Sunday morning PETA philosophizing

Another fascinating article suggests that humans became the world's top dogs in large part because of their co-evolution with actual dogs:

"Domesticating dogs clearly improves humans’ hunting success and efficiency—whether the game (or the dog) is large or small. The same must have been true in the Paleolithic. If Neandertals did not have domestic dogs and anatomically modern humans did, these hunting companions could have made all the difference in the modern human–Neandertal competition."

I've never been a proponent of animal-rights (I usually figure we should get human rights taken care of first), but if certain species co-evolved with us and are responsible for our survival and good fortune, you can kind of argue that those species are us. That is, if humans wouldn't exist without dogs, that makes our two species almost one meta-species. If that's the case, then dogs might deserve at least a few of our rights.

recent research

This week's picks from Kevin Lewis' blog:

• Being stressed makes us more likely to feel and act kindly toward our fellow man.
• Getting humans to fear other groups... who wear different color t-shirts.
• Our reaction to being social outcasts depends on whether the in-group has explicitly rejected us or just doesn't realize we exist. But no matter how much we're feeling left out, money can help dull the pain.
• One way to get extremists moderate their views: get them to think in the abstract rather than the concrete.
• Evidence that people actually saw the emperor's new clothes: people's experience of poems improves when they think they're from famous authors.
• Scientific education may enlighten us to how the world actually works, but that doesn't mean we entirely give up our unscientific notions.
• Your mamma was right: those kids could be a bad influence on you.
• Studies have shown that when people are feeling morally good about themselves they are less likely to do moral things. You can even induce that effect by eating organic food.
• When it comes to moral situations, we tend to like the idea of taking moral action but not necessarily following through ourselves.
• We are, by and large, moral consequentialists.
• Laughter comes to the self-aware. (But it may just be the authors were testing self-aware humor.)
• Locke was not alone in his instinct: we all tend to link ownership with those who have worked to earn it.
• Woah. Much of cognitive and social psychology today is based on the premise that brains should do good jobs of approximating statistical reality. These guys suggest that's a bunch of bunk.

recent research

More social science finds from Kevin Lewis:

•  I know it sometimes seem like leaders are self-serving egotists: but they may have more of a social conscience than the rest of us.
• Think the country is polarizing? It's just you.
• Republicans have long been credited (or accused) of campaigning to constituent emotions. It may be they can't help it.
• Celebrity endorsements may not change who you vote for, but they will affect how you feel about political parties.
• Political trust: a matter of media attention?
• Partisans tend to consume media through partisan lenses - but sometimes they can be caught off guard.
• Compared to letters to the editor, online comments run a longer gamut in terms of tone and opinion.
• Online deliberators - more male, more moderate, more negative and, in the end, less likely to convert deliberation into action.
• When our desires conflict with what we know we should do, desire wins out 17% of the time.
• Are machiavellian people machiavellian because they have the social skills to be so?
• Personalized persuasion gets academic.
• More evidence that going with your gut can often beat thinking. Or, more specifically, thinking like a Baysian.
• We've all experienced it. Now there's a study on how it's so much easier to make a choice for someone else than it is for ourselves.
• Policy makers like to talk about how people like lots of choices; but it may just be that - self-efficacious - policy makers like more choice.
• Be very wary of all the social psychology research above: most likely the researchers fudged their data to get the results they expected.

inattentional obliviousness

A potentially stomach-churning story in the news today: the teen who recently was rescued after drifting at see for 28 days is now suing Princess Cruise Lines - for allegedly sailing by him and his two friends on the 16th day of his ordeal. (His two skiff-mates were alive at that point but did not make it to the 28th day.)

The worst explanation for this painful story is simply that the ship saw the castaways but did not want to bother picking them up. But this is unlikely. Sailors have a strong ethic of the sea; if a member of the crew were to have seen the drifters they certainly would have done the right thing. As for the passengers, all humans - especially Americans - are just not callous enough to let people perish. We can be a self-absorbed and selfish race of people, but we love being heroic - particularly when it's relatively safe and easy to be so.

The more likely - and least upsetting -explanation is just that no one saw the teens' motor boat. That the drifters could see the cruise ship - and even the passengers on it - is not a surprise. The cruise ship is not only a bit bigger than the teens' fishing boat; more importantly, the teens were looking for a boat to, of course, save them. Passengers on the tourist ship would not be similarly looking for a small boat adrift at see; even if the boat had been visible to tourists on deck, by virtue of not looking for a small boat they may not have "seen" it. This is a phenomenon psychologists call "inattentional blindness." In essence, we see what we are looking for - or what we expect to see. If you're a Hitchhiker's Guide fan, you'll be familiar with this concept as the spaceship you cannot see because you're not expecting to see a spaceship. In real life, it happens often with lifeguards who often don't see bodies lying at the bottom of pools. 

Another likely - but more disturbing - explanation is that passengers did see the teens' motor boat, but it didn't occur to them that there was anything to alert the crew about. This is the theory that makes my heart sink. I don't know how far out the cruise ship was, but it must have been far enough for there not to be land in sight, nor sight of any other boat. Is it possible that passengers saw a small boat in the middle of the sea and not one thought "that is odd, what is such a small boat doing out in the middle of nowhere?" - and were not even curious enough to ask a crew member if that might be cause for concern? I, sadly, believe it is entirely possible. It's what I'd call "inattentional obliviousness" - the idea that if someone is not standing up and screaming "there's a problem here!" everyone assumes everything is smooth sailing.

