Episodes & Resources
One question at a time.
Each episode of Truth and the Brain examines a familiar cognitive tendency and asks what it looks like outside the laboratory. We explore how it influences conversations, workplace decisions, media coverage, professional judgment, and the stories people tell about themselves.
Every episode page brings together the full conversation, key ideas, show notes, and the research behind the discussion. Where possible, we link directly to the original studies and provide a plain-language explanation of why they matter.
Season 1
Why our minds believe what they believe
Season 1 begins with the foundations of belief and moves through some of the forces that help beliefs survive. These include the power of anecdotes, confusion about causation, resistance to feedback, confirmation-seeking, and algorithmic filtering.
The season concludes by examining what happens when being right becomes more important than being accurate and what it takes for a deeply held belief to change.
Episode 1: Why We Believe What We Believe
What is happening in the brain when we form a belief? Patrick and Sabine explore the differences among belief, knowledge, and opinion, and examine why the brain often values coherence over accuracy.
The opening episode invites listeners to identify something they hold as certain and ask a deceptively simple question: Why do I believe this?
Episode 2: The Anecdote Trap
Why can one compelling story feel more convincing than a large body of evidence? This episode examines the brain’s preference for narrative and the way dramatic individual cases can overshadow systematic findings.
Listeners will learn how to distinguish between an anecdote that points toward something worth investigating and one that distracts from what the broader evidence shows.
COMING SOON
Episode 3: Correlation Is Not Causation
We often confuse things that occur together with things that cause one another. This episode goes beyond the familiar warning to examine why we tend to make that mistake in ways that support what we already want to believe.
The conversation introduces practical questions that listeners can use when evaluating causal claims in science, business, media, and everyday life.
COMING SOON
Episode 4: Why We Can’t Handle Feedback
We may say that we welcome criticism, but our brains and bodies do not always respond accordingly. This episode examines why being challenged can feel threatening and why defensiveness often appears before reflection has a chance to begin.
It also explores the connection between overconfidence and resistance to feedback, two behaviors that may arise from the same need to protect a stable view of ourselves.
COMING SOON
Episode 5: The Curiosity Myth
Most of us believe that we are curious and open to other perspectives. The evidence suggests that what we call curiosity can sometimes be a search for information that confirms what we already think.
This episode examines the difference between genuine curiosity and confirmation-seeking, and why that difference matters for leadership, listening, and decision-making.
COMING SOON
Episode 6: Living in a Filter Bubble
Algorithms do more than influence what appears on our screens. They increasingly shape the choices, environments, and cultural experiences available to us before we are even aware that a selection has been made.
This episode explores how invisible information filtering affects independent judgment and reinforces many of the other cognitive tendencies examined throughout the season.
COMING SOON
Episode 7: The Cost of Being Right
The need to be right can carry a real cost. It can damage relationships, distort hiring and investment decisions, and encourage organizations to continue pursuing strategies that the evidence no longer supports.
This episode brings confirmation bias into the workplace and examines what happens when accurate information is available but is not genuinely welcome.
COMING SOON
Episode 8: When Beliefs Collapse
What happens when a belief we have built part of our identity around turns out to be wrong? The final episode examines why major changes in belief can feel like loss and why evidence alone is not always enough to produce genuine belief revision.
The conversation asks what allows some people to reconsider deeply held convictions while others become even more committed to them.
COMING SOON
Research and Further Reading
Go beyond the conversation.
The ideas discussed on Truth and the Brain are supported by research from neuroscience, psychology, behavioral science, communication, and related fields. This section collects the studies, books, articles, and other resources discussed in each episode.
We provide these links so that listeners can examine the evidence directly, explore different interpretations, and continue thinking about the subject after the episode ends.
Reality Checks
Practical tools for examining what you believe.
Each episode includes a Reality Check, a short exercise or set of questions designed to help listeners apply the conversation to their own decisions and assumptions.
These tools are not tests with correct answers. They are prompts for slowing down, identifying what may be influencing your judgment, and considering what evidence might cause you to think differently.