like a lake

Psychology Survey: Personality, Mental States, and Relationship Processes-- Help needed!

2008-07-10T02:20:00.005-05:00

A couple of researchers are conducting an on-line study and need your help! The study is about personality and relationships, and they need more volunteers to get a nationally representative sample. Here is the relevant information:

"We are two psychologists doing an internet survey and we would appreciate if you could help us by filling it out. The survey is about your personality, your thoughts, and your relationships. It will take about 25 minutes to complete. Participation is completely voluntary and you can stop at anytime. As well, your participation is anonymous and you will never be asked to provide your name. Please note that you must be over 18 to participate in this survey.

If you would like to participate, please go to the following link.

Thank you for your help!

Dr. C. Nathan DeWall
Department of Psychology
University of Kentucky

Dr. Brad J. Bushman
Institute for Social Research
University of Michigan"

So if the topic interests you, and you have the time to take it, then visit the site. You'll be doing your part in advancing scientific knowledge about social processes, plus taking surveys is fun! . . . right? Well, anyways, I know that the researchers will appreciate it very much!

No! Not Carlin!

2008-06-23T13:36:00.005-05:00

This isn't directly related to psychological science in any way, but still worth note.

As many people know by now, George Carlin died yesterday. This is perhaps the saddest news I have heard in a right good while. He was undeniably one of my heroes growing up and still is today. I love his comedy and have always been inspired by his brutal assault on irrationality. I regret that I never got to see him live.

Identical Twins Aren't Identical?

2008-05-28T05:30:00.005-05:00

Now here's an interesting topic; one that I have wanted to write a post about and now have the lovely time to do it!

For those who don't already know, a report was published in the February issue of
the American Journal of Human Genetics (AJHG) concerning genetic differences between identical (i.e. monozygotic - arriving from one fertilized egg) twins. Weird. Identical twins are supposed to be identical through and through, right? Isn't that why they're called identical? Well, maybe not. I suppose that is pushing it a little.

Anyway, Carl Bruder, a geneticist from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and colleagues compared the genomes of 19 sets of adult identical twins. What they found was that these people differed subtly from their twin in what's called, copy number variation (CNV) of their genes.

As Wikipedia states, CNV's refer to:

"differences in the number of copies of a particular gene present in the genome of an individual . . . Some people have deletions of some genes on only one chromosome while other people have multiple copies of some genes."

People typically have two copies of each gene within their genome, because they inherit one copy from each parent. Yet at various genome sites copy number variation occurs. One would expect that monzygotic twins would resemble each other in the amount of CNV's that occur in their genomes. Since the "identical" twins from the above study differed in genetic copy number variants, they aren't 100 % identical!

It's all very interesting. And I think such findings may trigger important implications to consider for further psychological research. In fact, I learned about this study through class discussion in a personality research class and am frankly surprised that it hasn't received as much attention as I thought it would through the various media outlets.

What's one of the major issues most everyone will learn about in any psychology course? Well how about the battle between nature and nurture? Everything's a nature/nurture problem. And the common way to decide the influence of nature on a psychological attribute is to conduct a twin study. The logic behind a twin study is that identical twins should be most related to each other, as compared to dizygotic twins, non-twin siblings and strangers. Therefore differences between monozygotic twins on, say, a personality variable (and we do occasionally find these types of differences) aught to be attributed to environmental influences. But if identical twins are not really genetically identical, then how do we know that a personality difference isn't genetic? Now the AJHG report does not completely destroy the picture created by twin study results. Monozygotic twins are still highly similar; again, the differences in CNV's are subtle. Yet the paper does add the implication that an observed personality difference cannot automatically be attributed to the environment.

Oh well, if you want to read more about it, there is a Scientific American article about it, as well you can visit the AJHG site are read the original article. Go check it out! Very cool stuff!

Happy Birthday to me!

2008-05-20T15:58:00.002-05:00

picture by explodingdog

Graduation and other stuff . . .

2008-05-15T00:43:00.006-05:00

Well graduation was this past Sunday for the College of William & Mary. As you can see, I decided to attend, and I brought my wife along. It was nice and short. And though there was some celebration, it ain't over yet! All my class requirements are completed, but there's still that little thing we call a thesis that needs to be defended. I have until July 18th to defend my thesis, which is plenty of time so I don't expect to run into any problems. But until then I suppose I can't officially consider myself an MA. My wife on the other hand has completed everything, including her thesis, and her graduation from VCU is this Saturday. Fun stuff.

So now we basically have about two months before we move to Lexington, KY and start our doctoral programs at the University of Kentucky. This is an exciting time for us. Of course, we don't have much to do right now. I do have thesis work to complete, as well I'm still working on a few other side research projects. Yet I still feel that I have a lot of free time on my hands. Part of this free time I plan to spend writing (both blog and academic writing). As well, I have started a writing schedule (under the advice of my future grad advisor) and I hope to use these two months to get used to scheduled writing. Hopefully then I will break my binge writing habits, haha.

