David Robson - The Expectation Effect

The James Smith Podcast

David Robson is an award-winning science writer specialising in the extremes of the human brain, body and behaviour.

After graduating with a degree in mathematics from Cambridge University, he worked as a features editor at New Scientist for five years, before moving to BBC Future, where he was a senior journalist for five years. His writing has also appeared in the Guardian, the Atlantic, Aeon, Men’s Health and many more outlets. In 2021, David received awards from the Association of British Science Writers and the UK Medical Journalists’ Association (MJA) for his writing on misinformation and risk communication during the COVID pandemic. In 2022, he won Mental Health Story of the Year at the MJA Annual Awards and was a finalist for the Best British Science Journalist of the Year Award from the ABSW.

David’s first book, The Intelligence Trap, was published in 2019, and received worldwide media attention. His second book The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Transform Your Life, was published in the UK on 6 January 2022 and in the USA and Canada on 15 February 2022. It is “a journey through the cutting-edge science of how our mindset shapes every facet of our lives, revealing how your brain holds the keys to unlocking a better you”. The Expectation Effect was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week and won a British Psychological Society Book Award in the popular science category.