Social Science posts
- April 2, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 342 views
“Stop picking fights and get some emotional intelligence!”
by Doug Keene in The Jury Room
Now that’s a great line. The kind I wish I had the presence of mind to say when someone furious is trying to bully me into acquiescence. Of course, the kind of person who would be the best recipient of the line is also unlikely to make good use of it. Sigh. Fortunately, I have [...]
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Ford BQ, & Tamir M. (2012) When getting angry is smart: Emotional preferences and emotional intelligence. Emotion (Washington, D.C.). PMID: 22309721
- April 1, 2012
- 04:25 PM
- 437 views
Cholera riots…!
by Charles in science left untitled
Sometime during the night on May 29th, 1832, a woman that went by the name of Mrs Clarke died. Her death was one of a series of events that sparked-off widespread rioting in Liverpool during the summer of 1832. A summer that played host to a number of “cholera riots” across various towns throughout Great [...]... Read more »
Burrell, S. (2005) The Liverpool Cholera Epidemic of 1832 and Anatomical Dissection--Medical Mistrust and Civil Unrest. Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 60(4), 478-498. DOI: 10.1093/jhmas/jri061
Gill G, Burrell S, & Brown J. (2001) Fear and frustration--the Liverpool cholera riots of 1832. Lancet, 358(9277), 233-7. PMID: 11476860
Puntis J. (2001) 1832 cholera riots. Lancet, 358(9288), 1188. PMID: 11597715
- March 31, 2012
- 01:10 PM
- 533 views
Automated Science, Deep Data, and the Paradox of Information
by Bradley Voytek in Oscillatory Thoughts
Note: this is was originally published by me over on the O'Reilly Radar.A lot of great pieces have been written about the (relatively) recent surge in interest in “big data” and "data science", but in this piece I want to address the importance of deep data analysis: what we can learn from the statistical outliers by drilling down and asking, “What’s different here? What’s special about these outliers and what do they tell us about our models and assumptions?”The reason that big data........ Read more »
Schmidt, M., & Lipson, H. (2009) Distilling Free-Form Natural Laws from Experimental Data. Science, 324(5923), 81-85. DOI: 10.1126/science.1165893
Yarkoni, T., Poldrack, R., Nichols, T., Van Essen, D., & Wager, T. (2011) Large-scale automated synthesis of human functional neuroimaging data. Nature Methods, 8(8), 665-670. DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.1635
Ahn, Y., Ahnert, S., Bagrow, J., & Barabási, A. (2011) Flavor network and the principles of food pairing. Scientific Reports. DOI: 10.1038/srep00196
Michel, J., Shen, Y., Aiden, A., Veres, A., Gray, M., , ., Pickett, J., Hoiberg, D., Clancy, D., Norvig, P.... (2010) Quantitative Analysis of Culture Using Millions of Digitized Books. Science, 331(6014), 176-182. DOI: 10.1126/science.1199644
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
McCabe, D., & Castel, A. (2008) Seeing is believing: The effect of brain images on judgments of scientific reasoning. Cognition, 107(1), 343-352. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2007.07.017
- March 30, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 317 views
“Glasses can’t hide neck tattoos”
by Rita Handrich in The Jury Room
It’s been more than a year since we first wrote about the “nerd defense”. Essentially, this is the practice of sticking eyeglasses on your allegedly dangerous defendant to communicate their innocence to members of the jury. But now, the Washington Post has finally picked up the practice and we thought we’d mention it again. Here’s how [...]
