Method

How an episode gets made, and what it is not allowed to say.

Nothing is stated as fact unless it is in the notes

Each episode starts as a page of research notes: what the study did, how many people were in it, what it measured, what it found, and where that has since been corrected or failed to replicate. Those notes are the only material the script may state as fact. A number, a date, a name or a result that is not in them cannot appear in the video.

The notes are published alongside every episode, so the check is available to anyone who wants to make it. Start with Robbers Cave or power posing.

The limits are part of the brief

Every set of notes carries a section on what the finding does not show. That section exists because the failure mode of this format is not inventing things — it is telling a true story that leaves the viewer with a false impression.

Some examples of what that rules out. The false-memory research does not show that people who report abuse should be doubted, and the episode may not imply it. The Stanford prison experiment being badly run does not mean situations never shape behaviour. Ego depletion failing to replicate does not mean self-control is a myth. Each of those is written into the notes before a script exists.

Qualifiers survive the edit

The strongest pull on a short video is toward the flatter, louder claim. “Measures more than willpower” wants to become “isn’t a willpower test”; that is a different and bigger claim, and it is the one a viewer would remember. Titles and scripts are held to the hedge the research actually carries.

Corrections

If something here is wrong, write to allaboutfrankel@gmail.com and say which episode and what the record says. Corrections go on the episode page.

How the videos are made

The narration is synthesised speech, and the footage is generated rather than filmed — typically one continuous shot of an object from the study, or a texture with no claim to being a real place. No image on this channel is presented as documentary footage of the research it accompanies. Everything that matters is in the words.

Publishing is handled by an in-house tool, which is what the terms and privacy policy describe. It posts only to accounts this channel owns.