Podcasts about cristine legare

Why do we mirror other people's accents? Does DJ Khaled get tired of winning? And also: life is good — so why aren't you happy? SOURCES:Albert Bandura, professor emeritus of psychology at Stanford University.John Bargh, professor of psychology and cognitive science at Yale University.Tanya Chartrand, professor of marketing at Duke University.Clay Cockrell, psychotherapist and founder of Walk and Talk Therapy.Iain Couzin, director of the department of collective behavior at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior.William Irvine, professor of philosophy at Wright State University.Daniel Kahneman, professor emeritus of psychology at Princeton University.Stephen Kosslyn, professor emeritus of psychology at Harvard University.Cristine Legare, professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin.Kevin Ochsner, professor of psychology at Columbia University.Amos Tversky, professor of psychology at Stanford University. RESOURCES:"How to Escape the Hedonic Treadmill and Be Happier," by Anna Katharina Schaffner (Positive Psychology, 2016).“Revealing the Hidden Networks of Interaction in Mobile Animal Groups Allows Prediction of Complex Behavioral Contagion,” by Sara Brin Rosenthal, Colin R. Twomey, Andrew T. Hartnett, Hai Shan Wu, and Iain Couzin (PNAS, 2015).“A Calm Look at the Most Hyped Concept in Neuroscience — Mirror Neurons,” by Christian Jarrett (WIRED, 2013).“The Chameleon Effect: The Perception–Behavior Link and Social Interaction,” by Tanya Chartrand and John Bargh (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1999).“Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk,” by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky (The Econometric Society, 1979).“Transmission of Aggression Through Imitation of Aggressive Models,” by Albert Bandura, Dorothea Ross, and Sheila A. Ross (Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1961). EXTRAS:"Why Are Rich Countries So Unhappy?" by No Stupid Questions (2022)."Do You Mind if I Borrow Your Personality?" by No Stupid Questions (2022).“Episode 2: The Unhappy Millionaire,” by The Happiness Lab (2019).The Happiness Lab.

This week on Where Parents Talk radio on 105.9 The Region, host Lianne Castelino speaks to Dr. Cristine Legare, professor of psychology at The University of Texas at Austin, a researcher, whose work has appeared in more 100 scientific journals, Director of the Centres for Applied Cognitive Science and mom about how a parent can better support a child's learning.