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Brown, M. J., Henriquez, E., & Groscup, J. (2008) The effects of eyeglasses and race on juror decisions involving a violent crime. . American Journal of Forensic Psychology , 26(2), 25-43. info:/
- March 29, 2012
- 03:08 PM
- 538 views
Animism as Altruistic Adaptation
by Cris Campbell in Genealogy of Religion
I have a confession to make. I’ve long denigrated claims that what we today call “religion” originated during the Upper Paleolithic because early supernaturalism fostered altruism. When this argument makes an appearance, it’s often in the service of an evolutionary theism which assumes that because God is behind evolution, religion is the designed outcome of [...]... Read more »
Bird‐David, Nurit. (1999) “Animism” Revisited: Personhood, Environment, and Relational Epistemology. Current Anthropology, 40(S1). DOI: 10.1086/200061
Bird-David, Nurit. (1992) Beyond "The Original Affluent Society": A Culturalist Reformulation. Current Anthropology, 33(1), 25-34. info:/
- March 29, 2012
- 02:40 PM
- 334 views
Baylisascariasis! The Tragic Parasitic Implications of Raccoons In Your Backyard
by Rebecca Kreston in BODY HORRORS
The re-wilding or “greening” of urban and suburban spaces has been an indefatigable, faddy trend in urban planning for the past two decades. But it can be troubling when we see the repercussions when we bring nature into the neighborhood and blur the line between urban comforts and rural charms. One of those manifestations can be rodents, coyotes, foxes, opossums, and raccoons joining the ‘hood. ... Read more »
Roussere GP, Murray WJ, Raudenbush CB, Kutilek MJ, Levee DJ, & Kazacos KR. (2003) Raccoon roundworm eggs near homes and risk for larva migrans disease, California communities. Emerging infectious diseases, 9(12), 1516-22. PMID: 14720389
- March 28, 2012
- 03:00 PM
- 449 views
UA Podcast: Teachers and Technology in the Classroom
by United Academics in United Academics
How do teachers view technology in their own classrooms? Thats the question Marie-Anne Mundy and her colleagues have been exploring in their recent research article ‘Teacher’s Perceptions of Technology Use in the Schools’. The results of this study, which may surprise some people, help lay out a strategy for how to better equip and prepare teachers for today’s classroom.... Read more »
Marie-Anne Mundy,, Lori Kupczynski,, & Rick Kee. (2012) Teacher’s Perceptions of Technology Use in the Schools. SAGE Open. info:/10.1177/2158244012440813
- March 28, 2012
- 10:33 AM
- 474 views
Sex, Lies and Spider Silk
by Miss Behavior in The Scorpion and the Frog
Are you trying to get the girl, but you’re too cheap to get her a nice gift? You could take a page out of the nursery web spider’s Guide to Love and Sex. WARNING: Do not date this nursery web spider. He's a jerk. Photo from Wikimedia Commons by Mathias Krumbholz.When a male of this species has his eye on a female, he will usually offer her a nuptial gift, which is typically a tasty prey insect nicely giftwrapped in spider silk. While the female is unwrapping her meal, the male has an o........ Read more »
Albo, M., Winther, G., Tuni, C., Toft, S., & Bilde, T. (2011) Worthless donations: male deception and female counter play in a nuptial gift-giving spider. BMC Evolutionary Biology, 11(1), 329. DOI: 10.1186/1471-2148-11-329
- March 27, 2012
- 01:53 PM
- 315 views
Broken Hearts and Broken Livers
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
In a new paper, Beyond the Blues, German psychologists Postert et al discuss how the Hmong people of South East Asia talk about sadness - or rather, how they don't, because they don't really have a word for it.Based on anthropological fieldwork in a number of Hmong communities in Laos, the focus of this article is on the Hmong term tu siab, literally "broken liver". This is usually translated as "sadness" in the dictionaries, but the authors say that, although it is certainly the closest thing t........ Read more »
Postert, C., Dannlowski, U., Müller, J., & Konrad, C. (2012) Beyond the Blues: Towards a Cross-Cultural Phenomenology of Depressed Mood. Psychopathology, 45(3), 185-192. DOI: 10.1159/000330944
- March 27, 2012
- 04:41 AM
- 527 views
Does It Pay to Be Beautiful?
by United Academics in United Academics
According to a recent survey of two thousand women, a staggering 25 percent would rather win America’s Next Top Model than a Nobel Prize. Picking beauty over brains might be a bit shallow, but is it also a bad choice? In other words: is being attractive a blessing or a curse?... Read more »
King, A., & Leigh, A. (2007) Beautiful Politicians. SSRN Electronic Journal. DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.961138
Johnson SK, Podratz KE, Dipboye RL, & Gibbons E. (2010) Physical attractiveness biases in ratings of employment suitability: tracking down the "beauty is beastly" effect. The Journal of social psychology, 150(3), 301-18. PMID: 20575336
Tsfati, Y., Markowitz Elfassi, D., & Waismel-Manor, I. (2010) Exploring the Association between Israeli Legislators' Physical Attractiveness and Their Television News Coverage. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 15(2), 175-192. DOI: 10.1177/1940161209361212
Jokela, M. (2009) Physical attractiveness and reproductive success in humans: evidence from the late 20th century United States. Evolution and Human Behavior, 30(5), 342-350. DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2009.03.006
- March 26, 2012
- 08:00 AM
- 254 views
Seeing is Believing: The Story Behind Henry Heinz’s Condiment Empire
by Krystal D'Costa in Anthropology in Practice
Do me a favor: Go open your refrigerator and look at the labels on your condiments. Alternatively, if you’re at work, open your drawer and flip through your stash of condiment packets. (Don’t look at me like that. I know you have a stash. Or you know where to find one. It’s practically Office Survival [...]