As for the blog, I'm making myself the goal of at least three posts a week, though it'll be great if I can get to posting daliy. I let myself slack too much this past semester, so I need to make up for it. Anyways, more on that later! Congratulations to all my friends and colleagues who are now fellow graduates! Yea!

On another note, here's a collection of links to keep you busy. Each has to do with psychological science in some way or another:

* Firstly, here's a newly launched website called Personality and Social Psychology Comments. As you can guess from the title, it's an online database of comments on published papers in the areas of personality and social psychology. Here's a brief description of PSPC:

"In order to advance as a scientific field, we argue that personality and social psychology should be characterized by cumulative knowledge as well as a constant questioning and discussion about what has been previously established. To incorporate such an ideal, previous data and unpublished research should be far more accessible than it is today.

We believe that there is a great deal of well-conducted research such as replications, extensions of previous studies, and null findings that never reach the stage of publication. Thus, valuable information never gets accessible to the scientific community.
Most of all, however, we believe that scientific enterprise should be open and critical and there should be a space to express criticism and other viewpoints. PSPC is meant to provide a forum for these issues and hopefully function as a resource for researchers conducting reviews and meta-analyses as well."

PSPC seems like it could be a pretty useful tool, but no one has bothered to submit any comments yet. I'm not sure whether it's because the word just hasn't gotten out yet or what. But if it starts to garner some popularity, I imagine it's usefulness will become more apparent . . . especially those comments focusing on null findings.

* The second item concerns a society called, Psychologists for Social Responsibility. This is the first time that I have heard about them, though the group was founded 25 years ago. I found out about them through a social psychology listserv. It's basically a group that uses psychological knowledge to promote peace and social justice. I took a gander at their website. I suppose that if you are into peace or political psychology, this might be an interesting group to look at/consider.

* Finally, my last item concerns a new essay that Steven Pinker has just written in the New Republic. It concerns the concept of dignity, its uselessness in terms of bioethics, and how it's being used to stall the progress of basic scientific and medical research. It's a good essay, brief and to the point. Go check it out!

Roll up to the Magical Memory Tour?

2008-05-14T00:14:00.004-05:00

Now here's something cool that I read about in the April edition of Observer. Psychologists from the Leeds Memory Group, at the University of Leeds, are conducting an online survey that aims to create the "biggest database of 'autobiographical memories' ever attempted."

How are they doing this? Interestingly, they are asking people to blog about their memories of the Beatles! And anyone who has a memory related to the Beatles can participate. You can find their online study here at the Magical Memory Tour.

On their website, you can blog about your own memories of the Beatles, as well as check out the memories of other people. You can even find out which albums or songs evoke the most positive or negative memories. You can even check out the top ten most viewed Beatles associations (so far, number one is John Lennon - In Memoriam).

The researchers hope to explore "how experiences from our lives might be associated with music, personality, and the public perception of the Beatles." Seems like a pretty cool project to me! Check it out!

it's April already?

2008-04-13T00:03:00.007-05:00

Wow, so I suppose it is April already! I can't believe it. This semester has gone by faster than I imagined or was prepared for. And, unfortunately, more than a whole month has past since I updated my blog with even a single new post! What am I to do? Of course I have the usual excuses . . . with work and travel, but I don't want to lie . . . facebook's scrabulous game has taken WAY too much of my time! It's addictive!

Well not much has happened in the past month, but I guess I can give you a recap of how my March went anyway. Let's see, I finished data collection for my thesis, which is nice. But since my study rests on behavioral interactions that were recorded with the use of a hidden camera, I won't be able to analyze any data until my tapes are all coded. This is very aggravating, considering that I am just itching to see my results. Not to worry, I finished training several students who are assisting me with this task. They are now in the process of coding the tapes for me as we speak (about 8 1/2 full 6 hour tapes). So the end is in sight, though I'm reluctant to admit it.

On another note of importance, I gave a talk at the College of William & Mary's 7th Annual Graduate Research Symposium. That was pretty good. It went well, although my talk was the first one in the morning. I wasn't too happy about that, haha, but oh well . . . what can one do? I basically talked about my thesis as a work in progress, since I had no data to present. But everyone seemed to "dig it" (that's scientific jargon for "liked it" ha), and I received really good questions and comments. By the by, for readers who don't already know, my project is concerned with how social exclusion affects future affiliative behaviors. If you're interested, you can read my abstract about it, as well as the abstracts of other projects in the symposium program.

Besides my own thesis research, I've recently started two new projects, which I might have already written about (I don't remember). One concerns work for Eastern Virginia Medical School that I'm helping out on, and the other is a side project that I started with my friend and colleague, John Terrizzi, and William & Mary's very own evolutionary psychologist, Lee Kirkpatrick. The EVMS study is concerned with stopping college-aged students from driving while under the influence of alcohol, while the other study concerns disgust sensitivity and prejudicial attitudes. Both of the projects are going well, but we are still in the early stages of data collection. I hope to write more about these later! Though, for some reason I always feel reluctant to blog about my own research, haha. I need to get over that.

