Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg

Read the full transcript here. Why is so much self-help useless, and why is some of it genuinely life-changing? What separates a powerful psychological technique from vague advice? Why is “love yourself” often less useful than a concrete sequence of actions? How can insight into the causes of suffering become a path to change rather than just an explanation? When does understanding the past help, and when does it distract from the controllable patterns happening now? Why can a simple realization about approval-seeking, avoidance, or fear reorganize a person’s life? What does exposure therapy reveal about the gap between what the anxious mind predicts and what reality actually delivers? Why is the stretch zone so important for change? How do thoughts, attention, speech, and the body become the real machinery of self-improvement? And what would it mean to build a toolkit around what people can actually control? Links: Jeremy's Website Jeremy and Spencer's Book: The 12 Levers Dr. Jeremy Stevenson works as a clinical psychologist at Adelaide Psychology and Co., and as a researcher at Spark Wave. Staff Spencer Greenberg — Host + Director Ryan Kessler — Producer + Technical Lead WeAmplify — Transcriptionists Igor Scaldini — Marketing Consultant Music Broke for Free Josh Woodward Lee Rosevere Quiet Music for Tiny Robots wowamusic zapsplat.com Affiliates Clearer Thinking GuidedTrack Mind Ease Positly UpLift [Read more]

Read the full transcript here. The Clearer Thinking Podcast listener survey is here! If you've ever listened to the Clearer Thinking podcast before, we'd love it if you'd take our listener survey so we can learn about your experience and improve the podcast based on your feedback. Give feedback to help us improve the Clearer Thinking podcast! What does personality capture beyond momentary behavior, and how do traits differ from life specific adaptations? How stable are traits across the lifespan when we separate rank order from mean level change? Can psychotherapy shift core traits like neuroticism or mainly improve functioning at the same level? How much of behavior is the person, the situation, or their interaction, and how do traits shape the environments we end up in? What trade offs come with being high or low on extroversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness, and neuroticism? Why do people high in neuroticism both perceive more stress and land in more stressful situations? Which life events reliably nudge traits and why do the same events push different people in opposite directions? When should we replace categorical diagnoses with dimensional spectra that align with the Big Five and guide unified treatments? Colin G. DeYoung is a professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota. DeYoung's research in personality psychology has examined the theoretical structure of personality and the biological basis of personality. He currently directs the DeYoung Personality Lab at University of Minnesota. Links: Our platform with more than 1 million correlations Colin's Personality Lab The Big Five Aspect Scale Staff Spencer Greenberg — Host + Director Ryan Kessler — Producer + Technical Lead WeAmplify — Transcriptionists Igor Scaldini — Marketing Consultant Music Broke for Free Josh Woodward Lee Rosevere Quiet Music for Tiny Robots wowamusic zapsplat.com Affiliates Clearer Thinking GuidedTrack Mind Ease Positly UpLift [Read more]

Read the full transcript here. What is the core public interest case for foreign aid beyond soft power? How should we define safety and prosperity? Why do many voters believe aid is a quarter of the budget when it is a tiny fraction and how does that shape support? How did a political decision to halt awards ripple through real programs and what safeguards failed? What legal and institutional checks should prevent a single administration from impounding funds that Congress appropriated? When government pauses, how can private funders triage the most life saving pieces without letting systems collapse? If an agency is rebuilt, which programs should be protected first and which processes should be redesigned from day one? How do we embed evidence and cost effectiveness at the start of strategy rather than as an afterthought in evaluation? What would it look like to center partner governments in the process so that learning becomes part of their own delivery? How can we avoid a fixation on what is easy to measure while still demanding clear estimates and accountability? What does it mean to meet donors where they are while steering them toward the highest impact use of funds? Dean Karlan is the Frederic Esser Nemmers Distinguished Professor of Economics and Finance at Northwestern University, and the Founder and former President of Innovations for Poverty Action, a non-profit organization dedicated to discovering and promoting solutions to global poverty problems. Karlan was the Chief Economist at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) from 2022 until resigning in 2025. Prior to 2022, he was on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of the M.I.T. Jameel Poverty Action Lab. In 2015, he co-founded ImpactMatters, a nonprofit dedicated to estimating and rating impact of nonprofit organizations in order to help donors choose good charities and to promote more transparency in the nonprofit sector. His research focuses on microeconomic issues of poverty, typically employing experimental methodologies and behavioral economics insights to examine what works, what does not, and why to address social problems This episode was recorded live at EA Global: NYC 2025. Many thanks to the EA Global event organizers and staff for recording this conversation. Links: EA Global Event Page Dean's Website Staff Spencer Greenberg — Host + Director Ryan Kessler — Producer + Technical Lead WeAmplify — Transcriptionists Igor Scaldini — Marketing Consultant Music Broke for Free Josh Woodward Lee Rosevere Quiet Music for Tiny Robots wowamusic zapsplat.com Affiliates Clearer Thinking GuidedTrack Mind Ease Positly UpLift [Read more]

