YANSS 219 – How social science is helping social media fight the spread of misinformation

In this episode we sit down with expert in behavioral economics Evelyn Gosnell, who is also the managing director of Irrational Labs, an organization that uses social science to help other organizations make big decisions, fight misinformation, and design better products and services.

In a new information ecosystems where our primate brains, which evolved to spread gossip and argue and debate and deliberate and play status games and manage our reparations among trusted peers and signal our attitudes about what we perceive as “us” versus what we perceive as “them,” several organizations are helping the places where we gather to do these things create better environments in which to do them.

Evelyn Gosnell is the managing director of one of those organizations, Irrational Labs, and on this show – a podcast about the science of judgment, decision making, bias, and reasoning – she will give us a behind-the-scenes look at how they use the latest research, and conduct their own research, to improve the world.

From Evelyn Gosnell’s bio:

“Evelyn is a Managing Director at Irrational Labs and frequent speaker in behavioral economics and consumer psychology.

She is an expert in helping companies use the science of decision-making to better understand how real people think and behave, thereby creating better products and services for them. Evelyn was previously the Head of Product Development and Behavioral Science at Shapa, a health startup founded by behavioral scientist Dan Ariely.

Evelyn’s work spans a broad array of industries: she has worked with Google, Procter & Gamble, Intuit, The World Bank, Microsoft, AARP, and Indeed, among others. Evelyn also led the development of Irrational Labs’ Behavioral Economics Bootcamp, and is passionate about training others to use behavioral science methodologies.

Evelyn transitioned to the world of behavioral economics from a background in Product Management and Marketing. She started her career at Christian Dior Parfums in Paris and subsequently worked in various product management, marketing, and sales positions.

Evelyn holds a B.A. in cultural anthropology from Duke University and graduated summa cum laude. She also completed a Master’s degree in Marketing from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in France. She speaks fluent French and Russian.”