Lastly, I have some really good news to report. My wife and I have both been accepted into the University of Kentucky! We are very excited, because this school was the best fit for each of us, and we actually both got in together! Apparently we beat the odds, because everyone kept telling us how hard it was going to be to get into the same place. Of course, my advisor told me not to worry, until I had something to worry about (i.e. don't worry about getting into different places until you find out you got into different places). So I took his advice and didn't worry . . . well I didn't worry a lot I suppose. I guess the hard work is starting to pay off for us, haha. So, after defending our theses we'll be completing our masters programs here in Virginia and then move up to Lexington, Kentucky. There I'll continue my study of social exclusion in the lab of C. Nathan DeWall, while earning a Ph.D. in experimental psychology (concentrating in social). This is a great opportunity for me, because Nathan is an up-and-coming star social psychologist, and his research interests match mine perfectly. Plus I'll be one of his first Ph.D. students. And then there's my wife, who will be studying 19th & 20th century British literature, feminist literary criticism and women's studies, while earning her Ph.D. in English. I'm not sure who she plans to study with, although I know Ellen Rosenman fits her interests perfectly.

Well, that's pretty much how my March went. Now I'm waiting for classes to end, especially the two classes for which I TA. I'm also eager to finish all the projects that I'm working on and the defense of my thesis. It's going to be May before I know it!

The Implicit Association Test

2008-02-21T22:47:00.008-05:00

The Edge website recently put up a talk with Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald, concerning the Implicit Association Test, aka IAT. In the interview they basically cover why and how the IAT was created, and the importance of the test.

Very quickly, the IAT is a social psychological research tool used to help investigators explore the various unconscious preferences and attitudes that affect our behavior. Specifically, it measures how strongly one automatically associates a concept or entity with an attribute as compared to how one associates another concept or entity with the very same attribute. So, in other words, would you be quicker to associate a flower (concept 1) with pleasantness (attribute) and an insect (concept 2) with unpleasantness (attribute) than the other way around? If so, then you, purportedly, have a stronger preference for flowers than insects.

Because the test works on split-second associations, you have no time to think about them. This means, ostensibly, that these attitudes are unconscious and inaccessible to one’s self-awareness, otherwise known as implicit associations. As well, because these attitudes are unconscious, they affect aspects of our behavior without us even realizing it, which gives way to enormous implications they have on social cognition and behavior. Being able to understand unconscious attitudes will give us great insight into all kinds of social issues concerning stereotypes, prejudices and biases. And because the IAT is able to quickly measure unconscious attitudes, it is a very useful tool for studying these social issues. Let’s face it . . . the IAT is hot right now, haha. It seems like everyone wants to do an IAT study. But the three main IAT researchers are Mahzarin Banaji, Anthony Greenwald (featured in the Edge interview) and Brian Nosek from the University of Virginia.

Yet the IAT is not without its detractors. In fact, there was a decent debate between the IAT camp and Hart Blanton and James Jaccard in 2006, which was published in the American Psychologist. Blanton and Jaccard came up with some very worthy criticisms of the IAT. Firstly, they state that the metric the test is measured on is arbitrary for measuring a psychological dimension, such as prejudice. We don’t really know what an IAT score means. An example they give deals with self-esteem. Imagine that you scored an 8 on a self-esteem scale. And scores can range from 0 to 10. A score of 8 is meaningless in diagnosing one’s level of self-esteem. We would have to know how that score of 8 relates to behaviors associated with self-esteem. In the same way, to gauge our implicit attitudes we have to link our IAT scores to observable behaviors relevant to automatic preferences, and this has not yet been done with IAT scores.

Well, anyways, if you are interested in implicit social cognition or bias, stereotypes and prejudice, then definitely check out the Banaji/Greenwald interview and, as well, I’ll list some citations for further reading you might enjoy. Lastly, the Edge website has a link to an IAT on preferences for the presidential candidates. So perhaps you’ll find that you hold an implicit preference for a candidate that differs from the candidate that you consciously prefer, if you decide to take it that is.

For further reading:

Greenwald, A., McGhee, D. & Schwartz, J. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(6), 1464 – 1480.

Blanton, H. & Jaccard, J. (2006). Arbitrary metrics in psychology. American Psychologist, 61(1),
27 – 41.

As well, the same issue of American Psychologist (vol 61 num 1) contains a Greenwald reply and Blanton counter-reply.

Go check them out and enjoy!

another historical day for psychologists

2008-02-18T00:32:00.004-05:00

So how's it going sports fans?

It seems that I have been neglecting my blog a little bit lately. I know, I know . . . it seems like I get into a good rhythm for a couple days, and then BOOM!, I'll hit a dry spell and won't write anything new for weeks. Oh, the time graduate study takes from me. Well, I do have a decent excuse . . . I've been doing a lot of traveling. Firstly, I spent some time in Albuquerque, NM for the 9th annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. And secondly, I'm interviewing for Ph.D. programs. Fun stuff. Interestingly, before February, I have never flown on a plane before (I guess a live a sheltered life, ha). Yet I flew on 10 different flights in the past week and a half!

