Psych at Work

Outgrowing "Adolescent" Body Issues?

noreply@blogger.com (Mel the Crafty Scientist) — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 18:47:00 +0000

Clipped from: walkingwithnora.com (share this clip)

I'll admit right away that this post is perhaps best suited for my personal blog because it is, at least in part, heavily inspired by one of my favorite bloggers (whose blog I read for purely personal reasons - check her out, Nora at Walking With Nora wrote about her body image issues here) and my own battles in this arena, but I found myself wondering about the research and analyzing it as a social scientist and thought I might share it here and get some thoughts...

I was thinking about those of us pursuing higher education, those of us in our twenties and how body image issues affect us as we age. I know I had a lot of problems with this in high school and growing up and I've had various health issues my whole life so what's been "healthy" for me has changed dramatically from being smaller than "average" to larger than "average." It's been a struggle and I know I probably could have handled it better, I know I've had some problems that could have benefitted from professional help. But the point I'm making is that I still struggle with it and I think it's unusual. Or at least it's unusual for anyone in their twenties and seeking a post-graduate degree to admit to feeling body issues and insecurities.

I think there's a belief that you outgrow these "adolescent issues" that only plague insecure teens who don't have any real sense of self, any solid identity, any main source of fulfillment. And then, when you are particularly educated, and especially if you are not married, I think there is a general perception that you're an island, that you are the picture of self-esteem because you have to rely on yourself entirely. You draw strength from a career and a career path, you have the guts to follow your dreams and put yourself through some serious underpaid hell to get there. And the idea that you might not love your body? Well, you're too smart to even care about that... body image is a socially constructed ideal created to keep the little woman dependent on her big, strong man and make her feel the need to seek his approval and remain attractive to him. Or something like that (maybe add in a few more big words and ta-da).

But yet, even as we think this, or are told this by well-meaning friends and family who assure us that we are far too intelligent to fall for such ridiculousness, there's evidence that all women are affected. Look at Dove's real woman, love your body type ads and the viral-like success they had - according to this Harvard Business School blogger, that ad campaign increased Dove sales by 600% within 2 months of the launch of the campaign! (Seriously, holy crap, that's a ridiculous statistic...)

And another post from the Brain Blogger recounts a study in which even women with a supposedly healthy body image showed increased brain activity when they were asked to imagine themselves as obese, indicating what the researchers likened to a fear of being fat. The men in the study did not show a comparable spike. Even if the research is flawed and there's a tiny sample size (even for a neuroimaging study) (and not that I'm saying it is, I'm just saying that I haven't investigated it all and that this isn't my area of expertise, but it WAS published in a highly respected journal - Personality and Individual Differences - so it is obviously a fairly well-done study) and researchers can't say for sure that it's any kind of fear or disgust response (as opposed to increased activity in imagining very different versions of themselves or some other reason for the spike), doesn't it suggest that there are fundamental connections between body image and brain activity in women? Which, at least to me, makes it easier to believe that the problem is far reaching and universal - that there may be hard-wired connections that transcend class, education, race, and more. And that's a simultaneously comforting and terrifying thought for me, at least.

So why do people think that you can be too smart to fall for this stuff? Why do we believe we grow out of it when there's evidence that women relate to campaigns with honest depictions of women and admissions of less-than-perfect relationships with their bodies?

Gatorade + FSU?

noreply@blogger.com (Mel the Crafty Scientist) — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 02:17:00 +0000

I only noticed this little irony because I'm such a huge college football fan (okay, all football really) and I'm getting incredibly excited about the start of the football season... but I saw a commercial for some of Gatorade's new products - the one I've embedded here actually and I got to thinking... One of the new products for Gatorade (it's Gator-ade, as in drink to 'aid' the Florida Gator athletes), including one that appeared to be some kind of a gel, which I believe is glucose.

That got me thinking about the research that played a role in developing that product and how I believe that some of that research is from our own world of psychology! I believe that Gatorade's gel-like product has to have been at least partially influenced (there's an obvious connection at worst) by some of Roy Baumeister and his colleagues at Florida State (you know, the big rival for the University of Florida). What stands out to me in particular is a study that made an impression on me if for no other reason than because I cannot believe the number of participants, IRB forms and restrictions, and sheer man power taken to conduct it.

Gailliot, along with Baumeister and several other co-authors, published a paper in 2007 demonstrating the connection between glucose and self-regulation, self-control... the subtitle was even "Willpower is more than a metaphor." While Gatorade isn't exactly used to improve performance on a Stroop test, I would think its creators and researchers were at least aware of the Baumeister & Tice lab because those who had the best performance (and most self-control, self-regulation) had ingested a glucose drink!

I could easily be reaching with this, but it's a funny coincidence at least... any time you name a product for the school's mascot, I think you probably prompt some comparison to and anger at your rival... plus, I tend to find weird little connections to psychology from Gatorade, such as when they had their "what is g" commercials series and all I could think about was general intelligence... thoughts? Think there is a connection?

(If you're interested, this is the citation: Gailliot, M. T., Baumeister, R. F., DeWall, C. N., Maner, J. K., Plant, E. A., Tice, D. M., Brewer, L. E., & Schmeichel, B. J. (2007). Self-control relies on glucose as a limited energy source: Willpower is more than a metaphor. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 325-336.)

