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

1. 0:00 – 4:49

   The Myth of Pervasive Misogyny

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      Is pervasive misogyny a myth?

   2. CCCory Clark0:02

      (laughs) Uh, I have claimed that it is. (laughs) Yeah, I think, um ... I, I don't wanna say it was necessarily always a myth. I ... Just before we got in here, I was talking about how I was treated in Cairo. (laughs)

   3. CWChris Williamson0:15

      Yeah. Tell that story.

   4. CCCory Clark0:17

      I c- ... Oh, I was just at the airport and I was getting onto an elevator. I was there first. I hit the button, I started to step on, and these two guys walk up and they're like, "No! No!" And they waved to me to get off. And then I got off and they got on and they went up (laughs) and I had to take the next one. Um, so that kind of thing exists in places in the world still in 2023. Um, but in the US, uh, you're not getting much of that anymore and, in fact, you're getting quite a bit of the opposite. So I wrote this paper ... I think this ... Is this a Quillette article, I think? Yeah, yeah, yeah. A year or two ago, um, that reviewed a lot of the recent, uh, research on looking at gender biases in psychology, and a lot of the time you see exactly (laughs) the opposite. So people are biased in favor of women across a lot of different domains. They often treat women better than men. They like women better than they like men. Women get punished less than men for the same things. Um, when there's a scientific finding that portrays men better than women, people are biased against it in relation to scientific evidence that portrays women better than men. So people want women to be better than men. Um, and so this idea that society is sexist against women and we have to be vigilant about potential harm to women, um, I think potentially actually stems from the very fact that we care so much more about women than (laughs) we do about men. And when we discover these biases against men, no one really cares and they don't make the headlines. Um, so yeah. Uh, I would say it is largely a myth in modern Western societies, yes.

   5. CWChris Williamson2:00

      Is it really possible to answer this question about whether society is more biased against men than women?

   6. CCCory Clark2:07

      That's a good question, and I would say, probably no. Like, practically, it would be really hard to measure all of the different contexts, um, where people potentially could be biased. Uh, so like, some scholars have looked at potential bias against men and women in academia, and they see, for example, it's possible students are slightly biased against women in their teaching evaluations, although hard to know because a lot of these are real evaluations, so it could just be that th- that w- h- (laughs) maybe women aren't as nice teachers, I don't know. Um, um, so people have tried to, like, look at which domains do people have a bias against women or against men. It would be hard to look at everything all at once and say, uh, which direction. But one thing that's been happening that I've seen across a few papers now, including one of my own papers that's coming out, is that a lot of these biases actually used to favor men, like, for example, in hiring for male stereotypical jobs. It really was the case that people used to be discriminating against women in those jobs. Um, and a lot of these things seem to have flipped around 20, 2009. (laughs) So a lot of the biases that used to favor men now favor women, and a lot of the biases that always favor women still favor women. So I do think, uh ... I, I don't know if we can say on whole who gets treated worse relative to the other gender, um, but certainly, it seems to be the trajectory that biases are increasingly in fav- favoring women and then people just don't seem to care as much about that as when they, uh, seem to go against women.

   7. CWChris Williamson3:41

      There was that Steve Stuart-Williams study about-

   8. CCCory Clark3:44

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CWChris Williamson3:44

      ... fake articles f- favoring women or men and, and people's judgments of it, right?

   10. CCCory Clark3:48

       Mm-hmm. Yeah, they had one on ... I think it was men or women lie more maybe, and then they did men or women are more intelligent, or men and women better drawers. I think there were, like, three domains. And yeah, they always found that when the, when the evidence said that women have a worse quality than men, people are like, "This is sexist. This is bad research," but when women are portrayed as better, people are like, "Oh, it's even pretty good," r- (laughs) and I, I-

   11. CWChris Williamson4:12

       And that was the same as when it was equal, right? So women are better and men and women are equal was seen as-

   12. CCCory Clark4:19

       Um ...

   13. CWChris Williamson4:20

       ... a s- a similar level, I think?

   14. CCCory Clark4:22

       So I have studies where I've looked at something very similar that I have struggled to publish for, like, seven years (laughs) , uh, where we did that. We had men are ... I think we did it with intelligence. Men or women are equally intelligent, women are more intelligent than men, or men are more intelligent than women. And people like the men and women are equally intelligent or women are more intelligent than men more than they like men are more intelligent than women. So that's the one that really irritates people. (laughs)

   15. CWChris Williamson4:48

       Yeah.

2. 4:49 – 18:18

   Why Does the Media Focus on Anti-Female Bias?

   1. CWChris Williamson4:49

      D- why do you think this is the case? Like, why is it ... Well, actually first, no. Why do mainstream narratives focus so much on the possibility of anti-female biases if-

   2. CCCory Clark4:59

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson4:59

      ... it seems, you know, pretty robust that men even have a m- an anti-men bias.

   4. CCCory Clark5:06

      (laughs) They do, yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson5:07

      Just sort of, like, the, the call is coming from inside the house-

   6. CCCory Clark5:09

      Yeah. (laughs)

   7. CWChris Williamson5:09

      ... with regards to some of the, some of the sort of anti-male sentiments.

   8. CCCory Clark5:13

      Yeah, so, like, both men and women will show this pro-female bias. It is larger for females usually, but men too have these pro-women, pre- pro-women bias. Um, what was your question? Why do-

   9. CWChris Williamson5:24

      Why do mainstream narratives focus on it so much?

   10. CCCory Clark5:26

       Oh. Um, yeah. I think, I think it's potentially just because we care more ab- So, okay, so there are two things going on, I think, uh, and one I think has been sort of forwarded as the explanation, but I think it might be a little bit simplistic. So, um, just the idea that men and women ... You know, women have more, like, value essentially from an evolutionary perspective. If you have 100 wom- 100 women and one men ... One men. (laughs) One man, you can have 100 babies. (laughs) But if you have one woman-

   11. CWChris Williamson5:56

       And one very happy man.

