Social Science posts
- April 30, 2013
- 12:30 PM
- 56 views
The Climatic Origins of the Malaysian Nipah Virus Outbreak
by Rebecca Kreston in BODY HORRORS
One of the hardest questions to answer in an infectious disease outbreak investigation is "Why?"
Why then? Why there? These questions can be almost impossible to answer - not only because of their heady metaphysical nature but also because of the difficulty of assessing the minute interactions between microbe, environment and human host. Public health officials are often left shrugging their shoulders, half-heartedly admitting to an unsatisfied public that they just don't know ........ Read more »
Chua KB, Chua BH, & Wang CW. (2002) Anthropogenic deforestation, El Niño and the emergence of Nipah virus in Malaysia. The Malaysian journal of pathology, 24(1), 15-21. PMID: 16329551
- April 30, 2013
- 09:30 AM
- 79 views
Are Vocal Homophobes Really Just Homosexuals in the Closet?
Homophobic protestors of gay rights assert things like "homosexuality will lead to the breakdown of civilization," and other such notions. But research is finding that some of these avid protestors are homosexuals themselves. Why is that?
Recent research looks at how cultural influences regarding homosexuality affect the psychology of homosexuals who are "in the closet." A new study is contrasted with information on pornography consumption, showing widespread hypocrisy throughout the world.... Read more »
Weinstein, N., Ryan, W., DeHaan, C., Przybylski, A., Legate, N., & Ryan, R. (2012) Parental autonomy support and discrepancies between implicit and explicit sexual identities: Dynamics of self-acceptance and defense. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(4), 815-832. DOI: 10.1037/a0026854
- April 29, 2013
- 09:08 AM
- 73 views
Twitter Maps the Mood of the UK
by Kate Blanchfield in United Academics
Researchers have mapped the moods of Twitter users from the UK and found that they follow a daily pattern of anger, fear, joy and sadness.
The research paper, posted online last week, was based on approximately 120 million tweets collected during the summer and winter of 2011.
The researchers counted the number of times a tweet expressed anger, fear, joy or sadness and normalised this by the total number of tweets in that hour. This corrected for the inevitably higher use of Twitter during........ Read more »
Vasileios Lampos, Thomas Lansdall-Welfare, Ricardo Araya, & Nello Cristianini. (2013) Analysing Mood Patterns in the United Kingdom through Twitter Content. Social and Information Networks. arXiv: 1304.5507v1
Golder, S., & Macy, M. (2011) Diurnal and Seasonal Mood Vary with Work, Sleep, and Daylength Across Diverse Cultures. Science, 333(6051), 1878-1881. DOI: 10.1126/science.1202775
- April 29, 2013
- 08:49 AM
- 9 views
The Neuroscience Power Crisis: What's the fallout?
by Neurobonkers in Neurobonkers
Last week a paper ($) was published in
Nature Reviews Neuroscience
that is rocking the world of neuroscience. The crack team of researchers including neuroscientists, psychologists, geneticists and statisticians analysed meta-analyses of neuroscience research to determine the statistical power of ...Read More
... Read more »
Button KS, Ioannidis JP, Mokrysz C, Nosek BA, Flint J, Robinson ES, & Munafò MR. (2013) Power failure: why small sample size undermines the reliability of neuroscience. Nature reviews. Neuroscience, 14(5), 365-76. PMID: 23571845
- April 29, 2013
- 01:51 AM
- 57 views
School Choice Is Associated With More Student Engagement
by Eric Horowitz in peer-reviewed by my neurons
One thing I harp on a fair amount is that it’s a shame the concept of school choice has been bound to divisive rhetoric about competition and free markets. Every student is different, and therefore the presence of more choices always makes it more likely that a student will find a school that meshes with [...]... Read more »
Vaughn, M., & Witko, C. (2013) Does the amount of school choice matter for student engagement?. The Social Science Journal, 50(1), 23-33. DOI: 10.1016/j.soscij.2012.07.004
- April 27, 2013
- 11:09 AM
- 98 views