Well, besides leaving me tired, my traveling has left me with several posts that I plan to write up soon. The current post, on the other hand, is about an event that occurred on February 17th, 1890. Give up? It's the birth date of R. A. Fisher!

You might be asking yourself, who is R. A. Fisher and why is he important? I'll tell you. Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher was a British statistician and evolutionary geneticist, and one of the founders of the modern evolutionary synthesis. He basically showed quantitatively that "inherited traits were consistent with Mendelian principles." As well, he built the foundation for modern statistical theory and population genetics. To say the least, he was a bright guy.

A lot of Fisher's work concerned the variation of inherited traits among plants, so why is he important to psychologists? Well, like I stated before, he practically fathered modern statistical theory. He created advanced techniques that we still use today and wrote influential books on research design and analysis, including his first book, Statistical Methods for Research Workers (of which I actually found a used early edition and got it for free!). Most importantly, especially for social psychologists, he invented the statistical technique referred to as "analysis of variance," or simply, "ANOVA."

To put it simply, ANOVA is a procedure that deals with the differences between groups (specifically, two or more groups), rather than just describe the relationship between variables. This makes it a considerable advancement from the statistical technique of correlation. In correlational research, you can't really make statements about cause and effect. Whereas, in experimental research using ANOVA's, you are given more insight to do so, which is why it has become the most popular (and often abused) statistical procedure in psychology . . . especially social psychology! ANOVA gives us it's extra insight by examining the ratio of the observed variability BETWEEN groups (what we can account for) and the observed variability WITHIN each group (uniqueness that we can't account for). Or in even simpler terms that my thesis adviser, John Nezlek, would say, an ANOVA is the ratio of "what we know" over "what we don't know."

Here's an example to make it a little easier to understand:

Let's say that I have a drug and I think it makes people more aggressive. So I draw two random samples of people and I give one sample a dose of the drug, while the other sample gets a placebo (sugar pill). Then I measure how aggressively (perhaps how many times each person physically harms another) each person in each sample acts. To say that my drug causes aggression, one would have to say that the variation in aggressive behavior between the two groups (drug group and placebo group) is much larger than the variation within each group (do all placebo participants act similar? do all drug participants act similar?). So if the the drug group does act more aggressively than the placebo group, and each member of the drug groups acts similarly aggressive, then it's likely that my drug causes aggression.

Well, that's my short and simple description of Analysis of Variance. I know that my meager post does not give Fisher's brilliance the full justice that it deserves, but I try. So, even though I'm just a little late (my time says 3:18 am on Feb. 18th) . . . HAPPY BIRTHDAY Ronald Fisher!

Happy Darwin Day!

2008-02-12T23:31:00.003-05:00

Almost too late! Happy Birthday Charles Darwin!

And here's a funny comic I found to go with the special occasion:

a new blog about . . .

2008-01-24T00:02:00.000-05:00

Are you interested in issues of cause and effect? Do you use quasi-experimental methodology or correlational analyses for your own research? If so, I might just have the blog for you!

It's called . . . what else . . . Alan & Bo's Correlation and Causality Blog. It's brand spanking new too, with two posts so far. It looks pretty interesting though. I just found out about it yesterday through a social psychology listserv. Here's a little blurb describing the purpose of the blog:

"On this blog, we seek to raise and discuss various issues pertaining to correlation and causality, much like we did during our frequent conversations at Texas Tech. In fields that study human behavior in “real world” settings, many potentially interesting phenomena are off-limits to the traditional experimental desgin that would permit causal inferences, for practical and ethical reasons.

Does the birth of a child increase or decrease couples’ marital/relationship satisfaction? Does growing up with an alcohol-abusing parent damage children’s development of social skills? How does experiencing a natural disaster affect residents’ mental and physical health?

For none of these questions could researchers legitimately assign individuals (or couples) at random to either receive or not receive the presumed causal stimulus. Much of our discussion, therefore, will be aimed at formulating ideas for how to make as strong a causal inference as possible, for a given research question.

By raising issues of how researchers might approach a given research question from the standpoint of internal validity, we hope to fulfill a “seeding” process, where our initial commentaries will be generative of further discussion and suggestions. We are thus permitting (and encouraging!) comments on this blog, for this purpose. We hope to learn as much (or more) from you, as you might learn from us."

Seems pretty unique, a blog specifically devoted to the logic of causality. I'm looking forward to their future posts. Well, anyways, go check it out!

it's all in the name!

2008-01-21T18:05:00.000-05:00

So I was reading through the current issue of Dialogue, the official newsletter of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and I found some very interesting trivia facts. That is, the most common names among contemporary social psychologists.

They basically compiled a list of 1,179 different first and last names from individuals who were current members of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology. And can you guess what the 2nd most common name was among male social psychologists? If you guessed 'Richard,' then you are correct! Ha! So maybe I was born to become a social psychologist, or maybe my parents were trying to condition me from the very start, haha. Of course, what would it mean if I didn't make it through grad school? I guess I'd have to change my name to 'George' or something.

