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.