There's a common story about the human past that goes something like this. For a few hundred thousand years during the Stone Age we were kind of limping along as a species, in a bit of a cognitive rut, let's say. But then, quite suddenly, around 30 or 40 thousand years ago in Europe, we really started to come into our own. All of a sudden we became masters of art and ornament, of symbolism and abstract thinking. This story of a kind of "cognitive revolution" in the Upper Paleolithic has been a mainstay of popular discourse for decades. I'm guessing you're familiar with it. It's been discussed in influential books by Jared Diamond and Yuval Harari; you can read about it on Wikipedia. What you may not know is that this story, compelling as it may be, is almost certainly wrong. My first guest today is Dr. Eleanor Scerri, an archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, where she heads the Pan-African Evolution research group. My second guest is Dr. Manuel Will, an archaeologist and Lecturer at the University of Tübingen in Germany. Together, Eleanor and Manuel are authors of a new paper titled 'The revolution that still isn't: The origins of behavioral complexity in Homo sapiens.' In the paper, they pull together a wealth of evidence showing that there really was no cognitive revolution—no one watershed moment in time and space. Rather, the origins of modern human cognition and culture are to be found not in one part of Europe but across Africa. And they're also to be found much earlier than that classic picture suggests.  Here, we talk about the “cognitive revolution" model and why it has endured. We discuss a seminal paper from the year 2000 that first influentially challenged the revolution model. We talk about the latest evidence of complex cognition from the Middle Stone Age in Africa—including the perforation of marine shells to make necklaces; and the use of ochre for engraving, painting, and even sunblock. We discuss how, though the same complex cognitive abilities were likely in place for the last few hundred thousand years, those abilities were often expressed patchily in different parts of the world at different times. And we consider the factors that led to this patchy expression, especially changes in population size.   I confess I was always a bit taken with this whole "cognitive revolution" idea. It had a certain mystery and allure. This new picture that's taking its place is certainly a bit messier, but no less fascinating. And, more importantly, it's truer to the complexities of the human saga.  Alright friends, on to my conversation with Eleanor Scerri & Manuel Will. Enjoy!   A transcript of this episode will be available soon.   Notes and links 3:30 – The paper by Dr. Scerri and Dr. Will we discuss in this episode is here. Their paper updates and pays tribute to a classic paper by McBrearty and Brooks, published in 2000. 6:00 – The classic “cognitive revolution” model sometimes discussed under the banner of “behavioral modernity” or the “Great Leap Forward.” It has been recently featured, for instance, in Harari's Sapiens. 11:00 – Dr. Scerri has written extensively on debates about where humans evolved within Africa—see, e.g., this paper.  18:00 – A study of perforated marine shells in North Africa during the Middle Stone Age. A paper by Dr. Will and colleagues about the use of various marine resources during this period.  23:00 – A paper describing the uses of ochre across Africa during the Middle Stone Age. Another paper describing evidence for ochre processing 100,000 years ago at Blombos Cave in South Africa. At the same site, engraved pieces of ochre have been found. 27:00 – A study examining the evidence that ochre was used as an adhesive. 30:00 – For a recent review of the concept of “cumulative culture,” see here. We discussed the concept of “cumulative culture” in our earlier episode with Dr. Cristine Legare.  37:00 – For an overview of the career of the human brain and the timing of various changes, see our earlier episode with Dr. Jeremy DeSilva. 38:00 – An influential study on the role of demography in the emergence of complex human behavior. 41:00 – On the idea that distinctive human intelligence is due in large part to culture and our abilities to acquire cultural knowledge, see Henrich's The Secret of Our Success. See also our earlier episode with Dr. Michael Muthukrishna.  45:00 – For discussion of the Neanderthals and why they may have died out, see our earlier episode with Dr. Rebecca Wragg Sykes.    Recommendations Dr. Scerri recommends research on the oldest Homo sapiens fossils, found in Morocco and described here, and new research on the evidence for the widespread burning of landscapes in Malawi, described here.  Dr. Will recommends the forthcoming update of Peter Mitchell's book, The Archaeology of Southern Africa. See Twitter for more updates from Dr. Scerri and Dr. Will.   Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from Assistant Producer Urte Laukaityte and with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd. Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala. Subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also now subscribe to the Many Minds newsletter here! We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com.   For updates about the show, visit our website or follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.

What is culture? How is culture transmitted? And what is unique about human culture, compared to our closest animal species relatives? Today's conversation with Dr. Cristine Legare, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin whose research focuses on the foundations of cultural intelligence, answers all these questions. Read the transcript of this episode Subscribe to Stories of Impact wherever you listen to podcasts Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube Comments, questions and suggestions info@storiesofimpact.org Supported by Templeton World Charity Foundation

