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5 Topics In Psychology That We’re Not Allowed To Talk About - Dr Cory Clark

Cory Clark is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, a social psychologist and an author. Academia is supposed to be a bastion of intellectual purity where curiosity and the truth reign supreme. But what happens when the findings of research start to become inconvenient? What happens when conclusions may be scientifically accurate, but politically incorrect? Expect to learn what happens when you conduct a study on self-censorship in academic psychology and get reported for it, whether pervasive misogyny is actually a myth, why there is such an apparent anti-female bias, how women have fundamentally changed the culture of academia, whether men are psychologically different because of the patriarchy, which two areas of psychology are the most hated by academia and much more... Sponsors: Get 20% discount & free shipping on your Lawnmower 4.0 at https://manscaped.com/modernwisdom (use code MODERNWISDOM) Get 5 Free Travel Packs, Free Liquid Vitamin D and more from AG1 at https://drinkag1.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Get 20% OFF with our code MODERNWISDOM at https://calderalab.com/modernwisdom to unlock your youthful glow and be ready for summer with Caldera + Lab! Extra Stuff: Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom #academia #cancellation #evolutionarypsychology - 00:00 The Myth of Pervasive Misogyny 04:49 Why Does the Media Focus on Anti-Female Bias? 18:18 How the Influx of Women in Academia Has Changed Education 23:06 Why Women Are More Egalitarian Than Men 31:53 Should We Still Trust Mainstream Science & Media Today? 42:18 Are Gender Disparities Caused By the Patriarchy? 49:38 The Gendered Differences in Slut-Shaming 53:06 Why Do People Hate Evolutionary Psychology? 1:03:08 Which of Cory’s Conclusions Has Been Most Controversial? 1:09:53 Why Academia is Censoring Studies Like Cory’s 1:22:41 The Middle-Aged, White, Female Overlords of Academia 1:32:33 What’s Next for Cory - Get access to every episode 10 hours before YouTube by subscribing for free on Spotify - https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn or Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Get my free Reading List of 100 life-changing books here - https://chriswillx.com/books/ - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

Chris WilliamsonhostCory Clarkguest
Aug 10, 20231h 34mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Are Men The New Underdogs? Psychology, Gender, And Censorship Examined

  1. Chris Williamson and Dr. Cory Clark discuss evidence that, in many modern Western contexts, people show a pro-female bias while public narratives still focus almost exclusively on misogyny and anti-female discrimination. Clark outlines research suggesting that hiring and evaluative biases have flipped in favor of women since around 2009, and that both the public and academics systematically misperceive this shift. They explore how rising female dominance in academia appears to correlate with greater emphasis on harm-avoidance, inclusion, and censorship over truth-seeking and academic freedom. The conversation broadens into evolutionary psychology, political bias, and how moral grandstanding and fear of offense may be degrading scientific integrity and public trust in science.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Pro-female bias is common in Western contexts despite persistent misogyny narratives.

Clark cites research showing people often like women more, punish them less, and rate women-favoring or equal-gender findings as more acceptable than male-favoring ones, yet public discourse fixates on anti-female sexism and largely ignores anti-male biases.

Hiring and evaluative biases appear to have flipped toward women in many domains.

Audit studies of job applications indicate that biases that once favored men—especially in male-stereotyped fields—often now favor women, while biases that historically favored women still do; however, laypeople and academics typically believe women are still being discriminated against.

Women’s growing dominance in academia is reshaping institutional priorities.

Women now outnumber men at undergraduate, graduate, and faculty levels; survey data show female academics are more likely than men to prioritize harm prevention, inclusion, and egalitarian outcomes over free speech, academic freedom, and pure truth-seeking.

Controversial findings are self-censored, producing a distorted sense of consensus.

In Clark’s survey of psychology professors, those who believe taboo conclusions (e.g., evolved sex differences) are true report higher self-censorship, while academics who favor suppression of such work are more vocal—skewing what appears to be the field’s “official” position.

Moral concerns are increasingly used to justify censoring valid research.

Major journals have adopted policies to reject or retract work that might “undermine the dignity” of groups, and professors (especially women) are more supportive of ostracizing, not hiring, or not publishing scholars whose evolutionary or genetic findings favor men or whites over women or minorities.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

Put simply, men are relatively more interested in advancing what is empirically correct, and women are relatively more interested in advancing what is morally desirable.

Dr. Cory Clark

The people who think these controversial conclusions are true are the ones self‑censoring, which means what we hear publicly is systematically distorted.

Dr. Cory Clark

If science isn’t about understanding what’s happening in the world and accurately making predictions, I don’t understand what we’re doing here. Why don’t we just write fiction?

Chris Williamson

We’re ignoring a potential disparity that potentially could be fixed by something, and we’ll just never look for the thing that could fix it.

Dr. Cory Clark

It’s almost like everybody is shadowboxing against an imaginary hegemon… ‘Allow me to step in. You don’t know what’s right for you. I will be your savior.’

Chris Williamson

Perceived vs. actual gender bias in modern Western societiesMedia framing, gamma bias, and public misperceptions about sexismGender composition of academia and its effects on academic cultureCensorship, self-censorship, and politicization in psychological scienceEvolutionary psychology and behavioral genetics as taboo domainsMoral vs. truth-seeking priorities across genders and ideologiesPaternalistic/protective attitudes toward disadvantaged groups

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