... Read more »
Koehn, N. (2011) Henry Heinz and Brand Creation in the Late Nineteenth Century: Making Markets for Processed Food. Business History Review, 73(03), 349-393. DOI: 10.2307/3116181
- March 26, 2012
- 07:03 AM
- 643 views
English belongs to everyone?
by Christof Demont-Heinrich in Language on the Move
The claim that “English belongs to everyone who uses it” has continued to gain more and more cultural cache, at least in global (English) academic circles. On the surface, the claim that “English belongs to everyone who uses it” makes … Continue reading →... Read more »
Demont-Heinrich, C. (2008) The Death of Cultural Imperialism -- and Power Too?: A Critical Analysis of American Prestige Press Representations of the Hegemony of English. International Communication Gazette, 70(5), 378-394. DOI: 10.1177/1748048508094289
- March 26, 2012
- 07:02 AM
- 525 views
Should you maybe change your last name so people like you better?
by Rita Handrich in The Jury Room
So you may have read about the life-long curse of an unpopular first name. But there’s more. Before you run off to change your first name, you may want to consider your last name as well! I’ve always liked my last name. It’s unusual and it’s phonetic. Hand. Rich. Simple. I never understood why people mangled [...]
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Laham, S., Koval, P., & Alter, A. (2012) The name-pronunciation effect: Why people like Mr. Smith more than Mr. Colquhoun. . Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(3), 752-756. DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2011.12.002
- March 23, 2012
- 03:33 AM
- 303 views
The Mystery of Trephination
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
Why did ancient peoples cut holes in their heads?The Woman of Pritschoena who died around 4,500 years ago in what's now Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Her skeleton was discovered in 1913 by a local archaeologist. Thanks to being buried in a gravel pit, her remains are exceptionally well preserved.The Woman's skull is a fine example of trephination - the practice of deliberately cutting holes in the skull. The Woman was trephined twice, as you can see in the images above taken from a paper just out. In ........ Read more »
Alfieri, A., Strauss, C., Meller, H., Stoll-Tucker, B., Tacik, P., & Brandt, S. (2012) The Woman of Pritschoena: An Example of the German Neolithic Neurosurgery in Saxony-Anhalt. Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, 21(2), 139-146. DOI: 10.1080/0964704X.2011.575117
- March 22, 2012
- 03:53 PM
- 467 views
The 1960s forest and the Mad Men trees.
by Melanie Tannenbaum in PsySociety
Doesn’t it feel sometimes like the trendy thing to do is reminisce about the past? With the return of AMC’s Mad Men on Sunday, a legion of fans will be tuning in to marvel at Joan’s bodacious curves, Roger and … Continue reading →... Read more »
Smallman, R., & McCulloch, K. (2012) Learning from yesterday's mistakes to fix tomorrow's problems: When functional counterfactual thinking and psychological distance collide. European Journal of Social Psychology, 42(3), 383-390. DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.1858
Stephan, E., Sedikides, C., & Wildschut, T. (2012) Mental travel into the past: Differentiating recollections of nostalgic, ordinary, and positive events. European Journal of Social Psychology, 42(3), 290-298. DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.1865
Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., Arndt, J., & Routledge, C. (2006) Nostalgia: Content, Triggers, Functions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91(5), 975-993. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.91.5.975
Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., Routledge, C., Arndt, J., & Cordaro, F. (2010) Nostalgia as a repository of social connectedness: The role of attachment-related avoidance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(4), 573-586. DOI: 10.1037/a0017597
Trope, Y., & Liberman, N. (2003) Temporal construal. Psychological Review, 110(3), 403-421. DOI: 10.1037/0033-295X.110.3.403
- March 22, 2012
- 09:37 AM
- 834 views
"Corporate Psychopathy" or old-fashioned witch hunt?