   12. CCCory Clark5:57

       (laughs)

   13. CWChris Williamson5:57

       One incredibly happy man.

   14. CCCory Clark5:57

       A very happy man. (laughs)

   15. CWChris Williamson5:58

       Yeah.

   16. CCCory Clark5:58

       If you have, uh, one woman and 100 men, you're gonna have one, you know? I- I-

   17. CWChris Williamson6:02

       You have a very disgusting woman, yeah.

   18. CCCory Clark6:04

       (laughs) Yeah, exactly. Um, so, so women are the sort of limited resource, and so scholars have argued, and it seems to be, uh, very plausible that-... you know, we care more about harm to women because they are essentially setting the limit on our success as a species. So, that's one piece of it. The reason that I don't think that's necessarily all of it is what we briefly touched on at the start of this conversation, which is that you do see these big cross-cultural differences, and you do see these big differences over time. So, if I were to run this study where, say, like, men are smarter than women, or women are smarter than men in, like, 1920, would I see the same thing? I highly doubt it. Um, so I don't think that's all of it. I think that's part of it, and then on top of it we have this sort of cultural narrative that, you know, women have been disadvantaged for X amount of time, um, and that is a huge problem, and- and now the corrective measures have gone so far that they've fully reversed things. And a lot of the time, men are being disadvantaged, um, for the sake of women. So, I think those are both what's happening. So, you see that in society when you get any of these effects where you're like, "Look, people are sexist against women." Everyone loves it. (laughs) You know, goes viral-

   19. CWChris Williamson7:17

       Mm-hmm.

   20. CCCory Clark7:17

       ... it's covered by the New York Times. Uh, I don't think anybody will be... Well, I don't want to say anybody, but I don't know if Steve Stu- Steve Stuart Williams' findings are gonna make it to the front page of the New York Times.

   21. CWChris Williamson7:27

       No point.

   22. CCCory Clark7:27

       I guess we'll see. (laughs)

   23. CWChris Williamson7:27

       Are you, uh, are you familiar with gamma bias? Have you learned about this?

   24. CCCory Clark7:30

       I don't know. No, I don't think so.

   25. CWChris Williamson7:31

       So, this is, uh, Dr. John Barry from the Center for Male Psychology. This is a concept that he, at least-

   26. CCCory Clark7:36

       Okay.

   27. CWChris Williamson7:36

       ... has popularized. I don't know whether he was the one that came up with it. Uh, and it basically talks about how, especially in popular news, uh, media articles, if the article is pro-women, then they-

   28. CCCory Clark7:48

       Mm-hmm.

   29. CWChris Williamson7:48

       ... will sex the headline. If it's anti-men-

   30. CCCory Clark7:52

       Hmm.
3. 18:18 – 23:06

   How the Influx of Women in Academia Has Changed Education

   1. CWChris Williamson18:18

   2. CCCory Clark18:18

      (laughs)

   3. CWChris Williamson18:18

      Precisely correct. Okay. So i- th- th- we've kind of got a bit of a story going on here. We've set up this, um, disparity between what people think is happening in the world and what might actually be happening-

   4. CCCory Clark18:27

      Mm-hmm.

   5. CWChris Williamson18:27

      ... some anti-female, anti-male, pro-male, anti-female bias. There's also, moving into higher education, a lot more women who are-... going into higher education not only as students, but also as academics, too.

   6. CCCory Clark18:40

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CWChris Williamson18:40

      How has this changed academic culture?

   8. CCCory Clark18:44

      Yeah, so, so if you look at the trajectories of women in academia, uh, if you look for men and women. If you look at men, it's, I think it actually goes ever so slightly up, but for women it's, like, huge. You know, they were a very, very small minority, um, decades ago, not even all that long ago. But in the past few years, women are dominating at the undergraduate level, way more women than men. There are more women in graduate school, and now there are actually more women who are faculty as well. So, you went from an institution that was run almost entirely by men, and the people in the institution were almost all men too, 'cause the students were men too. Um, and now it's a majority of women, and I think, I don't wanna say it's the only cause, I don't think it is the only cause, but I do think it is probably, probably a primary contributor to a lot of the cultural shifts that have been happening in the past 10 years, because they all prioritize the values of women. So if you look at stuff, for example, you know, people wanting to do these trigger warnings when they're teaching topics in class. Um, if you look at the cases of scholars getting attacked or fired or harassed on social media for studying, you know, potentially controversial topics, those are skyrocketing. If you look at these editorial changes in academic journals, which maybe some of your listeners won't be familiar with, but there have been some of the most prominent, or most prestigious journals in all of science, of the Nature/Springer family of journals, that have put out a series of editorials over these past few years saying that they would not publish and potentially would retract science that has, like, potential to, um, I think one of the phrasing was "undermine the dignity of human social groups" (laughs) , uh, whatever that means. Um, and so it's all of these, like, harm concerns and these concerns about protecting vulnerable people, um, that are starting to interfere with a process that at least at one point was supposed to be, "Well, we're gonna pursue the truth, you know? If it hurts some people's feelings, you know, th- so be it." (laughs) "That's not what we're concerned with. We're concerned with, um, you know, finding out what is empirically correct about the world and sharing that information with our students." Um, and so if you look at all these... And then the, the, the growing, the bloated, uh, DEI, um, uh, whatever you call them.

   9. CWChris Williamson21:14

      Initiative.