The Color Red

noreply@blogger.com (Mel the Crafty Scientist) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 23:33:00 +0000

(Somehow, this was the pic Cosmo thought most appropriate for their version of the story...)

I'm always a big fan of psychology making its way into the "mainstream media" and I still get excited when I see some article in Cosmopolitan or The New York Times or some equally "popular" form of media that references a study in a psychological journal (and I'm even more excited when I can guess who one of the authors is - not as hard as you might think given that some people talk to the media a lot and their research is repeatedly featured... sort of like crosswords, after a while, you see that some answers appear over and over again). All that is just leading me to point out that Cosmopolitan magazine had a little article on how women are attracted to men wearing red... which cited a study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology!

So being the awesomely nerdy gal I am, I found the journal article. It was seven studies and they compared humans to nonhumans and vertebrates to invertebrates and it's a pretty long thing... but you can tell pretty quickly that - as usual - the Cosmo writers have taken some liberties... though they didn't completely overdo it like I think they are prone to do (which is not unique to them, of course - we all want better answers than just "it depends").

Nonetheless, you can see for yourself what Cosmo said compared to what the scholars had to say... here's what Cosmo had to say:

"Ladies found men in red clothing more attractive and sexually desirable. The not-so-shocking reason why? Women subconsciously viewed men wearing that color as being higher in status and more likely to earn a good salary."

The study's authors:

"Specifically, in a series of 7 experiments we demonstrate that women perceive men to be more attractive and sexually desirable when seen on a red background and in red clothing, and we additionally show that status perceptions are responsible for this red effect. The influence of red appears to be specific to women's romantic attraction to men: Red did not influence men's perceptions of other men, nor did it influence women's perceptions of men's overall likability, agreeableness, or extraversion."

(In case you want it, the full citation for the scholarly article is:

Elliot, A. J., Kayser, D. N., Greitemeyer, T., Lichtenfeld, S., Gramzow, R. H., Maier, M. A., & Liu, H. (2010). Red, rank, and romance in women viewing men. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 139(3), 399-417.)

All this is just to say that Cosmo did a better job with this one than they have with some other studies I've seen them report on in the past and that I'm excited that this study made it to Cosmo, even if I wish something a little less "evolutionary psychology-based" made it (because let's be fair, this basically says that women are gold diggers - a frequent bottom line in evolutionary psychology), but I'll settle for any psychology and some pretty good reporting...

What I'm Reading This Week: HBR

noreply@blogger.com (Mel the Crafty Scientist) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 02:40:00 +0000

In honor of my internship, we have another intern explaining why he's the most interesting... the video's here, but one of my favorite sites - The Collared Sheep - has the lyrics for us to enjoy here.

While I'm busy finishing up an internship and moving back to my regular small-town, very Southern life - not to mention getting over a recent not-so-pretty break-up - I'm not really overflowing with creative ideas for topics and posts this week. So instead, I thought I'd feature some of the recent stuff I've been reading on the Harvard Business Review's website...

"A Deeper Kind of Joblessness" on Harvard Business Review - the current economic situation keeps finding its way into various psychological talks and debates. I was fortunate enough to attend a U.S. House subcommittee meeting on potential policy responses to long-term unemployment and one of the expert witnesses pushed Keynesian economics quite heavily... while he was not someone I took all that seriously (and hopefully not too many others did as well), this article actually manages to use economic arguments to persuade readers of the value of improving jobs and work for employees right now...
"Why the Powerful Can Be So Rude" on HBR - while I was saddened by the passing of George Steinbrenner, at least as much as anyone, I found it somewhat surprising that in death his memory is completely free of much of the hallmark of his personality as a businessman - there is little mention of the fact that Steinbrenner would probably not be anyone's best friend nowadays, at least not based on his personality and treatment of others. But I was thrilled to see this article actually points out that Steinbrenner is NOT associated with much of the traits we currently link to good managers and leaders.
"Millenials Won't Change Work; Work Will Change Millenials" on HBR - the title is catchy and I wish I could say that the arguments are somehow unique or eye opening, but ultimately, as much as I want to just agree with the author and not have to read another freakin' article about this topic and the generations at work, etc. (despite my interest in the topic, these articles manage to recycle a horrifyingly large amount of content), I'm not sure I'm convinced. The changes in work design and the employment relationship are too overwhelming and real to ignore and it's hard to say that it's not partially due to the rise of the millenial employee and the changes that shape both the millenial attitudes and the design of work... at least for me.
"Getting Beyond Engagement to Creating Meaning at Work" on HBR - it's almost ridiculous to think about something so 'luxurious' as making meaning and finding a job that provides you with personal fulfillment in the context of the current economy, but it's still a topic that's interesting to me personally and should be to researchers too as the author wisely points out that even in the midst of dangerous and miserable working conditions, individuals can thrive and create meaning. I think the arguments here harken back to Hackman and Oldham's Job Characteristics Model, but I love that the idea of making meaning - this active process that employees can choose to engage in and take action to alter the quality of their own experiences - is making it to the workplace!

So if you have a few minutes, you might want to check those out... I thought they were interesting and made me think, even if it wasn't because I was discovering brilliant new ideas.

