Stanford Psychology Podcast

This week, Enna chats with Dr. Casey Kenyon Brown, Professor at Georgetown University in the Department of Psychology and the Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience. She has received numerous honors and awards, including the prestigious Pathway to Independence Award from the National Institute on Aging and the Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science.

Casey’s research examines how we share, understand, and influence one another’s emotions. She’s interested in how these interpersonal emotional processes are beneficial for healthy aging, and how these processes may go awry and contribute to depression. 

In this episode, Casey shares her journey in psychology, talks about her research on emotion and relationships, and provides advice on how we can build strong connections with people we love. 

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Casey’s Lab Website: https://careslab.facultysite.georgetown.edu/ 
Casey’s Lab Twitter: @CARESlab_GU
Casey’s paper on empathy and shared depression: https://doi.org/10.1177/21677026221141852 

Enna’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ennayuxuanchen/ 
Enna’s Twitter: @EnnaYuxuanChen

Podcast Contact: [email protected] 
Podcast Twitter: @StanfordPsyPod

Marginalia Episodes are in collaboration with Marginalia Science! Marginalia Science is a community committed to promoting the work of scholars who are traditionally underrepresented in academia. In each Marginalia Episode, we feature a guest who has been featured in the Marginalia Science Monthly Newsletter.
In this re-air episode from 2025, Enna chats with Professor Erica Bailey at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. Erica broadly studies the construct of authenticity, asking questions like, how do we know who we are? When do we feel the most like ourselves? Why do we often fail, despite our best efforts, to share our inner world with others? In this episode, we discuss her recent paper on how self-perceptions influence subjective authenticity. To learn more about Erica, you can read the Marginalia Science Newsletter below.
Episode on Marginalia Science: https://www.stanfordpsychologypodcast.com/episodes/episode/7927b876/104-special-episode-marginalia-science
Marginalia Newsletter featuring Erica: https://substack.com/home/post/p-153969383 
 
Erica’s Paper: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/9tc27 
Erica’s Website: https://sites.google.com/view/ericarbailey 
Erica’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erica-bailey-ph-d-22038172/ 
Erica’s Twitter: @ericarbailey
 
Enna’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ennayuxuanchen/ 
Enna’s Twitter: @EnnaYuxuanChen
 
Podcast Twitter: @StanfordPsyPod
Podcast Substack: https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/ 
Podcast Contact: [email protected]

Adani chats with Tamar Kushnir, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University. Tamar’s research spans pretty much everything you can imagine: Cognitive development, causal learning, social cognition, moral cognition, cultural psychology, free will, imagination, counterfactual thinking, self-control, and more! In this conversation, we discuss Tamar’s fascinating review on imagination and social cognition in childhood alongside many fun tangents about superheroes, the Wright Brothers, and collective social change. Tamar also shares what she most enjoys about research in the first place, and what she’s excited for next!
Tamar’s faculty webpage: https://dibs.duke.edu/profile/tamar-kushnir/
Tamar’s lab website: https://ecclabduke.com/ 
Tamar’s paper: https://doi.org/10.1002/wcs.1603

Adani’s website: https://www.adaniabutto.com 
Adani’s Bluesky: @adani
Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPod
Podcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/
Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) [email protected]

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

Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPod
Podcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/
 
Let us know what you think of this episode, or of the podcast! :) [email protected]

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.

If you found this episode interesting at all, subscribe on our Substack and consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but helps us reach more people and get them excited about psychology.

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
Podcast Substack: https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/