recent research

(A lot of) Catching up with Kevin Lewis' log of recent research:

• "Social Proof" says we like to do what everyone else is doing, but sometimes we're more likely to try something if we think it's a rare opportunity.
• Our brain has distinct processes for understanding gains vs. losses - which might explain why some of us are more in debt or have more assets.
• Citizens may be happy to let the state spend more, as long as they trust it.
• Tolerance may be a good thing in itself, but it's not necessarily good for growth.
• Thanks to cable, presidents ever more so are preaching to the choir.
• Barack's political capital problem may just be the latest example of a trend in declining presidential political capital.
• Evidence of a savvy electorate: we vote for divided government when it spends beyond its means (presumably to rein in spending) but for unified government when economic times are bad (to empower the state).
• In politicians' tension between voting with their constituents or voting with their party - it all depends on how unified their constituents are.
• Another reason parties matter: they keep last-term politicians doing their job.
• What improves our faith in democracy? Winning an election, for one.
• More evidence that humans can't stand randomness: we assume big consequences had to have had non-trivial causes.
• Politicians are more likely to persuade the opposition - by repulsion - than they are their own party-members by attraction. Experts, similarly, get more scrutiny when they contradict ones beliefs.
• Socially and fiscally mixed up liberals and conservatives are less likely to be politically involved.
• Values increase how much we process information - especially if they are cued up. Ditto extreme language.
• A model on how trust builds.
• Even though it tends to be distrusted itself, government may engender trust in society.
• Political economists explain why sometimes citizens may vote away checks and balances - and it all has to do with when politicians are easier to buy.
• More evidence that smart and happy do not go hand in hand.
• Social networks communicate in bursts and small groups.
• Even three-year-olds know they need to pay attention to the guy everyone else is paying attention to.
• Two studies show the development of equity aversion in kids.
• It takes so little to make us feel like we belong.
• Be assertive in your advertising! As long as you're advertising a guilty pleasure.
• We reevaluate our strategies when we lose; not so much when we win.
• The MIT explains how it won the DARPA balloon treasure hunt.
• We believe what we read, regardless of the credibility of the source.
• Citizen input isn't a drag on bureaucracy - rather it's a boon.
• Running for office? It helps to be a celeb.
• Whatever political orientation we get from our parents, we get through their genes.
• Another Disgust = Conservatism study. This time looking at worm-eating and gay marriage.
• Bipartisan friendships are possible, but less likely.
• The path to identification with conservatism or liberalism is sometimes more about repulsion than attraction.
• Our responses to financial and moral scandals depend on how much they're also about abuses of power.
• Although spouses usually share political views, daters don't advertise their political leanings - at least not on dating sites.
• Teenage boys are more likely to learn about politics when it gets competitive, but girls learn more where there's consensus.
• Much as in other parts of life, women only like to take charge in politics when they know what they're doing.
• Even after accounting for biases in previous studies, there's still evidence that education makes us more politically involved.
• Looking at youth political participation over the past 30 years; not much has changed, although youth today are more civicly rather than politically engaged.
• Your over-all sense of control in life says a lot about whether or not you vote.
• The rise of political talk radio may be due to two things: deregulation and iTunes.
• Another argument for how we're not less politically engaged today - but rather we're differently engaged.
• Partisans may disagree on policy issues, but they pretty much agree on civic values.
• It doesn't take much to make us feel - and act - like an inferior minority.
• We write off our group's flaws as "human nature", but don't cut our enemies the same slack.
• Even anti-social teens can become better citizens with small nudges. Progressive education also makes kids more civic minded.
• Studies that typically suggest humans are naturally altruistic may just be showing that humans like to appear altruistic.
• Want to turn someone into a do-gooder? Get them do something nice and make sure it costs them.
• Too many choices not only make consumers put off choosing - it also makes potential volunteers put off volunteering.
• We tend to look "up" to leaders.
• We may be loss averse when it comes to our survival, but in love we become risk seekers.
• Why ignorance may breed ignorance.
• Political contributions reward politicians for their beliefs rather than try to change their beliefs - and politicians' daughters can prove that's so.
• Another reason nothing gets done in DC: negative lobbying is 3.5 times more effective than positive lobbying. But not so with ballot initiatives: pro and con spending have equal pay-offs.
• We can thank high advertising rates for the rise of an independent media.
• Not what a libertarian would necessarily expect: big legislatures lead to smaller government.
• Lawmakers may not know much about policy, but - given the right institutional incentives - that might not hinder their ability to make good policy decisions.
• Newspaper subsidies may not lead to improved journalism.
• Interest groups may do just as well fueled by volunteerism as fueled by donations.
• Lobbying is effective - especially when citizens aren't paying attention.
• Reports of diminishing social networks may be premature.
• See the evolution of human cooperation in action.
• Lying comes easier online.
  
• Policy experts, save your breath: those in power aren't listening.
• Fancy yourself as an analytical gal? You may just feel out of control.
• A sociologist explains why "accidents happen."
• When we get to compare, we become more certain.
• Want to make a convincing case? Present your evidence in dribbles.
• Naive Realism (the belief that we see reality objectively) shows up in collaborations with peers.
• More evidence that politics is genetic.
• As Americans polarize, our cross-Atlantic cousins are de-polarizing.
• Another reason politicians like divisive politics: it makes them less likely to be held accountable.
• The impact of the economy on the voter is not a one-size-fits-all kind of thing.
• 527s, as visualized as part of party networks.

my new favorite toy

Santa came early this year, pointing me to Gapminder, where international development geeks can visualize global economic and social trends til the heifers come home.