   10. CCCory Clark21:15

       Initiative, divisions, whatever they have at these, these universities. All of these things are, uh, they all kind of concern the things that women would be worried about, and so you're getting this exact pattern happening as the same time women are es- essentially taking over academia, and now they're probably holding more positions of power, they're the editors at these journals, they're the presidents of the professional societies, um, they're, they're the administration. Um, it's kind of like exactly what you would expect if you changed the gender (laughs) composition of academia and people are so, uh, perplexed by it, but it seems like a pretty simple, straightforward, uh, solution. And I'm not saying that's the only thing. Maybe social media has something to do with it, you know, scientists are directly a- a- like, interacting with the public, so maybe the public gets pissed about a scientific finding, whereas 15 years ago they probably didn't even know we had academic journals. Um, so that could be part of it. But yeah, I think the, changing the composition, the gender composition of academia, um, I think pretty much has inevitable consequences that are gonna prioritize the interests of women, um, which are to protect the vulnerable from harm, um, and they're also way more egalitarian. So they want, they want everyone to kind of have the same outcomes, whereas men are more hierarchical, they're more comfortable with, like, some people are gonna be better at things than other people, and those people are gonna get, um, benefits for that. Um, I've known women who... You know, I know a lot of women in academia, and a lot of them are, like, pained by the process of grading. Like, they don't wanna give anyone a D (laughs) , which I get, like, it's not fun, um, failing a student, but that's kind of part of the process. Uh, if you just give everyone an A, it sort of loses its meaning. But that's, that's painful to women to, to not have everyone be thriving equally all the time.

4. 23:06 – 31:53

   Why Women Are More Egalitarian Than Men

   1. CCCory Clark23:06

   2. CWChris Williamson23:06

      Can you explain, for the people who are uninitiated, can you explain the driver evolutionarily about why women have this more egalitarian, more sort of cloak and dagger, behind closed doors approach to things?

   3. CCCory Clark23:19

      (laughs) .

   4. CWChris Williamson23:19

      A- a- and, and the opposite for men?

   5. CCCory Clark23:21

      Yeah. So, women, e- essentially, women were having children, raising them to be successful adults that have children of their own, um, whereas men were often working in coalitions to protect the group. So, men are used to, uh, creating coalitions, figuring out who's a good leader, who's good at what, giving that person status to make sure the group works really well together. Um, so they're, they're very comfortable with the fact that some men are gonna rise to the top, because that benefits the whole group. "If we have a strong leader, we all live." Um, women were not participating in that so much. They were s- they were being protected by the men, um, and their primary job was to care for offspring and keep the, keep offspring alive. So, they have this concern for things that are vulnerable and they wanna protect them and help them. Um, the, the, I, I, I think it's actually sort of an interesting discussion about, like, is it that men are hierarchical or women egalitarian? Because it, it might just be that the egalitarian thing could have been the default, but men are the ones that had to change because they had to coordinate and cooperate in this way-

   6. CWChris Williamson24:32

      Oh, yeah.

   7. CCCory Clark24:33

      ... in order to fight.

   8. CWChris Williamson24:34

      Who's, who's the aberration? Yeah.

   9. CCCory Clark24:35

      Yeah. Who's the, d- who's... I don't know. So, like, I th- and I think that explanation...... it's almost like the absence of women participating in that, um, potentially made them more egalitarian. But it also could have been because, you know, they're, they're sharing resources with other women and helping other women take care of their, their children too, um, where you wouldn't necessarily need... They're, they tend to be in small groups, um, prefer, you know, a few close friends rather than being in this huge group of people that's really coordinated and trying to, uh, out-compete other groups.

   10. CWChris Williamson25:04

       Well, uh, Joyce Benenson has done so much good work on this-

   11. CCCory Clark25:08

       Mm-hmm.

   12. CWChris Williamson25:08

       ... where she looked at, uh, is it female basketball teams?

   13. CCCory Clark25:11

       Mm-hmm.

   14. CWChris Williamson25:11

       And I think male oppositions, male opponents on a basketball court show more goodwill physically to each other than female compatriots.

   15. CCCory Clark25:25

       Hmm.

   16. CWChris Williamson25:25

       So like enemies on the men teams-

   17. CCCory Clark25:28

       (laughs) Yeah.

   18. CWChris Williamson25:28

       ... they show more love to each other than the same team, the, the same team members for, for women. And, uh, uh, tell me if I'm wrong here. I'm pretty sure that another contributing reason is that women physically are more fragile-

   19. CCCory Clark25:41

       Hmm.

   20. CWChris Williamson25:41

       ... which means that getting, uh, becoming the enemy of anybody has high-

   21. CCCory Clark25:46

       Hmm.

   22. CWChris Williamson25:47

       ... consequences. Uh-

   23. CCCory Clark25:48

       Hmm.

   24. CWChris Williamson25:48

       ... you are physically less capable of defending yourself, plus-

   25. CCCory Clark25:51

       Hmm.

   26. CWChris Williamson25:51

       ... you potentially have dependents on you, children, so on and so forth. So the externality-

   27. CCCory Clark25:56

       Mm-hmm.

   28. CWChris Williamson25:56

       ... of you dying, like man dies, not good, but like, you know-

   29. CCCory Clark25:59

       (laughs)

   30. CWChris Williamson25:59

       ... things can continue 'cause he's been-
5. 31:53 – 42:18

   Should We Still Trust Mainstream Science & Media Today?

   1. CWChris Williamson31:53

      that I tried to get at earlier on, um, before you sideswiped me with your misogyny-

   2. CCCory Clark31:58

      (laughs)

   3. CWChris Williamson31:59

      ... was that I, I don't want this to come across like women haven't got their heads on straight, men, you should treat them like they haven't got a clue what they're talking about. The point is, if you were convinced of these viewpoints, you would be convinced of them too.

   4. CCCory Clark32:15

      Mm-hmm.

   5. CWChris Williamson32:15

      Like, for the most part, people are supporting things that they believe. Now, they might believe them erroneously, it might be motivated reasoning, it might be because of societal pressure, it might be because they want to morally grandstand and look like they're really cool and important and empathetic and all this stuff. All of these reasons contribute. But like, if I convince you that two plus two equals four, you can't unconvince yourself of something that you're convinced of, up until the point at which you are unconvinced, at which point you have a new set of views, right? So it's like, if you felt this way, if you had this biological predisposition plus this sort of cultural, uh, imposition on you from all the girlfriends that you'd spent time with... And the same for men too, like for the women in academia who say, "I can't believe that men don't care about harms and blah, blah, blah." It's like-

   6. CCCory Clark32:58

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CWChris Williamson32:58

      ... the reason that they're convinced is because they're convinced.

