workplace? Tessa West joins Igor and Charles to talk about the most common types of ‘jerks at work’ - including the bulldozer, the credit stealer, and the gaslighter, discussing what drives such unhelpful behaviour, and how best to deal with it. Igor explores the different ways we can respond to uncertainty in the workplace, Tessa suggests that we’re surprisingly nice to moral violators, and Charles learns the importance of building in ‘affect contagion buffers’ into his day! Welcome to Episode 51.

50: Morality Meets World (with Joshua Greene)

October 9th, 2022  |  57 mins 28 secs

culture, dual process theory, effective altruism, emotions, giving multiplier, happiness, joshua greene, meaning, moral tribes, no cognitive miracles principle, pandemic, philosophy, psychology, purpose, reasoning, social psychology, society, trolley problems, wisdom, wisdom of repugnance, yuck factor

To give to both your favourite charity and a super-effective charity recommended by experts, visit Giving Multiplier:
https://givingmultiplier.org/invite/ONWISDOM

Can insights from moral psychology increase donations to more effective charities? Joshua Greene joins Igor and Charles to discuss ventilator allocation and other pandemic-related trolley problems, deep pragmatism, the dual process theory of moral judgement, and the power of the veil of ignorance. Igor gets excited about the role of metacognition for wisdom, Joshua reveals in what contexts we feel more comfortable pushing a fat man off a bridge, and Charles learns that when it comes to unfamiliar moral problems, we should not expect cognitive miracles! Welcome to Episode 50.

To give to both your favourite charity and a super-effective charity recommended by experts, visit Giving Multiplier:
https://givingmultiplier.org/invite/ONWISDOM

49: Wise Goals (with Ayelet Fishbach)

August 31st, 2022  |  47 mins 44 secs

assessment, ayelet fishbach, culture, emotions, goals, habits, happiness, meaning, philosophy, psychology, purpose, reasoning, self-regulation, social psychology, society, wendy wood, wisdom

What does goal-setting have to do with wisdom and how do we pick wise goals? Ayelet Fishbach joins Igor and Charles to discuss the dangers of moving too swiftly from planning-mode to action-mode, how to compromise across multiple goals, and why we need to rethink our relationships with vegetables! Igor underscores the importance of thinking of wisdom as a process rather than an outcome, Ayelet encourages us to change our situation rather than ourselves, and Charles learns the benefits of approaching a choice as if you’d make it 100 times. Welcome to Episode 49.

48: A Joyous Journey from Black-and-White to Grey (with Tom Gilovich)

August 1st, 2022  |  48 mins 26 secs

amos tversky, basketball, bias blind spot, black and white thinking, cosmic insignificance, critical thinking, daniel kahneman, emotions, george loewenstein, happiness, hot hand effect, i-frame, less ross, meaning, nick chater, nudges, oliver burkeman, philosophy, psychology, purpose, reasoning, richard nisbett, s-frame, social science, spotlight effect, tom gilovich, well being, wisdom

Is "the spectrum" a more helpful way to think about the world than "categories"? Tom Gilovich joins Igor and Charles to discuss the perils of black-and-white thinking, the evolving data on the hot hand phenomenon, the science of regret, why foxes are wiser than hedgehogs, and the freedom that comes from learning that we are of less interest to other people than we think. Igor considers the limits of psychological nudging in tackling society’s structural problems, Tom shares the perspective that leads him to be so unrelentingly joyful, and Charles learns that even scientists have to work hard to avoid being typecast. Welcome to Episode 48.

47: Charting Pandemic Waters: A Common Wisdom Model for Uncertain Times (with Howard Nusbaum) - Rebroadcast

July 20th, 2022  |  1 hr 2 mins

adversity, alfred binet, artificial intelligence, balance of self- and other-oriented interests, candace vogler, centre for practical wisdom, common wisdom model, cortex-adaptability, dialectal thinking, emotions, epistemic humility, happiness, howard nusbaum, iq, jingle-jangle fallacy, keith stanovich, meaning, metacognition, moral-grounding, nancy snow, perspectival insight, perspectivism, philosophy, propositional logic, psychology, purpose, pursuit of truth, reasoning, shared humanity, social science, social-cognitive processing, toronto wisdom task force, university of chicago, valerie tiberius, value-action gap, values, well being, wisdom, wisdom measurement

(First Broadcast - 21st June 2020)

What is the value of wisdom in the time of the global pandemic? Does the community of behavioural scientists studying wisdom agree on anything about the nature of wisdom? Can we say what we now know about wisdom and, conversely, what do we know we don’t yet know? Howard Nusbaum joins Igor and Charles to discuss the recently assembled Toronto Wisdom Task Force and the resulting Common Wisdom Model, meta-cognition, the thorny issue of moral-grounding, and sage advice regarding how to measure wisdom in the lab. Igor stresses the importance of building solid theoretical foundations for the field in the context of the pandemic, Howard reflects on the viability of evil wisdom, and Charles learns that we had better pay close attention today to the values we program into the decision-making robots of tomorrow.

