Common Sense, with Dannagal Young

Common sense? Ain't nothing common about it.

Populists - like Donald Trump - love to appeal to 'common sense', while pushing ideas as contentious as they come. But what does Trump get right about how he talks to people about big ideas - and what can everyone else learn from it? And what does all this mean for how to talk about something as complex and polarised as climate change?

In this episode I'm joined by Dr Dannagal Young, Professor of Communication and Political Science at the University of Delaware. Danna is the author of 'Wrong: how Media, Politics, and Identity Drive Our Appetite for Misinformation'. We talk about her amazing work on the psychological underpinnings of political tribes, including how much any of us actually like to think about complicated things at all.

These new-format episodes take a long time to record, script, and edit. If you like it - that'll make me happy.

Let me know your thoughts on the show - [email protected]. Please rate, review and subscribe, and share the show on socials. Please consider chucking this humble indie podcaster a few quid at www.patreon.com/yourbrainonclimate.

Owl noises = references:

07:15 - Here's a paper by Danna about lay epistemology.10:45 - Sophia Rosenfeld's book, Common Sense: A Political History 12:17 - Wikipedia entry on Thomas Paine's Common Sense.24:27 - Alex Bellos sets puzzles every week in the Guardian. 25:58 - Want to measure your own need for closure? Check out the Kruglanski scale. 44:25 - Awful lot of stuff written about using fear in climate messaging. Here's a decent piece from Scientists for Global Responsibility. 47:28 - If you've liked this episode and you haven't read Kahneman's seminal Thinking Fast and Slow, you better get on it. 52:09 - Numberphile2 on YouTube explains the Monty Hall problem (with visuals, which really helps).

Your Brain on Climate is a podcast about human psychology vs the climate crisis. Contact the show: @brainclimate on Twitter, or [email protected].

Support the show on Patreon: www.patreon.com/yourbrainonclimate.

The show is hosted and produced by me, Dave Powell, who you can find @powellds on Bluesky and X/Twitter, although I don't use the latter any more.

YBOC theme music and iterations thereof, by me. Lots of other lovely bed music in this episode by Rockot. Show logo by Arthur Stovell at www.designbymondial.com.

Psychology vs climate change: what we think, why we think it, and how it all adds up to a planet-sized emergency. Each episode host Dave Powell interviews experts in how our brains work - from PhDs in psychology to writers, activists and beyond. They'll talk about how their brains and our brains do (and don't) work, and how all of that might help make sense of the climate crisis - and possibly what to do about it.

• No. of episodes: 46
• Latest episode: 2025-06-13
• Society & Culture Science

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