   8. CCCory Clark33:01

      Right.

   9. CWChris Williamson33:01

      And being able to hold two con- conflicting viewpoints in your mind at one time is really important. Like, look, women can hold this view, and to them, it is the truth.

   10. CCCory Clark33:09

       Mm-hmm.

   11. CWChris Williamson33:09

       Men can hold this view, and to them, it is the truth, right? Like, i- it's a case of trying to bridge that divide, I think, to help people understand, okay, from first principles, what are we trying to achieve-

   12. CCCory Clark33:19

       Right.

   13. CWChris Williamson33:19

       ... with academia? Like, what's the goal here? What are we actually trying to get ourselves toward? And I do think that it would lean more toward the male side of this. It's going to be toward the men. It's going to be truth, but-

   14. CCCory Clark33:30

       But do you... So one thing that I thought of is like, how do you justi- like, why? Like, how do you justify why science should be pursuing truth?

   15. CWChris Williamson33:40

       Because-

   16. CCCory Clark33:40

       Is it just, uh, is it just itself a good, or is there a reason that we care about the truth, or we should pursue truth?

   17. CWChris Williamson33:47

       T- to me, the goal of science would be to accurately represent what is going on in the world.

   18. CCCory Clark33:52

       And why is that good? Why is that better than...

   19. CWChris Williamson33:55

       Because that can inform decisions moving forward accurately. If you do it based on some predisposition, some sort of, uh, predetermination or some motivated reasoning, you're going to encounter a situation in which the world doesn't reflect what your, uh, research has supposedly shown or what missed research would have shown-

   20. CCCory Clark34:16

       Mm-hmm.

   21. CWChris Williamson34:17

       ... because you haven't been trying to represent what the world is.

   22. CCCory Clark34:20

       But why is that bad?

   23. CWChris Williamson34:22

       Because you're going to end up with massive errors. You're going to end up with people predicting things-

   24. CCCory Clark34:26

       Mm-hmm.

   25. CWChris Williamson34:26

       ... that don't come true, or not predicting things that do come true that could have been discovered had the research been done.

   26. CCCory Clark34:32

       But why do... Why are errors bad?

   27. CWChris Williamson34:36

       Why are errors bad? I guess that's a good question. Because downstream-

   28. CCCory Clark34:40

       (laughs)

   29. CWChris Williamson34:40

       ... downstream from errors, you would end up with a world that isn't ab- or you would end up with a society and a civilization that isn't able to accurately perceive what is going on. That, to me, just seems like, like what, what is science? If science isn't understanding what's happening in the world, and downstream from that, being able to accurately make predictions, I, I don't understand what we're doing here. Like, we, why don't, why don't we just write fiction if that's the case?

   30. CCCory Clark35:06

       I was trying to lead you down a path, and you didn't take the bait (laughs) .
6. 42:18 – 49:38

   Are Gender Disparities Caused By the Patriarchy?

   1. CWChris Williamson42:18

      process. But what, what, what do you say to the people who would push back and say men and women are psychologically different because of patriarchy and social expectations and stuff? We just need to nudge those, change those in some way.

   2. CCCory Clark42:31

      Yeah. I mean, some people try to claim that it's all environmental or cultural, and some people try to claim that, you know, there aren't even men and women in the first place (laughs) or it's just humans or something. Um, yeah, I think some of the most compelling data there are that when you look in more egalitarian countries, um, you often see that actually these gender differences get bigger. And so when men are, when women are given, like, more freedom to flourish and pursue what they want to pursue, um, you can see even bigger... Like, women, uh, a lot of... And th- this is related to what you were just saying. Like, a lot of women...... really like being a mom and staying home and taking care of their kids is the most meaningful thing to them. And then you get these, like, scholarly career women who, like, look down on them and, uh, uh, and, and shame them for making that choice. But when women have, you know, a partner who can support them 'cause they're getting paid enough, they've got their, like, healthcare needs taken care of, l- they're more likely to choose to stay home and be a mom. And it's in some of these really poor countries or countries where women are treated really terribly where the women are, like, going into STEM at really (laughs) high rates, you know. So, uh, if it, if, if, if, if it were gonna... If it were caused by these, like, really destructive social expectations that aim to hold women down, I think we would see that places like Sweden and stuff, you know, women are becoming, uh, engineers at the same rate as men. Um, but that's just not the case, and there's evidence that it's precisely the opposite of that, that when women get to choose, um, they choose things that women would be interested in doing because they, like, evolved to be good at those things, and it's really important for them.

   3. CWChris Williamson44:14

      There's a interesting lesson I learned from Mary Harrington, where the, um, especially women at the top, the ones who create the culture of feminism in particular-

   4. CCCory Clark44:24

      Mm-hmm.

   5. CWChris Williamson44:25

      ... uh, don't have the interests of the women at the bottom in mind.

   6. CCCory Clark44:28

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CWChris Williamson44:28

      So, she used the example of, uh, reducing chivalry. Like, "I don't need-"

   8. CCCory Clark44:33

      Mm. Mm.

   9. CWChris Williamson44:33

      "... to be sort of protected by a man. I don't need him to hold the door open for me. I don't need him to pull my chair out. I don't need him to pay for the first date," et cetera, et cetera. Like, you know, this is the egalitarian... And it's a, again, you're, um, holding up, you're morally grandstanding for a disadvantaged group, and you're almost presuming that or hoping that they can take care of themselves. They're- you're reducing dependency.

   10. CCCory Clark44:54

       Mm-hmm.

   11. CWChris Williamson44:54

       But what those women at the top, the bourgeois sort of feminist believers don't realize is that there are women at the bottom for whom their partner might not have had... might have grown up in a single-parent household, might have been abused by a father. Like, they could do with understanding protecting women, which is really what opening the door and pulling the chair out is about, it's like treating them in a more, uh, a, a less robust way, is upstream from, "Don't hit your wife."

