recent research

Catching up on a year of Kevin Lewis picks (first year of grad school was a bit of a distraction):

• Humans don't always act the way economists and game theorists think they should - unless they're acting as a group. (Gary Charness and Mattias Sutter)
• Bosses matter. (Edward P. Lazear and friends)
• An evolutionary psychology + game theoretic approach to why we don't like bullies. (Sergey Gavrilets)
• Laughter: grooming for species with large group sizes (aka humans). (Guillaume Dezecache)
• Extraverts make good early impressions, but neurotics may gain more respect in the long haul. (Corinne Bendersky and friend)
• Crowdsourcing predictive algorithms. Woah. (Josh C. Bongard and friends)
• Division of roles is generally considered to be good for goups, but humans often take on life-long roles that can be inflexible. Heather J. Goldsby and friends explain why evolution may have made us that way.
• Josiah Ober argues for democracy's third "core value": dignity.
• One reason why humans butcher each other so much less today than in most of recorded history: technology removed the need to fight over scarce life-sustaining resources. (Nils Petter-Lagerlof)
• Why a little self-righteousness is good for humans. (Duenez-Guzman and friend)
• We're uncomfortable acting selfishly - unless we've been told we have to be. (Jonathan Berman and friend)
• When confronted with chaos, lower-classes get more communal while the rich get more attached to their money. (Paul Piff and friends)...
• ... but that doesn't mean those in low-income areas are always more altruistic. (Jo Holland and friends)
• More evidence that trust is on the decline in the US. (April K. Clark and friends)...
• ... that may have something to do with rising inequality. (Christian Bjornskov)...
• ... but the again, we may become less trust-worthy when we feel like we've been screwed. (Daniel House and friends)
• Competition may be good for society, but that doesn't mean it feels good along the way. (Christopher K. Hsee)
• Time to think may make us less - not more - generous. (Jonathan Schulz and friends)
• Even the communitarian among us prefer only to commune with those who share their values. (Kenneth D. Locke and friends)
• Oxytocin may make us more generous and trusting - but doesn't make us more fair. (Sina Radke and friend)
• Working on a knotty puzzle? Let your mind wander. (Benjamin Baird and friends)...
• ... but maybe only after you've put in a moderate amount of deliberative thought. (Haiyang Yand and friends)
• Moral and political intolerance may be replacing their racial and ethnic versions. (Linda Skitka and friends)
• One way to cut down on confirmation bias: make new information difficult to read. (Ivan Hernandez and friend)...
• ... or maybe by disrupting the "inferior frontal gyrus"? (Tali Sharot and friends)...
• ... or maybe an increased belief in free-will? (Jessica Alquist and friends)
• Evidence that when our behavior changes our preferences (ie "cognitive dissonance"), it's long-lasting. (Tali Sharot and friends, again)
• What's going on in the brain when we accept or reject new info. (Anja Achtziger and friends)
• Roland Benabou explores the mechanisms of groupthink.