Next day addendum: Turns out I was pretty much wrong about everything - about the tourists not seeing the boat and not imagining anything was wrong and, most worrisome, about what the crew would do if they knew about a boat in distress. At least according to NPR.

recent research

This week's picks from Kevin Lewis' blog:

• Online discussion groups aren't just for the devoted netizens: they're also a good proxy for the nation's emotions and positions on policy.
• When it comes to liars, it really does take one to know one. 
• Want some good advice? Don't ask others - instead, ask yourself what others would advise.
• Asking someone to take an other's perspective usually increases tolerance of other groups - but not if that someone deeply identifies themselves with their own group. (See article listed at bottom.)
• Fundraisers, take note: people give more when they remember how good they felt after last time they gave.
• The Ultimatum Game is famous for showing that humans have an innate sense of fairness; but apparently we tolerate more unfairness when dealing with others from our own group.
• Evolutionary theorists speculate on how our sense of fairness piggy-backed on other human traits.
• Researchers gingerly suggest one cause of atheism: the ability to think analytically. But then, most of us are able to believe in the scientific and the supernatural at the same time.
• You think interest groups distort national politics? It could be worse at the state level.
• Government transparency and citizen participation usually go hand in hand, although  one does not necessarily lead to the other.
• Fears from hunter gatherer times that still linger: we perceive our enemies to be physically closer than they are; and 100 is still the most dreadful number of deaths we can imagine. 
• Southern men have been long known to react more strongly to affronts to their "honor." Unsurprisingly that 18th century mentality extends to their views on terrorists.
• Another study on the ingrained linkage between fear of disease and fear of foreigners - this time as evidenced by how we perceive foreign accents.
• Need a little more punch in your fear ad? Add a little humor. Or disgust.
• A psycho-social explanation for one of human's more distasteful behaviors: scapegoating.

recent research

This month via Kevin Lewis:

• Speeding up thought leaves you with riskier choices. While speeding up events makes us overrate their negative risks.
• Be careful which article you read first in the morning news; it'll shape what you remember in the articles that follow.
• Why our hypotheses seem so much more likely to be true than others.
• Everyone wants the underdog to win.
• Tip for sanitation departments: people are less likely to litter when they smell a clean scent.
• We're more likely to think something is true if its evidence comes in a row, rather than scattered.
• More evidence that clannishness and xenophobia is a left-over evolutionary tactic to avoid disease.
• When trying to debunk a myth, it's best not to do so too forcefully.
• Critically reporting the news - rather than giving a "he said/she said" telling - makes viewers more confident in their own understanding, but also more cynical.
• Social psychologists already know we have a way of liking things we already have - but there's also evidence we like things more if we think we're going to have them. It's also not just things we prefer when they're our own - but ideas.
• Prospect theory - which says we're more / less risk averse depending on how risks are framed - might have reverse results when you add a social context.
• Happy faces mess with our probabilistic judgment. But a happy mood may do the reverse.
• We process information faster - when it fits into the same, coherent picture.
• A study on the effectiveness of good behavior campaigns.
• Another study suggesting bigotry is a left-over strategy to avoid disease - this time comparing country and states with different levels of "parasite-stress."
• Trust and honesty could be casualties of economic inequality - as evidenced by google searches. Or just poverty.
• Just thinking of shopping can make us unhappy. (Study is also cool in showing how it doesn't take much to nudge people to behave more self vs. group-interested.)
• New theory on why depression hasn't been evolved out of the human genome: it protects us against pathogens.
• We are more defined by the experiences we buy than the things we buy.
• One explanation for Kansas: we shape our political views on our hopes for our future financial selves.
• Political psychology talks a lot about values, those deep preferences that help form our identity: but "sacred" values take values to a whole new level of intensity.
• Design matters: how suburban design affects civic participation.
• How big is your social network? Just measure your orbital prefrontal cortex.
• Participating in online communities makes us more financially risk-seeking - apparently because we're feeling that social safety net.
• Memory is necessary for cooperation in groups - but only in limited doses.
• Guilt feels awful for the individual - but it's good for the group.
• When one vote can shift voters' perception of your ideology.
• How can we get lawmakers to be more bipartisan and practical? Pay less attention.
• Education makes us more opinionated and ideological - but intelligence moves us toward the center.
• The blogosphere is shifting political discourse - but differently so for the left and right.
• Contrary to popular belief, we rarely vote in our self-interest - but college kids with tuition loans may be an exception.
• Direct democracy (ballot initiatives, etc.) is supposed to be a politically equalizing force - but that's not the way it pans out, at least for minorities in California. It might just be a way to keep the status quo.
• More evidence that political participation is addictive.
• People are more likely to vote if it's easier to do so.
• Imagining yourself in some-one else's shoes does indeed make us a little more empathetic.

recent research

This week in Kevin Lewis' blog:

• Where does our morality come from? Not Kant.
• How to increase helping behavior online: show a name or a webcam.
• Researchers explain the psychology behind the pot calling the kettle black.
• More evidence that, when it comes to disagreements, what really riles people are a challenge to their values, not their personal interests.
• We also tend to understand that people act on their values.
• Although, if we think folks have different political values, we lose some fundamental visceral feelings of empathy for them. (We likewise lose empathy for those we deem lower status.)
• Then again, that lack of empathy can be partially overcome by "perspective giving" and "perspective taking." Or other "communality-focused" exercises.
• A theory of minority employment discrimination - based not on stereotypes, but on how we calculate the odds of finding top notch candidate.
• A peek into the future: how kids relate to - and partly humanize - interactive robots.
• Want to encourage creativity? Put workers in multicultural pairs. And flash some green (the color, not money) at them.
• Sometimes we like new things, but often we prefer the old an familiar: it may depend on whether we're in growth mode or feeling insecure.