Hippy-crite?

noreply@blogger.com (Mel the Crafty Scientist) — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 23:09:00 +0000

(from the Washington Post story "Why going green won't make you better or save you money")

I was SO excited when I saw the Washington Post's Express today had a cover story about the green revolution and behavioral change... or the lack thereof. Basically, the Post covered the rapidly expanding area of social psychology and judgment and decision-making (JDM) called moral licensing. It's the idea that we have internal debates with ourselves and we'll give ourselves credit for doing something good for the environment (or our health, etc.), but then we'll do something else that's bad because we gave ourselves permission to do something worse after doing something good... and vice versa. It's a constant game of withdrawals and deposits, decision-making on the fly and in complicated situations.

It's the science and studies behind findings that humans will install green-er light bulbs, but leave them on longer. Or get an energy efficient washer, but wash more clothes; get a Big Mac and fries with a Diet Coke; drive a Suburban to Whole Foods... the examples are virtually endless. I find some of these findings so fascinating and the intersection psychology with marketing and techniques to encourage behavioral change is really exciting and I imagine that this research will get a lot of funding in coming years as advertisers and businesses catch on and the "hippies" campaigning for change realize that the science of human behavior can offer as much as the science of climatology towards saving the planet!

Disheartening Neuroscience News

noreply@blogger.com (Mel the Crafty Scientist) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 02:29:00 +0000

(from Time Magazine's "The Cruelest Study: Why Breakups Hurt" - from Getty Images)

Again... an absence of posts from me! I'm disappointed in myself right now, but there are major life changes happening, so it's not easy... I'm about to move back to my regular home down south after an internship and I'm trying to get over a nasty breakup. It's ugly - the kind where your heart gets ripped out, the pieces put in a blender, and then the liquified bits set on fire... and then you can use your imagination.

So of course it's fabulous timing that a new study says that points out that brain areas involved in dealing with a break up (or looking at the photo of the one that broke your heart) is also associated with craving and addiction. Obviously it's hard to dig through the mass media coverage ("Will we soon have medical interventions to help get over the heartbreak?" "Why yes, CNN... soon you can take Vicodin for the heart!" - so I might be ad-libbing a bit, but you get the point), and there are a lot of reasons not to jump to any big conclusions or generalizations about all people experiencing a break up, but I have to say that right now, I wish I was a little less aware of scientific research because I find these results pretty disheartening (pun only somewhat intended).

Anyone have any fabulous advice?

P.S. I made the little "artsy quote" from the Zooey Deschanel quote myself - like it? I'm kinda proud of myself!

(Online) Identity Crisis

noreply@blogger.com (Mel the Crafty Scientist) — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 00:44:00 +0000

Recently I was thinking about how envious I am of certain bloggers and other internet celebs that I think have it really "together." They have a schtick and a theme and an identity that is, at once, comprehensive and beautiful, informative yet integrative. The bottom line is that I want one. That I've created several blogs and currently maintain several sites, I read blogs in a variety of areas and topics, I clip stories to about five places, and the contents of those clips varies enormously. Refusing to narrow myself down or pigeonhole myself is in many ways my own identity - I like a little bit of everything and worry I'd get bored if I got too immersed, too expert, too far down the rabbit hole of one thing. Oddly, this dilemma of online identity mirrors my current career struggle (which is a series of about 400 posts in and of itself, but I'll spare you).

But it all got me thinking about my own identities and what really unites them, if there's a real theme... the one thing I can think of is that I'm in my mid-twenties. I'm a Gen-Y, Millenial, whatever. I was going to try to connect this all to some scholarly text, or something written about the generations who has a bit more expertise than I, but I found something that makes me feel better about myself and this crisis of coherence, this failure to create my own personal narrative and faithfully represent it online - from "Welcome to the Occupation," Paul Smith's HR-f0cused blog, comes his post titled "I'm a Me." (It's from May 2010, but still good - I found it while searching through my subscriptions.) He talks to his six-year-old nephew about what it means to be a Generation Z (as in, post-Y) and I'm tempted to take the tongue-in-cheek "interview transcription" too far and analyze it, but the end result is that his nephew refused to be pushed into a category, refuses to be defined.

To be fair, I tried to group myself into this age group/category, but at the same time, I wonder how other people reconcile their online identities... do you all keep the sites separately? Or if you are HR focused, is it easy to keep your Tweets and clippings and blogs you read focused on that? Or do you just divide into folders and let them flow together when desired?

July 2010 "On the Record"

noreply@blogger.com (Mel the Crafty Scientist) — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 16:33:00 +0000

More fabulous quotes from the Monitor on Psychology (from APA) in the July 2010 issue...

“Younger people, including younger medical personnel, often don’t notice [depression among older adults]. When they do, it doesn’t surprise them. They think: ‘They ought to be depressed, they’re old.’ So instead of helping the person deal with it, they ignore it.”

—Bob G. Knight, PhD, associate dean at the Andrus Gerontology Center at the University of Southern California.
The Los Angeles Times, April 19

“There is a very bad set of values that are embedded in the air because of performance reviews.”

—Samuel A. Culbert, PhD, of the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles, who says annual reviews not only create a high level of stress for workers, but end up making everybody — bosses and subordinates — less effective at their jobs.
The New York Times, May 19

“People need to change their mindset about agreeing to everything. By saying no, you can focus on your goals.”

