Behavioral Grooves Podcast

Stephen Martin and Joe Marks, PhD dive deep into one of the most important eye-openers about communication in our world today: the importance of WHO delivers the message. Their book, “Messengers: Who We Listen To, Who We Don’t, and Why,” is a major revamp on the claim made by Marshall McLuhan in 1964 that, “The Medium IS the Message.” While Steve and Joe are hard-pressed to say McLuhan’s refrain is dead, it’s being outsized by a more contemporary and relevant one: “The Messenger IS the Message.” In our conversation with Steve and Joe, we discussed the way they’ve broken down their research and organized their book. The first section is on what they refer to as Hard Messenger Traits: Socio-Economic Position, Competence, Dominance, and Attractiveness. The second section works its way through the Soft Messenger Traits: Warmth, Vulnerability, Trustworthiness, and Charisma.  Their comments deconstruct how motivated reasoning is more than just aligning our tolerance for untruth with our desires; more importantly, i