Okay, so setting the kidding aside, if you are interested in the top name for male social psychologists, it's: John. I guess I wasn't too surprised on that one. The top two names for females in social psychology were: 1. Linda and 2. Ann(e). So there's some random social psychology trivia to spike up your life! Your welcome!

On another note, my blog is officially 1 year old! Yea! I actually missed like a lake's true blogaversary by a couple days. I was thinking that my first post was on the 21st of last January, but it was actually on the 12th. Doh! Oh well, happy late blogaversary to me!

To Understand Evil . . . Through Science

2008-01-09T13:20:00.001-05:00

Just found out about this, so I thought that I'd let the readers know.

For anyone who has the National Geographic Channel, tonight's Explorer will be doing a special on the Science of Evil:

"Explorer journeys inside one of the most fascinating places of all - the human mind - to better understand the Science of Evil. Using cutting-edge functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques, scientists attempt to isolate the mechanics of moral judgment by mapping patterns in neurological processes. Could neuron activity in the brain really give rise to good or evil? Then, gain insight into the minds of some of the worlds cruelest people."

I'm pretty sure that the show will cover some of Phil Zimbardo's work as well, like the Stanford Prison Experiment. It looks pretty interesting though, and it starts at 8pm. I think that it's also playing on Saturday around 7pm. I'd check it out myself, if I had the channel . . . maybe I'll get a friend to tape it for me. Oh, and if you have Adobe's flash player, you can check out a video preview from the show . . . here. Enjoy!

First post of 2008!

2008-01-08T18:23:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I know, I know. I am a tad bit late, but Happy New Year anyways . . . ha! I can't believe that it's 2008 already. The time does fly I suppose. Well, anyway, I hope everyone's Christmas and New Year's get-togethers were fun and eventful . . . or peaceful and relaxing.

So, has anyone had time to check out Edge's annual question for the "intellectual elite"?

As I'm sure many readers know, John Brockman issues a question every year to the world's leading thinkers and publishes the responses on the Edge website. And then usually a collection of the best responses get published in paperback format. You may recall seeing the book on last year's question, "What Are You Optimistic About?," at your local bookstore.

Well, this year's question is:

"WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT? WHY?"

Edge has received responses from 165 contributors, all leading thinkers within the Sciences and Humanities, particularly the evolutionary and cognitive sciences. I haven't had a chance to read through all of them, but there are a few that I have looked over. Steven Pinker has a short essay about whether humans have stopped evolving or not. The cognitive scientist, Stanislas Deheane, has an interesting essay about whether we will soon have a mathematical "theory of consciousness." And there are lots and lots of others! Go ahead and check them out!

And if you are interested in answers to past Edge questions, go check out the World Question Center.

Winter Break!

2007-12-19T23:29:00.000-05:00

Wow, so it's been over a month since I have written my last post. What can I say? I've been busy and time has gone by way too fast, haha. After Thanksgiving, I was pretty much concerned with completing graduate school applications, paper writing, collecting thesis data and studying/taking finals. Needless to say, it's been an interesting couple of weeks.

Well, the bulk of my work is done . . . for the time being. Finals are over with and my own students, from the social methods class that I TA for, finished their presentations last week. Most of my grad applications have been sent off, I just have three more to complete. And I'm done collecting thesis data for the semester, mostly because students are leaving campus. I'll be starting my project back up once everyone returns to campus. So, essentially, I'm free until about January 16th. Yea Winter Break! Nearly a month of relaxation . . . haha . . . yeah, right. The wifey and I don't really have big plans for the break, except seeing family I suppose. We both have thesis work to do. And I have a pile of "recreational" reading that I want to get through by the end of break. We'll see. The first order of business is to add more posts to this blog. I feel so bad about abandoning it for so long. Now that I have a decent amount of time to myself, I expect to be posting regularly. Perhaps, if I can get some preliminary analyses done, I can write about my master's thesis work. Well, until then, that's all for now! I'm going to start Steinbeck's The Winter of Our Discontent.

New social psychology magazine!

2007-11-16T01:06:00.000-05:00

Sweet! I have just recently found out about this fairly new on-line magazine called, The Inquisitive Mind , or more simply, In-Mind. What's so cool about In-Mind? Well, I'll tell you!

In-Mind is a free, quarterly on-line magazine about, what else, social psychology! It's all about making social psychology more accessible to the public. The articles are written by real psychologists, and concern current research trends within the field. As well, readers don't really have to worry much about convoluted, scientific jargon. Instead, the articles are fairly easy to read and, at the same time, quite stimulating. Additionally, readers can debate with an article's author! Here's how they describe themselves:

"Welcome to the website of the Inquisitive Mind. The Inquisitive Mind, or In-Mind, is a young and exciting on-line quarterly magazine for social psychology. The magazine’s purpose is designed to interact with everyone that is interested in everyday human concerns and to inform you on the hot trends in scientific social psychological research. Now, science has its own language and you might not feel like having the time to keep up-to-date. We will attempt to bridge the existing gap by relating important social psychological research to issues that catch your mind . . .

