Why might boys be more vulnerable to the psychological correlates of poverty? Photo: Albina Tiplyashina Shutterstock Some psychologists and sociologists are interested in how children from different socioeconomic conditions develop psychologically. One recent press report in Yahoo started with this sobering but unsurprising summary of past research, namely: For children, the effects of poverty can …
Continue reading Correlates of economic disadvantage in girls and boys
Photo: VGstockstudio/Shutterstock Several news outlets picked up on a study about high school students' screentime and their grades. The Huffington Post headlined their story, "One Hour Of Extra Screen Time Drags Down Teenagers' Grades" The summary of the study read like this: Teenagers who spend an extra hour a day surfing the internet, watching TV …
Photo credit: L: Stephen Bonk/Shutterstock; R: Tetra Images/Shutterstock What does your vacation say about your personality? Business Insider reported on a series of studies that demonstrated an association between people's personalities and their preferred places to relax and to live. The journalist sums up the studies: "the landscapes around us match the landscapes within us." …
The researchers used a Stroop test like this one to operationalize self-control in their study. Photo: Poornima Venkataraman/Chttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stroop_task.jpg This story in the Pacific Standard covers an empirical investigation of political conservatism, self-control, and free will. Political conservatism is usually associated in the U.S. with the Republican Party, and is contrasted with liberalism (which is …
Continue reading A mediator in the news! Political party affiliation, self-control, and free will
The study used teacher perceptions of each child's self control as the measure of self-control. Photo: Sean Gallup/ EdStock/ iStockphoto A recent empirical research article in Psychological Science (psychology's premier journal) has received some attention from the press. The Pacific Standard headlined the story this way: "Learn self-control, stay off the dole: A study from …
Continue reading Self control as a child can predict employment status as an adult
The Atlantic ran a story under the headline, "Is Costco Making us Fat?" It talks about the rise of obesity in the U.S., and proposes that cheaper food might be the main culprit. What I like about it is the description of how they used multiple regression to decide which of many factors has the …
Scientists used the words people used on twitter in different counties to measure the counties' emotional tone. © Christin Gilbert / AGE Fotostock Researchers have used twitter posts to assess risks for cardiovascular disease in different communities. How did they do it? Here's a summary of some of the methods, as summarized …
Continue reading Using Twitter posts to gauge the emotions of a community
The results showed that chunkier babies do better later in school, and that this association did not depend on the ethnicity, age, or education of the mother. Photo: © Sudo Takeshi / Getty Images "Heavier babies do better in school" is an association claim--with an appropriate, non-causal headline--about birthweight and school achievement. The new "upshot" …
Ethan Wragge, a senior at Creighton University, recently sank seven shots in a row in a college basketball game against Villanova. Wragge appeared to have a "hot hand"--it seemed as if he couldn't miss a shot. But is the "hot hand" a real phenomenon in basketball? Operationally speaking, does making a couple of shots in …
Have you ever seen the video, "Charlie bit me?" Did you send the link to any friends? How about another video or news story? Why do you think you forwarded--or did not forward--the links you've seen? According to this piece in FastCompany, some Internet stories are more likely to "go viral" than others. Social scientists …