—Susan Newman, PhD, social psychologist and the author of “The Book of No.”
Forbes.com, May 27

You can find the quotes on APA's website here.

Updates on the Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Mel the Crafty Scientist) — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 00:20:00 +0000

(This is a peak at the Tumblr site.)

I've been doing some updates on the blog... or just general exploring and trying to teach myself how to do things to make the whole thing prettier and easier to use. But there's also one fun change - I've started an official tumblelog (blog on Tumblr) called "Psych at Work." You can find it here and I've set it up so that (at least for now) all of my posts there are sent to Twitter, so it's all going to show up on the Twitter sidebar over here. I also have a little Tumblr RSS feed in the sidebar too, but I think that will only be up now... once I get it going, it probably won't be featured in a sidebar because it's covered by Twitter.

The main idea behind the Tumblelog is that I can save links, photos, articles, videos, etc. and more together in one place rather than trying to use Flickr and Digg and Delicious and all of the other services out there. And with Tumblr, I can just post little bits of content without needing to make a whole big entry... so it's a good sort of supplement (complement?) to this site. So check it out!

No Room for Science in the Post

noreply@blogger.com (Mel the Crafty Scientist) — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 15:16:00 +0000

I'm a sucker for any blog post or article that attacks the mainstream media's failure to look at actual scientific research or that breaks down how "impartial" articles somehow manage to forget the entire other side of a debate.

So, I had to share this article from Bella DiPaulo's "Living Single" blog on Psychology Today, where she examines how a nine page article from the Washington Post (pictured) on the 'effectiveness' of marriage education somehow failed to include quotes from those who didn't think the programs are all that they're cracked up to be or any examination of examinations of the programs in peer-reviewed scientific journals...

Basically, it's a scary look at how articles in reputable publications really aren't as scientific or unbiased as we think they are, even when they are supposedly covering scientific topics and interviewing experts. I guess it's terrifyingly easy to ignore the dissenting opinions when you need an angle - in this case, the idea that divorce rates are so high because couples just don't know how to be married - but in getting people to read about the science, it's scary how much is ignored... and ultimately, is this really better? Is anyone really learning anything from this?

Just another reason we need more science in the mainstream, if you ask me!

27 Dresses and Sour Lemons

noreply@blogger.com (Mel the Crafty Scientist) — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 02:47:00 +0000

(The "27 Dresses" movie poster, found here.)

I'm having one of those frustrating moments where I stood up for myself and there's not really a great outcome... I definitely didn't get what I wanted, the hope of getting something better evaporated, the situation is at least temporarily worse (hopefully only temporarily), and it just feels icky.

I know I might (or would...) regret not standing up for myself, but it doesn't really take away the frustration I feel right now. At rare times like these (I don't often stand up for myself, but this was pretty atrocious), I'm reminded of the conversation between Jane and Casey (Katherine Heigl and Judy Greer, respectively) in "27 Dresses" where Jane has just put together the ridiculously terrible slideshow of her sister for the rehearsal dinner and Jane feels like crap and she talks to Casey...

Casey: So what happened?
Jane: He needed to know the truth.
Casey: You could have told him face-to-face. I mean, I know my moral compass doesn't exactly point due north, but... if I say something's wrong, something's wrong.
Jane: You're the one who's always telling me to stand up for myself.
Casey: Yeah, but that's not what you did. What you did was unleash twenty years of repressed feelings in one night. It was entertaining, don't get me wrong, but if it was the right thing to do, you'd feel better right now. Do you feel better right now?

It always makes me question what standing up for yourself really means and when it crosses that line from really standing up for yourself to attempted catharsis. And I don't know. I'm not sure anyone knows.

I was hoping to tie this back to psychology a bit better - with some awesome organizational justice, maybe some distributive and procedural justice featured, article - but I couldn't find anything that really thrilled me all that much. In particular, I found this article from the Harvard Business Review Research Blog called "What's Really Silencing Your Employees" by James Detert, Ethan Burris, and David Harrison. It's part of a series, but this particular article - based on yet another HBR article - goes through the myths of whistle blowing and what whistleblowers face. While it gets a bit too... "soft" (sociological? poetic?) for me at times, it does give reasonable advice to employers and managers about listening to what employees are saying - even about the small stuff - to create a norm where it's okay to speak up about problems, thus preventing the Enron-size whistle blowing and allowing employees to speak up about issues of all sizes.

So maybe the lesson - at least for those of us in the "little guy", David (of D and Goliath) position can learn to make it easier for our future subordinates to talk to us and prevent the build up of frustration that happens over time and prevent larger catastrophes. I guess for now I need to be satisfied that I did what I could and that I can add more behaviors to the list of what I don't want to be or do when I'm in a position of power - something that we often overlook, but is still important to consider.

Drawing the Truth

noreply@blogger.com (Mel the Crafty Scientist) — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 02:22:00 +0000

(While I was looking for an appropriate pic to accompany this post, I found this one and I kind of love the article that went with it - it's the translation of Barbie to human size and how distorted and weird she would look...)

