Author Archives: Jeremiah Stanghini

Jeremiah's primary aim is to provide readers with a new perspective. In the same vein as the "Blind Men and the Elephant," it can be difficult to know when one is looking at the big picture or if one is simply looking at a 'tusk' or a 'leg.' He writes on a variety of topics: psychology, business, science, entertainment, politics, history, etc.

What’s Better: Binge-Watching TV or Movies?

Quite some time ago (maybe 1-3 years ago?), I remember Matt Yglesias writing something about how movies were far superior to TV shows. That opinion has stuck with me for a while. It’s not that I agreed or disagreed, but I found the idea curious. With the explosion of binge-watching, I wondered if Matt Yglesias still thinks that movies were far superior to TV shows.

That is, when you can watch 3-5 hours of a TV show and really get into the intricacies of the plot in one sitting, does that somehow make it better than a 1.5- to 2-hour movie?

More recently, there’ve been a couple of interesting articles about movies and binge-watching. The first, on movies, discusses how going to the movies is a shared experience and how that might be dying out. The author explains that fewer people are going to the movies, even though ticket sales are at an all-time high (increased prices). She closes by saying that she thinks only a limited number of movies will debut in the theatre and the rest will go straight to video.

I think she’s right — the movies as a shared experience is dying out. However, I don’t think “shared experiences” are dying out. Instead, I think they’re moving away from the movies to other events like the one the author mentions, but not in the same context, the Oscars. Or perhaps the Superbowl is another good example. More than that, I wonder if we’re substituting the shared collective experience of going to the movies for binge-watching.

The second article, on binge-watching, argued that humans are wired to binge-watch. With the rise of online video streaming sites like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon (Prime), it’s not surprising that people are spending more time watching videos online and at home than they are going out to the theatre. I would posit that as more people binge-watch, the more other people also want to binge-watch.

Think about shows like House of Cards or Orange is the New  Black. These shows were released all at once on a Friday. As a result, some people will have watched the whole season before going back to work on Monday. As a way to stay “part of the conversation,” some people may feel compelled to watch the whole season, too. Given that we’re already wired to binge-watch, it’s not surprising that this might become self-reinforcing. 

This leads me to my argument that binge-watching might be replacing movie-going as the norm when it comes to shared experiences. After you’ve binge-watched House of Cards or some other series, maybe you start binge-watching that series that you never got into when it was on TV (Lost? Frasier? The West Wing?). There are a lot of series that are on Netflix and there are also lots of series on some of the other online streaming sites.

After having a baby fall asleep on my lap/shoulder night after night, I think my vote might be for binge-watching.

If We Want to Change the World, We’ve Got to be Better Parents

Note: I’ve been away from writing here for the past 6 weeks or so. My writing will continue to be less frequent than it used to be, but my plan is to at least write something once a week. Hopefully, it can be more frequent than that, but we’ll see how things go. I chose this post’s topic to return to writing because, as fate would have it, I’ve recently become a dad!

As some of you know, I like to use my favourites on twitter to accumulate things I want to write about or read. As I haven’t been writing very much in the last little while, the list of my favourites that I want to write about has grown — quite a bit. There were two tweets that I’d been saving to write about because I knew that it would fit perfectly with my return to writing. Both were about parental leave.

As you can see from the map above, the United States is the only western country that doesn’t have paid maternal leave. Of course, you’ll find that many companies offer paid maternal leave for people in the US as a way to stay “competitive,” but this isn’t something that’s required by law. This is a travesty. Unequivocally. Nothing is more important for a child’s growth than having their mother near in the early stages of life. Nutrition is tantamount to the survival of the child, but so is tender loving care.

Europe, in particular some of the Nordic countries, really understand this:

Swedish parents now receive a total of 480 days of leave per child, 390 days of which is paid at 80 per cent of salary (up to a maximum of $162 a day).

Quite frankly, the necessity for maternal leave is so obvious that one shouldn’t even need to argue for it. Instead, the debate should be about how long maternity leave should be.

