This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has five segments. Here are bits of each of them: On the other hand — It is maybe the most politically insightful psychology study published in the past 60 years. And it is maybe not. The study in question is “State resident handedness, ideology, and political party […]
The special Liars & Con Men issue of the magazine (vol. 26, no. 5) includes a selection of research about lying in politics and business.
The Wikipedia entry for the Madman Theory informs : “The madman theory is a political theory commonly associated with U.S. President Richard Nixon’s foreign policy. He and his administration tried to make the leaders of hostile Communist Bloc nations think Nixon was irrational and volatile. According to the theory, those leaders would then avoid provoking […]
Here at close of 2016 The Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS), and it’s sibling clubs, have collected the year’s new members into its 2016 Members Gallery. Individual members are first announced as they are inducted throughout the year, in the Improbable Blog’s Hair Club section (with one exception this year**), and then collected […]
Would you say that having a big mouth might be a valid cue to leadership selection and success? A new (March 2016) study in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology authored by Dr. Daniel E. Re and Professor Nicholas O. Rule of the Social Perception and Cognition Lab, University of Toronto, Canada, suggests that the […]
Economics, candy, and politics have found a new way to mix. This study makes that, at least, clear: “Candy Elasticity: Halloween Experiments on Public Political Statements,” Julian Jamison and Dean Karlan [pictured here], Economic Inquiry, epub June 15, 2015. (Thanks to Sendhil Mullainathan for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at the Consumer Financial Protection […]
This newly published study, done by marketing experts at two universities, demonstrates how you can, if you like, make simple, clear sense of complicated, not-well-understood biological/medical/psychological/political phenomena: “The Fluctuating Female Vote — Politics, Religion, and the Ovulatory Cycle,” Kristina M. Durante [pictured here], Ashley Rae, Vladas Griskevicius [also pictured here], Psychological Science, epub April 23, 2013. The […]
Considerably less productive than The Central Institute for Questions and Answers in terms of the number of published research papers, but no less intriguing, is the The Malt Whisky Research Centre, Islay, Scotland. As far as can be determined, The Malt Whisky Research Centre has only produced one scholarly paper – for the journal European […]
Political teabagging and sexual teabagging have attracted lots of controversy recently, but a lesser-known variety — research teabagging — has much to recommend it. In case you have not encountered the word “teabagging”, here’s some linguistic background. Political teabagging takes its name from a twisted, angry dip into American/British history: the “Boston Tea Party” anti-tax […]
This three-minute video, which focuses on sheep and politicians, is a good tool for classroom discussions and experiments in the field of abnormal psychology. [NOTE: Students should be informed that the video was designed and is being used for a different sort of experiment — a campaign advertisement in which one one candidate is attacking […]