Writing: Blog
Choosing Poorly
/One of the obstacles that keeps the poor from rising out of poverty is the tendency to make costly financial decisions – like buying lottery tickets, taking out high interest loans, and failing to enroll in assistance programs – that only make their situation worse. In the past, these poor decisions have been attributed either to low income individuals’ personalities or issues in their environment, such as poor education or substandard living conditions. New research published this month in Science by Booth Assistant Professor of Behavioral Science Anuj Shah points to a new answer: living with scarcity changes people’s psychology.
Read MoreReform from the Bottom Up
/In recent months social psychologists have focused an increasing amount of attention on the soundness of their scientific methods. Although the problems we face are troubling, I believe that the renewed attention they are getting is a very positive trend because a self-critical approach is essential to ensuring the continuing health of the discipline. If, as a scientific community, we were to ignore problems as they became apparent, then our entire endeavor would be undermined. The question, then, is not whether we need to be improving the state of our science, but how we can do so most effectively.
Read MoreThe Psychology of Soda Bans
/Will Mayor Bloomberg's ban on large soda cups work? The New Yorker's James Surowiecki gives us some compelling reasons to believe that it will, but there is also a case to be made that it could backfire.
Read MoreLuck vs Merit (Part 2)
/Robert Frank discusses the role of skill vs. luck in producing success.
Read MoreInescapable Karma
/Simultaneously disbelieving karma and “sort of believing it” may be a logical contradiction, but in reality it’s actually very common for people to be “of two minds” when it comes to these sorts of magical beliefs. While some people endorse karma without reservation, many of us would reject the notion that the universe is governed by laws of moral cause and effect, but we often still behave as if we believed it.
Read MoreJust Post It (update)
/An update on Simonsohn's recently posted paper in which I discuss one of the techniques used to confirm Simonsohn's suspicions of fraud. The results of the analysis make it clear that the data was not generated by real subjects.
Read MoreSimonsohn's Fraud Detection Technique Revealed
/Uri Simonsohn's "secret" paper describing the analyses he used to detect fraud in the Dirk Smeesters and Larry Sanna cases has now been submitted for publication and is available on SSRN. Simonsohn explains the analyses he used to detect and confirm the fraud and calls on journals to make the publication of raw data their default policy.
Read MoreJust My Luck (or is it?)
/Most people agree that success requires hard work and good fortune. Recent research suggests that people's politics can be swayed depending on which of these ingredients they focus on when thinking about their own success. Thinking about the role of hard work in your success makes you more likely to support more conservative social policies, while thinking about the role of luck and the help of others makes you more likely to support liberal ones.
Read MorePsychology is Science
/Some guy thinks psychology is not really a science. He doesn't know what he's talking about.
Read MoreThe Public Benefits of Social Psychology
/Two recent editorials by Dick Thaler and Tim Wilson make a strong case for the public benefits of social psychology.
Read MoreCrimes and Misdemeanors: Reforming Social Psychology
/Is social psychology in need of reform? I propose that despite high profile cases of fraud, we should be more focused on fixing the mistakes that honest researchers make all the time.
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- The New York Times
May 1st, 2015