46: Antifragility, Gut Feelings, and the Myth of Pure Evil (with Jonathan Haidt) - Rebroadcast

June 27th, 2022  |  58 mins 20 secs

antifragility, authoritarian conservatives, buddhism, chris martin, culture, dale carnegie, donald trump, edmund burke, emotions, evergreen state college, greg lukianoff, happiness, heraclitus, heterodox academy, jonathan haidt, karen stenner, laissez-faire conservatives, manichaeism, marcus aurelius, meaning, middlebury college, moral foundations theory, more in common, narrowcasting, nassim nicholas taleb, national review magazine, nicholas rosenkranz, philosophy, polarization, psychology, purpose, reasoning, richard schweder, robert putnam, ronald reagan, social psychology, social science, society, status quo conservatives, stoicism, the coddling of the american mind, the great awokening, the happiness hypothesis, the perception gap, the righteous mind, thomas sowell, well being, wisdom

(First Broadcast - 4th November 2019)

Does that which doesn’t kill you make you weaker? Should we always follow our emotions? Is life a battle between good people and bad people? And critically, what might the adoption of these three popular, but unwise, ideas be doing to a rising generation of young adults? Jonathan Haidt joins Igor and Charles to discuss the three great untruths of modern life, the nature of antifragility, the 'great awokening,' rising violence on US university campuses, and the origin story of the Heterodox Academy. Igor suggests that diversity can help some projects while hindering others, Jon shares his ultimate conflict-resolving ninja skill, and Charles learns that conservative voters come in radically different shapes and sizes.

44: A Special Announcement

May 24th, 2022  |  1 min 48 secs

culture, emotions, happiness, meaning, philosophy, psychology, purpose, reasoning, social psychology, society, wisdom

Igor and Charles return with a special announcement for On Wisdom listeners ...

43: Invisible to Ourselves: A Life of a Psychological Scientist (with Richard Nisbett)

December 4th, 2021  |  1 hr 11 mins

actor-observer bias, amos tversky, analytic perception, culture, daniel kahneman, emotions, happiness, holistic perception, intelligence, iq, job interviews, lee ross, meaning, mental processes, philosophy, psychology, purpose, reasoning, richard nisbett, social psychology, society, wisdom

A disturbing thought - might it be impossible for us to directly observe the workings of our minds? Richard Nisbett joins Igor and Charles to discuss a life lived on the cutting edge of behavioral sciences in the second part of the 20th Century. He shares tales from his groundbreaking research into our faulty mindware, discussing various biases, cultural differences in cognitive processes, our inability to directly observe our mental processes, and why job interviews are not only unhelpful but potentially harmful to our ability to hire the best person for the job. Igor is keen to learn about the human beings behind some of the 20th Century’s academic idols in social psychology like Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky and Lee Ross, Richard explains why important work and interesting work are not necessarily the same thing, and Charles struggles to make sense of when we do and don’t intervene to help strangers in peril. Welcome to Episode 43.

30: Emotions, Attention, and Decision Making in the Aging Brain (with Mara Mather)

August 16th, 2020  |  44 mins 41 secs

alzheimer’s disease, attention, balloon analogue risk task, culture, emotions, happiness, heiko braak, hyperphosphorylated tau, iowa gambling task, laura carstensen, locus coeruleus, mara mather, meaning, memory, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, purpose, reasoning, social psychology, society, socio-emotional selectivity theory, time horizons, wisdom

Despite the common stereotype of ‘older and crankier,’ psychologists suggest we become more positive as we age. Why? Do our aging brains become worse at detecting threats in the environment? Do we choose to focus on more positive aspects of our experience as we age? And what does the latest scientific research say about one of the major dangers of older age — Alzheimer’s disease? Mara Mather joins Igor and Charles to discuss the neuroscience of emotional aging, the role of the locus coeruleus in memory and attention, emotion-induced blindness, and the parallels between Cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s disease. Igor digs into the different roles of culture and the lack of good longitudinal studies of aging, Mara reveals how intense emotions can sharpen some aspects of our memories of an event while blunting others, and Charles learns that he and many others may be on the Alzheimer’s spectrum. Welcome to Episode 30.