recent research

From Kevin Lewis' February picks:

• Our ballots may be secret, but most Americans either don't believe it or don't care. (Alan Gerber and friends)
• A new explanation for variations in political participation: electrodermal responsiveness. (Michael Gruszczynski and friends)
• The fundraising and frontrunner feedback loop - caught by economists. (James Feigenbaum and friend)
• An argument for not getting rid of the electoral college - it's pretty fair. (AC Thomas and friends)
• Education is correlated with higher political participation, but that may just be because education is a proxy for social status. (Mikael Persson)
• If you're a politician it doesn't matter whether you get falsely vilified or credited; either way, when the truth comes out, you're worse off. (Michael Cobb and friends)
• Forget Intrade and Nate Silver - just ask 19,000 people who will win the next election to get the best prediction. (Michael K. Miller and friends)
• All that money spent on presidential campaign advertising is apparently well spent. (Brett R. Gordon and friend)
• Hmm... we misjudge candidates in part because of the "false memories" we make about them. (Jason Coronel and friends)
• How best to "counter-frame." (Chong and Druckman)
• Social pressure to vote works on women and minorities too. (Costas Panagopoulus)
• Voting technology and mail-in-voting mean fewer bum ballots. (R. Michael Alvarez and friends)
• Evidence that surveys may not represent reality. (Christian Vossler and friend)
• Candidates have a role in inspiring confidence in the voting process. (Greg Vannahme and friend)
• Maybe conservatives are just more sensitive. (Samantha Joel and friends)
• Re-affirming the ego on Facebook. (Catalina Toma and friends)
• Charting out the link between values and political attitudes. (Diana Boer and friend)
• Legislators may not be all about getting re-elected - or at least not flip-flopping on policies just to gain votes. (James Lo)
• An odd argument for why hyper-partisanship exists - because legislators can emphasize their position preferences (rather than their ability to bring home the pork). (Justin Grimmer)
• Gerrymandering is supposed to help incumbents - except it doesn't. (Stephen Ansolobehere and friend)
• Evidence that politicians have something to do with how their constituents think. (Tetsuya Matsubayashi)
• Direct democracy - at least in the form of California ballot initiatives - may not be so good for democracy. (Ly Lac and friends)
• A different view of representation - it's not about reflecting your constituent beliefs, but listening to them. (Rebekah Herrick)
• One reason Americans aren't fond of Congress - when it's out of sync with popular opinion. (Mark Ramirez)
• Voters punish corrupt politicians - but only when economic times are tough. (Elizabeth Zechmeister and friend)
• Voters are rationally irrational - except when they're not. (Michael D. Thomas and friend)
• People get a kick out of giving - all across the globe. (Lara Aknin and friends)...
• ... possibly more so when they're feeling like a superhero as demonstrated in this wicked cool experiment. (Robin Rosenberg and friends)
• ... but not so much if they're feeling superior or inferior to others as demonstrated in this somewhat less cool experiment. (Jonathan Yip and friend)
• Peer pressure makes us bigger - but less happy - givers. (Diane Reyniers and friends)
• Love it. Humans are not the only species that behave altruistically toward strangers. (Jingzhi Tan and friend)
• ... and one of the reasons they may give to strangers is that it's a good way to make friends, just like with humans. (Sebastian Fehrler and friend)
• Power makes us better long-term planners. (Priyanka Joshi and friend)
• ... but more prone to dehumanize others. (Jason Gwinn and friends)
• We're all a little bit honest and a little bit liars. (Rajna Gibson and friends)

recent research

Kevin Lewis picks from January 2012:

• Remembering political events that never happened... especially if they fit your political predispositions. (Steven Frenda and friends)
• And conservatives and liberals are just as likely to shape facts to fit their preconceptions. (Dan Kahan) 
• Ideologues tend to exaggerate the moral extremity of their counter-ideologues. (Jesse Graham and friends)
• How it is partisans can agree on many issues but still hate each other. (Lilliana Mason)
• News on the internet is thought to divide partisans even further - but social media could push the other direction. (Solomon Messing and friend)
• Compromise is for sissies. (Michael R. Wolf)
• More evidence that growing partisanship may be a matter of sorting. (Gary C. Jacobson)
• ... leaving out those whose social and economic views don't align with either party. (Edward Carmines and friends)
• Finding the factors - and functions - of human intelligence. (Adam Hampshire and friends)
• Working with teams makes us smarter - even after we leave the team. (Boris Maciojovsky and friends)
• Any "prosocial" behavior humans have is not necessarily consciously prosocial. (Maxwell Burton-Chellew)
• We're more cooperative when we've had a chance to talk to others - even in our imaginations. (Rose Meleady and friends)
• This article says something about the relationship between money in politics and perceptions of corruption - though I can't tell what. (Daron Shaw and friends)
• It may be obvious to Hill watchers - but academics are still trying to demonstrate that earmarks and campaign donations are connected. (Michael Rocca and friend)
• Our overconfidence may be about projecting overconfidence. (Stephen Burks and friends)
• We have a prodigious memory for FB posts (though it's not clear why). (Laura Mickes and friends)

recent research

The Kevin Lewis trawl continues:

• Social exclusion "hurts" - but when the pain of exclusion is dulled (with a little electrical impulse) people don't mind so much being left out. (Paolo Riva and friends)
• When we're gentle with our criticism chances are we're not protecting the object of the critique, we're protecting ourselves. (Carla Jeffries and friend)
• The network structures that promote "contagions:" it's the close knit groups, not the popular hubs, that matter. (Nicholas Harrigan and friends)
• We treat our thoughts like things. (Pablo Brinol and friends)
• A couple experiments showing that emotions affect our political thinking. (Cengiz Erisen and friends)
• We're not only immediate gratifiers for ourselves - but also for our close relatives. (Fenja Ziegler and friend)
• Good idea generators tend to becomes less good once you acknowledge their ideas. (Barry Bayus)
• Research has shown that we do our best thinking when we let our minds wander - but that only may be true for women. (Mark Niuwenstein and friend)
• Deliberation may have positive outcomes - even among the deeply divided. (James Fishkin and friends)
• Cultural sharing differences on Facebook and RenRen. (Lin Qiu and friends)

recent research

Another batch of Kevin Lewis picks:

• Voters are short-sighted, not because they're impatient but because they're uncertain about the future. (Alan M. Jacobs and friend)
• ... and they are more impressed by the number of pork projects their reps bring home to the district than by the total price-tag of those projects. (Justin Grimmer and friends)
• Citizens value public discourse but, paradoxically, don't like their elected officials on the soap box (as it feels like electioneering rather than leading). (Michael S. Evans)
• Money in politics may not be making citizens cynical - and could be informative. (Michael W. Sances)
• Self-affirmation makes us more open to seeing our mistakes. (Lisa Legault and friends)
• Money doesn't actually buy votes - as evidenced by self-financed candidates. (Adam R. Brown)
• Richard Lau tests his and Redlawsk's "correct voting" model.
• Social pressure is one of the best techniques to win over voters - but using it may also have a backlash effect. (Richard Matland and friend)
• More evidence that robotic calls are a waste of time. (Daron Shaw and friends)
• More participatory citizens are not necessarily more extreme. (Eitan Hersch)
• When party cues lead voters astray. (Logan Dancey and friend)
• Comfort with risk and candidate choice. (Cindy Kam and friend)
• Voting by mail boosts voter turnout - until the novelty wears off. (Paul Gronke)
• ... while social capital may not boost turnout at all - and could even decrease it. (Matthew Atkinson and friend)
• Candidates tainted by the groups associated with them. (Nathaniel Swigger)
• Habitual voting. (Elias Dinas)
• Evidence that voters do pick up information in campaigns - when candidates are moderate. (Dona-Gene Mitchell)
• Asking someone to not "cheat" or not "be a cheater" can make all the difference. (Christopher Bryan and friends)
• When it comes to evaluating influential people, liberals and conservatives may not differ so much. (Jeremy Frimer and friends)
• Dishonesty is contagious. (Robert Innes and friend)
• Evidence from 5 year olds and chimpanzees that humans are uniquely keen to "manage their impression." (Jan Engelmann and friends) ... dittoed in Kristin Leimgruber and friends' work
• A two step theory of the rise of cooperation in humans. (Michael Tomasello and friends)
• Coalition and cooperation games with Nash.
• More evidence that social pressure beats financial incentives in getting behaviors to stick. (Rob Nelissen and friend)
• A model on the evolution of trust. (Michael Manapat and friends)...
• ... and some neuroimaging suggesting we have at least two neural networks for deciding when to cooperate. (Carolyn Ceclerck and friends)
• As evidenced by different ultimatum-type games, not all pro-social behaviors are necessarily the same. (Toshio Yamagishi and friends)
• Using "cognitive reappraisal" to get deliberators to have an open mind. (Eran Halperin)

Recent research

Still catching up with a year of Kevin Lewis posts:

• Researchers spend time in an Athens subway station and observe who punishes "norm violators." (Loukas Balafoutas and friend)
• The good and bad news: consuming media increases perceived risk of terrorism. (Ashley Nellis and friend)
• In social sciences to show "statistical significance" the norm is to get a p-value of 0.05 or less. Unsurprisingly a disproportionate number of published studies just nick the 0.05 mark. (EJ Masicampo and friend)...
• ... which may be one reason most studies are refuted after publication. (Francois Gonon and friends)...
• ... or maybe it's because researchers design studies to get the results they want. (Brent Strickland and friend)
• When politicians we like behave badly, instead of admonishing or forgiving them we may just "decouple" their performance from their morality. (Amit Bhattacharjee and friends)
• We're natural cheaters, unless we have time to reflect and no available justifications for cheating. (Shaul Shalvi and friend)
• We're also natural cooperators, unless we have time to reflect. (David Rand and friends)
• Do we do good for goodness sake or for recognition? This study kinda sorta tries to answer that question. (Liane Young and friends)
• Americans may not be getting more polarized in their beliefs - but that doesn't stop them from increasingly disliking the opposing party. (Iyengar and friends)
• Examining the personality-ideology connection... and not finding much. (Chris Sibley and friends)
• Without realizing it, we so easily can be duped into arguing against our own opinions. (Lars Hall and friends)
• Getting more poor people to the polls doesn't mean their elected officials will pay more attention to them. (Patrick Flavin)
• I think this guy is saying we're more likely to go to the polls when we feel informed - but stay home when we see others are really informed, which is one way to explain why we may never see near 100% voter participation. (Joseph C. McMurray)
• One strategy to getting re-elected: make sure your home team has a good season. (Michael K. Miller)
• Self-censoring to avoid offending ad-buyers is not just an American media phenomenon. (Fabrizio Germano)
• Busting the self-control - glucose theory. (Daniel C. Molden and friends, and Martin Hagger and friends)
• Woah. Researchers experimentally model the evolution of cooperation - in yeast. (Adam James Waite and friend)
• More evidence that we just want our lives to be meaningful. (Peggy Thoits)
• The next economic shift isn't from goods to services, but from goods to service-goods. (James Tien)
• Our feelings about risk in the economic realm... don't apply to the social. (Tim Johnson and friends)
• Emotional intelligence can be primed. (Nicola Schutte)
• When thinking socially we shut down our mechanical-engineering brain and vice versa. (Anthony I. Jack and friends)
• When judging incumbents, we tend to forget the distant past. (Greg Huber and friends)
• When we lose a sense of personal control we gladly give control to others. (Bob Fennis and friend)...
• ... but we're always susceptible to influence from others when deciding moral dilemmas. (Payel Kundu and friend)
• Mere exposure effect at work again - this time in the Eurovision Song Contest. (Diarmuid Verrier and friend)
• Macaque monkeys are also susceptible to the representative bias. (Jerald Kralik and friends)
• Evidence that taking on another's perspective makes us less attached to our earlier beliefs. (Erin Beatty and friend)...
• ... as does suspending those beliefs. (Ilan Yaniv and friend)
• The internet may not be dividing us after all. (Kelly Garrett and friends)
• More attempts to classify ideologues: using a variation on Haidt's moral foundations (Christopher Weber and friend); and using social and economic dimensions (Edward Carmines and friends).
• Etzioni asks if American democracy is delivering the policies its people wants, why is everyone so unhappy?
• How married couples increase partisanship. (Casey Klofstad and friends)
• Listening to the opposition can be stressful. (Hart Blanton and friends)
• Seeing the economy through partisan lenses. (Peter Enns and friend)
• The pointlessness of trying to be a bipartisan president. (George C. Edwards)
• Ugh. Another personality and ideology study - but this time from Yale bigwigs. (Alan Gerber and friends)
• Comparing the US political blogosphere to the UK's and Germany's. (Ki Deuk Hyun)
• Trust and partisanship. (Ryan Carlin)
• Partisanship only affects policy attitudes for unfamiliar policies. (Daniel E. Bergen)
• Yup. The media prefers conflict to moderation. (Michael McCluskey)

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.

recent research

Posting a "this week's picks" from Kevin Lewis' blog - which is actually from a week in September 2012:

• Groups behave more like Homo Economicus than do individual humans. (Gary Charness)
• A theory to explain why humans are so egalitarian: it paid our ancestors to band together against bullies. (Sergey Gavrilets)
• Laughter brings people together - and may be the reason why humans could form larger groups (than our primate relatives). (Guillaume Dezecache)
• Extroverts may impress initially, but Neurotics end up surpassing expectations. (Corinne Bendersky)
• Not entirely sure what's going on here - but it looks like researchers are crowdsourcing research. (Josh Bongard)
• Humans just might be the only species that punish free-riders. (Katrin Riedl)
• Observing cultural traits build - in the laboratory. (Christina Matthews)
• Also in the lab - individuals get a buzz from "group" success, even if they get no actual payoff themselves. (Maxwell Burton-Chellew)
• Direct voting and deliberation help to legitimize decisions - at least with high school kids. (Mikael Persson)
• Feeling out of control can make one clingy and cliquey. (Immo Fritsche) And prefer autocrats. (David Rast)
• We're all trying to convince others (and ourselves) - until others understand us. (Nadira Faulmuller)
• We play nice - as long we know others can drop us in games. (Jing Wang)