But it can also be fun for Ameri-centric users like me who are idly curious about, say, the average age women married in the US since 1800 or how much Americans drink compared to others...

To play too, be sure to click "visualize" next to your favorite indicators and then "play" the timeline. Enjoy!

curmudgeons for democracy

Popular dissatisfaction with government is usually taken as a sign that democracy is dysfunctional.

But a new study by Edward Miguel and his colleagues, as he reports in Foreign Affairs, suggests just the opposite; critical citizens are the foundation of democratic government.

Miguel was trying to figure out what might be the connection between education and levels of democracy in developing nations. (Even though there's a correlation between the two, no one agrees if what the causal link is between the two - if any.) His research team set up a randomized study, giving education incentives to one a set of girls schools in Kenya, leaving another set with no incentives. After a number of years and a clear increase in test scores at the first set of schools, they went in to see how the young women's political attitudes may have differed. Most of the obvious assumptions didn't pan out: the better educated girls were not more pro-democratic and neither were they more likely to vote or be involved in civic organizations. There was one difference: they were more critical of their government.

The study of course didn't find (or even search for) evidence to demonstrate the other half of the causal link - that is, that more critical citizens are more likely to bolster democracy - but it makes intuitive sense and is fodder for more research. At a very basic level, citizens who don't question their government aren't going to push for any change, let alone democratic change. Of course, more than dissatisfaction is needed to propel people to become politically active (usually those characteristics are bundled together into what social thinkers call "political capital"). And, of course again, too much dissatisfaction can lead to complete disaffection (of the Ted Kazcinski or couch-potato variety). But Miguel's experiment is a good reminder to us in old, creaking democracies that a critical citizenry should never be wished away.

recent research

The latest gems from Kevin Lewis' blog:

• It's harder for us to give biased advice when face to face with the advisee.
• A problem for international NGOs: our empathy is only triggered for people who are "like us."
• Don't be embarrassed about being embarrassed: people will like you more for it.
• How we read other people's minds depends on whether we think they're like ourselves or "others."
• And bilinguals may be better at intuiting others' beliefs than monolinguals.
• More evidence of the subconsciousness of bigotry: we avoid groups after receiving subliminal cues that they are a threat.
• Oxytocin: the love drug, but only if you're already "one of us."
• Our brains map out conflict in four typical ways.
• If we don't put our critical hat on immediately, we end up believing a lot of silly things.
• Politeness may be nice, but it also confuses.
• Why we think others will be happy to pay more than they actually do.
• Framing effects (that is, changing our perceptions and preferences by rewording information) are not temporary.
• Threats loom larger and closer in our minds - but can be diminished by increasing self-esteem.
• Why is right "right" and left "sinister"? It depends on whether you're left or right handed.
• Biased investigators don't get more true confessions - but they do get more false confessions.
• The biasing effect of hypothetical questions - and how it can be moderated.
• What editors have always known: editors may highlight public-affair news, but readers prefer the non-public affairs fare.
• All those cross-national studies about trust and "social capital" may be skewed by what the term "most people" means in different nations.
• Competitive elections and non-competitive elections are different animals - if we can learn anything from voter turn out and rain.
• The determining factor of whether or not we go to the polls may not be self-interest or even time on polling day - but how much political information we are able to consume.
• One other thing that nudges us to the polls: thanks for voting in the last one. As does providing election materials in ones native language.
• More evidence that voting is a socially motivated behavior.
• Making people vote sure enough gets more people to the polls - but otherwise doesn't change much.
• Pain makes us less communitarian and more capitalist.

Love in the filter bubble?

Personalization algorithms already tell us what movies to watch, news stories to read and tunes to listen to. It was only a matter of time, then, that they’d tell us who to love.

Matching algorithms aren’t new to online dating services. EHarmony, Chemistry and OKCupid have long served up compatible mates based on dozens, if not hundreds, of questions singles answer on their sites.

But a new dating app, StreetSpark, is venturing out internet-wide to pick up clues on who you’re likely to become enamored with. Love seekers on the site can plug into their Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter accounts to discover potential lovers with similar tweets, profiles and cafe haunts. (That, at least, is the concept. So far this single has yet to be sent a match.)

It’s like “traditional” online personalization but in reverse. Instead of telling you what you’ll like based upon your friends’ preferences, it tells you who you’ll want to be friends with based on what you like.

StreetSpark touts their service as giving “serendipity a helping hand.” Normally we have to wait for luck to bring us face to face with that special someone; StreetSpark provides us with a helpful homing device right in our smartphone.

It’s an odd usage of “serendipity,” though, which describes the phenomenon of making desirable discoveries by accident. If you instruct your iPhone to tell you when there’s a sympatico mate in your hood, bumping into them can’t really be described as “an accident.” Of course, the makers of StreetSpark are aware of that contradiction and are tongue and cheek in using the term.

