This is Cognitive Revolution, my show about the personal side of the intellectual journey. Each week, I interview an eminent scientist, writer, or academic about the experiences that shaped their ideas. The show is available wherever you listen to podcasts.
Mickey Inzlicht wanted to be a dentist when he grew up. But unfortunately he only made it as far as Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto, with a joint appointment in the Rotman School of Management. He represents one psychologist and two beers worth of the Two Psychologists Four Beers podcast. He's someone who I look up to a whole lot, and there's a lot about what he's been able to do in his career that I'd like to be able to do in my own: successful podcast, professor in social neuroscience (similar topic to the lab I'm doing my PhD in), strong family life, and seems to have a lot of fun doing all that stuff. He's done a lot of excellent work over the course of his career, my favorite of which is the effort paradox which is the idea that the most effort something costs us to pull off the more we value it. The paradox is that we are still for the most part effort averse creatures, try to avoid unnecessary hard work, and are unlikely to begin things that we think we necessitate a ton of it. In this episode we talk about his background in psychology, especially as a first generation college student. Mickey gets into his three top productivity tips that work for him. We also talk shop about pods, how he started his, as well as the podcast ecosystem generally. We wrap up discussing effort, value, meaning, and other topics related to Mickey's research.
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