Psychology team ready to analyse twists and turns of Celebrity Traitors in new podcast series

A host of famous faces have been unveiled for the BBC show, which begins its second celebrity-themed series after the huge success of the first, where 15 million people saw ‘traitor’ Alan Carr emerge victorious. In the game of deception and betrayal presented by Claudia Winkelman, ‘faithfuls’ have the task of finding who the traitors are and banishing them, while the traitors’ task is to eliminate all the faithfuls.

Actors Richard E Grant, Michael Sheen, Jerry Hall and Miranda Hart will compete with comedians James Acaster, Joanne McNally, Joe Lycett among many other star names in the Scottish Highlands for the chance to win £100,000 for the charity of their choice.

Keen fans of the show include the University’s Psychology team, who have already recorded dozens of episodes on previous episodes of The Traitors and its celebrity spin-off, in their Psychology Of… series on Spotify.

Looking ahead to the new series, Professor Lisa Oakley added: “Comedians may well come under greater scrutiny this year, as Alan won last year. There may be what we call vicarious learning – ie, learning from a previous situation and applying it to this. But, of course, the flaw in this is no-one has any idea who the traitors are.

“Also, it may be that natural humour is interpreted as suspicious in a way it wasn’t last time. Contrary to this is what we know about humour, which includes building bonds and relieving stress, so the comedians may get a harder time or their humour could be their biggest strength.”

Dr Clea Wright added: “Comedians Romesh Ranganathan and Rob Beckett are good friends, so the obvious thing to do would be to make one of them a traitor. But, as they did that with Alan Carr and Paloma Faith last year, the producers may not want to repeat that. I think they would be hilarious as traitors together, and it would be interesting to see their loyalties being tested as eventually all traitors have to consider turning on each other.

“Broadcasters Professor Hannah Fry and Amol Rajan are both very intelligent and would probably apply a very logical approach to traitor-hunting, which we have seen can be helpful from the last series in Nick Mohammed, before he was derailed at the end. However, sometimes other players are suspicious of high intelligence.”

Dr Kevin Hochard added: “As the youngest players in the castle, actors Bella Ramsey and Sebastian Croft might benefit from other players trying to protect them. But I would keep guard up around Bella in particular. We’ve seen what a great actor they are since they were young. Perhaps Claudia Winkelman will think that is traitor material.”

The Psychology of…Celebrity Traitors episodes will release weekly on Spotify. Outside of The Traitors, the Psychology team has discussed a range of subjects this year, including humour, the World Cup, reading fiction and crime.

To catch up on all the episodes released so far, visit the Psychology team’s Spotify page.

Image: Dr Kevin Hochard, Professor Lisa Oakley and Dr Clea Wright speaking about The Traitors at the University of Chester’s Festival of Ideas.