What is beliefism, and can you spot a liar?

About this episode

Claudia Hammond discusses beliefism and the psychology of deception with experts Paul Dolan, Sharon Leal, and Pete Olusoga.

Just looking at the news can give the feeling that today’s world is more polarised than ever. And the stats show that in Britain, the majority of people believe that society is divided. How can we go about bridging this divide? Paul Dolan, professor of behavioural science at LSE, has written a book called Beliefism on exactly this. He chats to presenter Claudia Hammond about how we can learn to get along with people we disagree with, and how doing this can impact our lives for the better. Also, The Celebrity Traitors starts this Wednesday on BBC One. To convince their fellow contestants that they’re innocent, the Traitors have to be pretty good at deception. But how can the Faithfuls successfully identify their lies? Claudia speaks to Sharon Leal, senior research fellow in forensic psychology at the University of Portsmouth, to scrutinise the psychological evidence on deceit – and Sharon’s research has real life impacts on how police conduct their interviews. And Claudia is joined in the studio by Pete Olusoga, senior lecturer in psychology at Sheffield Hallam University. Pete shares new research that suggests the bigger a problem is, the smaller it seems, and how being nosy at…

People in this episode

Host: Claudia Hammond

Guests: Paul Dolan, Sharon Leal, Pete Olusoga

Topics covered

• beliefism
• deception
• psychology
• polarization
• interpersonal relationships

Keywords

• beliefism
• deception
• psychology
• polarization
• interpersonal relationships
• forensic psychology
• behavioral science

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: LSE, University of Portsmouth, Sheffield Hallam University, BBC One

Books & works: Beliefism

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