But it’s more than a semantic quibble. Part of appreciating the beauty of “making discoveries by accident” is to understand that sometimes we don’t know what we’re looking for. If you’re a romantic, that can especially be true in the case of love. It’s not as if we have the profile of “the perfect guy” in our head and falling in love is just a matter of luck when you’ll run into that profile. The “accident” of love is when we meet someone who doesn’t fit our pre-conceived ideal and yet, mysteriously, we fall head over heals. In the process, if we’re truly lucky, we’re opened up to a new, exciting and unknown world.

re-posted from TheFilterBubble

recent research

Notable studies noted on Kevin Lewis' blog:

• Can "tone" on the internet predict social unrest and revolutions? This guy thinks so.
• When it comes to our core values, we don't really differ across cultures and country borders.
• Believing that others are less fixed in their ways makes us feel kindly toward compromise.
• We more easily remember - and so prefer - social hierarchies to non-hierarchies.
• The powerful and confident are less likely to take advice - but not more likely to have better judgment.
• How can over-confidence survive evolution? Because it can reap so many benefits.
• Stop trying to be happy - it's making you unhappy.
• One way transparency can backfire - by making politicians herd.
• Nostalgia gives us meaning.
• Progressive taxes tend to make happy nations...
• ... but that may or may not be why Americans are getting unhappier.
• Intuition about risk and markets make make most of us terrible investors.
• Getting distance on a problem or question makes us smarter - at least when it comes to budgeting.
• Macroeconomists has biases too.
• The media may cover political elites more often - but coverage of mass movements have a greater impact on public perceptions.

recent research

The every-now-and-then round up from Kevin Lewis' blog:

• Group membership in the US - and so "social capital" - is still on the wane.
• Higher status individuals are more trusting individuals.
• Human voices - as opposed to human texts - are great de-stressors (at least when they're mom's).
• Social proof (the idea that we do what every one around us does) can reduce bullying in middle schools.
• Not too shockingly, best friends influence best friends' behavior.
• More evidence that we conform to others' behavior - whether or not we think anyone knows.
• Legislators are swayed by their constituents' opinions - when they know them. Even so, lawmakers only follow majority opinion about 50% of the time.
• In another shocker, left-leaning newspapers tend to disproportionately report on Republican scandals (and right-leaning papers on Democratic ones).
• But, on the whole, the US newspapers tend to promote the views of the median voter. Although media bias may shift from year to year.
• Citizens don't completely follow their parties' leaders when it comes to policy preferences, but are able to consider factual information as well.
• How to beat a competing value: associate that value with a "extremist" group.
• It's unclear if information about policy effectiveness diffuses state borders - but there's evidence that info about policy viability does.
• Since primaries tend to elect more extreme candidates who could have a tougher time in general elections (as opposed to party-picked candidates), you'd expect primaries to exist more in solidly partisan districts - as they do.
• Why populism is so popular.
• What if campaign donations were completely anonymous? Unsurprisingly candidates would be less often swayed from their beliefs. Surprisingly, though, non-anonymous donations tend to make candidates more moderate.
• We perceive media bias through our own biases.
• We vote with our party - except when specific issues hit close to home.

GOTV strategy: anger-mongering

The one thing more distressing than listening to politicians demonize their opponents as deliverers of doom and destruction - is to read a study on why it's such an effective strategy.

Why people bother to go out to the polls (when clearly their one vote counts so little) is a question that's been dogging political scientists for years. There are countless explanations for this quaint act of civic participation, many of which probably contribute to the full, true, picture. A big part of that picture is habit. Those of us who vote in our 30s, usually keep voting for the rest of our lives. But how does that habit start?

Anger is partly to blame (or credit, I suppose), according to a paper by Nicholas Valentino. Like fear, anger is a common response to perceived threats - aka Democrats who are going to turn America into a socialist state or Republicans who are conversely gunning for Fascism. Unlike fear, however, anger gets you into action; fear will instead keep you quaking in your boots (and staying home on election day).

Whether your response to political threats is anger or fear depends upon your sense of "internal efficacy" - that is, how "competent and influential" you think you are in the political sphere. Just as when someone pushes into you on the subway platform, depending upon their size and appearance - and thus your "competence" to deck them - will determine whether your response is anger or fear. (Yes, the question of makes one high or low on the "internal efficacy" continuum is not answered -but, really, we can only deal with one quandary at a time.)

In young people the effect of inciting anger can be quite effective - boosting political participation as much as 10%. Given that voting becomes a habit, getting young angry citizens to the polls can reap long-term benefits (like advertising Coke to 5 year olds).

That's bad news if, like me, you want to tamp down on angry rhetoric in politics. The small silver lining, however, is that inciting fear does not have similar results. Right now I need all the silver linings I can get.

In war we trust

Americans distrust government, more so today than since pollsters started tracking levels of trust back in the 60s.

There are countless academic and popular theories why Americans have such a dim view of their political leaders today. Most suggest a progressive decline in democracy - the rise of a 24/7 media culture dumbs down debate; a lack of campaign finance limits makes politicians beholden to special interests; 60s social welfare culture has made the state self-perpetually bloated; extreme partisanship has politicians more interested in winning than in solving problems, etc.

Two profs from Vanderbilt and University of Illinois, however, think things haven't really changed that much since the 60s. According to a paper by Marc Hetherington and Thomas Rudolph, government's doing as well (or poorly) as it ever has and citizens' views of government hasn't really changed over the decades.

So how do they explain the apparent decline in trust over the years? It's a question of salience - that is, what Americans happen to think is the most important issue at any given time.