I stumbled across this article (about Aldert Vrij's new study in Applied Cognitive Psychology) and I think it's so cool that I absolutely had to share it. Basically, scientists had police and military participants draw out a mission they'd been on and half were supposed to act truthfully and half were to lie. An important difference in the drawings was the presence (or absence) of the agent on the mission. The liars tended not to draw this person while truth-tellers did - the authors reported that 80% of truth-tellers and 87% of liars could be identified this way. That absolutely has to be one of the best rates I've ever seen in a study like this...

For some reason it reminds me of response scales where individuals are asked to draw something and that distance corresponds to some construct. For example, there's a way to measure body image by having individuals draw marks indicating how big they think their own shoulders or waist or whatever are and then researchers measure that distance and compare to the true size measure of the person (similar to the self-ideal discrepancy measures). The discrepancy between the drawn marks and the actual human's size show the person's distorted body image (how distorted the individual's perception of their own image is).

[This Cash & Deagle (1996) meta-analysis has a bit of information about the various measures of body image and the abstract is free if you're interested...]

Psychology & the World Cup

noreply@blogger.com (Mel the Crafty Scientist) — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 22:38:00 +0000

One of my most favorite moments in World Cup history - Zidane's headbutt of an Italian opponent in Zidane's last WC match. Courtesy of lunch.com.

I'll admit right now that I absolutely LOVE the World Cup. From the unabashedly biased commentators to the songs people just start singing in pubs to the way the organizers force attendees to actually explore the host nation to the sheer excitement generated by an event that only takes place once every four years. Somehow it's more than the Olympics... or at least it's different. The madness and excitement is all geared towards one sport, one country's team, one goal (pardon the pun).

I was lucky enough to be living in London during the 2006 World Cup and it was one of the most amazing and fun and bizarre and exhilarating experiences of my life and I'm a little sad that I'm not there now to join in the chorus of "You're a Bastard, Referee"- my personal favorite. But, the focus of this blog isn't my personal life or "adventures of the young and poor" (which is what I would subtitle the time in my life when I was in England), it's psychology. And to that end, I keep thinking about the many ways that psychology applies to the World Cup...

A few of those include:

What can teams do to be more effective? How can players score more goals? A 2009 study (Jordet, Hartman, & Signmundstad) showed that players who rushed penalty kicks were actually LESS likely to score (something for Team USA to think about, perhaps).
What about the scarier parts of the World Cup - the psychology of crowds and what happens when the drunk guys at the bar singing footie songs get angry or go home (or both)? Despite the fun I had in England during the World Cup, it's not hard to imagine that some of the drinkers turn violent and because drinking increases around World Cup matches, this can cause problems. One study found that there was a 25% increase in domestic violence on the five days when England played a match in the 2006 cup! (This is in stark contrast to mostly debunked myths about battered women increasingly seeking shelter after/around Superbowl Sunday, so more research would be nice - and necessary - before anyone makes absolute claims and domestic violence and the World Cup. After all, it's only one event and sample...)
Can people predict the outcomes of the matches? Turns out distracted experts make the best predictions - or, unconsciously thinking about the prediction leads to the best results, at least for experts (for everyone else, it doesn't much matter), according to a study by the famed judgment and decision-making researcher Dijksterhuis.
We all know about the vuvuzelas - the obnoxiously loud horns responsible for the "Killer Bees on the Attack"-like buzzing noise - and yes, they are annoying to fans watching on TV. And they probably cause some damage to fans attending the matches. But what about those who aren't exactly choosing to surround themselves with such hoopla? What about the people hoping to grab a small piece of the economic boom known as the World Cup? The stadium and event staff... well, NIOSH tells us that they are suffering more than just annoyance, but the vuvuzelas can cause serious (hearing-related) consequences that can affect quality of life for workers as they risk permanent hearing loss!
And, one of my favorite things about the World Cup, when I was in England, was the sheer impact of the event - the number and diversity of the people who watched and the conversations that it inspired between people who might otherwise have little in common. The sense of altruism that united the nation was unreal and unlike anything I have ever experienced. After all, Nelson Mandela never wrote an essay about how the United Nations should be more like the Olympics... but he did write one about the World Cup in 2006! (And I'm working on finding that darn link that now seems to be missing, but I read it at the time and LOVED it!) And so the HR Capitalist points out how effective the World Cup can be in bridging gaps still not covered by diversity training.

If those aren't good enough reasons to inspire even my fellow academics and self-proclaimed nerds to watch, I'm not sure what else is... all I can say is that I have not been disappointed, so grab a beer, sing "God Bless America" or similar patriotic song in a bar full of fellow fans (England definitely has WAY better songs than we do... unless there are some I don't know about?!), and have fun!

Recent Favorite Psychologist Quotes

noreply@blogger.com (Mel the Crafty Scientist) — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 03:26:00 +0000

APA has a section in their magazine, the Monitor on Psychology, with the recent quotes of APA members to more popular media outlets and I tend to love it. In the course of looking for some of John Dovidio's work, I found this little collection of gems and had to share!

“Where Barbara Ehrenreich and I agree – we’re both trying to separate wheat from chaff. We just differ on what we think is wheat and what we think is chaff.”