   12. CCCory Clark45:19

       (laughs)

   13. CWChris Williamson45:20

       Right? And-

   14. CCCory Clark45:20

       Just a little. (laughs)

   15. CWChris Williamson45:22

       Uh, it's... Yeah. But the, the point of women as something that, that require protecting and providing for-

   16. CCCory Clark45:26

       Yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson45:27

       ... is something that can be dispensed with if you are part of some, like-

   18. CCCory Clark45:30

       Mm. Mm-hmm.

   19. CWChris Williamson45:31

       ... high-faluting class, but necessarily doesn't work down at the bottom. And it feels a little bit-

   20. CCCory Clark45:34

       Right.

   21. CWChris Williamson45:34

       ... the same as what you're talking about here. There was this really, really great study that, uh, Alexander Date Sykes just put out. I'm gonna bring him on to talk about it in a couple-

   22. CCCory Clark45:42

       Mm-hmm.

   23. CWChris Williamson45:43

       ... of weeks. Uh, 55% of single men haven't approached a woman in the last year.

   24. CCCory Clark45:48

       Hm.

   25. CWChris Williamson45:49

       77% of women say that they were approached more, but that-

   26. CCCory Clark45:54

       Hm.

   27. CWChris Williamson45:54

       ... is in the 18 to 30 age bracket. At-

   28. CCCory Clark45:57

       Hm.

   29. CWChris Williamson45:57

       ... 41-plus, the trend flips, and 55% of women said that they didn't want to be approached.

   30. CCCory Clark46:03

       Hm.
7. 49:38 – 53:06

   The Gendered Differences in Slut-Shaming

   1. CCCory Clark49:38

      to hear- (laughs)

   2. CWChris Williamson49:38

      Put your, put your bro science hat on and- and explain why you think there's this disparity in slut-shaming.

   3. CCCory Clark49:44

      Um, it could be because slut-shaming is mainly happening for women against other women, and men don't care that much about other men's sexual behavior, because, you know, they- they're only gonna monopolize a woman for like 10 (laughs) minutes or whatever. Um, so it might be that it's really... And- and it might be that men only slut-shame women a little bit because women do, but women slut-shame them more. So, it could just be a female intersexual competition thing, and- and... But I also think women could slut-shame men, but maybe they don't, um, because men don't care about being slut-shamed, (laughs) so there's no point.

   4. CWChris Williamson50:25

      Tell- tell more people about all of the women that I'm sleeping with.

   5. CCCory Clark50:27

      (laughs)

   6. CWChris Williamson50:28

      Oh, so... Okay, so preselection, the fact that a man who is desired by multiple women-

   7. CCCory Clark50:33

      Mm-hmm.

   8. CWChris Williamson50:33

      ... is seen as desirable, on average, by more women-

   9. CCCory Clark50:36

      Mm-hmm.

   10. CWChris Williamson50:37

       ... is the reason why guys should have photos on their Tinder profile with them with other women-

   11. CCCory Clark50:40

       Mm-hmm.

   12. CWChris Williamson50:40

       ... because it shows that you're not a, like a total basement dweller.

   13. CCCory Clark50:42

       Some women think I'm cool. (laughs)

   14. CWChris Williamson50:44

       Some women. Yeah, exact- yeah, exactly.

   15. CCCory Clark50:45

       Yeah.

   16. CWChris Williamson50:45

       I'm not totally repulsive to women.

   17. CCCory Clark50:47

       (laughs)

   18. CWChris Williamson50:47

       Um, and because of that, if a woman does start trying to call out a man's sexual exploits, because it is probably positive expected value on his status-

   19. CCCory Clark50:59

       Mm-hmm.

   20. CWChris Williamson50:59

       ... it's a pointless thing. Like, if you think about what women-

   21. CCCory Clark51:01

       It only makes them look better. (laughs)

   22. CWChris Williamson51:02

       Yeah, exactly, but think about, think about like the- the insults that get thrown around on the internet. The first one from any woman or man to a woman is slut, and the first one from any man or woman to a man is cuck, or soyboy, or incel.

   23. CCCory Clark51:14

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   24. CWChris Williamson51:14

       Right?

   25. CCCory Clark51:14

       Yeah.

   26. CWChris Williamson51:15

       So, it's disparaging a lack of sexual chastity on one side, and a lack of sexual experience on the other.

   27. CCCory Clark51:21

       Yeah.

   28. CWChris Williamson51:21

       Because those are the most valuable things that they have to offer.

   29. CCCory Clark51:24

       Yeah.

   30. CWChris Williamson51:24

       So, yeah, that's really interesting.
8. 53:06 – 1:03:08

   Why Do People Hate Evolutionary Psychology?

   1. CWChris Williamson53:06

      Evolutionary psychology, one of your areas of expertise, one of my areas of obsession.

   2. CCCory Clark53:11

      (laughs)

   3. CWChris Williamson53:11

      Why do you think it is that evolutionary psychology is so detested?

