The Nature & Nurture Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Dr. Helen Joyce is a journalist, mathematician, women’s right advocate, and author of Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality. 

In this episode, we talk about Helen’s background in mathematics and transition into journalism, and eventually the so-called gender culture war. We discuss sex differences in personality, why gender nonconformity is normal, and why the transgender debate has turned into such a contentious and politicized topic. We trace this story back to both the complex biology of sex differentiation, and postmodern philosophical problems surrounding identity, and how these decision points become difficult to enshrine into law. We discuss what social and legal norms should be surrounding protected gendered spaces, freedom of speech and pronoun use, intersex populations, libertarianism, and whether adults should be free to choose medical sex reassignment. Helen offers sound and practical advice for individuals wanting to navigate these contentious waters with an open mind, and do right by people when trying to both remain respectful to individuals struggling with gender dysphoria and not invalidate the truths of biological sex.

Dr. Carl Marci is a psychiatrist, Director of the Social Neuroscience Psychotherapy Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, and author of Rewired: Protecting Your Brain in the Digital Age. 

In this episode, we discuss how social media and digital technology impact attention span and brain development, what is happening to kids in the digital age, and how advertising companies use neuroscience research to addict their users. Dr. Marci talks about his experience as both a psychiatrist, neuroscience researcher, and entrepreneur who has worked with digital broadcasting and technology companies. We talk about the rapid rise of mental health problems, social contagion theory, and why in-person communication is more enriching than online communication (ironically, as we speak on an online platform). Dr. Marci shares his recommendations for developing healthy screen habits and how to turn the fear of missing out into the joy of missing out on digital immersion. 

Dr. Karen Bales is a Professor of Psychology and Neurobiology at UC Davis, and an expert in oxytocin, pairbonding, and the neurobiology of care. 

In this episode we discuss Karen’s background, education, and research on parental care and pairbonding across a wide variety of species including marosets, tamarins, titi monkeys, prairie voles, and seahorses. We discuss the shared evolutionary lineage between humans and other primates, similarities and differences between apes and monkeys, monkey mating and parenting behavior. We then discuss Karen’s experience working with Sue Carter studying oxytocin and the neurobiology of pairbonding in prairie voles, which led Karen to form her own lab at UC Davis studying the oxytocin system in other species. Lastly, we discuss a recent influential study examining the parental behavior of gene-edited prairie voles lacking an oxytocin receptor.

Dr. Sami Yousif is a cognitive psychologist and MindCORE postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Pennsylvania.

In this episode we dive deep into two topics among Sami's wide range of research experiences: spatial cognition and teleological belief. 

We discuss spatial cognition, imagistic vs. propositional vs. coordinate representations of space and navigation, the development of spatial reasoning in children, and how spatial cognition differs between humans and animals.   

We also discuss teleology, or the explanation for the purpose of things, and how teleological beliefs differ across individuals and across framing of questions. In particular, "why" questions may be broken down into either descriptive "how" questions or teleological "purpose" questions.  

Learn more about Sami's work at: https://www.samiyousif.org/

Dr. Adam Green is a cognitive neuroscientist and the Provost's Distinguished Associate Professor of Psychology at Georgetown University, where he directs the Lab for Relational Cognition. He is the Founder and President of the Society for the Neuroscience of Creativity, and Editor-In-Chief of the Creativity Research Journal. 

In this episode we discuss Adam's expertise in creativity research, the extent to which creativity is innate or can be learned, whether creativity is a unidimensional or multidimensional construct, and how creativity manifests in the brain. We additionally discuss some of Adam's recent and ongoing work on the neuroscience of belief, including how religious believers and non-believers create representations of God. Lastly, we touch on the subject of belief in free will, and whether the brain is truly a deterministic system.

I hope to continue the conversation on free will and neurophilosophy with Adam sometime soon. In the meantime, learn more about his work at: https://cng.georgetown.edu/home

Dr. Megan Peters is a cognitive neuroscientist and an Assistant Professor of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine, where she directs the Cognitive & Neural Computation Lab. 

In this episode we discuss Megan's background in cognitive science, and a research path which allowed her to combine interests in computation with philosophical questions about human subjective experiences. In a wide-ranging conversation we discuss how consciousness and subjective experience might arise from a collection of neurons, the phenomenology of perception, human perception and decision-making under uncertainty, unconscious perceptions, metacognition and confidence about our subjective experiences, and how metacognition differs from error-correction in artificial intelligence. 

Learn more about Megan's work at: https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/cnclab/

Dr. Bill von Hippel is an evolutionarily social psychologist and a Professor of Psychology at the University of Queensland, Australia. He is also the author of The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy. 

In this episode we discuss The Social Leap, a journey through over 6 million years of human evolution: from our moderately intelligent, moderately social chimpanzee-like ancestors, to the hyper-intelligent, hyper-social species we are today. Bill and I discuss a number of revolutions and selection pressures that led to our evolution, including environmental changes, the rise of bipedalism and tool use, long-distance hunting, mastery of fire and cooking, and most importantly, the social intelligence necessary to communicate and cooperate. 

Dr. Nilam Ram is a Professor of Psychology and Communication at Stanford University, and one of the founders of the field of screenomics: the new interdisciplinary field of research based on the time-series analysis of screens and digital behavior. 

In this episode, we discuss Nilam's background in finance and quantitative psychology, the use of longitudinal research methods to examine changes in behavior and cognition throughout the lifespan, and the use of experience sampling methods in developmental science. As smartphones became more pervasive, Nilam describes the rise of mobile sensing methods in psychology, eventually leading to the birth of screenomics. We finally discuss the broad goals and potential applications of screenomics research, including interactive media which predict behavior, and the precautions taken to ensure smartphone data is analyzed with ethical and privacy concerns in mind. 

Dr. Abigail Marsh is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Georgetown University, where she directs the Laboratory on Social and Affective Neuroscience. She is also the author of The Fear Factor: How One Emotion Connects Altruists, Psychopaths, and Everyone In-Between.

In this episode, we discuss Abby's background in social psychology, and a life-changing experience of hers that motivated inquiry into the nature of costly altruism. In a wide-ranging conversation we discuss the neural correlates of empathy (or lack thereof) in psychopaths and altruistic kidney donors, animal research on care and evolutionary theories of empathy, the role of oxytocin in governing care, how social media hijacks our systems of reward and fear, and how mindfulness and in-person interactions may improve trust and well-being. 

Dr. Glenn Fox is a faculty member at the University of Southern California's Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, in the Marshall School of Business. His current projects focus on neural systems for emotion regulation, high stakes training, and developing entrepreneurial mindset skills in founders and business leaders. Glenn is also the Director and Founder of the USC Found Well Initiative which aims to understand and promote entrepreneurial mindset in founders and business leaders.

In this episode we discuss Glenn's background bridging neuroscience and business in understanding human decision-making, and the neuroscience behind several traits important for leadership, including emotional resilience, empathy, and gratitude. Additionally, we discuss personality differences in entrepreneurial thinkers and their relation to neuroscience, including the extent to which leadership ability is biological vs. a learned skill. 

Learn more about Glenn's work at: 

https://glennrfox.com/

Follow Glenn on social media:

https://twitter.com/glennrfox?s=20&t=BULakuBbyXxDtY4h577DiQ

https://www.linkedin.com/in/glenn-r-fox-phd-2418bba1