37 posts · 37,791 views
Philosopher turned psychologist turned neuroscientist turned science journalist.
Why We Reason
37 posts
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- February 4, 2012
- 06:33 PM
- 514 views
What Motivates A Suicide Bomber?
by Sam McNerney in Why We Reason
Suicide terrorism is a peculiar business. As a means of killing civilians it is hugely efficient. Steven Pinker explains that, “it combines the ultimate in surgical weapon delivery – the precision manipulators and locomotors called hands and feet, controlled by the human eyes and brain – with the ultimate in stealth – a person who [...]... Read more »
Sosis, R., & Bressler, E. (2003) Cooperation and Commune Longevity: A Test of the Costly Signaling Theory of Religion. Cross-Cultural Research, 37(2), 211-239. DOI: 10.1177/1069397103037002003
Atran, S. (2003) Genesis of Suicide Terrorism. Science, 299(5612), 1534-1539. DOI: 10.1126/science.1078854
- January 24, 2012
- 10:24 PM
- 345 views
“Who’s There?” Is The Self A Convenient Fiction?
by Sam McNerney in Why We Reason
For a long time people thought that the self was unified and eternal. It’s easy to see why. We feel like we have an essence; we grow old, gain and lose friends, and change preferences but we are the same person from day one. The idea of the unified self has had a rough few [...]... Read more »
Volpe BT, Ledoux JE, & Gazzaniga MS. (1979) Information processing of visual stimuli in an "extinguished" field. Nature, 282(5740), 722-4. PMID: 514351
- January 4, 2012
- 07:50 PM
- 432 views
The Importance of Forgetting: Why a Bad Memory is a Good Memory
by Sam McNerney in Why We Reason
I wish my memory was like a computer’s. I’ve lost car keys, a cellphone, a driver’s license and on the eve of an overseas trip, a passport; wouldn’t things be easier if I could effortlessly organize millions of pieces of information and retrieve them like with a mental Google search? Alas, my memory – and [...]... Read more »
Anderson, M., Reinholz, J., Kuhl, B., & Mayr, U. (2011) Intentional suppression of unwanted memories grows more difficult as we age. Psychology and Aging, 26(2), 397-405. DOI: 10.1037/a0022505
Anderson, M., & Levy, B. (2009) Suppressing Unwanted Memories. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18(4), 189-194. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01634.x
- November 30, 2011
- 11:42 PM
- 697 views
Are We Inherently Good or Evil? What Babies Teach us About Morality
by Sam McNerney in Why We Reason
Are we inherently good or evil? This question, and questions like it, have been asked for millennia and almost always to no avail. Philosophers argued over what it means for someone to be good (they still do) and theologians wondered if evil was the product of free will or determinism. All along, empirical evidence was [...]... Read more »
Hamlin, J., Wynn, K., Bloom, P., & Mahajan, N. (2011) How infants and toddlers react to antisocial others. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1110306108
- November 22, 2011
- 05:48 PM
- 903 views
Why Shouldn’t You Shop While Hungry? Ego-Depletion and the Brain as a Muscle
by Sam McNerney in Why We Reason
I’ve heard it a few times: Don’t shop when you’re hungry, you’ll spend more and buy unhealthy food! There is more than a grain of truth to this, and plenty of empirical research to back it up. Yet, it is worth asking why this phenomenon occurs in the first place. You probably have an intuitive [...]... Read more »
Gailliot, M., Baumeister, R., DeWall, C., Maner, J., Plant, E., Tice, D., Brewer, L., & Schmeichel, B. (2007) Self-control relies on glucose as a limited energy source: Willpower is more than a metaphor. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(2), 325-336. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.92.2.325
Shiv, B., & Fedorikhin, A. (1999) Heart and Mind in Conflict: the Interplay of Affect and Cognition in Consumer Decision Making. Journal of Consumer Research, 26(3), 278-292. DOI: 10.1086/209563
- November 18, 2011
- 11:15 PM
- 793 views
Morality & The Individual: The Role of the Passions in Moral Dilemmas
by Sam McNerney in Why We Reason
I never liked moral philosophy, it was strangely passionless. Philosophers spent careers searching for moral truths as if they were hidden on some cosmic shelf next to the transitive property of equality while ignoring the central and obvious fact that morality has to do with the subject and her emotions. Philosophers treated it as a [...]... Read more »
Greene, J., Nystrom, L., Engell, A., Darley, J., & Cohen, J. (2004) The Neural Bases of Cognitive Conflict and Control in Moral Judgment. Neuron, 44(2), 389-400. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2004.09.027
- November 16, 2011
- 10:03 PM
- 730 views
Friend or Foe in Twenty Seconds: New Research Examines Accuracy of Snap-Judgments
by Sam McNerney in Why We Reason
The early 2000s saw a handful of great books on intuition. Timothy Wilson’s Strangers to Ourselves nicely illustrated how most cognition occurs at the unconscious-intuitive level and Gary Klein’s Sources of Power described the mastery of expert intuition. Their work gave way to the more fan-friendly Blink, Malcolm Gladwell’s take on the “power of thinking without thinking,” [...]... Read more »