. . . So, what all does In-Mind offer? First, you can read on the aforementioned topics by reading our articles. In order to read the full articles, you will have to register. This is free, and you may do so through the controls on the left. After you have registered, you may continue with the button 'articles' to read full articles (introductions of articles are available without registration). You can then discuss, debate, and argue with the authors and with other members. Moreover, if you find other members with common interests, you may connect with them directly through our In-Mind Community; every member has the opportunity to create a profile. Also, as a member you can automatically create your own blog. Use this blog to wander and wonder in the interesting world of social psychology . . ."

It looks really cool to me. I'm pretty excited about it, and, as you can see, I've added it to my "sites that I like" sidebar.

They even have some pretty appealing links and videos about social psychology. For instance, I found an interesting lecture given by Dr. Mahzarin Banaji on In-Mind. Dr. Banaji is a social psychologist from Harvard University who basically studies how our unconscious biases affect our social perceptions and attitudes. You can check out the video here:

Go see the website! I know you'll enjoy it!

Our mental number line?

2007-10-16T14:06:00.000-05:00

Now here’s a post that I’ve been meaning to write for a while. I finally found some time (or motivation) to get it done I guess :)

Firstly, I should state that my research interests mostly lie within the field of social psychology (specifically affiliation and social rejection). But I also have some general interests in topics across a variety of other psychology sub-fields (as you can probably tell, I have a rather large interest in evolutionary psychology, which to me is more of a way of thinking about psychology than a sub-field). Well, this is a post about a general interest of mine, and that is the concept of number. Specifically, this post is going to be about human and animal abilities to order and represent numbers.

Jessica Cantlon and Elizabeth Brannon (2006) are researchers from Duke (you can find Brannon’s website here) who worked on two experiments investigating: 1) the ability of two rhesus macaques to apply a learned ordinal numerical rule, and 2) compared the performance of these same monkeys with that of humans on ordering pairs of numbers. In the first experiment, the authors trained the rhesus macaques to present in ascending order all possible pairings of stimuli, of which each represented a numerical value between 1 and 9. The stimuli consisted of a background with 1 through 9 square shapes in various colors and sizes, kind of like the blue boxes in the photo below:

Once the ordinal rule was learned, the macaques were then presented with stimuli that represented novel numerical values (10, 15, 20 and 30). Of the experimental sessions, there were three types of pairings. The first type were familiar-familiar pairs where each stimulus represented a value between 1 and 9. The second type were familiar-novel pairs, in which one stimulus represented a value among 10, 15, 20 or 30 and the other stimulus represented a value between 1 and 9. And lastly, the third type of pairing was novel-novel. This is where both stimuli represented a value among 10, 15, 20 and 30. Once presented with the pairings, the macaques were expected to use the ordinal rule and order the values from smallest to largest, which is what the authors found!

The monkeys ordered these values in the same direction that they originally learned to order the values between 1 and 9. The findings are particularly interesting considering that the authors used a numerical value up to 30 and previous studies have only presented monkeys with values of up to 10. So not only does this first experiment show that rhesus macaques can compare and apply ordinal rules to unfamiliar values, but these monkeys can also represent and compare values of at least 30 with the possibility of no upper limit!

The second experiment was conducted to compare the performance of these monkeys with human participants and specifically to test how much the number comparisons are controlled by Weber’s law in each species (Weber’s law essentially states that the ability to discriminate between two values depends on the ratio between the two and not the actual absolute values. For instance, it is easier to discriminate between the values of 1 and 9 than it is to discriminate between the values of 28 and 29).

The same macaques and 11 university students were instructed to pick the smallest value presented out of pairings of the same stimuli. This time each stimulus represented a numerical value between 2 and 30. The human participants were instructed not to count, but to respond as quickly as possible once the stimuli appeared. The investigators observed that the monkeys and the human participants performed similarly in accuracy. Indeed, the difference between monkeys and humans in accuracy was smaller than the difference between the most and least accurate humans! The monkeys did perform significantly faster than the humans though. This could be attributed to the training, but remains unclear. However, the data from both the human and monkey groups did conform to the pattern predicted by Weber’s Law. Accuracy decreased and reaction time increased as the ratio between the small and large values increased. Whenever the values increased and the distance between them decreased, it took both humans and monkeys more time to order them.

Now, I thought that this was an intriguing article when I first read it last year. It seems to support the supposition that humans and animals use a similar system for representing and ordering numbers. We seem to have a mental number line in common. Perhaps we evolved an underlying mechanism for non-verbal number representation from a common primate ancestor? Well, anyways, I thought the article was pretty cool and just wanted to share it, haha.

Citation:

Cantlon, J., & Brannon, E. (2006). Shared system for ordering small and large numbers in monkeys and humans.

Psychological Science, 17(5), 401 – 406.

Self-replicating robots . . . and more

2007-10-11T13:18:00.000-05:00

So I was just browsing around for some cool videos and what not, and guess what I found? If you guessed a short talk given by Hod Lipson, then you'd be correct!