As you might imagine, we tend to pay more attention to things that worry us. So when the economy is fine but we're worried about nuclear war with Russia, we think international issues are most pressing. But if inflation is spiking and jobs are thinning out, we'll turn our focus onto the economy.

Concerns about international vs. domestic troubles do not, however, have the same effect on our trust in government. Fear of foreign threats increases our faith in the state, while worries about problems at home decreases our trust. The reverse is also true - a peaceful globe makes us less beholden to our state and a booming economy keeps us content with government - but the effect is not as strong. That leaves us with the following picture:

When attention on the economy or crime increases (the 70s and early 90s), political trust decreases. Even more clearly, eyes on international issues (60s, mid-80s and 9/11) boosts confidence in government. Today, with 9/11 faded in our memories and the economy teetering on double-dip recession, it makes sense that we distrust government more than ever.

recent research

More political behavior highlights from Kevin Lewis' blog:

• High power + low status = jerky behavior.
• Organizational leaders can inspire their employees - but only if they don't deliver their message directly.
• Not all altruists participate alike.
• Those who feel more socially connected are also more apt to dehumanize "others."
• When it comes to forming policy alliances, ideology - not power - is the glue that binds.
• Americans haven't changed the way they participate in groups over the past three decades, but citizens who are involved in many groups have become more partisan.
• When seeing is misleading.
• More evidence that once we've made our minds up, we only hear evidence that supports our decision.
• Yes, it's possible to make juror instructions comprehensible.
• We're more likely to believe someone when he's talking to others - than talking directly to ourselves.
• Want to make someone more progressive? Have them turn a crank clockwise.
• "Social Proof" strikes again: this time in getting residents to conserve water.
• Perception of popularity benefits niche products more than mass-appeal products.
• We love what we create. Perhaps too much. Not that we can't love what we buy too much too.
• When labels confuse more than enlighten.

Select your 150 friends wisely

Online technol0gy is transformative. It can make the world flat, spark revolutions and even wrap us into personalized filter bubbles. But there’s one thing technology hasn’t been able to do yet: expand our circle of friends.

You’re probably familiar with Dunbar’s “150 rule:” the reason that humans tend to limit the size of their communities to 150 people – whether in prehistoric towns, in military units or in cults – is because the human brain maxes out at 15o friends.

Now it turns out that even Twitter can’t free us of this 150 ceiling. Bruno Concalves and colleagues at Indiana U recently looked at 1.7 million tweeters over 6 months to see how many connections they kept up (connections, as opposed to mere followers, had actual back-and-forth exchanges). True to Dunbar’s prediction, twits generally don’t maintain more than 100-200 friends.

That’s bad news for the filter bubble. You can imagine one hope of avoiding a personalized information bubble is to widen your circle of friends in order to include folks with different viewpoints. That way you might expand the information that arrives on your laptop screen. But, as Eli points out in the intro to his book, merely adding friends to your FaceBook list doesn’t mean you’ll interact with them. No interaction means those “friends” will be virtually invisible on your feed. You’re still stuck in a community of 150.

The only way to truly escape the bubble may be to replace some of your current connections with people who disagree with you – and actually engage them in discussion. Of course, if we’re concerned about the limitations of human behavior, that may be the most pollyanish hope of all.

cross-posted from TheFilterBubble

recent research

Keeping up with the latest in political behavior, via Kevin Lewis:

• How many proselytizers does it take to convert a nation? According to one model, 10%.
• We become more morally hypocritical when we view ethics abstractly.
• Rational decision making does not make more moral choices. We're better off going with our gut.
• It pays to be a crazy and "infamous" politician - but it can pay your opponent more.
• Want to increase marriage rates? Get rid of blood test requirements.
• Weak ties in Congress are good news for compromise and legislative success.
• Congressional bundling: adding spoonfuls of sugar to make legislative medicine go down.
• Voters hold politicians responsible for the positions they hold, not the outcomes they produce.
• How presidential political capital and congressional partisanship interact.

Filtering ourselves by eyewear

Personalization algorithms, especially those that factor in our friends’ preferences, have a way of clumping us into ever more homogeneous and like-minded groups. That’s one of the central ideas of The Filter Bubble.

But, as Eli freely admits, online personalization is not the only force filtering out diversity and sieving in homogeneity. We humans are very good at sorting ourselves into groups that look and think much like ourselves – without the help of algorithms.

The power of homophily, the sociological term for our self-sorting tendencies, hardly needs scholarly backing ; just glancing around any college cafeteria should be enough to convince that we flock to birds of similar feathers. But that doesn’t stop academics from supplying hundreds of studies for evidence. In two such recent papers, researchers show the breadth and depth of our self-sorting behavior.

On the high-commitment end, we marry within our political party. That may not seem surprising, but when you compare it to a weaker tendency to marry people with similar personality traits, it suggests that for the most important decisions in life we value people who think like we do more than those who act like us.

