HeyJaredPeople Who Read People: A Behavior and Psychology Podcast
This is a podcast about deciphering human behavior and understanding why people do the things they do. I, Zach Elwood, talk with people from a wide range of fields about how they make sense of human behavior and psychology.
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 6
- Latest publication
- Sep 20, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 10, 2026
Latest episodes
A critical look at Paul Ekman, Joe Navarro, and the entire "behavior expert" industry (opens the original)
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A talk with former CIA officer Kent Clizbe about the exaggerated, irresponsible claims made by many self-described “behavior experts,” focusing especially on Paul Ekman, Joe Navarro, microexpressions, and attempts to detect deception from body language. We discuss why facial expressions and physical movements cannot be interpreted through a universal dictionary, how cultural and individual differences make behavioral judgments especially difficult, and why nervousness or discomfort is rarely mea
Army Psy-Op veteran talks influence, blowback, psy-op myths, and more (opens the original)
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A talk with an Army Psychological Operations soldier about what military psy-op work really involves—and how different the reality is from many people's ideas about the nature of that work. We discuss his psy-op work in Afghanistan, why credibility and truth are usually much more persuasive and effective than deception, and fascinating historical operations involving surrender appeals, staged intelligence, and Vietnam’s eerie “ghost tapes.” We also explore the legal and ethical limits on influen
Can computers spot lies better than humans?, with Bennett Kleinberg (opens the original)
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Can machines spot a lie better than we can? I talk with psychology researcher Bennett Kleinberg, whose work brings together psychology, machine learning, natural-language processing, and deception detection. We explore why humans are bad at identifying lies, which verbal clues may reveal deception—and why nervousness is often misleading. Bennett explains how liars use detail and how level of detail can be a clue to deception, the fact that deception usually involves a good amount of truth in the
Inside a Scientology e-meter auditing session, with Chris Shelton (opens the original)
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Former Scientologist Chris Shelton spent thousands of hours using the e-meter to "audit" fellow members of the Church—but what does the device actually measure, and why do Scientologists trust it as an infallible guide to the truth? Chris takes us inside a typical auditing session, explaining the personal questions auditors ask, the needle movements they watch for, and what they believe those reactions reveal. We compare the e-meter with the polygraph, explore how relentless questioning can prod
How Pete Blair scored 100% in a deception detection study (opens the original)
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In a 2014 deception detection study, Pete Blair made 33 judgments—and got all 33 right. That paper was titled “Expertise in deception detection involves actively prompting diagnostic information rather than passive behavioral observation.” I ask Pete about what the factors were in him getting 100% accuracy in that study, and we talk about the interplay between verbal and nonverbal behavior. Pete talks about the importance of context and domain knowledge in making high-confidence judgments, and h
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