As you might recall, I wrote about Lispon back in June concerning his plenary address at HBES 2007. As I wrote before, he was my favorite speaker over the course of the conference. His topic was evolutionary robotics, which is basically about creating robots that:

"decide for themselves how they want to walk; robots that develop a sense of what they look like; even robots that can, through trial and error, construct other robots just like themselves"

It is really a very interesting area that may even help us understand how the human brain constructs self-models. Is it similar to how these robots develop a sense of themselves?

Well, anyways, Lispon gave a brief version of the same address, with the same video clips, as a TED Talk on October 11, 2007. If you don't feel like visiting the website, I have posted the video below. It's definitely really cool and worth the watch:

Celebrating the Cognitive Revolution

2007-09-27T22:28:00.000-05:00

Yeah, so I was just browsing around Steven Pinker's website, and noticed that he had a link to some interesting video.

Basically, the Mind/Brain/Behavior Interfaculty Initiative at Harvard held a discussion celebrating the beginning of the cognitive revolution, and which inaugurated a new, permanent exhibit in William James Hall on the history behind the revolution. The talk (discussion) is titled: "The Cognitive Revolution at Fifty Plus or Minus One." The discussion includes a panel of none other than: George Miller, Noam Chomsky, Susan Carey and Jerome Bruner. The discussion is also introduced and moderated by Pinker himself. (all are pictured above: Pinker, Carey, Miller, Chomsky and Bruner) Oh . . . and this took place around April! (How did I miss this?)

The talk is very awesome! The panel discussion is broken into 4 videos and I definitely recommend viewing them all! Well, to anyone who's interested in the History of Science/Psychology/Cognitive Science anyways. Of course, it is pretty "Harvard-centric," as I think Pinker himself said, but the panel does mention some other important players, such as Piaget and Edward Tolman. It's really cool just to hear about how a department absorbed in radical behaviorism in the 1950's (B.F. Skinner) could give birth to an influential paradigm that allowed purposeful thought! It's also really cool to hear about all the thinkers who influenced each on the panel.

Check it out!

Today in the History of Psychology

2007-09-14T11:31:00.001-05:00

Today, in 1907, one of the most famous pioneers in social psychology was born. The man that I am speaking of, and who is pictured to the right, is of course Solomon Asch. Like many in his day, Asch was trained as a gestalt psychologist. (An approach that advocates that the "whole is greater than the sum of its parts." For instance, the brain cannot be defined just by its seperate parts, but by how each acts on each other simultaneously).

Asch studied many aspects of social behavior including impression formation, and even wrote one of the first influential social psychology text books, simply called, Social Psychology (1952). But what he is probably most famous for is a set of experiments he conducted in the 1950's on the topic of conformity.

In his experiments, participants viewed a picture of a line and were to compare this line to a separate set of lines to see which best resembled the first (pictured below):
All participants were confederates (basically fake participants/actors) except one. Before being asked which line correctly resembled the first, the confederates were instructed to give an incorrect answer. The confederates and one participant were all seated in a classroom, where the one participant occupied the last seat. And they were instructed to announce their answer aloud, with the real participant answering last. When the confederates were unanimous in their incorrect judgments, most real participants felt discomfort from the answer they thought was right and the answer that they heard the confederates say. Most of the participants caved under the social pressure, leaving only about 29% of his subjects who refused to "join the bogus majority." Of course if the confederates were not unanimous in their incorrect judgments, then most participants would give the correct answer.

This experiment had some interesting implications for the power of conformity in social groups and has laid the groundwork for the famous obedience experiments by Stanley Milgram.

Happy Birthday Solomon Asch!

"The Stuff of Thought"

2007-09-13T09:58:00.000-05:00

Steven Pinker's new book, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window Into Human Nature, is finally out! Woohoo! It came out on Tuesday and I rushed to the local Barnes and Noble to pick up my copy. I can't wait to start reading it! I'm going to try to get to it this weekend, at least start on it if I can get my other work done. I'm so excited!

Darwinian Medicine

2007-09-09T23:52:00.000-05:00

For those of you interested, evolutionary psychologist/psychiatrist Dr. Randolph Nesse has put together a series of lectures for the Henry Stewart Talks called, Evolution and Medicine: How New Applications Advance Research and Practice.

The combined lectures were designed to be a complete introductory course to the field of evolutionary medicine with over 30 expert contributors. Topics include: Fundamentals of evolution and medicine, evolutionary genetics, infectious diseases, co-evolution and arms races, environmental factors, constraints and trade-offs, sexual selection and reproduction, cancer, mental disorders, and practical applications. Power-point slides come along with each talk as well.

The only bad thing about the lectures is that you cannot view them for free. That's right, you have to purchase them! But many, not all, of the lectures offer a playable extract for free. It's a little 5 minute sample of the talk, I guess so you can decide whether you want to buy the rest or not. Of course the single user license is about $650! Wow! So it's just like enrolling in a online course I suppose, just without the grade. From what I heard from the playable extracts . . . they seem pretty interesting.

Go check them out!