At the other – superficial – extreme, we sit near people who look like us. Based on self reports and experiments, researched subjects tend to find seats next to people of the same gender, race, hair length, hair color and general attractiveness. And, yes, eyeglass wearers prefer sitting next to each other too.

cross-posted from TheFilterBubble

why the GOP may always win

This chart says it all.

recent research

Trailing Kevin Lewis' trail of new research:

• Feeling powerful makes us more certain of - and less willing to doubt - our beliefs.
• A - perhaps - inethical persuasion technique: priming "trust."
• Are women innately more Bayesian than men? When playing the Danish lottery they are.
• Be warned American citizens: being in-action means being less objective. (As does any kind of threat perception.)
• The happier you are, the more irrelevant information you pick up.
• How much do we really prefer variety? Not so much when consumption is spaced out over time.
• Political polarization may be a good thing - if you're president.
• Making "wiser" citizens by de-personalizing policies.
• Looking at an American flag once (on a survey about politics) can make you more conservative - for up to eight months.
• And smelling gross things can make you dislike gays.
• Want to decrease racism? Have bigots mimic the actions of someone from another race. Or show them how people of that race vary.
• Having powerful friends makes us justify "the system." So does feeling the system is threatened. One way we do that is by believing the system is meritocratic.
• Make an honest citizen out of us: putting the compliance signature at the top of government forms cues us to lie less.
• Pheromones strike again: humans can smell anxiety.
• Getting citizens to the polls: sometimes it's as simple as invoking their identity as voters or giving them a little more information about the voting process.
• In case there was doubt, political campaigns do bring out the party faithful.
• One way to change someone's party affiliation: move them.
• Negative campaigns are de-mobilizing - but only for voters who've already decided to vote for the guy being slammed.
• Your social network will steer you to vote for the correct guy - but only if you don't have a partisan network.
• When it comes to how much citizens are politically active and feel their voice counts in local government, the size of their city matters.
• Social proof (the "everyone else is doing it" effect) may only work for campaign mobilization if the "everybody else" is a large enough number.
• Partisan news may not do much to increase or decrease voter turnout - but it does change when people decide to vote and how much they'll otherwise participate politically.
• Sometimes we choose just to choose.
• Google may not be making us dumber - but it is priming us to think of how to find information before thinking of the information itself.
• Fairness is desirable, yes? Not if you're a risk seeker.

feedback loop yourself into the person you want to be

Okay, this product may not turn me into the productive, well-toned and social person I want to be, but it's a start. Greengoose (still in production) uses sensors - on your toothbrush, water bottle and exercise gear - to track your healthy habits and then - and this is where the true genius is - turns them into points that you can use on Greengoose online games.

It's one of many products profiled at Wired, all of which use feedback loops to help you be that energy-conserving, financially responsible and fit person we all dream of being.

It's an article worth reading, but it misses one crucial point. Feedback certainly has an impact on moderating our behavior, but what makes Greengoose and the other products mentioned in the article so powerful is that the information they track enters the social sphere. In the case of Greengoose, that data gets turned into points that you can use to play games. For most of the other products, your information simply gets transmitted for others to see.

That's powerful stuff. We are social animals and our beliefs and behaviors are largely a product of those around us. Studies show that just by putting a picture of eyes on a computer screen, people are more likely to act ethically. So it's no wonder that making our daily habits public is the best bet for altering those habits.

recent research

More gems from Kevin Lewis:

• Red and blue states: not as different as the mean would suggest.
• In debate, we become less rational when faced with more extreme disagreement.
• Inter-group contact helps diminish prejudice - even for hard core bigots.
• More evidence that Americans continue to polarize.
• Designing questionnaires to get at respondent's true preferences.
• When it comes to media susceptibility, a little sophistication is a dangerous thing.
• Being in a diverse group makes us more open-minded, except when we've been cued to think about morality.
• Once we pick a political party, we stick with it.
• Citizens can be informed - if there's motivation to be so.
• Crowdsourcing: the bigger the crowd, the more active the crowd.
• Want to build trust? Use words not money.
• One counter-force to social hierarchies: generosity.
• Wise crowds get dumber when individuals are allowed to communicate.
• But groups are still smarter than individuals.
• If you want cohesion in a small group, make sure it has an odd number of members.
• Volunteer leadership makes leaders of us all.
• Experimental evidence that legitimacy makes it easier to govern.
• How to ward against "productivity losses in brainstorming, the common knowledge effect, group polarization, confirmation bias, overconfidence, and pressures toward uniformity" and make your intelligence group smarter. (One way may be to include dissenters.)
• How to solve global collective action problems? In very small groups.
• Confirming the obvious: you can make your social enterprise more effective by casting it as a protagonist.
• In larger societies we're more apt to punish people "altruistically" (for an affront they committed against another) than "spitefully" (for a personal affront). Not so in smaller societies.
• Does judicial activism polarize? Maybe not as much as some think.

Popping bubbles at MIT

Tyler Cowen thinks American innovation is in trouble.

At a TEDx talk two weeks ago he listed the causes of its demise, one being that American research and development is “tinkering with the parts not the whole.” There is “intensive innovation at the margins,” with experts refining the technological advances they know well. But few have the inclination or breadth to look across research fields and come up with entirely new technologies.

It’s a criticism that’s been leveled at university departments (with their academic fiefdoms) and, of course, which Eli sees happening more and more web-wide. As we nestle into our separate information enclaves, we’re missing the opportunities for insight and invention – whether in public policy, culture or innovation – that come from a broad perspective.

Worrisome. But MIT may have an antidote – at least when it comes to what’s ailing technological innovation.