Kogan, A., Saslow, L., Impett, E., Oveis, C., Keltner, D., & Rodrigues Saturn, S. (2011) Thin-slicing study of the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene and the evaluation and expression of the prosocial disposition. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1112658108
Todorov, A. (2005) Inferences of Competence from Faces Predict Election Outcomes. Science, 308(5728), 1623-1626. DOI: 10.1126/science.1110589
- November 12, 2011
- 06:03 PM
- 796 views
The Availability Heuristic: Why Your Children Probably Aren’t Going to be Murdered
by Sam McNerney in Why We Reason
Journalist Lenore Skenazy is called a number of things: “Americans Worst Mom,” “A Heretic,” and, “Abusive.” Her crime? In 2008 she left her nine-year-old son go home by himself on the New York Subway. Her son’s solo trip was made famous by a New York Sun column written by Skenazy and it’s almost too easy to imagine her [...]... Read more »
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1973) Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability. Cognitive Psychology, 5(2), 207-232. DOI: 10.1016/0010-0285(73)90033-9
- November 9, 2011
- 04:51 PM
- 800 views
Drawing Out Our Better Angels: The Important Role of Moral Reminders
by Sam McNerney in Why We Reason
Everyone has their pet theories about human morality; are we inherently selfless or selfish? Indeed, the “nature of man” has been a popular subject throughout the millennia. Thomas Hobbes claimed that life in the state of nature is brutish and short while Rousseau held that nothing is more peaceful than man in his natural state. So [...]... Read more »
Vohs, K., Mead, N., & Goode, M. (2006) The Psychological Consequences of Money. Science, 314(5802), 1154-1156. DOI: 10.1126/science.1132491
Mazar, N., Amir, O., & Ariely, D. (2008) The Dishonesty of Honest People: A Theory of Self-Concept Maintenance. Journal of Marketing Research, 45(6), 633-644. DOI: 10.1509/jmkr.45.6.633
- October 31, 2011
- 04:18 PM
- 843 views
Our Modular Selves: Science and the Philosophy of Self
by Sam McNerney in Why We Reason
One of the most enduring themes in western thought is the idea of The Self. Who am “I” and what does it mean “to be,” many philosophers have asked over the centuries. Thought provoking questions indeed, but most discussions of The Self make the mistake of assuming that it is something. The reality is that [...]... Read more »
Güth, W., Schmittberger, R., & Schwarze, B. (1982) An experimental analysis of ultimatum bargaining. Journal of Economic Behavior , 3(4), 367-388. DOI: 10.1016/0167-2681(82)90011-7
Kunz J. (2000) Social class difference in response to Christmas cards. Perceptual and motor skills, 90(2), 573-6. PMID: 10833755
Kenrick, D., & Sheets, V. (1993) Homicidal fantasies. Ethology and Sociobiology, 14(4), 231-246. DOI: 10.1016/0162-3095(93)90019-E
- October 12, 2011
- 05:48 PM
- 885 views
Does Raising Awareness About Bullying Cause More Bullying?
by Sam McNerney in Why We Reason
Bullying is a popular topic in the news these days. Anderson Cooper is doing a special on it, the United States government is stepping in, Dr. Phil did his thing and advertising firms are being hired to launch campaigns to combat its negative consequences. One of the main strategies used to stop bullying is awareness. The line [...]... Read more »
Wilson, T., & Lassiter, G. (1982) Increasing intrinsic interest with superfluous extrinsic constraints. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42(5), 811-819. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.42.5.811
- October 10, 2011
- 05:36 PM
- 845 views
Is There Anything Wrong With Incest? Emotion, Reason and Altruism in Moral Psychology
by Sam McNerney in Why We Reason
Meet Julie and Mark, two siblings who are vacationing together in France. One night after dinner and a few bottles of wine, they decide to have sex. Julie is on the pill and Mark uses a condom so there is virtually no chance that Julie will become pregnant. They enjoy it very much but decide [...]... Read more »
Schmidt, M., & Sommerville, J. (2011) Fairness Expectations and Altruistic Sharing in 15-Month-Old Human Infants. PLoS ONE, 6(10). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0023223
- September 30, 2011
- 03:38 PM
- 834 views
The Embodiment of Height: Why You Give More When You Are Elevated
by Sam McNerney in Why We Reason
Do you ever wonder why we associate good things with up and bad things with down? Think about it. We say that , “things are looking up today,” and “I’m down in the dumps,” to express how we are feeling. We say that “he’s at the peak of his career,” and “she fell is status,” to [...]... Read more »
Briñol, P., Petty, R., & Wagner, B. (2009) Body posture effects on self-evaluation: A self-validation approach. European Journal of Social Psychology, 39(6), 1053-1064. DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.607
Sanna, L., Chang, E., Miceli, P., & Lundberg, K. (2011) Rising up to higher virtues: Experiencing elevated physical height uplifts prosocial actions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47(2), 472-476. DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2010.12.013
Casasanto, D., & Dijkstra, K. (2010) Motor action and emotional memory. Cognition, 115(1), 179-185. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2009.11.002
- September 26, 2011
- 08:12 PM
- 1,054 views
Are There Too Many Beautiful Women and Powerful Men In The World?