Welcome back friends! Cue the kazoos and the champagne—after a short summer snooze, we're much revived and ready for a third season of Many Minds! I could not be more thrilled about the guest we have to help kick things off: Dr. Alison Gopnik. Alison is a Professor of Psychology and Affiliate Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. She's the author of several books, including most recently The Gardener and the Carpenter, and she writes the “Mind and Matter” column for the Wall Street Journal. She also recently became the president-elect of the Association for Psychological Science. As many of you know, Alison is a distinguished developmental psychologist—she's been thinking deeply about children and writing insightfully about them for decades. But more recently she's stepped back to think also about childhood itself: that long period where we're kind of needy, messy, dreamy, and blissfully unproductive. She notes that childhood may be one of the most puzzling and distinctive things about our species. Though it is perhaps rivaled by the other extreme of the human lifespan: old age, or as she calls it, “elderhood.” Here Alison and I talk about childhood and elderhood and how they go hand in hand. We discuss how they evolved, and, of course, why. We consider how they are associated with different modes of thinking and different ways of being. We talk about Alison's radical suggestion that it's during these bookends of life—our first act and last act—that we are, in fact, at our most human. Something I especially enjoyed about this conversation—and you'll definitely notice it if you've been listening to the show for awhile—is how often we hit on themes and topics from past episodes. We touch on cephalopods, orcas, bees, and Neanderthals; we talk about the tension between imitation and innovation and about why adults don't change their minds. But here, of course, we're seeing all this familiar terrain from new angles. But before we get to the episode, just wanted to say a quick but heartfelt thanks for all your support over our first two seasons. The best way to keep supporting the show is just to keep listening, to rate and review us if you haven't already, and, of course, to recommend us to a friend or colleague. Alright folks, looking forward to spending more time with you in the coming months. Here's my conversation with Dr. Alison Gopnik. Enjoy!   Notes and links 4:00 – On our distinctive life history, see Dr. Gopnik's recent paper ‘Childhood as a solution to explore-exploit tensions' and her 2020 piece in Aeon magazine. Some of this terrain is also covered in her most recent book, The Gardener and the Carpenter. 8:30 – The term “alloparents” was introduced by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy. See especially her book Mothers and Others. 11:30 – A recent study of hunting productivity and life history by Jeremy Koster, Michael Gurven, and colleagues. 13:40 – A 1972 paper by Jerome Bruner on the uses of immaturity. 15:00 – One of Dr. Gopnik's (co-authored) earlier books was The Scientist in the Crib. 20:15 – A paper on life history and brain size in marsupials. 21:00 – On the explore-exploit tradeoff, see especially Dr. Gopnik's recent paper ‘Childhood as a solution to explore-exploit tensions.' 29:30 – The 1983 paper that described this analogy with metallurgy and the “simulated annealing” approach to optimization. 35:30 – A paper on the division of labor among bees. 37:00 – See Dr. Gopnik's recent column titled ‘The Many Minds of the Octopus.' 40:00 – A paper on the role of climate variability in evolution. 43:00 – A series of papers by Dr. Gopnik and colleagues suggest that children have a more exploratory mindset than adults. See here, here, and here. 49:30 – On the finding that adolescents are more flexible than either young children or adults on a social task, see here. 52:00 – Michael Pollan's new book, This is Your Mind on Plants, discusses three drugs derived from plants. 55:00 – A paper by (former guest!) Cristine Legare about the trade-offs between imitation and innovation. 56:20 – Dr. Gopnik's most recent column on altruism and aging. 1:00:20 – A paper by Dr. Gopnik and collaborators on causal learning across cultures and socioeconomic strata, which included children in Peru. Dr. Gopnik recommends a recent special issue on life history and learning. You can find Dr. Gopnik on Twitter (@AlisonGopnik) and follow her work on her website.     Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) (https://disi.org), which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster, and Associate Director Isabelle Laumer. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd (https://www.mayhilldesigns.co.uk/). Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala (https://sarahdopierala.wordpress.com/). You can subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, visit our website (https://disi.org/manyminds/), or follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.