—Positive psychology researcher Martin E.P. Seligman, PhD, on his differences with Barbara Ehrenreich, author of “Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America.” Ehrenreich says positive thinking does little good in the long run and can even do harm.
The New York Times, Dec. 30

“Although our minds are in the right places, and we may truly believe we are not prejudiced, our hearts aren’t quite there yet.”

—Yale University’s John Dovidio, PhD, on new research that suggests TV show characters often express subtle racial biases that shape viewer attitudes.
Time, Dec. 17

"Most people aren’t alarmed by climate change — and that may be a holdover from early days of human evolution when 'things in the future didn’t matter. It was whether the enemy was just around the corner.'”

—Robert Gifford, PhD, on how global warming is a tough sell.
Associated Press, Dec. 17

Enjoy and you can find more in this section of the Monitor each month...

Game 7

noreply@blogger.com (Mel the Crafty Scientist) — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 02:58:00 +0000

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, I guess... Ron Artest and Paul Pierce. From the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

In honor of Game 7 of the NBA Championship, I've rounded up a few of my favorite (and a few I missed, but am glad to have found!) posts on the NBA and how it relates to various psychology topics, including the hot hand and affective forecasting, as well as Human Resources.

"Being Stephon Marbury: The Situation of Having 'Baggage'" from The Situationist Staff, 03/04/2009 - This was an examination of whether the public perception of Marbury would change depending on his situation - when he went from the NY Knicks to the Boston Celtics. Not anything completely different from other Situationist pieces, but an interesting example of their continued re-focus on the situation.
"When the Star Fires the Boss" from the HR Capitalist, 05/25/2010 - The most recent article of the bunch reflects on Lebron's relationship with Mike Brown, former coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers. The capitalist also describes some situations where a boss can be fired, despite (recent) superior performance (like Mike Brown winning coach of the year).
"Basketball Players and the Hot Hand" by Jonah Lehrer at The Frontal Cortex, 11/1/2006 - An older post, but still fun to revisit because, as you might have noticed, I enjoy the application of unique psychological phenomena to sports and perhaps my favorite example is the hot hand... basically, it's a review of Tversky and Gilovich's classic 1985 paper on the hot hand - demonstrating that it does not exist, despite the overwhelming belief of basketball fans and players at all levels. It's still one of my favorite, most bizarre, complicatedly beautiful findings in all of psychology...
And lastly, "10 Ways the NBA is Like Your HR Career" by the HR Capitalist, 10/26/2009 - Because it's still funny (at least to me and probably to almost anyone who has ever had a job) and even better, highlights some of my favorite "athletes behaving badly" moments. And since Kobe the Rapist led this pillage and burn campaign, it seems appropriate.

Enjoy and remember not to party like Kobe or get a haircut like Pau Gasol - no matter how many rings they have!

Perfectionist Paralysis

noreply@blogger.com (Mel the Crafty Scientist) — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 23:57:00 +0000

As I attempt to come up with some sort of normal routine while living in a new city and working a pretty exhausting (but satisfying!) internship/job, I'm struggling to make enough time to create the perfect blog entry. I keep feeling as though I should only blog if I have ample time to come up with the best idea since the advent of the wheel and then edit it at least 5 times. But I know that perfectionism can ultimately paralyze you (if you don't believe me, check out this piece on perfectionism & procrastination from Dr. Bill Knaus on Psychology Today), make you feel too scared to do anything because you have such a fear of failure... and so I refuse to do that and present you with posts that are a bit more me, errors and all...

So for tonight, I'm leaving you with the Psychology Today piece and the renewed promise to do better in posting more and moving beyond perfectionist paralysis.

The Hot Hand in Sports: More Blog Love

noreply@blogger.com (Mel) — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 02:08:00 +0000

It's always odd to me when the media decides to get on board and report a hot streak, particularly in college sports (except football). It seems like a college athlete has to be one or two away from breaking a national record before it even earns a place on the ESPN crawl... but if you don't want to wait or are just curious about the streaks out there, I highly recommend Dr. Alan Reifman's blog: "The Hot Hand in Sports."

Most of you in psychology and/or statistics are probably familiar with the hot hand phenomena, but it's basically the idea of streaks or streakiness in sports - the idea that two events or trials are somehow not independent (e.g., the first and second free-throw shots a player makes). So far, there is at best, almost no evidence to suggest that there are statistically significant streaks, but we're humans and we like to look for them anyways...

I like this blog a lot because it's written by a legitimately knowledgeable source (and has even been cited in scholarly/peer-reviewed journals) and has links to every other source on the subject you might ever want!

And so, with the season's end break in Garrett Wittels's hitting streak at Florida International University, I bring you the latest entry from Dr. Reifman's site, which reports on streaks in progress (and paused, ended, etc.). Enjoy!

Nudge Blog & Employee Motivation in Cartoons

noreply@blogger.com (Mel the Crafty Scientist) — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 02:52:00 +0000

I just discovered this entry on the Nudge Blog (their tagline is "improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness"). It's an illustrated/cartoonized version of Dan Pink's talk on what motivates employees and what doesn't and I've embedded it here (below). It highlights the point that money isn't always or the only solution. I love to see intelligent research and findings explained in creative ways like this and so I just had to spotlight it here! (The Nudge Blog is also pretty awesome and I definitely recommend it!)

Enjoy and let me know what you think (or if there's something better out there I haven't seen)!