   4. CCCory Clark53:15

      (laughs) Um, yeah. So, (laughs) this is the talk I gave at HFEST, and it was, it was definitely not something that I was trying to- to, uh, discover. My purpose wasn't to know why people hate evolutionary psychology or behavioral genetics, which is the other one that people hate. Um, but pretty much all of the controversial conclusions in psychology, um, the ones that will get you in trouble, they all kind of come from evolutionary psychology and behavioral genetics. And it's because people dislike conclusions, um, that regard group differences, so gender differences, or race differences, specifically. And they especially don't like those conclusions if they're supported by an evolutionary explanation or a behavioral genetic explanation, and those two kind of go hand-in-hand, because, you know, evolution works on, uh, our genes. So, uh, I keep ripping out my earbuds. Um, so, when it comes to the kinds of conclusions that are going to really irritate people, people are gonna, they're- they're gonna tend to be in evolutionary psychology and behavioral genetics, and the kind they're really gonna love are gonna be in like social psychology. So, it's all these, "Every group difference is caused by discrimination." Um, "Every group differences is caused by, like, cultural expectations of people." You know, "Men and women are no different if it weren't for the fact that we make girls wear pink (laughs) and make them take ballet class." Um, whereas evolutionary psychologists are like, "No, there are very good reasons to expect that men and women would have evolved to have different bodies, which they do have, and different brains, which they do have, that lead to different, you know, general personality differences." Um-And then, and then people specifically are like, especially hate these differences if, as we were talking about at the start of this conversation, if the differences favor men over women, or if they favor like, specifically white people over Black people. So, if there's anything where white people are outperforming Black people, or women, or men are outperforming women, and then you provide an evolutionary or genetic explanation for that, those are the kinds of things that are gonna get you fired. (laughs) Uh, they're gonna get your paper retracted, um, and people are gonna call you all kinds of names. So, yeah. Evolutionary psychology is kind of screwed, I think. (laughs) Uh, especially as things move toward this, "Let's be careful and avoid the potentially harmful topics as women take over academia." Uh, you would think that people are going to become more accepting of evolutionary psychology because they kind of have been for a little while, but we might be at a turning point and it might-

   5. CWChris Williamson55:48

      Oh, it could regress.

   6. CCCory Clark55:49

      ... actually become... Mm-hmm. I, I think it's actually quite likely too, yeah.

   7. CWChris Williamson55:53

      Wouldn't that be a shame if there's been all of this time spent with behavioral genetics and evolutionary psychology-

   8. CCCory Clark56:00

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CWChris Williamson56:00

      ... kind of dispensing some of the, uh, slime that maybe it had accumulated or was thrown at it, and slowly over time... You know, if you, if you want to avoid the replication crisis, the two places that you want to be are in evolutionary psychology and behavioral genetics.

   10. CCCory Clark56:13

       That's so true, yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson56:14

       They're the two places that haven't been slammed by-

   12. CCCory Clark56:17

       And the place you don't want to be is social psychology. (laughs)

   13. CWChris Williamson56:20

       Yeah. So, so the least reliable of all-

   14. CCCory Clark56:23

       Yeah.

   15. CWChris Williamson56:23

       ... of the different psychology disciplines has been the one-

   16. CCCory Clark56:26

       Mm-hmm.

   17. CWChris Williamson56:26

       ... which is currently the most on the rise, the one that is politically, emotionally the most upheld in order to be able to support. Um, yeah. It's very, very backward. But it would be a shame-

   18. CCCory Clark56:36

       Yes.

   19. CWChris Williamson56:36

       ... if we've done all of that work, you know, you and your field have done all of this work to get it to the stage where it's regarded in relatively neutral light for a, uh, what did we call it? The academics, uh, the academic, this academic sex ratio hypothesis? What the fuck did we call it?

   20. CCCory Clark56:50

       (laughs) Yeah.

   21. CWChris Williamson56:51

       What do you call it? Whatever.

   22. CCCory Clark56:52

       Gender ratio? Gender ratio hypothesis? Whatever. Yeah.

   23. CWChris Williamson56:54

       Um, so you, you tried to work this out. You tried to do a study about taboos and censorship, and for this, you tried to recruit every psychology professor in the US.

   24. CCCory Clark57:04

       (laughs)

   25. CWChris Williamson57:04

       Wh-

   26. CCCory Clark57:05

       At the top 130 institutions, yeah.

   27. CWChris Williamson57:07

       Okay.

   28. CCCory Clark57:07

       I tried. I only got like, 10 or 11% of them, but, so it was like, about 500 people.

   29. CWChris Williamson57:12

       Quite a lot.

   30. CCCory Clark57:13

       Yeah. Kind of, quite a lot. Um, and we see these, the, my favorite one... So, I, I, so after I interviewed, I interviewed around 40 or so and asked them like, "What are the most controversial conclusions?" And that's how I discovered it's these types of conclusions with these differences, um, and if they have evolved, people really don't like those conclusions. But then I asked a follow-up sample of these like, around 500 people, um, their views about these conclusions. And one of them is that men and women evolve different psychological characteristics, and... A finding we see across all of the conclusions, but this one it's the most entertaining, is that men are pretty sure that that conclusion is true, (laughs) and women are like, very on the fence about it. So, the mean for women is closer to like, the midpoint, um, whereas men are sort of clustered toward the top of the s- scale. And so we see across all controversial conclusions that men think they're more likely to be empirically correct, whereas women are more likely to think that they're false. Um, and then we see that the people who think that they're true are self-censoring more, which inevitably means that what we hear publicly about controversial conclusions is systematically distorted, and the impression is that these bad, controversial conclusions are false, and they're fringe, and no one believes they're true. People believe they're true. It's just they won't talk about it out loud. Um, so it, it, it really distorts the perception of scientific consensus any time you get like, one of these, one of these conclusions that po- has potential to get you in trouble. Um, and then we looked at like, all these kinds of things. For example, I asked, um, professors, "Imagine a scholar who forwards an evolutionary or genetic explanation for a group difference that favors, um, men over women, or white people over Black people. What should happen to a scholar who would forward such a conclusion?" And across the board we see gender differences here, whereas female psychology professors are more likely to support ostracizing them, uh, calling them racist or sexist or bigoted, uh, shaming them on social media, not publishing their work even if it has merit, not hiring them even if they meet typical standards. And so women, like, their, their moral concerns will, uh, makes them... Uh, which is sort of strange, 'cause I think men might be slightly more punitive than women in general. But in this particular context, women are more punitive across the board, um, toward their peers who forward controversial conclusions or conclusions that they don't like, because they perceive them as potentially like, morally bad. Um, so yeah. I am, I'm quite, (laughs) I'm quite worried for the future (laughs) of science, uh, at least, at least the version of it that, that I thought was what we were doing. Um, it, but it, it just might completely transform into something quite different. Um, and maybe-
9. 1:03:08 – 1:09:53

   Which of Cory’s Conclusions Has Been Most Controversial?