Have you ever seen what seemed to be a spirit? Or heard a voice from an unseen source? Or maybe just sensed a presence and found yourself with goosebumps all over? These kinds of experiences can be incredibly powerful— life-altering, in fact—but they don’t happen often, and they don’t happen to everyone. So what drives this individual variation? Why do some of us have these extraordinary experiences while others never do? Could it be something about our personalities? Or our cultures? Could it have to do with the way we understand our minds? My guests on today’s show are Tanya Luhrmann, Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University, and Kara Weisman, a postdoc at UC-Riverside (formerly in the Psychology department at Stanford). Along with nine collaborators from across institutions, Tanya and Kara recently published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences (PNAS) titled ‘Sensing the presence of gods and spirits across cultures and faiths.’ This episode is nominally in our “behind the paper” series, but really it tells the story of not just this one paper but a much larger project: The Mind and Spirit project. The project was an unusual effort in scope: it included anthropologists and psychologists; it involved fieldwork in Ghana, Thailand, China, Vanuatu, and the US and practitioners of different faith traditions; it used both in-depth interviews and large-scale survey testing with thousands of participants. The particular paper we’re discussing today probed the basic idea that so-called “spiritual presence events”—those tingly, jarring, extraordinary experiences that some of us have—could be due to two main factors, factors that vary across individuals and cultures. The first proposed factor is how people understand the mind-world boundary. People who conceive of the mind as fundamentally leaky or “porous” might be more likely to have these kinds of experiences. The second proposed factor is how likely people are to get absorbed in their sensory experiences, to lose themselves in music, art, nature, movies, and so on. In our conversation, Tanya, Kara, and I talk about the deeper history behind this work; we break down what the constructs of porosity and absorption mean exactly and how they chose to measure them; we discuss the challenges and rewards of cross-disciplinary collaboration; and we talk about why I really need to read more William James. I wanted to feature this paper the moment I learned about it—it’s such an impressive piece of research on several levels. It’s also just certifiably cool. It’s dealing with cultural differences. It’s dealing with individual differences. And it’s dealing with variability in, to use the authors’ words “something as basic as what feels real to the senses.” So let’s get to it. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Dr. Tanya Luhrmann and Dr. Kara Weisman. Enjoy! The paper we discuss is here. A transcript of this show is available here.   Notes and links 4:00 – Dr. Luhrmann’s first book was based on work with British practitioners of magic and witchcraft. 5:30 – Another of Dr. Luhrmann’s books looked at American Evangelicals and their relationship to God. 6:30 – A paper by Marcia Johnson and Carol Raye on “reality monitoring.” 12:45 – In earlier work, Dr. Weisman examined people’s conceptions of mind and mental life. 16:37 – One of the other collaborators on the Mind and Spirit project is Felicity Aulino. 19:30 – More info about Tellegen’s absorption scale can be found here and here. 28:05 – Another member of the project is Rachel E. Smith. 33:24 – Another member of the project is Cristine Legare, former guest on Many Minds (!). 36:00 – Another member of the project is John Dulin. 42:00 – Another member of the project is Emily Ng. 42:30 – Another member of the project is Joshua D. Brahinsky. 43:00 – Another member of the project is Vivian Dzokoto. 58:00 – Dr. Luhrmann discusses the “citadel” model of the mind in her more recent book, How God Becomes Real. 59:20 – Dr. Weisman is currently part of a new large-scale project, the Developing Belief Network.   Dr. Luhrmann’s end-of-show recommendation: Religious Experience Reconsidered, by Ann Taves Dr. Weisman’s end-of-show recommendation: The Varieties of Religious Experience, by William James   Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) (https://disi.org), which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster, and Associate Director Hilda Loury. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd (https://www.mayhilldesigns.co.uk/). Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala (https://sarahdopierala.wordpress.com/). You can subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, visit our NEW website (https://disi.org/manyminds/), or follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.

------------------Support the channel------------ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter SubscribeStar: https://www.subscribestar.com/the-dissenter PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao ------------------Follow me on--------------------- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT Anchor (podcast): https://anchor.fm/thedissenter Dr. Cristine Legare is a professor of psychology and the director of the Evolution, Variation, and Ontogeny of Learning Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research examines how the human mind enables us to learn, create, and transmit culture. She conducts comparisons across age, culture, and species to address fundamental questions about cognitive and cultural evolution. In this episode, we first talk about the phylogenetic and ontogenetic bases of culture. We also refer to the cognitive bases of culture. We ask if isolated individuals would ever develop culture. We discuss how children acquire culture; core knowledge, and how it varies across societies; causal learning; imitation; and natural and supernatural explanatory frameworks. We then address what renders it so difficult for people to accept and understand evolution by natural selection. -- Follow Dr. Legare's work: Faculty page: http://bit.ly/2qY2s1E Website: http://bit.ly/2RUtm5n ResearchGate profile: http://bit.ly/35p20bG Twitter handle: @CristineLegare -- A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS/SUPPORTERS: KARIN LIETZCKE, ANN BLANCHETTE, PER HELGE LARSEN, LAU GUERREIRO, JERRY MULLER, HANS FREDRIK SUNDE, BERNARDO SEIXAS, HERBERT GINTIS, RUTGER VOS, RICARDO VLADIMIRO, BO WINEGARD, VEGA GIDEY, CRAIG HEALY, OLAF ALEX, PHILIP KURIAN, JONATHAN VISSER, DAVID DIAS, ANJAN KATTA, JAKOB KLINKBY, ADAM KESSEL, MATTHEW WHITINGBIRD, ARNAUD WOLFF, TIM HOLLOSY, HENRIK AHLENIUS, JOHN CONNORS, PAULINA BARREN, FILIP FORS CONNOLLY, DAN DEMETRIOU, ROBERT WINDHAGER, RUI INACIO, ARTHUR KOH, ZOOP, MARCO NEVES, MAX BEILBY, COLIN HOLBROOK, SUSAN PINKER, THOMAS TRUMBLE, PABLO SANTURBANO, SIMON COLUMBUS, PHIL KAVANAGH, JORGE ESPINHA, AND CORY CLARK! A SPECIAL THANKS TO MY PRODUCERS, YZAR WEHBE, ROSEY, JIM FRANK, ŁUKASZ STAFINIAK, IAN GILLIGAN, SERGIU CODREANU, AND LUIS CAYETANO! AND TO MY EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, MICHAL RUSIECKI!