More on the Crisis in the Gulf...

noreply@blogger.com (Mel the Crafty Scientist) — Mon, 31 May 2010 01:12:00 +0000

I've been preoccupied with moving up to Washington D.C. for a summer internship (one of the many joys of graduate school - the moving and temporary housing for internships!) and I haven't had time to craft the next genius entry on an entirely new topic. So until then, I've decided to spotlight a few more interesting pieces on the oil spill - from the management/judgment and human decision-making perspectives - that I've found in the past week or so. Enjoy and let me know what you think!

"Drilling for Answers: What can the BP oil spill disaster teach financeexecutives about risk?" by Kate O'Sullivan on CFO.com (posted May20, 2010) - I actually found this article because Ioften read Professor Michael Roberto's blog (he's a management professor at Bryant University) and he's interviewed and quoted here. O'Sullivan explores the ingredients of disasters like this one - including increasingly complex systems andaggressive cultures that discount risk - and how management professionals can use many of these lessons to better manage risk.
"Anchoring" by Jonah Lehrer in his blog ("The Frontal Cortex") on ScienceBlogs (posted May 26, 2010)- from the brilliant author of How We Decide and Proust Was a Neuroscientist, this article discusses how errors and biases inhuman judgment and decision-making have influenced some of the decisions in this crisis and other failures of management/business, specifically anchoring and adjustment. Basically, because the chosen anchor in the oil spill was the belief that the spill was not too bad, solutions were generated to deal with a much smaller problem - it's taken some time toget to the point where officials and problem-solvers are examining how to fix an enormous mess. While I might not lay as much blame on anchoring and adjustmenterrors as much as I'd blame the "cover your ass" and "if we don't tell, no one will know"-type thinking, it's an interesting connection between JDM and the current crisis.
"Nuke That Oil Well" by Robin Hanson on Overcoming Bias (posted May 30, 2010) - an economist writes about the reasons why using a controlled nuclear blast to stop the oil leakage is not being used or even considered... the comments show some interesting ideas and perspectives that make me question whether the blast would be an acceptable solution here in this situation, but still an interesting idea about how public opinion can bias public policy decisions.
"The Primary Reason Businesses Fail: Focusing on the Wrong Bottom Line" by RonaldRiggio on his "Cutting-Edge Leadership" blog on Psychology Today (posted May 1, 2010) - this article isn't exactly focusing on the BP oil issues, but Riggio points out that by focusing only on profits, BP fails us and the plant.
"BP: Why can't they say they are sorry and trying to make sure it will never happen again?" by Robert Sutton on his "Work Matters" blog on Psychology Today (posted May 25, 2010) - the title really says it all... Sutton references BP's own statements and press releases and shows why they defy research on how best to handle PR nightmares... it's hard to imagine how BP's image and reputation could be in worse shape right now...
"From 'Top Kill' to 'Dead Man's Switch': What BP's Oil Spill Lexicon Reveals About Its Brand" by Jeremy Boiter on Fast Company (posted May 27, 2010) - not exactlyamanagement-type article like the others, but an interesting essay about the names of the varies strategies and plans that BP has.... and how insensitive it is to have names that include "kill" and "dead man" when the accidents have been deadly.
"Journal makes oil-related studies available free" - from the Futurity vault, Rice University news - the genius here is less in the article and more about the common sense brilliance of opening up all of the scholarly research and literature on oil spills, including lessons learned from Exxon Valdez and published in peer reviewed journals, so that anyone can use it to problem solve.

Tragedy in the Gulf: Thoughts from Around the Web

noreply@blogger.com (Mel the Crafty Scientist) — Thu, 27 May 2010 05:03:00 +0000

(Image of the marshlands on the northeast pass of the Mississippi Delta May 23, 2010; from Reuters/Daniel Beltra/Greenpeace, via Boston.com.)

I've been thinking about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico quite a lot lately and have indeed returned to my "CNN junkie state" as I fondly refer to it. While I've mostly focused on pictures(these are absolutely incredible pictures, but still difficult to see) and infographics to help me understand what's happening in the now, I've also turned to the psychology and management blogs to see what they have to say. After all, there are so many issues in this situation that are relevant to the content of this blog that I can name in less than a minute... for example:How did this happen - the explosion, the delay in ending the spill, the failure to protect wildlife or clean-up immediately? Is it a failure of design? Is it cost-cutting? Is it groupthink?

Did anyone really know that there were problems with the Deepwater Horizon before the explosion? Did anyone realize how much time it would take to implement responses to an oil spill of this nature? And if so, where did that information go? What prevented it from being considered by those in a position to change it? Why didn't change happen?
What kind of organizational culture or policies might be implemented to allow engineers, those on the oil rig, and others on the "front lines" to report potential problems to those in position to make changes?
How do people respond to such national tragedies? From fake Twitter accounts to re-branding BP "Big Problem" and "Beyond Propaganda" to pleas for government resources to anger to providing help and mobilizing others to help* - what determines our responses (beyond our own stake in the matter)? Who responds which way and how?How do some use humor to cope while others find it offensive? And what might this mean about how people cope?