Read the full transcript here. Which decisions should be made by election and which by random sampling? Where is competition healthy for choosing leaders, and where must rule-setting be unitary and impartial? What would credible umpires look like - judges, statisticians, pay reviewers - and how do we insulate them from parties? Can citizen juries and standing sampled councils surface red lines, negotiate overlap, and rebuild losers’ consent? Why does professional party culture normalize behavior individuals would reject, and can structured deliberation beat competitive groupthink? How do we measure success for rule-setters - accuracy, legitimacy, or a cooler temperature? When do promotions-as-power contests crowd out service, and could elections without candidates find better leaders? How much polarization is real cleavage versus performance layered over broad agreement, and how do institutions interrupt cosplay turning into violence? What minimum independence and accountability keep sampled bodies honest without drifting into technocracy? Where should problem-solving favor practical wisdom over pure truth-finding - embedding local knowledge alongside trials, models, and metrics? Nicholas Gruen is an economist and entrepreneur and a commentator on democracy. He chaired the Government 2.0 Taskforce which helped set the Australian Government’s policy to navigate the threats and opportunities of open data and social media. Global Government Forum will shortly begin a (5 part podcast)[https://www.globalgovernmentforum.com/government-transformed-podcast-sharing-the-inside-story-of-how-to-make-public-service-change-happen/] on the Government 2.0 Taskforce fifteen years on. He is Patron of the Australian Digital Alliance, comprising Australia’s libraries, universities, and digital infrastructure providers such as Google and Yahoo. Links: Nicholas' YouTube Channel Nicholas' Substack Staff Spencer Greenberg — Host + Director Ryan Kessler — Producer + Technical Lead WeAmplify — Transcriptionists Igor Scaldini — Marketing Consultant Music Broke for Free Josh Woodward Lee Rosevere Quiet Music for Tiny Robots wowamusic zapsplat.com Affiliates Clearer Thinking GuidedTrack Mind Ease Positly UpLift [Read more]

Read the full transcript here. Where is the line between ordinary intrusive thoughts and an OCD pattern that hijacks the day? How do obsessions and compulsions condition each other so that brief relief entrenches the loop? What clinical markers - ego-dystonic content and intact reality testing - separate OCD from psychosis? How do thought–action fusion, inflated responsibility and “zero-risk” striving amplify checking and covert mental rituals? Why does repeated checking degrade memory confidence and widen doubt? How should ERP be structured to target hidden mental rituals as well as visible behaviors, and what metrics best define success? When are SSRIs a helpful platform for ERP, and why are effective doses often higher than for depression? What boundaries and scripts help families avoid reassurance and accommodation while staying empathic? How do culture and news cycles shape obsession themes without changing the underlying mechanism? What relapse-prevention practices keep gains durable - normalizing setbacks, tracking triggers, and refocusing on work, love, and presence? David Adam is an author and journalist, who covers science, environment, technology, medicine and the impact they have on people, culture and society. After nearly two decades as a staff writer and editor at Nature and the Guardian, David set up as a freelancer in 2019. David's book - The Man Who Couldn’t Stop - is his attempt to understand the condition and his experiences with OCD, where he explores the weird thoughts that exist within every mind and explains how they drive millions of us toward obsession and compulsion. Links: The Man Who Couldn't Stop: OCD and the True Story of a Life Lost in Thought Staff Spencer Greenberg — Host + Director Ryan Kessler — Producer + Technical Lead WeAmplify — Transcriptionists Igor Scaldini — Marketing Consultant Music Broke for Free Josh Woodward Lee Rosevere Quiet Music for Tiny Robots wowamusic zapsplat.com Affiliates Clearer Thinking GuidedTrack Mind Ease Positly UpLift [Read more]