Today in the History of Psychology

2007-09-09T22:38:00.000-05:00

"There is nothing so practical as a good theory."
- Kurt Lewin, 1951

Today in 1890, the "founder of social psychology," Kurt Lewin, was born!

Originally from Prussia, he emigrated to the United States as a result of World War II. He held a position at the University of Iowa, where he developed his interests in social phenomena and even began research, in order to help the war effort, such as examining troop morale. Of course, coming from the German tradition of Gestalt Psychology, he was a true believer in a good theory. One cannot fix a problem from evidence alone. To create a solution to a social problem, one must fully understand the issue. Lewin was really the first to utilize theory-building for the understanding of social "facts," and he rigorously employed experimentation to test his hypotheses.

He moved to MIT around 1944, where he established the Research Center for Group Dynamics. One might say, the field of group dynamics is where his importance lays and where his legacy proliferates. Here he developed and refined his field theory of social behavior, B=ƒ(P,E), (behavior is a function of a person and his/her environment). That basically means, one's behavior is due to the situation the person is in when the behavior occurs, rather than emphasizing past experiences (upbringing). He also looked at concepts such as group performance and leadership styles, and even found that democratic leadership proved to be the most productive type of leadership.

Lewin died in 1947, just three years after the establishment of his research center, yet his legacy lived on through his students. One of these students was Leon Festinger. Festinger studied under Lewin at the University of Iowa where he received his Ph.D in 1942. He later followed Lewin to MIT and headed the Research Center for Group Dynamics after Lewin died.

Happy Birthday Kurt Lewin!

the summer just goes by so fast . . .

2007-08-29T21:28:00.000-05:00

Yes it does! Classes started today in fact, but I feel like it was just the beginning of June last week. Oh well, the summer was fun and I think that I did some pretty cool stuff (besides getting married).

For instance, I held two jobs over the summer. Firstly, I was a teaching assistant for a class concerning research methods in clinical psychology. Not my particular field of interest, but it was pretty nice regardless. We only had like 6 students. I mostly ran the labs where they conducted two research projects. One project was an online environmental attitudes survey, where some questions were borrowed from another survey collected in the 80's. Essentially, the students were supposed to look at how attitudes on the environment have changed in the past twenty years. For their other project, I had them rate tape recordings of psychiatric patients. The patients participated in a series of role plays as a measure of social skills. The students then rated the tapes based on a set of criteria for conversational content as well as non-verbal content. This was mostly an exercise for the students so that they had experience conducting inter-rater reliability estimates. We wanted them to know how hard it is to obtain good reliability with these types of procedures. You don't really get that kind of knowledge just from reading journal articles.

My other job was as a research consultant at The Glennan Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology at Eastern Virginia Medical School. This was a pretty cool job as well. I worked for Dr. Barbara Freund, who mostly conducts driving simulation research on patients with Alzheimer's. Well, over the summer she obtained two new simulators from Raydon Corp. My project pretty much was centered around conducting quality assurance tests on the simulators to make sure that they were fit for participants in future studies. But she also let me participate in whatever else she had going on that I may have been interested in, which was cool. I really enjoyed it there. I thought that it would be like playing video games all day, but interestingly enough it wasn't. I still have to write a post about "simulator sickness," which I've wanted to write since June . . . just haven't had the time I suppose. It'll be up here soon though. What's really cool is that she's letting me work for her during the academic year, as research on the side . . . because I'll always need the extra experience. Of course this will only happen if my schedule permits it, my thesis is my number one priority!

So that's what the majority of my summer was spent on, although I also spent a lot of time teaching my wife how to play racquetball. She's gotten really good too! We both have also spent a lot of time studying for the GRE's. We're both nearing the end of our Master's programs (hers is in Literature) and we definitely want to go on for our Doctorates. That means we have to go through the lovely process of applying to graduate school again . . . YEA! (can you feel the horror?) Once more, we are trying to get into the same school! It'll work out somehow though. I'm actually not that worried about it.

Well, that was my summer. I now have a semester off solid work to look forward to, but it's cool because I'm really looking forward to the research opportunities that I will be participating in this semester, including my thesis on social ostracism/exclusion. I'm also taking a required course on psychopathology, and will probably audit the evolutionary psychology course offered through our department. Lastly, I will be the teaching assistant for my research advisor, Dr. John Nezlek, which is very cool! He's brilliant, so the more time I spend around him, hopefully the more I'll pick up. The course is "Research Methods of Social Psychology," which is a perfect fitting for me. I'll be controlling the labs for the course, but will be sitting in on the classes as well. And the first meeting will be tomorrow!

That's all for now!

Colbert on Michael Shermer

2007-08-24T22:57:00.000-05:00

Michael Shermer, science writer and editor of Skeptic magazine, was recently featured on The Colbert Report. It was pretty good, like all the others. Shermer did a pretty good job of explaining the need for science and skepticism, in the limited amount of time given. Favorite quote:

"If you want something to work, you use science!"

He also gives examples of how to examine evidence to disprove conspiracy theories (9/11 conspiracy theories in particular) and why you can't just go on anecdotal evidence for anything! If you want to find something out, you have to research the evidence!