In this week's episode, I am joined by Dr. Emily Falk!

Emily Falk is a Professor at the University of Pennsylvania with appointments in Communication, Psychology, Marketing, and Operations, Informatics & Decisions.

She serves as Vice Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication, Director of the Communication Neuroscience Lab, and Director of the Climate Communication Division at the Annenberg Public Policy Center.

An expert in the science of behavior change, Dr. Falk integrates psychology, neuroscience, and communication to investigate what makes messages persuasive, why ideas spread, and how people can become more effective communicators.

Her new book, What We Value: The Neuroscience of Choice and Change, uncovers the hidden brain processes behind every decision we make—and shows how understanding those processes can help us make more intentional choices in our work, relationships, and lives. Dr. Falk's research has earned numerous honors, including early career awards from the International Communication Association, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the Social and Affective Neuroscience Society, and the NIH Director's New Innovator Award.

She is also a Fulbright grant recipient, a DARPA Young Faculty Award winner, and was named a "Rising Star" by the Association for Psychological Science.

She earned her B.A. in Neuroscience from Brown University and her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of California.

Key Points

• Insights on choice-making

• The brain's social influence

• Creating impactful habits

• The neuroscience of purpose

• Parenting using brain science

Best Quotes

02:59  - 03:08

• "you know, I know that you think that when I come to your house, we're really spending quality time together, but actually we're not."

03:26  - 03:30

• "I wanna spend time with my kids, I wanna be a good boss. There are so many different things."

03:52  - 03:56

• "I wasn't sticking that landing of actually getting over there and spending the time with my grandmother."

10:44 - 10:51

• "People who are feeling more purposeful get a lot of benefits, both in terms of mental health and physical health."

19:24  - 19:33

• "Our brain figures out the things that we're choosing between, it then assigns a subjective value to each one, and then it keeps track of how things went."