by Neurobonkers in Neurobonkers
Did anti-depressants play a role in the financial crisis? Are bankers more likely to be psychopaths? Do financial institutions behave in the same way as psychopaths?... Read more »
Babiak, P., Neumann, C., & Hare, R. (2010) Corporate psychopathy: Talking the walk. Behavioral Sciences . DOI: 10.1002/bsl.925
Price J, Cole V, & Goodwin GM. (2009) Emotional side-effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors: qualitative study. The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science, 195(3), 211-7. PMID: 19721109
- March 22, 2012
- 04:27 AM
- 572 views
The QHImp Qhallenge: Working memory in humans and Chimpanzees
by Sean Roberts in A Replicated Typo 2.0
Is your memory better than a chimp's? Play our game and find out! We'll be analysing the data in real-time.... Read more »
Silberberg, A., & Kearns, D. (2008) Memory for the order of briefly presented numerals in humans as a function of practice. Animal Cognition, 12(2), 405-407. DOI: 10.1007/s10071-008-0206-8
Inoue, S., & Matsuzawa, T. (2007) Working memory of numerals in chimpanzees. Current Biology, 17(23). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2007.10.027
- March 21, 2012
- 05:15 PM
- 212 views
What would you do if you had no sense of smell?
by Krystal D'Costa in Anthropology in Practice
No, really. What would you do? What scents would you miss the most? Freshly laundered sheets? A certain perfume or cologne worn by someone you care about? Mom/dad/Aunt Jane’s meatloaf? The roses in your garden? While I might miss my favorite perfume, I’ll tell you what I wouldn’t miss: subway body odors. But what about [...]
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Croy I, Negoias S, Novakova L, Landis BN, & Hummel T. (2012) Learning about the Functions of the Olfactory System from People without a Sense of Smell. PLoS ONE, 7(3). info:/
- March 21, 2012
- 08:27 AM
- 399 views
From Birth to Burial: the Curious Case of Easter Eggs
by Kristina Killgrove in Powered By Osteons
Ever wonder why the humble egg is the focus of the most important Christian holiday? The egg is ubiquitous and cheap today, often the product of backyard coops managed by hipsters keen on urban farming. But this incredible, edible source of protein was, millennia ago, a potent religious symbol.
Earth and Sun at the Equinoxes (credit)
It all started with the spring or vernal equinox (which, this year, is today). During the equinox, the sun is directly over the equator, and sun........ Read more »
J.P. Alcock. (1980) Classical religious belief and burial practice in Roman Britain. Archaeological Journal, 50-85. info:/
- March 21, 2012
- 04:28 AM
- 535 views
Evolang Coverage: Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini’s plenary talk
by bodo in A Replicated Typo 2.0
Post by Bodo Winter: Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini’s talk at this Evolang gave an impressively confident and forceful argument for linguistic nativism. The basic tenets of the Chomskyan view of language evolution were reiterated with some old and some new arguments along the way. Piattelli-Palmarini (P.P.) claimed that (1) language is modular and autonomous from other cognitive [...]... Read more »
Coates, M. (2003) Visual Ecology and Functional Morphology of Cubozoa (Cnidaria). Integrative and Comparative Biology, 43(4), 542-548. DOI: 10.1093/icb/43.4.542
Elman, J. (1991) Distributed representations, simple recurrent networks, and grammatical structure. Machine Learning, 7(2-3), 195-225. DOI: 10.1007/BF00114844
Garm, A., Ekström, P., Boudes, M., & Nilsson, D. (2006) Rhopalia are integrated parts of the central nervous system in box jellyfish. Cell and Tissue Research, 325(2), 333-343. DOI: 10.1007/s00441-005-0134-8
Ihlen, E., & Vereijken, B. (2010) Interaction-dominant dynamics in human cognition: Beyond 1/ƒα fluctuation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 139(3), 436-463. DOI: 10.1037/a0019098
Nilsson, D., Gislén, L., Coates, M., Skogh, C., & Garm, A. (2005) Advanced optics in a jellyfish eye. Nature, 435(7039), 201-205. DOI: 10.1038/nature03484
Palolahti, M., Leino, S., Jokela, M., Kopra, K., & Paavilainen, P. (2005) Event-related potentials suggest early interaction between syntax and semantics during on-line sentence comprehension. Neuroscience Letters, 384(3), 222-227. DOI: 10.1016/j.neulet.2005.04.076
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