Welcome back! Today’s episode is a conversation with Cristine Legare. Cristine is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on how our minds allow us to do culture—to learn it, to create it, and to pass it on. Among other things, we talk about cumulative culture and the human capacities for imitation and innovation. We talk about the power of ritual and about thorny questions surrounding human uniqueness. We touch on work that Cristine and her team have done in Vanuatu. And we muse about the problems facing psychology—in particular the so-called WEIRD problem. For those who may not know, this is the issue of psychologists unduly focusing on a thin slice of humanity—namely, Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) folks. I found Cristine’s perspective on this issue—and really on all these issues—super insightful. Without further ado, here is my conversation with Dr. Cristine Legare. Hope you enjoy it! And please be well.   A transcript of this episode is available here.    Notes and links 2:35 – An article about “cumulative culture.” 3:25 –There is debate about whether any non-human animals show evidence of cumulative culture. Here is one review of the topic. 6:30 – A paper by Dr. Legare and a colleague on imitation and innovation as “dual engines of cultural learning.” 10:53 – One of Dr. Legare’s studies examining children’s flexible understanding of when to imitate faithfully. 13:07 – A popular article about the puzzle of why chimps in Zambia started to put grass in their ears. The primary research was reported here. 14:25 – The literature on so-called “over-imitation” is substantial. Here is a recent review. 19:14 – An encyclopedia article by Dr. Legare and a colleague on ritual. See also their paper on the social functions of rituals. 25:45 – Here is the original paper report on the “illusion of explanatory depth.” 28:42 – A paper on how a culture’s history of migration affects how often its members smile. 34:45 – This article describes the puzzle of chimpanzees throwing rocks at trees. 40:18 – This paper by Joe Henrich and colleagues is the source of the acronym WEIRD—that is, Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic—and is one of the most cited and discussed papers in the last decade of psychology. Here is a recent popular article on the current state of the WEIRD problem. Finally, see this paper by Dr. Legare and colleagues about the WEIRD bias in developmental psychology. 49:00 – Dr. Legare has done a number of studies in Vanuatu, a culturally diverse archipelago in the South Pacific. 49:32 – A study by Dr. Legare and colleagues comparing triadic interactions in the US and in Vanuatu. 55:51 – Barbara Rogoff, mentioned here, has done a range of important work on learning styles across cultures. See, for example, her book, The Cultural Nature of Human Development. 59:55 – A study by Dr. Legare and colleagues showing that adults in the US and Vanuatu differ in how they evaluate the intelligence of conforming vs non-conforming children. Dr. Legare’s end-of-show recommendations: A good summary of some of the research we discussed by Dr. Legare and her colleagues can be found here. See also the following books: The Secret of Our Success (2018), by Joe Henrich Cognitive Gadgets (2018), by Cecilia Heyes A Different Kind of Animal (2018), by Robert Boyd Minds Make Societies (2018), by Pascal Boyer   The best ways to keep up with Dr. Legare’s research: http://www.cristinelegare.com/   Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) (https://www.diverseintelligencessummer.com/), which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted by Kensy Cooperrider, with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster, and Associate Director Hilda Loury. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd (https://www.mayhilldesigns.co.uk/). Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala (https://sarahdopierala.wordpress.com/). You can subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play—or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.