He’s Climbing In Your Windows; He’s Snatching Your People Up
by Jesse Marczyk in Pop Psychology
One topic that has been addressed by evolutionary psychologists that managed to draw a good deal of ire was rape. Given the sensitive nature of the issue, the criticisms that the theorizing about it brought were largely undeserved, reflecting, perhaps, … Continue reading →... Read more »
Felson, R., & Cundiff, P. (2012) Age and sexual assault during robberies. Evolution and Human Behavior, 33(1), 10-16. DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2011.04.002
- April 27, 2013
- 09:20 AM
- 23 views
The (sigh) Psychopath Brain
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic_Discover
Neuroscience has revealed that Lady Gaga’s song Born This Way is probably about a psychopath. Or something. HuffPo says - Psychopathic Brain ‘Lacks Basic Hardwiring’ To Feel Compassion, Research Suggests Meanwhile, the Daily Mail report - Is this proof evil killers are born not made? Psychopaths’ brains ‘lack basic wiring that triggers empathy’ Last week [...]... Read more »
Decety J, Skelly LR, & Kiehl KA. (2013) Brain Response to Empathy-Eliciting Scenarios Involving Pain in Incarcerated Individuals With Psychopathy. JAMA psychiatry (Chicago, Ill.), 1-8. PMID: 23615636
- April 27, 2013
- 07:28 AM
- 104 views
The Science of Guns and Violence in America
by Stephanie Swift in mmmbitesizescience
I read a Nature News article recently about gun control in the USA that horrified me so much that I now have to write a bit about this horrifying topic myself. It goes without saying that there is a huge … Continue reading →... Read more »
Wintemute GJ. (2013) Tragedy's legacy. The New England Journal of Medicine, 368(5), 397-9. PMID: 23268646
- April 27, 2013
- 02:14 AM
- 82 views
Psychedelic drugs “continue to be widely used in the U.S.”
by Usman Paracha in SayPeople
Main point:
Researchers have found that, in 2010, about 32 million people in the U.S. have used hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), “magic mushrooms” (psilocybin), or mescaline (peyote and other cacti) at some point in their lives and many of them have used it in the recent past.
Published in:
F1000Research
Study Further:
“Use of psilocybin mushrooms has increased since the 1970s in the US and worldwide, likely due to dissemination of s........ Read more »
Krebs, T., & Johansen, P. (2013) Over 30 million psychedelic users in the United States. F1000Research. DOI: 10.12688/f1000research.2-98.v1
- April 25, 2013
- 12:43 AM
- 93 views
A room with a view: what do dogs want?
by Cobb & Hecht in Do You Believe In Dog?
Putting the woof in tweet! (source)Hi Julie,Wow! Thanks for sharing the amazing fun tweet-week we had posting for @realscientists on Twitter. It was great to engage with so many people about so many areas of dog (and other animal!) behaviour and research. And poo. So many questions about dog poo! Some things can be relied upon in life; it’s good to know people are always curious about dog poo.If you want to revisit any of those posts or links we exchanged as part of the Real Scienti........ Read more »
Wells Deborah L., & Hepper Peter G. (1998) A note on the influence of visual conspecific contact on the behaviour of sheltered dogs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 60(1), 83-88. DOI: 10.1016/S0168-1591(98)00146-4
Taylor K, & Mills D. (2007) The effect of the kennel environment on canine welfare: a critical review of experimental studies. Animal Welfare, 16(4), 435-447. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ufaw/aw/2007/00000016/00000004/art00003
Sop Shin Won. (2007) The influence of forest view through a window on job satisfaction and job stress. Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research, 22(3), 248-253. DOI: 10.1080/02827580701262733
Verderber Stephen, & Reuman David. (1987) Windows, views, and health status in hospital therapeutic environments. Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, 4(2), 120-133. http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1988-30782-001
- April 24, 2013
- 12:39 PM
- 113 views
Are some languages easier than others?
