Fixing Government, Wrong Job Personality, What Makes A Jerk

How Our Constitution Undermines Effective Government (17:07) Dr. William Howell is a Professor in the Department of Political Science and the University of Chicago. He is the co-author with Terry Moe of Relic: How Our Constitution Undermines Effective Government--and Why We Need a More Powerful Presidency. The constitution of the United States was written over 200 years ago. The nation in 1787 looked vastly different than it does today; society and the problems we encounter have changed and evolved from the simple agrarian society of our founding. However, our contemporary world has not seen changes in governmental structure and with that we are facing day to day issues with health care, taxes and so much more. The solution? According to our guest today, Dr. William Howell,  an update in the Constitution “through reforms that push Congress and all its pathologies to the periphery of the lawmaking process, and bring presidents--whose concern for legacy drives them to seek coherent policy solutions--to the center of decision making” is the key. Dr. Howell explains. Wrong Personality for the Job (1:02:54) Dr. Anna Hartley is a postdoctoral research scientist who works on personality judgement and measurement. She works for the psychology department at Wake Forest University. Her research looks into how we perceive people and how we form judgements about others because of these perceptions and how to measure behaviors over time. Her work focuses on the importance of people and relationships. Why Some People Are Jerks (1:51:18) Adam Bear is a PhD student in the psychology department at Yale University. His research combines approaches from cognitive psychology, philosophy, and evolutionary game theory to study the relationship between conscious and unconscious processes in the mind. Adam Bear shares his research into what makes a person a Jerk and what lead to kindness.