In this episode, Cristine Legare explains how imitation is at the heart of what makes us human. Cristine studies how kids learn through imitation, and how this helps kids learn what they need to know in order to survive and thrive in whatever environment they find themselves in. She also explains how our ability to imitate is both a great power and a serious vulnerability. Cristine offers a serious brain share in this inimitable episode.

Having to leave a child's bedside when they're being cared for in hospital can be a huge wrench. To help reduce the separation anxiety, a third of neonatal units in the UK are now using an app that helps parents stay in touch with their premature babies 24 hours a day. Doctors and nurses can send photos and video updates to parents when they can't be with their baby in hospital. So far, around five thousand families have used the service. Emma Barnett talks to Katharine Da Costa - a reporter for BBC South and Consultant Obstetrician Dr Maggie Blott. This year saw an unprecedented number of women winning major awards and prizes. What does being a winner feel like, and is it always good to win? Jenni Murray hears from the writer Edna O'Brien who won the David Cohen Prize for Literature. The award celebrates a writer who has broken down social and sexual barriers for women in Ireland and beyond, and moved mountains both politically and lyrically through her writing. Christmas is steeped in all sorts of tradition – but it’s not just trees, tinsel and turkey. Many families have their own festive rituals and the mere idea of doing things differently would make it feel… well, just not like Christmas. But why do we get so hung up on doing Christmas a certain way - even if it doesn't make us happy? What is it about human psychology that makes tradition so attractive? And if your family festivities make you want to run away and hide, what’s the best way to break the cycle? Jenni Murray talks to Dr Cristine Legare from the University of Texas at Austin about why rituals are an inevitable part of being human. We mark the centenary of women being able to enter the legal profession. Andrea Catherwood speaks to Cherie Booth QC, Dana Denis-Smith - founder of the First 100 years, Abi Silver, a former associate at a city law firm and now a legal consultant, Beth Collette, who's a barrister in her second year of tenancy, and Mari Takayanagi - a Senior Archivist at the Houses of Parliament. The actress and writer Joanna Scanlan is known for Thick of It, Getting On, No Offence Puppy Love and most recently The Accident. Her latest role is as Mother Superior in the BBC’s new adaptation of Dracula. She joins Jenni to discuss. Plus, the Glasgow-based close harmony quartet The All Sorts perform.

Christmas is steeped in all sorts of tradition – but it’s not just trees, tinsel and turkey. Many families have their own festive rituals and the mere idea of doing things differently would make it feel… well, just not like Christmas. But why do we get so hung up on doing Christmas a certain way - even if it doesn't make us happy? What is it about human psychology that makes tradition so attractive? And if your family festivities make you want to run away and hide, what’s the best way to break the cycle? Jenni Murray talks to Dr Cristine Legare from the University of Texas at Austin about why rituals are an inevitable part of being human, and also to listeners about their stories of change at Christmas - including starting new traditions with a baby and the family forced to break tradition thanks to a kitchen fire and a large dog... If there’s one thing that most people expect on Christmas Day, it’s a Christmas dinner. From turkey and pigs in blankets to brussels sprouts and bread sauce it's a meal that many cooks dread. But according to historian Dr Annie Gray, it doesn't have to be that way. She says that if you take the long view, the only common thread from pre-Christian winter festivals to today is ‘light fire, eat meat, get drunk.’ The actual food is completely negotiable. She also explains why we cram so much food into one day, and what social history reveals about why mum generally cooks while dad gets to carve the turkey. To top off this festive feast, Jenni is joined by the Glasgow-based close harmony quartet The All Sorts with a pick-and-mix of songs both traditional - and a little bit different. Presenter - Jenni Murray Producer - Anna Lacey Interviewed guest - Cristine Legare Interviewed guest - Annie Gray Interviewed guest - Sarah Shorter Interviewed guest - Barbara Cole Walton Interviewed guest - Amy Batalli Interviewed guest - Adele Mitchinson Interviewed guest - Louella Miles