As profiled by Ed Pilkington in the Guardian last month, MIT has long made a habit of pushing its faculty to cross academic boundaries – or disregard boundaries entirely – in order to explore ideas and inventions that may, at first glance, seem hair-brained or useless. That’s how composer and inventor Tod Machover could spend years tinkering with a “hyperinstrument” for Yo-Yo Ma, developing technologies that two of his students would eventually use to build Rock Band and Guitar Hero.

It’s more than just the gestalt of the place though. MIT actively encourages cross-discipline collaboration:

MIT delights in taking brilliant minds in vastly diverse disciplines and flinging them together. You can see that in its sparkling new David Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, which brings scientists, engineers and clinicians under one roof. Or in its Energy Initiative, which acts as a bridge for MIT’s combined firepower across all its five schools, channelling huge resources into the search for a solution to global warming.

With all those big brains bouncing off each other, it comes as little surprise then that MIT’s alumni have gone on to found tech companies that now account for 1/7th of US GDP – and half the ventures in Silicon Valley.

But why is MIT’s kind of innovation not happening among business behemoths, who surely have the money to fund MIT type R&D?

Daron Acemoglu, economist and MIT luminary himself, has an answer. And it’s pretty simple (although he has pages of econo-math to prove it): research only pays if you can convert it into marketable innovations today. But truly earth-shifting discoveries and innovations usually take years – or sometimes centuries – before they can be translated into marketable products. That’s why, as Cowen says, in business innovations only happen at the tips of the branches. Sprouting new technological branches simply doesn’t pay off – even with 20-year patents.

Luckily MIT isn’t dependent upon immediate profit; instead, government funding heavily subsidizes its seemingly zany, boxless and even pointless research. But we all benefit – when that freedom to explore and collaborate turns into new businesses and jobs down the road.

Publicly subsidized research, of course, has always been recognized as key to national economic growth (unless you’re a strict libertarian). MIT just happens to be a particularly strong example of how those subsidies can foster cross-discipline innovation. The market, as Acemoglu explains, isn’t providing the incentives for ground-breaking research and collaboration – so the government needs to step in.

But what about when about the market doesn’t provide incentives for all of us to explore ideas that are new, outside our usual interests, or challenging to our current perspectives? What should be the government’s role when the market instead draws us into filter bubbles because, well, selling the familiar and habitual is more lucrative.

In his book, Eli shies away from government imposed responses to the Filter Bubble. It’s a wise caution; you want to be really careful when it comes to imposing state rules on information flows. But could we invent and subsidize an internet MIT, a place where it pays to look beyond your perspective, a counter-force to our filter bubbles? I have no idea what that would look like, but if an online venture could push us to challenge our views, explore new ideas and even learn about what is distasteful to us – I’d give my tax dollars to subsidize that check.

re-posted from Thefilterbubble.com

recent research

More random pickings from Kevin Lewis' blog:

• For complex problems, go with your gut.
• Emotions are contagious - as seen through Facebook status updates.
• How to encourage organ donation? Cue regret. (And how to encourage moral behavior in general? Place a pair of eyes in view.)
• In car designs, we prefer the prototypical but with a little complexity on top. (But when it comes to architecture, we prefer the prototypical and less complex.)
• Poor impulse control may not always be a bad thing. (But those of us with poor impulse control, can train ourselves to resist temptation nonetheless.)
• We not only judge people more who are actively (vs. passively) immoral; we are also less apt to be actively (vs. passively) immoral.
• A comparison of Northern vs Southern public identities - as surmised from personal ads.
• Individualism is good for the economy.
• Montreal: how a creative urban petri dish gave birth to Cirque du Soleil.
• Want to know what tunes will be future hits: hook a few teens up to an MRI.
• The messenger is the most powerful message - at least when it comes to political videos on Youtube. (And Youtube watchers feel more politically effective than non-watchers, although they're more cynical about government.)
• A sense of humor is, no joke, good for dating.

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More from Kevin Lewis' blog:

• Are their fundamental differences between tight and loose cultures? A study of 33 nations tries to tease them out.
• Irrational markets: 41% of auctioned gift-certificates on eBay are bid up beyond their face value.
• Reading about stupid people can make you temporarily stupid.
• Want to ace that test? Don't look at red.
• Getting money can be lethal.
• Terror makes you cling to your group - but only if you don't believe in the afterlife.

Genetically modified crowds

To anyone familiar with human stampedes, financial panics or professional soccer games, the “Wisdom of Crowds” may seem more like an oxymoron than a legitimate pursuit of study.

But as James Surowiecki so adeptly describes in his book of that name, crowds can be wise.

Under certain conditions. First, they must be diverse; homogeneous groups will be limited – or aggravated – by their shared narrow perspective. Next, groups must be set up so that individuals can think independently, thus avoiding the twin traps of groupthink and mis-information cascades. Finally, they have to have a way to aggregate their ideas, inputs and decisions.

Open source communities and (some) markets are good examples that meet all three conditions. Filter bubbles, which encourage homogeneity and cascades while eschewing communal aggregation, are not.

But if filter bubbles may make online communities stupid, could we make algorithms that make us collectively smarter?

We’re probably a long way off, but the Center for Collective Intelligence at MIT is at least moving in the direction. Led by Thomas Malone, the center is looking more deeply at the “DNA” of smart groups; how the “what, who, why and how” of a group correlates to group intelligence.

