93 - Moshe Hoffman: Altruism, irrationality, and the psychology of aesthetics

Rachel chats with Moshe Hoffman, a Lecturer and Independent Scholar at Harvard’s Department of Economics. Moshe uses game theory to explore the evolutionary bases of human behavior, from altruistic donations to our taste in music. His recent book, co-authored with Dr. Erez Yoeli, is “Hidden Games: The Surprising power of Game Theory to Explain Irrational Human Behavior.” In this episode, Rachel and Moshe discuss how incentives shape empathy, how saying "I love you" enables social coordination, and why we appreciate the music of rapper MF Doom.If you found this episode interesting at all, subscribe on our Substack and consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but will allow us to reach more people and make them excited about psychology.Links:"Hidden Games: The Surprising power of Game Theory to Explain Irrational Human Behavior" "An Evolutionary Explanation for Ineffective Altruism" Bethany Burum, Martin Nowak, Moshe Hoffman (Appendix), Nature Human Behavior (2020)Twitter: @Moshe_HoffmanWebsite: https://sites.google.com/site/hoffmanmoshe/ Podcast Twitter @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com

Om Podcasten

The student-led Stanford Psychology Podcast invites leading psychologists to talk about what’s on their mind lately. Join Eric Neumann, Anjie Cao, Kate Petrova, Bella Fascendini,  Joseph Outa and Julia Rathmann-Bloch as they chat with their guests about their latest exciting work. Every week, an episode will bring you new findings from psychological science and how they can be applied to everyday life. The opinions and views expressed in this podcast represent those of the speaker and not necessarily Stanford's. Subscribe at stanfordpsypod.substack.com. Let us hear your thoughts at stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter @StanfordPsyPod. Visit our website https://stanfordpsychologypodcast.com. Soundtrack: Corey Zhou (UCSD). Logo: Sarah Wu (Stanford)