#87 - Gullibility, Belief, and Conformity (with Hugo Mercier)

Ben Chugg and Vaden Masrani — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 10:15:00 -0700

Ben and Vaden test their French skills and have Hugo Mercier on the podcast to discuss who we trust and what we believe. Are humans gullible? Do we fall for propaganda and advertising campaigns? Do we follow expert consensus or forge ahead as independent thinkers? Can Vaden go for one episode without bringing up Trump?

Hugo Mercier is a research director at the CNRS (Institut Jean Nicod, Paris), where he work with the Evolution and Social Cognition team. Check out his two books: The Enigma of Reason and Not Born Yesterday .

We discuss

Mercier's thoughts on the cognitive bias literature
Open vigilance mechanisms
Criticism of the System 1 vs System 2 dichotomy
Why Kahneman misinterpreted the bat and the ball thought experiment
Do flat earthers really believe the earth is flat?
The Asch conformity experiment
Preference falsification vs internalization of professed beliefs
How important is social signaling?
Trump, MAGA, gullibility, and Tariffs
How effective are advertisements?
How effective is propaganda?
Is social science reforming?

References

The Enigma of Reason by Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber
Not Born Yesterday
Our previous episodes on Not Born Yesterday and The Enigma of Reason

Socials

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How much system 2 thinking does it take to misunderstand system 1 vs system 2? Tell us at incrementspodcast@gmail.com Special Guest: Hugo Mercier.

Increments - Episodes Tagged with “Communication”

#87 - Gullibility, Belief, and Conformity (with Hugo Mercier)