I'm still processing all of this myself, and as such, will refrain from posting my own take on the situation from the management/psychology perspective and instead, refer you to some articles I've seen addressing the situation from a similar point of view, as well as to some infographics that I've found helpful in understanding the situation (or at least the technical parts).

First, above is a screenshot of my pinboard (I made it using pinterest which might be my new favorite website... and I haven't liked a place this much in a LONG time - so get on the waiting list to get an invite if you like what you see) of helpful oil spill infographics. You can see the full thing here.

And second, these are a few of my favorite articles from around my network/blogroll of science-y blogs:

"BP: Victim of Its Own Good Marketing" from the Harvard Business Review (Gardiner Morse) - A comparison of a Brazilian company's marketing strategy with BP's. Both have had black marks on their records as a result of oil spills and other damage to the environment, but BP's "Beyond Petroleum" campaign might actually do the company more harm now as it seems more ridiculously far-fetched to pair life and organic, renewable resources with the oil sludge beaches and dying ecosystems in the gulf...
"Leaning Your Way to Disaster" from the Harvard Business Review (Michael Watkins) - Basically, if you start cutting corners and continue to do so, it might not make a difference immediately or one cut corner might not have an effect, but the combination or collection of these shortcuts makes a difference... and might be the reason why many restaurants fail and why the disaster in the gulf continues to happen.
"The Gulf Oil Spill: A Classic Failure of Systems Leadership" from the Harvard Business Review (Michael Watkins) - Watkins summarizes the responses from Transocean, BP, and Haillburton in recent Wall Street Journal articles (with some good explanation of the technical explanations and decoding of the finger-pointing arguments from each side) and argues for more and better accountability as systems grow more complex and the failure to self-regulate has higher costs.
"How to Stop the Blame Game" from the Harvard Business Review (Nathaneal Fast) - the most purely psychological of the articles, Fast reviews some studies he's worked on and published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology about goal contagion. Essentially, he argues that after one executive pointed the finger at another (in order to protect their egos), the spread of finger-pointing simply happens (and the authors of these studies discounted social learning and mood as alternative explanations). While you may or may not believe that goal contagion is (solely) to blame (especially if we're supposed to believe that the primary motivation is ego protection), the phenomenon itself is an interesting one...
"When Should We Forgive Failure?" from the Harvard Business Review (Michael Watkins) - Based on a recent radio show the author took part in, Watkins explores when we should forgive companies and when we should punish - basically, how to respond to failure so that we continue to encourage innovation and creativity without being overly reckless. I wish Watkins would have drawn out the piece a bit better as this is the main point, but perhaps a fruitful discussion from commenters will result (though to be fair, it did make me think about the issue a bit)...
"Are We in a State of Fear, or Resignation?" from Brainspin at True/Slant (David DiSalvo) - DiSalvo argues that collectively we've moved from a state of fear to a state of resignation, a sort of learned helplessness. He connects the oil spill to terrorism and attempts to protect ourselves from international terrorism and based on the impossibility of preventing and/or protecting ourselves from every possible threat, the American people have simply resigned ourselves to the inevitability of tragedy, disaster, and attack. While it may be a little disheartening, it's an interesting call to (psychological) arms.

So check out some (or all!) of these articles and links and let me know what you think...

*This last link is probably the best collection I've seen with "what you can do to help"-type resources and information collected... not to mention that it was posted VERY early on and so I have to give some props to Miss Malaprop for that.

An Introduction

noreply@blogger.com (Mel the Crafty Scientist) — Mon, 24 May 2010 23:40:00 +0000

The first entry of any good blog seems to be a good introduction, perhaps including a good statement of purpose or goals for the adventure. So, after countless hours attempting to design this site and make it as user friendly as possible while still aesthetically pleasing, I'll get to the point and explain my goals...

I'm starting this site because I've noticed a sizable gap between the academician, the real research and the public. If you've ever tried to read a scholarly article, it's easy to see how this gap has formed. If most newspapers are written at a fifth grade or grade school reading level, these scholarly articles are closer to college and doctorate level. They're not easy to read, the main points are often easily lost along with the practical implications... not to mention, who really has time to read an entire journal article when you only need a few main points? And who knows where to look? Once you lose access to a university library, it's hard to know where to find the important information.

My goal here is to help bridge that gap, to highlight important and interesting findings as well as shine the spotlight on some practical, useful resources for getting this type of information.

I'll also try to avoid choosing topics or ideas solely based on my own interests and research, but on the "About Me" page I've listed some of my interests (professional and beyond) so you can get an idea of what I'm particularly fascinated by.

I want this to be interactive, to get to talk through research and ideas I find interesting here and so I encourage you to write to me (psychatwork.mel@gmail.com), comment here. Please suggest links, stories, ideas, anything and everything you want and please be patient as I try to

figure out the blog world, web site creation, and the whole nine yards...

Pre-Introduction

noreply@blogger.com (Mel the Crafty Scientist) — Sat, 22 May 2010 21:34:00 +0000

(Image courtesy of Who Care's Wins)

If you've managed to stumble across this site right now, thank you so much for checking it out and please PLEASE bookmark the site and come back in about a week. It's still under construction and I'm waiting to put up the good stuff (you know, blog entries and real content) until then, but feel free to contact me if you have any thoughts or ideas in the mean time... it's psychatwork.mel@gmail.com.