In a study published last year, Malone and his colleagues discovered that average intelligence, for one, does not predict group intelligence. Other factors, such as group cohesion, satisfaction and motivation, are only moderately correlated. What does make a group smarter? Having a few people who are “socially sensitive;” that is, members who tend to be more open and receptive.

Malone and his crew are taking results like that and mapping them onto a “genome” of group intelligence. Workplaces and organizations are taking note, but so are news sites and online government initiatives interested in harnessing the intelligence of readers and constituents. Have an under-producing team or a comment thread full of flamers? Time for some group dynamic gene-splicing.

It might be too far a reach to translate MIT’s work to the the group dynamics of the internet as a whole – at least in the near future. But perhaps one day we’ll be building algorithms to maximize collective intelligence rather than just personal relevance.

cross-posted from TheFilterBubble

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More finds from Kevin Lewis' blog:

• Stronger family ties may mean weaker social capital.
• The age of fairness and self-sacrifice: 8 years old.
• We're more charitable tomorrow than today.
• We know ourselves all too well: people tend to avoid situations where they know they can deceive others and get away with it.
• Thinking of ourselves makes us stricter judges of fairness.
• "I'll let the other guy help": 50 years of bystander-effect studies.
• Do-gooders are more selfish; they're just better at integrating selfishness with communitarian impulses into enlightened self-interest.

The creativity that cannot be bubble-wrapped

In spite of Eli’s and this blogger’s concern that filter bubbles could put a damper on innovation and creativity, there is one realm that is evidently immune to the filter: the humorous internet meme.

Whether photo-shopping, re-mixing, re-producing or auto-tuning, online denizens show no shortage of creativity in riffing off of each other and, to reference Arthur Koestler again, “bisociating” two ideas into new, clever, creations.

You’re no doubt familiar with the “Charlie Bit My Finger” phenomenon (if not, do a search and enjoy the hundreds – or thousands – of knock offs on the original home video sensation). I thank Michael Agger over at Slate for introducing me this morning to an endless trove of similar comic collaborations. Know Your Meme will chart you through the history of the Bed Intruder, the Double Rainbow, the Fashionable Chinese Bum, and countless others. (If you don’t want to waste hours of your day, do not check out Super Cut Movie Cliches.)

Perhaps the filter bubble can’t stifle humorous creativity precisely because, as Eli writes about, humor is one of the few things that manages to pierce our bubbles. If you glance at any “top emailed” or “most popular” list, you’re certain to see humorous articles and videos monopolizing the list. For anyone who’s spent more than an hour online, it’s almost not worth explaining why this is so. Who can resist an opportunity to laugh, whether it comes in the form of a forwarded email, a Facebook post or a link on our favorite online mag?

But should we be encouraged by the the penetrability of humor? Probably not. The darker side of humor is that it represents one the “junk foods” we do tend to feast off of online – along with gossip, cute animals, morally shocking news and, of course, porn. None of these items are likely to be slowed down by our filter bubbles. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with that. But when Antoine Dodson is the one thing we’re sharing and collaborating on, it’s nothing to sing (or auto-tune) about.

cross-posted from TheFilterBubble

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The weekly browse through Kevin Lewis' blog:

• What we want is relative to what we have, politically speaking.
• We root for the underdog, unless he gets too violent.
• Hearing what the enemy has to say may not be a good thing.
• Political progress follows economic setbacks.
• Feeling like a global citizen makes us act more globally.
• Uncertainty and low self-esteem make us less democratically inclined.
• Is conservatism a response to our fear of death? Or will any ideology do.
• Schadenfreude: a product of envy.
• Politics is personal: men more likely to be drafted are also more anti-war.
• Contrary to stereotypes, more emotional voters are not the less sophisticate voters. (Even though emotions make us all less rational.)
• What ticks us off are not acts that hurt us, but acts that we deem immoral.
• Laws affect our attitudes - but only when we can see the effects of the laws.
• When it comes to analyzing other's "selfless" behavior, we're cynics.
• More evidence that power pays: US House members earn abnormal stock market returns.
• And that payment is power: interest groups have an effect on immigration policy.
• Which party is responsible for the economic booms and busts? Depends upon what party you belong to.
• House members on health care committees get more contributions from the health care industry, right? Not necessarily so. But maybe lobbyists make up the difference.
• Corporations that are more likely to contribute to campaigns: those privately owned or with a principal owner.

The – true – Republic of Twitter

As has been mentioned before in this blog and in Eli’s book, the internet has not turned out to be the democratic utopia of information it was once hoped to be. If our information is not being piped through (albeit new) elite media hubs, then it is being filtered through the bubble of our and our friends’ preferences.

That’s at least the case for most of the internet. One exception, however, may be Twitter.

Unlike Facebook and Google, Twitter doesn’t make assumptions about the tweets you’d prefer to see. What you sign up for is what you get. It’s bubble-free media.

Twitter, new research suggests, may also be anti-elitist. We’ all know about the Ashton Kutchers and Old Spice Men of mega-twit fame. Turns out that, in spite of their gajillion followers, those Tweet Leviathans have little influence in spreading memes. Looking at 580 million tweets over 8 months and using some fancy statistical crunching, researchers found that mid-range tweeters (who have about 1,000 followers) are much more influential when it comes to creating and spreading hashtags.

