In this re-air episode from 2022, Eric chats with Robin Dunbar, Emeritus Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at Oxford. Robin has famously studied the evolution of the human brain, arguing that our brain developed to understand the complex social world we have created for ourselves. Most know him for “Dunbar’s number,” or the limit to the number of individuals we can maintain stable relationships with. Robin has received more awards than could be counted, including the prestigious Huxley Memorial Medal. He has written various books, most relevant for this conversation a book called “Friends: Understanding the Power of our Most Important Relationship.”

In this wide-ranging episode, Eric and Robin discuss why Dunbar’s number is actually a whole series of numbers. Robin explains how he arrived at this number, why it is so relevant to everything from our globalized world and big cities to maintaining friendships. Do psychopaths need friends to be happy? If you don’t like people, should you move into the woods and never talk to anyone again? He explains why we gossip and what makes something funny. Finally, he shares some personal stories about his career and why his discovery of Dunbar’s number was actually an accident.

Links:

Robin's Friendship book: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/friends-robin-dunbar/1138785864
Robin's most recent book on religion: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/316135/how-religion-evolved-by-dunbar-robin/9780241431788

Eric's website
Eric's Twitter @EricNeumannPsy

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Anjie chats with Dr. Nicky Sullivan, senior researcher at Impact Justice, a national non-profit innovation and research center focused on transforming the U.S. criminal justice system. Dr. Sullivan received his PhD from Stanford Psychology Department in 2024. During his PhD, he studied parents' and children's beliefs about race and racial inequality. In this episode, Nicky shares his journey from studying race in the lab to evaluating innovative initiatives like The Homecoming Project at Impact Justice. He offers practical advice for grad students on networking, while reflecting on the challenges of pursuing system reform in today’s shifting political landscape.

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Links:

Nicky’s linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicky-sullivan-phd/
Impact Justice: https://impactjustice.org/

Anjie’s website: https://anjiecao.github.io/

Podcast X @StanfordPsyPod
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Su chats with Dr. Steve Rathje. Dr. Rathje is an incoming Assistant Professor of Human-Computer Interaction in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. He is an NSF and AXA postdoctoral fellow at New York University. Steve’s work centers on the psychology of technology. He studies how core psychological phenomena like polarization, intergroup conflict, the spread of information, and mental health interact with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and social media. Through a combination of behavioral science, computational methods, and large-scale data, his research sheds light on how our minds and our societies are being shaped in the digital age. In today's episode, we discuss his research background together with his recent review paper “The psychology of virality," in which they explore why certain content spreads rapidly online and offline, often involving a mix of emotional, social, and structural factors..

Steve’s paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2025.06.014
Steve’s personal website: https://stevenrathje.com/

Su’s Twitter @sudkrc & Bluesky @sudkrc.bsky.social

Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPod
Podcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/
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