by Richard Kunert in Brain's Idea
‘Long time no see’ is something I heard repeatedly in Britain even though it totally violates all the English grammar I learned at school. Clearly, Brits should correct this expression originating from Chinese Pidgin English rather than adopt it. The reason it entered common usage anyway is at the heart of why you might find [...]... Read more »
Bentz C, & Winter B. (2013) Languages with more second language learners tend to lose case. Language Dynamics and Change. info:/
Lupyan G, & Dale R. (2010) Language structure is partly determined by social structure. PloS one, 5(1). PMID: 20098492
- April 23, 2013
- 05:50 AM
- 120 views
Why We Love When Losers Win and Heroes Fall | The Paradox Explained
by Carian Thus in United Academics
An unemployed neighbor wins the lottery, a friend who regularly boasts about his good health becomes ill. We are highly sensitive to changing fortunes of others. We want to know who’s doing worse and who’s doing better than before, as these shifts in our social environment may have implications for our own well-being. In particular we are drawn to unexpected changes: underdogs that beat the odds and top dogs that fall from grace. Whether we witness the creation of a hero or the demis........ Read more »
Brosnan SF, & De Waal FB. (2003) Monkeys reject unequal pay. Nature, 425(6955), 297-9. PMID: 13679918
Vandello, J., Goldschmied, N., & Richards, D. (2007) The Appeal of the Underdog. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33(12), 1603-1616. DOI: 10.1177/0146167207307488
Feather, N., & Sherman, R. (2002) Envy, Resentment, Schadenfreude, and Sympathy: Reactions to Deserved and Undeserved Achievement and Subsequent Failure. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(7), 953-961. DOI: 10.1177/014616720202800708
Fehr, E. (1998) A Theory of Fairness, Competition and Cooperation. SSRN Electronic Journal. DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.106228
- April 22, 2013
- 11:45 AM
- 9 views
Speak to the Individual, Not the Common
by Persuasion Strategies in Persuasive Litigator
By Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm: Last week in the U.S. Senate, a measure to require universal background checks on gun purchases failed to get the 60 votes needed to survive. The arguments supporting the common good of keeping firearms out of the wrong hands were, to 45 Senators, was not as strong as the individual rights based aversion to new restrictions in any form. Though this decision was out of step with prevailing public opinion (with 86 percent of the public supporting such checks), it was quite c........ Read more »
Hamedani MG, Markus HR, & Fu AS. (2013) In the land of the free, interdependent action undermines motivation. Psychological science, 24(2), 189-96. PMID: 23302297
- April 22, 2013
- 08:48 AM
- 82 views
Lamb Wins G. Stanley Hall Award
by ebender in Daily Observations
APS James McKeen Cattell Fellow Michael E. Lamb, University of Cambridge, has won the 2014 G. Stanley Hall Award for Distinguished Contribution to Developmental Psychology and the 2013 Award for The post Lamb Wins G. Stanley Hall Award appeared first on Association for Psychological Science.... Read more »
Hershkowitz I, Lamb ME, & Horowitz D. (2007) Victimization of children with disabilities. The American journal of orthopsychiatry, 77(4), 629-35. PMID: 18194043
- April 22, 2013
- 06:56 AM
- 77 views
Deep Rationality: The Evolutionary Economics of Decision Making
by Jason Collins in Evolving Economics
Even though I consider that I am across the literature at the boundary of economics and evolutionary biology, now and then an article pops up that I somehow missed. The latest article of this type is a 2009 article by Douglas Kenrick and colleagues, titled (as is this post) Deep Rationality: The Evolutionary Economics of Decision Making. [...]The post Deep Rationality: The Evolutionary Economics of Decision Making appeared first on Evolving Economics.... Read more »
Kenrick, D., Griskevicius, V., Sundie, J., Li, N., Li, Y., & Neuberg, S. (2009) Deep Rationality: The Evolutionary Economics of Decision Making. Social Cognition, 27(5), 764-785. DOI: 10.1521/soco.2009.27.5.764
- April 21, 2013
- 11:23 AM
- 95 views
Was Steven Pinker right after all? [Part 2]
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
