The Urge to Blame Wired for This

Emma Levine and Shereen Chaudhry join this episode of Wired for This. Transcript Links/Sources mentioned : HOPE LAB , led by Dr. Levine and Dr. Chaudhry with Dr. Erika Kirgios and Dr. Jane Risen Some relevant HOPE LAB research from Dr. Shereen Chaudhry: Chaudhry, S.J. & Loewenstein, G. (2019) “ Thanking, apologizing, bragging, and blaming: Responsibility exchange theory and the currency of communication .” Psychological Review , 126(3), 313-344. Chaudhry, S.J. & Wald, K.A. (2022) “ Overcoming listener skepticism: Costly signaling in communication increases perceived honesty ,” Current Opinion in Psychology , 101442. Molnar, A., Chaudhry, S.J., & Loewenstein, G. (2023) “ ’It’s not about the money. It’s about sending a message!’: Avengers Want Offenders to Understand the Reason for Revenge ,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes , 174, 104207. Chaudhry, S. J., & Burdea, V. The apologizer’s dilemma: Two-sided transgressions introduce concerns about relative blame . Preprint. And from Dr. Emma Levine: Jensen, S., Levine, E., White, M., Huppert, E., Bartels, D., Berman, J., Dietvorst, B., Epley, N., Gaertig, C., Graham, J., Herzog, N., & Landy, J. Lying is sometimes ethical, but honesty is the best policy: The desire to avoid harmful lies leads to moral preferences for unconditional honesty . Preprint. Levine, E. E. (2022). Community standards of deception: Deception is perceived to be ethical when it prevents unnecessary harm . Journal of Experimental Psychology: General , 151(2), 410. Levine, E. E., & Lupoli, M. J. (2022). Prosocial lies: Causes and consequences . Current Opinion in Psychology , 43, 335–340. Levine, E., & Munguia Gomez, D. (2021). “I’m just being honest.” When and why honesty enables help versus harm . Journal of personality and social psychology , 120(1), 33. ‌Levine, E. E., Roberts, A. R., & Cohen, T. R. (2020). Difficult conversations: navigating the tension between honesty and benevolence . Current Opinion in Psychology , 31, 38–43. Levine, E. E., & Wald, K. A. (2020). Fibbing about your feelings: How feigning happiness in the face of personal hardship affects trust . Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes , 156, 135–154. Levine, E. E., & Cohen, T. R. (2017). You Can Handle the Truth: Mispredicting the Consequences of Honest Communication . SSRN Electronic Journal . Lupoli, M. J., Levine, E. E., & Greenberg, A. E. (2018). Paternalistic lies . Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes , 146, 31–50. Levine, E. E., Hart, J., Moore, K., Rubin, E., Yadav, K., & Halpern, S. D. (2017). The Surprising Costs of Silence: Asymmetric Preferences for Prosocial Lies of Commission and Omission . SSRN Electronic Journal. Other relevant studies: Zhu, J., & Molnar, A. The End of Writing as We Know It? Generative AI May Undermine the Social Signaling Function of Writing . Preprint. Timmermans, E., Hermans, A.-M., & Opree, S. J. (2020). Gone with the wind: Exploring mobile daters’ ghosting experiences . Journal of Social and Personal Relationships , 38(2), 026540752097028. Eyal, T., Steffel, M., & Epley, N. (2018). Perspective mistaking: Accurately understanding the mind of another requires getting perspective, not taking perspective . Journal of personality and social psychology , 114(4), 547. ‌Wald, K. A., Kardas, M., & Epley, N. (2024). Misplaced divides? Discussing political disagreement with strangers can be unexpectedly positive . Psychological Science , 35(5), 471-488. Dungan, J. A., & Epley, N. (2024). Surprisingly good talk: Misunderstanding others creates a barrier to constructive confrontation . Journal of Experimental Psychology: General , 153(3), 779. Rogers, T., Zeckhauser, R., Gino, F., Norton, M. I., & Schweitzer, M. E. (2017). Artful paltering: The risks and rewards of using truthful statements to mislead others . Journal of personality and social psychology , 112(3), 456.

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The Urge to Blame Wired for This is an episode from American Scientist Podcast by American Scientist Podcast.

This episode is 00:32:38 long.

This episode was published on Oct 8, 2025.

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