Show Notes  Cristine Legare is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Texas-Austin and she’s on the executive board of Heterodox Academy. She is the winner of the APS Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions. In this episode, I talk to her about two teaching issues: how to teach a politically and religiously diverse student body, and how to approach controversial issues. You can learn more about Cristine Legare at www.cristinelegare.com. Selected Quotes “There are a lot of different things I would recommend. One is to set the stage within a class to accommodate lots of different perspectives. A student should have exposure to a great variety of different perspectives. And often students aren’t aware that there are many, many different ways to view or reason about a particular topic. So I think the first step is educating students that there are, in fact, lots of different ways of approaching a topic—that there are a lot of different opinions about topics and different values concerning topics. I think setting that stage is very important.”   Previous Episodes of Half Hour of Heterodoxy Music: "Ave Marimba" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Chris Martin interviews Cristine Legare, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas-Austin. She specializes in the study of culture, cultural learning, and cognition. She is a winner of the 2015 APS Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions.

0:00 Why socioeconomic diversity is important 6:21 How UT Austin is increasing socioeconomic diversity 12:10 SES diversity is intertwined with viewpoint diversity 15:05 Cristine’s recent experience with controversial class topics 20:00 Positive class evaluations 22:49 Techniques to have productive conversations in class 26:30: Illustrating unproductive forms of dialogue Chris Martin interviews Cristine Legare, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas-Austin. She specializes in the study of culture, cultural learning, and cognition. She is a winner of the 2015 APS Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions. She serves on the executive board of Heterodox Academy. Selected Quotes: "And so one of the things that I had them do as an assignment for this book was to use Moral Foundations Theory to present arguments for and against teaching creationism in science classrooms, and the way the students were graded in this particular assignment was the extent to which both sides of that argument were equally persuasive....I wasn’t arguing that we should teach creationism in science classrooms, I don’t think that we should. But I think it’s a useful opportunity to accurately represent and convey beliefs that are very different from your own, and students struggle with this a little bit, but really embraced it and took this on. And gathered data from all kinds of different sources. They kind of spontaneously interviewed friends of theirs that were young-earth creationists. It was really fascinating." "In addition to modeling constructive ways to have a dialogue, I also model a few examples of bad practice...I used examples in class of both very religious people as well as atheists, and ways in which people from both those camps did a good and a bad job at reaching others, and I also use this as an opportunity to talk about how particular styles of argumentation are not persuasive. They're meant basically to further endear you to people who already think the way that you do. That is kind of psychologically satisfying for people but that is not constructive, so when you get a famous atheist scientist talking on and on about how stupid religious people are, his goal is definitely not to convert, not to persuade, from a persuasion perspective, that is entirely ineffective. In fact, I would say destructive."

In this episode, Chris Martin (@Chrismartin76) interviews Cristine Legare (@CristineLegare), Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas-Austin. She specializes in the study of culture, cultural learning, and cognition. She is a winner of the 2015 APS Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions. She serves on the executive board of Heterodox Academy. *** 0:00 Why socioeconomic diversity is important 6:21 How UT Austin is increasing socioeconomic diversity 12:10 SES diversity is intertwined with viewpoint diversity 15:05 Cristine’s recent experience with controversial class topics 20:00 Positive class evaluations 22:49 Techniques to have productive conversations in class 26:30: Illustrating unproductive forms of dialogue You can learn more Cristine Legare at her website. Cristine's argument for greater socioeconomic diversity can be found here. Articles and books mentioned during the interview: Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict by Ari Norenzayan The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt Selected Quotes: "And so one of the things that I had them do as an assignment for this book was to use Moral Foundations Theory to present arguments for and against teaching creationism in science classrooms, and the way the students were graded in this particular assignment was the extent to which both sides of that argument were equally persuasive....I wasn’t arguing that we should teach creationism in science classrooms, I don’t think that we should. But I think it’s a useful opportunity to accurately represent and convey beliefs that are very different from your own, and students struggle with this a little bit, but really embraced it and took this on. And gathered data from all kinds of different sources. They kind of spontaneously interviewed friends of theirs that were young-earth creationists. It was really fascinating." -- "In addition to modeling constructive ways to have a dialogue, I also model a few examples of bad practice...I used examples in class of both very religious people as well as atheists, and ways in which people from both those camps did a good and a bad job at reaching others, and I also use this as an opportunity to talk about how particular styles of argumentation are not persuasive. They're meant basically to further endear you to people who already think the way that you do. That is kind of psychologically satisfying for people but that is not constructive, so when you get a famous atheist scientist talking on and on about how stupid religious people are, his goal is definitely not to convert, not to persuade, from a persuasion perspective, that is entirely ineffective. In fact, I would say destructive."   Other episodes of Half Hour of Heterodoxy.