Last week Science published a study (a follow-up of Salimpoor et al., 2011) in which Canadian researchers showed that music can arouse feelings of euphoria and craving, similar to tangible rewards that involve the striatal dopaminergic system. ... Read more »
Salimpoor, V., van den Bosch, I., Kovacevic, N., McIntosh, A., Dagher, A., & Zatorre, R. (2013) Interactions Between the Nucleus Accumbens and Auditory Cortices Predict Music Reward Value. Science, 340(6129), 216-219. DOI: 10.1126/science.1231059
Salimpoor, V., Benovoy, M., Larcher, K., Dagher, A., & Zatorre, R. (2011) Anatomically distinct dopamine release during anticipation and experience of peak emotion to music. Nature Neuroscience. DOI: 10.1038/nn.2726
- April 20, 2013
- 12:53 PM
- 71 views
Interaction and lecturing in ELF: a final look
by Ray Carey in ELFA project
We’re coming to the end of this multi-post overview of Jaana Suviniity’s PhD thesis on the role of interactive features in lectures delivered in English as a lingua franca (ELF) – when English is not a first language for the speaker or listeners. When students rated these lectures on a scale of “challenging” to “accessible”, it became apparent that a major difference between the more or less accessible lectures was the quantity of interactive features. A........ Read more »
Mauranen, Anna. (2012) Exploring ELF: Academic English Shaped by Non-native Speakers. Cambridge Applied Linguistics series. info:/
Suviniitty, Jaana. (2012) Lectures in English as a Lingua Franca: Interactional Features. Doctoral dissertation, University of Helsinki. info:other/http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-10-8540-6
- April 19, 2013
- 01:20 PM
- 81 views
Google Promises We'll Feel Better in the Summer
by Elizabeth Preston in Inkfish
Shakespeare wasn't kidding about the "winter of our discontent." In the colder and darker months, people do more internet searches for mental health terms, from anxiety and ADHD all the way to suicide. Search patterns also promise that like a refreshed browser window, better times are due to arrive soon.
John Ayers, of the Center for Behavioral Epidemiology and Community Health in San Diego, and other researchers dove into Google Trends to explore whether certain searches vary by season. "Se........ Read more »
Ayers, J., Althouse, B., Allem, J., Rosenquist, J., & Ford, D. (2013) Seasonality in Seeking Mental Health Information on Google. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 44(5), 520-525. DOI: 10.1016/j.amepre.2013.01.012
- April 19, 2013
- 12:23 AM
- 89 views
Was the Push For an Assault Weapons Ban a Bad Idea? Digging into the “Door In the Face” Technique
by Eric Horowitz in peer-reviewed by my neurons
The Senate’s sad failure to pass any kind of gun control legislation has led to the rehashing of what can now be deemed failed political tactics. Much of the focus has been on the decision of gun control advocates to initially pursue an assault weapons ban: Congressional consideration was also delayed by gun control proponents’ [...]... Read more »
Cialdini, R., & et al, . (1975) Reciprocal concessions procedure for inducing compliance: The door-in-the-face technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31(2), 206-215. DOI: 10.1037/h0076284
Feeley, T., Anker, A., & Aloe, A. (2012) The Door-in-the-Face Persuasive Message Strategy: A Meta-Analysis of the First 35 Years. Communication Monographs, 79(3), 316-343. DOI: 10.1080/03637751.2012.697631
- April 18, 2013
- 10:15 AM
- 67 views
U.S. hospitals found more profit in complications in surgery
by Usman Paracha in SayPeople
Main Point:
Researchers found that the U.S. hospitals get more profit when the surgery goes wrong as compared to the condition when all the tasks go well and patients go home without any complications.
Journal:
The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)
Study Further:
Quite disturbing report but one of the points to consider in healthcare system is that the finances spent on that industry have to be properly planned.
Do you know nearly $400 billion is spent on the s........ Read more »
Eappen, S. (2013) Relationship Between Occurrence of Surgical Complications and Hospital Finances. JAMA, 309(15), 1599. DOI: 10.1001/jama.2013.2773
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