Pop Press / News / Podcasts

Costello, Pennycook, G., & Rand, D. G. (2025). Chatbots are surprisingly effective at debunking conspiracy theories. MIT Technology Review. Link
Pennycook, G. (2023). Aaron Rodgers’ misinformation spiral and the pitfalls of celebrity influence. MSNBC. Link
Pennycook, G. (2023). Why those who believe John Fetterman has a body double are so sure about it. MSNBC. Link
Pennycook, G. (2022). System 1 vs. System 2 thinking: Why it isn’t strategic to always be rational. Big Think. Link
Rand, D. G., & Pennycook, G. (2021). Most People Don’t Actively Seek to Share Fake News. Scientific American. Link
Rand, D. G., & Pennycook, G. (2021). The truth about Donald Trump voters and violence in politics. The Hill. Link
Pennycook, G. (2020). How the COVID-19 crisis exposes widespread climate change hypocrisy. CBC. Link
Pennycook, G. & Rand, D. G. (2020). The Right Way to Fight Fake News. The New York Times. Link
Pennycook, G. & Rand, D. G. (2019). Why Do People Fall for Fake News? The New York Times. Link
Pennycook, G., Martel, C., & Rand, D. G. (2019). Knowing how fake news preys on your emotions can help you spot it. CBC. Link
Rand, D.G. & Pennycook, G. (2019). Crowdsourcing is the best weapon in fight against fake news. The Hill. Link
Barr, N. & Pennycook, G. (2018). The most dangerous and misunderstood threat to humanity is the human mind. Quartz. Link [Note: We did not choose this terrible title.]
Cheyne, J.A. & Pennycook, G. (2016). The seductions of pretentious bullshit: An empirical study. Skeptic Magazine, 21, 40-45. PDF
Pennycook, G. (2016). Why bullshit is no laughing matter. Aeon Digital Magazine. Link

PODCASTS

2 Psychologists 4 Beers (Michael Inzlicht & Yoel Inbar) / BJKS Podcast (Benjamin James Kuper-Smith) / CBC Cross-Country Checkup (Ian Hanomansing) / Cornell Chronicle Podcast (James Dean) / Data Skeptic #1 (Kyle Polich) / Data Skeptic #2 (Kyle Polich)/ Follow the Science (Faye Flam) / On Wisdom (Charles Cassidy & Igor Grossman) / Opinion Science (Andy Luttrell) / Minding the Brain (Jim Davies) / Mindscape (Sean Carroll) / Propwatch (Charlotte Jones & Grace Lovins) / Scamapalooza (Nicholas J. Johnson) / Sustain What? (Andy Revkin) / The Behavioral Design Podcast (Samuel Salzer & Aline Holzwarth) / The Dissenter (Ricardo Lopes) / The Science Pawdcast (Jason Zackowski) / The Super Awesome Science Show (Jason Tetro) / Talking Green (Michael Norton & Allison Schrager) / Teaching Tolerance (Katy Byron) / Viral Networks / You Are Not So Smart #1 (David McRaney) / You Are Not So Smart #2 (David McRaney) / You Are Not So Smart #3 (David McRaney)

SOME RECENT COVERAGE

CBC: New study finds AI chatbots can influence some Canadians to change their vote
Washington Post: Voter’s minds are hard to change. AI chatbots are surprisingly good at it.
The Atlantic: Could ChatGPT Secretly Tell You How to Vote?
Newsweek: Why Chatbots Could Influence the Next Election
National Post: Kill shots and mass arrests: Diving into the wild world of COVID conspiracy
Washington Post: Want to debunk conspiracy theories? Try AI
Nature: Does fact-checking work? What the science says
Wall Street Journal: Meta Ends Fact-Checking on Facebook, Instagram in Free-Speech Pitch
Harvard Gazette: How to make social media, online life less of ‘dumpster fire’
Bloomberg: AI Can Debunk Conspiracy Theories Better Than Humans
New York Times: This Chatbot Pulls People Away From Conspiracy Theories
LA Times: Why AI is better than humans at talking people out of their conspiracy theory beliefs
Bloomberg: Google, Facebook Should Use AI to Combat Conspiracy Theories

TV

CBC (The National) Link 1 Link 2 / CBC Morning Live / CBC (Politics) / CBC (Calgary) / CTV National News Link1 Link2/ CTV News (Kitchener-Waterloo)/ CTV News (Regina) Link1 Link2 Link3 Link4 / CTV Morning Live (Saskatoon) / Global National News Link 1 Link 2 Link3 / Global News Regina Link 1 Link 2 Link 3 Link4 / Business News Network / WISN TV

RECORDED PUBLIC LECTURES

December 8/23: Are Psychological Inoculations Against Misinformation Likely to be Effective at Scale? (The Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Series)
April 21/22: Lazy, not biased: Failing to reason is more common than motivated reasoning (The Harvard Kennedy School Seminar in Conflict Management and Depolarization)
September 16/21: Intuition, reason, and social media (Hancock Symposium, Westminster College)
June 11/21: CSBBCS Meet the Researcher
June 11/21: Nudgestock 2021 Panel with Renée DiResta
March 12/21: Lazy thinking and inattention to accuracy drive (much of) the spread of fake news on social media (Center for the Science of Moral Understanding)
Dec 8/20: Intuition, reason, and social media (Behavioral Economics and Decision Research Seminar – Cornell University)
August 12/20: Why do people believe what they believe about climate change? (Scholars at Brown for Climate Action)
June 2/20: Fighting misinformation online in the age of COVID-19 (CASOS IDeaS Seminar Series – Carnegie Mellon University)
May 5/20: On the psychology of misperceptions about COVID-19 (Hot Politics Lab – University of Amsterdam)
Feb 19/20: Fake news, political ideology, and climate change (Academics for Climate – University of Regina)
Nov 22/19: Reasoning like good lawyers or bad philosophers? (A Multidisciplinary Look at Knowledge Resistance Workshop – University of Stockholm)