In this special holiday edition of Two Guys On Your Head, we'll explore questions about the link between freewill and gratitude, why we feel so compelled to recreate traditions exactly as we remember them, and why yawning is contagious. Plus, we'll take a trip to The Thinkery with Dr. Cristine Legare.

As a group, we will examine the kinds of ritualistic remedies used to treat a great variety of problems across highly diverse cultural contexts and vast stretches of historical time. Our objective will be to identify the kinds of information people may use to evaluate the efficacy of these pervasive cultural practices.

In both lay and scientific writing, natural explanations (potentially knowable and empirically verifiable phenomena of the physical world) and supernatural explanations (phenomena that violate or operate outside of, or distinct from, the natural world) are often conceptualized in contradictory or incompatible terms. My research has demonstrated that this common assumption is psychologically inaccurate. I propose instead that the same individuals frequently use both natural and supernatural explanations to interpret the very same events. To support this hypothesis, my colleagues and I reviewed converging developmental data on the coexistence of natural and supernatural explanations from diverse cultural contexts in three areas of biological thought: the origin of species, the acquisition of illnesses, and the causes of death (Legare, Evans, Rosengren, & Harris, 2012; Legare & Visala, 2011; Legare & Gelman, 2008). We identified multiple predictable and universal ways in which both kinds of explanations coexist in individual minds at proximate and ultimate levels of analysis. For example, synthetic thinking (i.e., combining two kinds of explanations without integration), integrative thinking (i.e., integrating two kinds of explanations by distinguishing proximate and ultimate causes), and target-dependent thinking (i.e., two kinds of explanations remain distinct and are used to explain different aspects of an event, depending on contextual information) all illustrate different kinds of explanatory coexistence. We also discovered that supernatural explanations often increase, rather than decrease, with age. Reasoning about supernatural phenomena, in short, seems to be an integral and enduring aspect of human cognition, not a transient or ephemeral element of childhood cognition.

Rituals pose a cognitive paradox: although widely used to treat problems, they are cultural conventions and lack causal explanations for their effects. How do people evaluate the efficacy of rituals in the absence of causal information? To address this question, I have examined the kinds of information that influence perceptions of ritual efficacy experimentally (Legare & Souza, 2012; 2013). I conducted three studies (N = 162) in Brazil, a cultural context in which rituals called simpatias are used to treat a great variety of problems ranging from asthma to infidelity. Using ecologically-valid content, I designed experimental simpatias to manipulate the kinds of information that influence perceptions of efficacy (e.g., repetition, number of procedural steps). The results provide evidence that information reflecting intuitive causal principles affects how people evaluate ritual efficacy. I propose that the structure of ritual is the product of an evolved cognitive system of intuitive causality.

Imitation is multifunctional; it is crucial not only for the transmission of instrumental skills but also for learning cultural conventions such as rituals (Herrmann, Legare, Harris, & Whitehouse, 2013; Legare & Herrmann, 2013). Despite the fact that imitation is a pervasive feature of children’s behavior, little is known about the kinds of information children use to determine when an event provides an opportunity for learning instrumental skills versus cultural conventions. In my talk I will discuss a program of research aimed at developing an integrated theoretical account of how children use imitation flexibly as a tool for cultural learning. I propose that the cognitive systems supporting flexible imitation are facilitated by the differential activation of an instrumental stance (i.e., rationale based on physical causation) and a ritual stance (i.e., rationale based on cultural convention). I will present evidence that the instrumental stance increases innovation and the ritual stance increases imitative fidelity, the dual engines of cultural learning.