   1. CWChris Williamson1:03:08

   2. CCCory Clark1:03:08

      Yeah. (laughs)

   3. CWChris Williamson1:03:08

      Okay, so you found, there was four of these most taboo conclusions that you found. Men and women have different psychological characteristics because of evolution. Biological sex is a binary for the majority of people. The tendency to engage in sexually coercive behavior likely evolved because it conferred some evolutionary advantages on men who engaged in such behavior.

   4. CCCory Clark1:03:28

      Genghis Khan. (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson1:03:28

      And (laughs) gender, gender biases are not the most important drivers of the underrepresentation of women in STEM fields.

   6. CCCory Clark1:03:37

      (laughs)

   7. CWChris Williamson1:03:37

      Like, those, th- that's like ahe- that's all headlines that I've read for the last two years-

   8. CCCory Clark1:03:43

      (laughs)

   9. CWChris Williamson1:03:44

      ... have fall into one of those buckets.

   10. CCCory Clark1:03:45

       Those are four of the ten. There are other ones related to, uh, race as well, and then there are other ones related to politics, so just even the idea that psychology discriminates against conservatives, some people mentioned. Um, or the idea that academia, you know, if it doesn't discriminate against black people, what does that say? Um...

   11. CWChris Williamson1:04:03

       Uh, so, sorry, d- that's, that's an interesting one. I didn't know about the conservative side.

   12. CCCory Clark1:04:07

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CWChris Williamson1:04:07

       But what's interesting there is that conservatives aren't an underrepresented group.

   14. CCCory Clark1:04:12

       No, they are. Or they are in psychology. Not in-

   15. CWChris Williamson1:04:15

       Yes. Ah, yes.

   16. CCCory Clark1:04:15

       ... not in the world. Not in the US, but-

   17. CWChris Williamson1:04:16

       Yes, yes, yeah, but that's the point, right? So, um, in the world, it's not like, it's not like conservatives are some maligned group that have needed-

   18. CCCory Clark1:04:24

       Right.

   19. CWChris Williamson1:04:24

       ... to be upheld morally. So that one, to me, screams much more about motivated reasoning that if you poll academics, on average, especially now, modern academia, they're leaning pretty hard left.

   20. CCCory Clark1:04:37

       Mm-hmm.

   21. CWChris Williamson1:04:37

       So that, that's just, like, out-group tribal bias.

   22. CCCory Clark1:04:40

       Hmm. Yeah, people have been debating that one. Some people say that it's that, it's just conservatives aren't good at science (laughs) , or they just don't like science. Um, but there have been other studies, like In- Inbar and Lammers, and they, like, academics will straight up say that they would discriminate against conservatives in hiring and talk invites and things like that. So, there's good reason to believe people are just discriminating against (laughs) conservatives.

   23. CWChris Williamson1:05:05

       I think it was, uh, Scott Galloway taught me maybe it's a third or 50% of Democrat parents fear that their child will marry a Republican.

   24. CCCory Clark1:05:13

       (laughs) Yeah. The, the in-group/out-group hatred with the political thing is, is really huge, and people just admit it. They don't even feel ashamed, right? Um...

   25. CWChris Williamson1:05:23

       If you track, if you track, um, political bias against, uh, racism-

   26. CCCory Clark1:05:30

       Yeah.

   27. CWChris Williamson1:05:30

       ... like, people are way more politically racist than they are racially racist.

   28. CCCory Clark1:05:34

       Yeah.

   29. CWChris Williamson1:05:34

       By a huge amount. It's like by, uh, l- uh, lots of, lots of multiples.

   30. CCCory Clark1:05:38

       Yeah. It's true. It's true. And, and yet we don't care as much about that one for some reason. (laughs)
10. 1:09:53 – 1:22:41

    Why Academia is Censoring Studies Like Cory’s

    1. CWChris Williamson1:09:53

       So going back to your study, this one where you tried to get every f- fucking psychology professor in all of the US. What did the professors say about how to handle potentially harmful conclusions?

    2. CCCory Clark1:10:05

       Mm-hmm. Yeah. So that one, so I, I, I've been talking about these gender differences, but I should say like if I look across all of my data, mostly people do support academic freedom, and mostly people are against taking these moral concerns into consideration when deciding whether to publish something. So, I had a question, um, how certain, yeah, how certain should it be that a finding's gonna cause harm before it was suppressed? And I think the most common response was, "We should never suppress scientific findings." And then there was like a little bit for like high tiers, like there should be evidence that the only way to prevent the harm is to suppress the finding. And you get almost nobody down at the bottom, which is like, um, something like there should be, it should seem like it could cause harm (laughs) or something like that. And the reason to me that is semi-puzzling is because those Nature Springer guidelines I was talking about earlier, that very much seems to be their threshold. Their threshold seems to be like if it seems like it could cause harm, then we will reject or retract papers. But, but almost no psychology professors think that that is the appropriate place to draw the line, like a few people in my whole entire sample. And so that makes me wonder like how is it that the perception of where the field is going and what people want is actually what the extremists want? Um, and is it that the extremists are like trying to get these positions of power to influence policy? Which seems quite possible to me. Like if you're really motivated, maybe you're like, "I'll do that job even though I don't think-

    3. CWChris Williamson1:11:43

       Mm-hmm.

    4. CCCory Clark1:11:43

       ... being an editor would be all that much fun." But you got a lot of power. Um, is that happening? Or-

    5. CWChris Williamson1:11:49

       Is it disproportionate representation in terms of just how loud they are online?

    6. CCCory Clark1:11:54

       Yeah. So that's another thing is I think that because we have this relationship with self-censorship, it's the people who support academic freedom and pursuit of truth, and who think controversial conclusions might be true and we should publish them, those are the ones who are self-censoring. And it's the ones who are really concerned about the harms and think that, "You know, we should be firing people and retracting papers," um, they're very willing to say what they think out loud and on social media. So, I think there's just this distortion of what people want, um, because so many of us are too scared to say anything. Um, and, and it allows people who are in this vocal minority, and it's a small minority, a small mi- minority, uh, they can make these bold policy changes and not that many people will put up a fight. A few people have complained, but a lot of people who disagree with them aren't saying anything-

    7. CWChris Williamson1:12:47

       Because they're scared.