Could that mean Twitter is indeed the democratic medium we’ve all been looking for? We don’t like to jump to conclusions based on one study (especially one with new-fangled statistical techniques), but the study’s findings temptingly align with the theory that on Twitter information roams free. (On an even more conjectural note, their research may also mean Twitter deserves credit on the “maximizing creativity by minimizing silos” front.)

The impressive research – which comes in two reports and which also tracked memes in stories longer than 140 characters – contains some other fun tidbits, although none directly relevant to the filter bubble. Of note:

• Partly depending on whether memes (defined in longer stories as “short phrases”) started in mainstream news sites or blogs, they had disparate patterns of peaking and trothing online. (The researchers found 6 distinct patterns).
• The influence of mainstream media v. blogs in spreading memes depends on the subject area. When it comes to Entertainment and Tech, for example, blogs rule.
• Finally, don’t tell Bill Keller, but when comparing the influence of the New York Times, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal, USA Today wins out on every beat, except for National News where it is bested by WSJ. (Note: even the authors are surprised by these results.)

reposted from TheFilterBubble

That other – imperfect – gatekeeper

The internet gave great hopes for the liberation of information. No longer controlled by elitist (or corporatist) editorial gatekeepers, now “all” the news (not just what was fit to print) could truly be accessible to the people. A new era of democratized media was dawning.

Well, that’s not exactly what happened. Writers like Evgeny Morozov point out that political power can still manipulate the internet to meet its ends. And as Eli discusses in The Filter Bubble, gatekeepers haven’t gone away – they’ve just been replaced with a new algorithmic breed, which bring their own set of concerns for democracy.

One of those concerns is what happens when the news we’re delivered is the news the personalized algorithms think we want. I’m a pretty worldly, news-savvy gal, but I admit that I can’t help clicking on those hat photos from the royal wedding or the latest gossip from Dancing with the Stars. If the personalization bots interpret those clicks as “Give the girl the fluff she wants”, how much more trash will be sent to tempt me – and how much “important” news will go missing from my news feeds?

As Eli puts it in his TED talk, the new gatekeepers may be turning us into junk-news gluttons. The old gate-keepers had their problems, but at least they made sure we got our news vegetables along with our dessert.

Or did they?

Today Slate reminded us that even our elitist of elite publishers can sideline the vegetables for sweeter fare. The day after the first GOP presidential debate of the 2012 campaign, an important marker in our political discourse, one would have thought the 4th Estate would have brought the event to our attention. Not so. The debate didn’t show up in print in the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal until somewhere between pages A3-A19. What did make the front page? Stories about “Maryland basketball coach Gary Williams, Pippa Middleton, and UFO sightings in Thailand.”

Now, in the editors’ defense, it was a debate populated by few real contenders. But still. Pippa Middleton?

Of course, since the news giants lost their captive print audiences, they’ve been in the same race to the lowest common denominator as have the personalization algorithms. Perhaps the NYT, WaPo and WSJ of 1995 would have had the debate on the front page. Either way, when it comes to getting a balanced diet of food, today we may be all on our own.

reposted from TheFilterBubble

Vampires, wizards and American identity

If you agree that having a common national identity is critical to a well-functioning democracy, filter bubbles may give you cause for concern.

Not that there’s anything wrong with sub-national identities. Since long before the days of Dixies and Yanks, America has been a vibrant mix of regional and sub-cultural identities. That’s a feature, not a bug.

But even as we self-sort and brand ourselves as Hipsters, Hip-Hop-sters, Christians, Vegans, Locovores, Nascars, etc. – Americans have shared a common narrative that’s lets us all, more or less, identify as “Americans” and work together when times get tough.

As filter bubbles draw us deeper into our sub-cultural silos and place a narrative wall around groups of Americans, however, that shared national identity could start to erode (if it hasn’t already).

The good and bad news is our sense of identity may be pretty malleable.

In a study published last month, researchers were able to induce a new identity in test subjects in under an hour. The fresh identity participants took on? Vampires and wizards.

All it took was a little narrative. 140 undergrads sat down to read 30 minutes of either Twilight or Harry Potter and then take a couple of personality tests. Students who read Twilight were more likely to associate themselves with words like “blood, fangs, bitten, undead” and to say they had sharp teeth. The effect was even stronger for test subjects who were more group-oriented.

The bad news is that if we can identify with mythical creatures so easily, then it’s no surprise we readily take on the identities of humans in our narrow social networks.

The good news is that, as long as our filter bubbles let even drops of a common national narrative seep through (as it did this week with the OBL story), it might be enough for us to feel we’re still all “Americans.”

reposted from TheFilterBubble

when seeing is mis-believing

Hampshire, England delivers a great example of confirmation bias - the phenomenon of seeing what you expect to see - in the shape of a stuffed tiger.

recent research

An ongoing trawl through Kevin Lewis' blog:

• The market left to itself might not spark the greatest innovation.
• How non-cooperators can promote cooperation.
• We're all communitarians at heart.
• How to keep your group in line: just punish the least compliant guy.
• We don't expect people to trust us, but we do expect them to return our trust.
• We sit by people who look like us and marry people who vote like us.
• Priming "relatedness" brings out the volunteer and donor in us - as does feeling more powerful and seeing our movements mirrored.
• The power of metaphor: we prefer in "North" hoods.
• "Cause marketing" may be hurting causes - and making us feel worse when we donate.
• When it comes to donating we tend to prefer writing checks for the latest disaster.
• Off-cycle elections give special interest groups an extra edge.