Group Think

If two is company and three a crowd, what’s the ideal number to write a play or invent a new operating system? Some say you need groups to be creative. Others disagree: breakthroughs come only in solitude.

Hear both sides, and find out why you always have company even when alone: meet the “parliament of selves” that drive your brain’s decision-making.

Plus, how ideas of societies lead them to thrive or fall, and why educated conservatives have lost trust in science.

Guests:

• Susan Cain – Author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking
• Keith Sawyer – Psychologist at Washington University in St. Louis and author of Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration
• David Eagleman – Neuroscientist, Baylor College of Medicine and author of Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain
• Gordon Gauchat – Sociologist, University North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• Joseph Tainter – Professor, Environment & Society Department, Utah State University and author of The Collapse of Complex Societies

Descripción en español

First released April 30, 2012.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices