social
dmunger | November 20, 2007Nothing brings out conflict an academic department like a hiring decision. Adding a new faculty member is complicated by dozens of factors: What field should the new hire be in? Is it more important to hire someone in precisely the right field, or with a better publication record? Will the new hire impinge on the turf of a current faculty member?
And consider this: even if the requirements for the job are agreed upon by all, what if the member of the hiring committee disagree on the qualifications of an applicant? For example, a psychology department might have decided that two requirements…
dmunger | November 14, 2007Both Greta and I are big wine fans. Despite Jonah's recent extremely popular post, I, at least, believe that I can tell the difference between good and bad wines. I'm still convinced that a good wine is more than just an attractive label (though I'm a sucker for labels with Zinfandel puns like "Zen of Zin" or "Amazin"). That said, the research suggesting that labeling has a lot to do with wine preference is also quite convincing.
Several studies suggest that we expect to prefer wines from certain vineyards or regions, and in many cases wine drinkers will actually rate the identical wine…
dmunger | October 16, 2007
Does religion increase "virtuous" behavior? So far the research on the topic has been inconclusive. A big problem with most studies is that they tend to be correlational. For example, religious people are more likely to say they are willing to help others. But are they willing to help others because they are religious, or is it the other way around? Or could some other factor cause both the religiosity and the helpfulness?
Few experimental studies have been conducted on the effect of religion, but Azim Shariff and Ara Norenzayan believe they have come up with a paradigm that does demonstrate…
dmunger | September 27, 2007
Yesterday, we discussed sex differences at the highest levels of achievement and found that there are some significant differences between males and females. But despite these observations, it's still unclear why the disparity exists, and what can or should be done about it.
Sex differences in brain structure
One possibility is that the physical structure of the brain is different for males and females. MRI imaging shows that males do have larger brains than females on average. But women have a higher proportion of "gray matter" -- the part of the brain where most cognitive activity is…
dmunger | September 26, 2007In yesterday's post, we discussed sex differences in achievement and ability. Few were identified. For the most part, however, this research discussed average differences. The problem with only discussing averages is that people engaged in science and math careers are far from "average" when it comes to math and science ability. Math and science professors often score in the top 1 percent -- or higher -- on standardized math tests.
It's entirely possible that the top 1 percent looks very different from the average results for the population. Consider this graph of test scores from two…
dmunger | September 13, 2007In 1999, Melissa Kamins and Carol Dweck made a striking discovery about the best way to praise children. When you are helping a child learn to read, saying "you are a smart girl" as opposed to "you did a good job reading" results in very different behavior when she has trouble reading in the future. Children who have received praise about their abilities ("you're smart") rather than specific praise about a task ("you did a good job ___") are more likely to exhibit "helpless" behavior when they encounter problems. Even though they were praised in both cases, telling kids they are "smart" just…
dmunger | September 11, 2007
A recent report in Nature Neuroscience has gotten a lot of press. The headlines proclaim that "left-wing" brains are different from "right wing" brains. Are our brains literally hard-wired to be conservative or liberal? The article in the L.A. Times sure seems to suggest it:
Sulloway said the results could explain why President Bush demonstrated a single-minded commitment to the Iraq war and why some people perceived Sen. John F. Kerry, the liberal Massachusetts Democrat who opposed Bush in the 2004 presidential race, as a "flip-flopper" for changing his mind about the conflict.
Really?…
dmunger | September 3, 2007Note: This article was originally posted on November 14, 2006
If a Brahman child from Nepal is asked what she would do if another child spilled a drink on her homework, her response is different from that of a Tamang child from the same country. The Brahman would become angry, but, unlike a child from the U.S., would not tell her friend that she was angry. Tamang children, rather than being angry, would feel ashamed for having placed the homework where it could be damaged -- but like Brahmans, they would not share this emotion with their friends. So how do children who might grow up just a…
dmunger | August 15, 2007On our recent trip to Europe, we had a hard time getting the kids to smile for pictures. Most of our pictures of Nora ended up looking something like this (actually this one's a self portrait, but you get the idea):
Here her expression is basically neutral, and if it wasn't such a dramatic shot, it would be a bit boring.
When we could get her to smile, often the smile was inauthentic -- posed, or even sarcastic, like in this shot:
Here she's expressing mock excitement over her parents' excitement about the figure depicted in the statue: Leonardo Fibonacci, the great mathematician (click on…
dmunger | August 9, 2007When you have a conversation with someone, you're doing a lot more than just interpreting the meaning of the words they say. You're also trying to figure out what they intend to say and integrating that in to your understanding. You're working together with them to decide whose turn it is to speak. Your accents become similar. Your body movements become synchronized. You even scratch your nose at the same time as your conversational partner.
It makes sense, then, if you're both looking looking at the same picture while you talk, that you'll look at the same parts of the picture at the same…
dmunger | August 3, 2007Like most parents, Greta and I were very excited about having our first baby (Greta, I imagine, might be somewhat less enthusiastic about me putting this vintage photo of her online...). We weren't naive, though -- we had heard from friends and family about the sleepless nights, the juggling of jobs and child care, the constant requirements for feeding, and the endless stacks of diapers. We knew it wouldn't be an easy task, but we felt we were up to it, and we were overjoyed to be having a child.
But at what point does this optimism become a burden? If you're unrealistically hopeful about the…
dmunger | July 31, 2007Take a look at this movie (QuickTime Required):
The moving object is exactly the same in each picture, but the background is different. If you're like most people, you'll see one object as an ice skater, and the other as a spinning top.
This puts the objects in two different classes -- animate (something that can move by itself: a human, animal, robot, and so on) and inanimate (something that requires an external force to move). Do we perceive the two objects differently?
Arguably, it's important that we do: if an object can move by itself, it's much more likely to be a threat to us than if…
dmunger | July 25, 2007Imagine you're taking a test--just for fun--to see how fast you can add numbers and alphabetize letters. Would it help you complete the test faster if you had a warning before each item indicating whether you'd be adding or alphabetizing?
Now imagine you're taking the same test--only this time the test will be used to determine whether you qualify for a promotion at work. In this, more stressful situation, do you think the warnings would help? Would you change your strategy on the test?
There is considerable evidence that cognitive performance changes when we are under stress. For example,…
cogdaily | July 9, 2007This is a guest post by Christy Tucker, one of Greta's top student writers from Spring of 2007.
Take a look at the following paintings. How alike are they? How can you tell--which clues help you determine similarity? Now, which of these girls are related? If only two of these young girls are related, how would you determine which two? Would they be the same ones that you thought looked very similar?
Laurence Maloney and Maria Dal Martello studied observer's ratings of the similarity between two children's faces in relation to judgments on whether the two are siblings. Do we simply note…
cogdaily | June 29, 2007This is a guest post by Martina Mustroph, one of Greta's top student writers for Spring 2007
Rats are often useful models for understanding human behavior,. Testing drugs on rats before testing them on humans is particularly enticing because it is relatively free of ethical concerns (relative to drugging humans, at least), and the amount of drug required to achieve an effect is relatively small compared to the amount it would take to see an effect in a human. As rats' nervous systems are very similar to the human nervous system, they lend themselves really well to drug studies. Rats have been…
cogdaily | June 27, 2007[originally posted on February 2, 2006]
In connection to Monday's posting, Other-race faces: Why do they seem different?, I thought readers would be interested in a post from early last year concerning implicit attitudes on race. The link to the original post is above if you would like to see previous comments.
Twelve years ago, Greta and I were awakened by a rattling on the door of our Bronx apartment. It was about three A.M.; our children were asleep in the next room. "What should I do?" Greta whispered to me. She had woken first and was holding the deadbolt on the door locked so the…
cogdaily | June 25, 2007This is a guest post by Rivka Ihejirika, one of Greta's top student writers for Spring 2007
Do you find it harder to recognize the face of someone from a race other than your own? Does it take you longer to recall the face of someone from an unfamiliar race? Some researchers believe that we are born with a predisposition to process faces of those from our own race better than faces from other races. Other researchers believe that the own-race face bias is not innate, but we develop a preference for the race of those in our immediate environment. People of all ages demonstrate the bias to…
dmunger | April 26, 2007There is a considerable body of research showing that eye contact is a key component of social interaction. Not only are people more aroused when they are looked at directly, but if you consistently look at the person you speak to, you will have much more social influence over that person than you would if you averted your gaze.
The problem arises when you address a group of people. How do you pick who to engage visually? Most public speakers are encouraged to look around the room, alternating eye contact with individuals in the audience. But there's no way to look at everyone at once -- so…
dmunger | April 10, 2007Jim just started playing this year for his school's junior varsity lacrosse team. As a beginner, he doesn't see a lot of action, but it's nonetheless exciting to watch the games -- they are fast-paced, with plenty of scoring and a few hard hits. Most junior varsity teams don't have the equipment budget of a varsity team, so they don't have separate home and away uniforms like varsity teams do. This means game officials have a hard time remembering which team is which, so instead of referring to players as "home" or "away," they use the color of the uniforms to distinguish between teams.…
dmunger | February 15, 2007The setting was an integrated suburban middle school: nearly evenly divided between black and white students. As is the case in many schools, white students outperformed black students both in grades and test scores. But how much of this difference is attributable to real differences in ability? After all, black kids grow up "knowing" that white kids do better in school. Perhaps this was just an example of kids living down to expectations.
A simple experiment would help find out. A team led by Geoffrey Cohen found a group teachers who taught the same 7th-grade course and were willing to…