by Sam McNerney in Why We Reason
If you have a few minutes and three buckets try this experiment. Fill one bucket with ice-cold water, another bucket with room temperature water and the third bucket with hot water. Then, place one hand in the cold bucket and your other hand in the hot bucket. Give it a few minutes and then put [...]... Read more »
KENRICK, D. (1989) Influence of popular erotica on judgments of strangers and mates. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 25(2), 159-167. DOI: 10.1016/0022-1031(89)90010-3
- September 20, 2011
- 03:19 PM
- 811 views
Why Being Irrational Is Important
by Sam McNerney in Why We Reason
Over the last few years both academia and the public have experienced a wave of literature on human irrationality. There’s Ariely’s Predictably Irrational, Richard Thaler’s Nudge and Dan Gilbert’s Stumbling On Happiness, three books that examine the consequences of choosing non-optimally. Our irrationalities negatively affect us as consumers (Ariely), as policy makers (Thaler) and as individuals who seek [...]... Read more »
Richland LE, Kornell N, & Kao LS. (2009) The pretesting effect: do unsuccessful retrieval attempts enhance learning?. Journal of experimental psychology. Applied, 15(3), 243-57. PMID: 19751074
- September 17, 2011
- 10:59 AM
- 1,243 views
The Psychology of Pleasure: Interview With Paul Bloom
by Sam McNerney in Why We Reason
In 1986, CEO of Perrier North America Bruce Nevins found himself in a difficult spot. On KABC radio in Los Angeles the host challenged him to a blind taste test. The rules were simple: correctly identify a Perrier from seven drinks – six club sodas and one Perrier. Long story short, Nevins failed miserably; it [...]... Read more »
Newman, G., Diesendruck, G., & Bloom, P. (2011) Celebrity Contagion and the Value of Objects. Journal of Consumer Research, 38(2), 215-228. DOI: 10.1086/658999
- September 10, 2011
- 09:11 PM
- 538 views
The Psychology of Marriage: Choice or Arranged?
by Sam McNerney in Why We Reason
I love free samples. IKEA’s Swedish meatballs might be my favorite. They are delicious and put me in a furniture-buying mood. Sometimes, however, choosing between all those yummy samples is hard, and I’m not alone. In a study done several years ago researchers set up a jam tasting counter at a grocery store to see how [...]... Read more »
Iyengar SS, & Lepper MR. (2000) When choice is demotivating: can one desire too much of a good thing?. Journal of personality and social psychology, 79(6), 995-1006. PMID: 11138768
- September 7, 2011
- 02:44 PM
- 947 views
Psychology’s Treacherous Trio: Confirmation Bias, Cognitive Dissonance, and Motivated Reasoning
by Sam McNerney in Why We Reason
In 2009, a nine year-old Brazilian girl became pregnant with twins after being raped by her stepfather. With advice from doctors, her mother opted for her to have an abortion. After pleading with Brazil, which outlaws abortions except when the mother’s life is in danger or when she has been raped, her daughter was granted [...]... Read more »
Kunda, Z. (1990) The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 108(3), 480-498. DOI: 10.1037/0033-2909.108.3.480
Lord, C., Ross, L., & Lepper, M. (1979) Biased assimilation and attitude polarization: The effects of prior theories on subsequently considered evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37(11), 2098-2109. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.37.11.2098
- September 4, 2011
- 09:55 PM
- 1,072 views
Is It Possible to Not Judge A Book by Its Cover?
by Sam McNerney in Why We Reason
It’s an age-old aphorism preached to us by our parents, teachers, and coaches – Don’t Judge a Book By Its Cover. The lesson has manifested itself in a number of ways throughout history: Shakespeare said that all that glitters is not gold; MLK told us to judge a person not by the color of their [...]... Read more »
Darley, J., & Gross, P. (1983) A hypothesis-confirming bias in labeling effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44(1), 20-33. DOI: 10.1037//0022-3514.44.1.20
Wansink, B., Payne, C., & North, J. (2007) Fine as North Dakota wine: Sensory expectations and the intake of companion foods. Physiology , 90(5), 712-716. DOI: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2006.12.010
Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968) Pygmalion in the classroom. The Urban Review, 3(1), 16-20. DOI: 10.1007/BF02322211
- September 1, 2011
- 06:50 PM
- 2,836 views
How Misguided Incentives Negatively Affect Productivity and Well-Being
by Sam McNerney in Why We Reason
Americans are not well: reported levels of subjective happiness haven’t budged in years, divorce rates are hovering around 50%, and tons of money doesn’t seem to do the trick. So what’s going on? Social scientists, economists, and politicians give us their reasons, but most are speculative and lack legitimate evidence. Thankfully, psychologists are weighing in with some [...]... Read more »
ARIELY, D., GNEEZY, U., LOEWENSTEIN, G., & MAZAR, N. (2009) Large Stakes and Big Mistakes. Review of Economic Studies, 76(2), 451-469. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-937X.2009.00534.x
Glucksberg, S. (1962) The influence of strength of drive on functional fixedness and perceptual recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63(1), 36-41. DOI: 10.1037/h0044683
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