    8. CCCory Clark1:12:47

       ... they're staying out of it 'cause they're scared. 'Cause they don't want to be the next one with the target on their back.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:12:52

       What's the implication of this? Like we've got, you know, this milieu of hyper-sensitivity, um-

    10. CCCory Clark1:12:59

        Milieu. (laughs)

    11. CWChris Williamson1:13:00

        Milieu. That's it. Uh, I, I speak French.

    12. CCCory Clark1:13:02

        Nice use of milieu.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:13:03

        I speak, I speak, I speak French as well.

    14. CCCory Clark1:13:05

        I've always wanted to drop that into it, but I just never have. (laughs)

    15. CWChris Williamson1:13:07

        Watch me. Watch me in front of you. Um-

    16. CCCory Clark1:13:09

        Well done.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:13:09

        Yeah. Like, you, you, you said there's this ambient background, we are concerned about these kinds of harms. Two pretty reliably robust areas of research that are being, you know, uh, thrown to the side and maligned. Um, what's the...... yeah, what are the implications of this? Or what did you, after having conducted the study and then looked at the data and realized, "Holy fuck, what's going on?"

    18. CCCory Clark1:13:33

        (laughs)

    19. CWChris Williamson1:13:33

        Like, what did it make you reflect on, or what did it make you think?

    20. CCCory Clark1:13:35

        Well, part of my motivation for running this study in the first place was just because I had the strong suspicion that this was exactly what was happening, because I... Because I'm sort of like, I'll talk openly about these issues, or at least more openly than a lot of people will, most people will. Um, people will come to me and like, complain to me about stuff, but they don't say anything out loud. So, I know all of these people who don't like the way things are headed, they think these new policy changes that are prioritizing harms over science are bullshit, and they won't say it to each other, but they'll say it to me. (laughs) And I was like-

    21. CWChris Williamson1:14:10

        Ah, you're a safe space for bigotry. That's what you're saying.

    22. CCCory Clark1:14:14

        (laughs) Ah. Yes.

    23. CWChris Williamson1:14:14

        Fantastic. I understand. Cool. Thank you.

    24. CCCory Clark1:14:16

        Let's make that the, the clip of the video, please. (laughs)

    25. CWChris Williamson1:14:18

        Safe space for bigotry, Corrie Clark, PhD.

    26. CCCory Clark1:14:21

        Thank you. (laughs) Um, so I, I, I knew all of these people were afraid, but I was like, "I actually am kind of curious, what is the true majority perspective? Or rather, like, how off am I in relation to other people?" And then once I saw the results, I was like, "Wow, that's even more than I expected." I didn't realize, like, this many people were this against what's happening. Like, we had a question. This was my favorite question, I think, on the, um, whole survey, which was, "How much, uh, contempt versus admiration and respect do you have toward professors who start petitions or social media campaigns to retract papers for moral reasons?" And on a zero to a hundred scale, zero being maximum contempt to a hundred maximum admiration and respect, the modal response was zero. So like, people really hate these people, and I wouldn't know it from hanging out on Twitter. Like, a lot of them are signing the petitions, and they're certainly not like, shaming the people. I mean, some people are, but most people aren't. Most people are just staying quiet, or even participating. Um, so I was quite surprised at how one direction-

    27. CWChris Williamson1:15:26

        Cowardly.

    28. CCCory Clark1:15:27

        H- Yeah. How cowardly. (laughs) How cowardly everyone's being. But, what I think is potentially interesting about that is it suggests there's a lot of preference falsification going on, which is, I think, Timur Kieran... I'm probably pronouncing that name wrong. His concept. But, what's interes-

    29. CWChris Williamson1:15:45

        What's, what's that? Explain that.

    30. CCCory Clark1:15:46

        So, preference falsification is essentially when people publicly are s- are saying that they believe or support something that they don't actually truly believe or support. Um, and when you have that, when you have all these people essentially lying, uh, to protect themselves, protect their jobs, or their reputations, or whatever, you create a situation that's really precarious. Because if people get information and, and, and specifically it's that they think their views are the minority and so they don't say anything. If those people find out that their views aren't the minority, that their views are actually the majority, all of a sudden they might be more willing to speak out. Um, so I do think it creates this possibility that if I ever get this paper published, (laughs) we'll see, then suddenly, all of these psychology professors are gonna be like, "Oh, a lot of people feel the way I feel. Maybe it's okay for me to say this thing at this faculty meeting. Maybe it's okay for me to say this thing on Twitter, or, you know, at the business meetings at these professional conferences, because a lot more people are on their side than they previously thought." So, so yes, people are being cowardly, and that irritates me a little bit because sometimes I feel like, like people will thank me for saying stuff, and I'm like, "Well, you say it." (laughs) Like, don't free ride on my, uh, you know, reputational risk-taking. Um, but at the same time, those people, potentially under the right circumstances, could get a little bit more courage and speak up, and things actually could change quite rapidly if they did. Um, I don't know if that will happen. Again, I have these conflicting views where I'm like, "Am I an optimist or I'm a pessimist?" I'm n- I'm an optimist because I think so many people are lying, essentially, about what they think is best for science, and if I could give them courage and speak up, and they all spoke up at once, then that could have a huge impact. Um, on the other hand, because we see all these gender differences and women are taking over academia, it, the, the numbers are only gonna be shifting that way for the foreseeable future. There's no hope, I think, at this point, or no reason to believe anyway, that things are going to be shifting, um, uh, you know, back toward male. Males, males aren't even going to undergrad that much anymore, so the pool of potential men that could become professors is getting smaller and smaller by the day. (laughs) Um-

Episode duration: 1:34:13