While the US continues to shirk its responsibility to mothers, there’s an interesting argument that offering (more) paternity leave would help to close the gender gap. It’s certainly a compelling argument and the study in Quebec lends credence to the idea, but I think this is another one of those “no-brainer” kind of policies. Of course there should be paternity leave. Of course fathers should be there for their young infants and the new mothers. There is so much work required in the early stages of an infant’s life that I can’t imagine a mother trying to do this all by herself. And as history would tell us, they’re not meant to.

Only recently has our society shifted in a way that it’s become the “norm” for mothers to stay at home by themselves and tend to the children. As a new father, I’m embarrassed by this. If we want to do right by our families, our countries, our societies, and the world, we’ve got to take more time to spend shaping our young ones who will inherit the world.

Why Coke’s Super Bowl Ad Was Really Smart

By now, you’ve probably seen some of the coverage of Coke’s “controversial” Super Bowl ad. To be honest, I’m with Coke’s Ad Director on this one, “I don’t see any controversy here.” Don’t get me wrong, I can understand where some of the detractors are coming from, but I tend to side with the Ad Director. In case you haven’t yet seen the ad, take a look:

In a word, I thought the ad was beautiful. Maybe it’s because I was born and raised in Canada and I am used to (and appreciate) multiculturalism a bit more than the average American, who knows. Knowing that the Super Bowl has become an event that transcends the borders of the USA, maybe Coke was, surreptitiously, also trying to reach potential customers beyond its borders. Now, that hypothesis seems kind of silly given that the song that’s being sung in many languages is “America the Beautiful,” so let’s revise it and say that maybe Coke is trying to reach current (or potential) immigrants to the US.

Regardless of it’s initial aim, the controversy has stirred up so much discussion that the ad is being shared across the internet many times over. The last time I checked, the video had been viewed almost 8,000,000 times in 3+ days. I can’t think of many companies that don’t wish they made a video like this that’s been viewed this many times on social media (not to mention all the discussion that’s happened in print, TV, and online).

Then, there’s also the copycat-esque videos that extend (or poke fun) at the ad. I came across this one the other day and couldn’t help, but chuckle:

I haven’t seen anyone from Coke comment on it, but I’m sure that, at least off the record, they’d probably laugh at it, too.

Circling back to the original ad, I wanted to draw attention to the internationalist flavour to it. It’s still a few years off now, but folks are projecting that in the next 25-30 years, the majority of people living in the USA won’t be the same as it is today. Instead, there will be a majority of minorities. Meaning, adding up the population of all the minorities will mean that there are more people who identify as a minority than identify as white.

Tying this to the advertisement by Coke and I can’t help but think about how strategic it was for Coke to try and, if this was their strategy, attract younger immigrants to the brand.

Why Does Respect Fly Out the Window When Women are Involved?

Yesterday, Liberal MP Chrystia Freeland asked — ahem, tried to ask — a question during Question Period of the government. Unfortunately for her (and those watching), she wasn’t given the same respect afforded other MPs. As far as I can tell, this was the first question she’s asked during question period and as folks would expect who’ve read her work, she asked a question that was grounded in research [this one happened to be from the IMF]. The video doesn’t seem to be up on YouTube and all I could find was the link through AOL, which doesn’t embed nicely on this site, so you’ll have to watch the video here (2 minutes and 23 seconds in all).

On most days, Question Period can seem a bit immature, but I took particular issue with this instance because of some of the comments that followed on Twitter. Actually, the comment from the Minister of State was a bit off the wall, but most answers in Question Period don’t really address the details of the question. The comment on Twitter that came from a journalist (!) no less, which has since been deleted:

Part of the reason that it seems so appalling that this came from a journalist is because Freeland herself, was a journalist before she became an MP. I would have thought that if any profession were to cut Freeland a little more slack, it might be journalists. Freeland’s response on Twitter:

Exactly! It’s 2014! Why are we still marginalizing women in such a sexist fashion. I was glad to see Michelle Rempel, a Conservative MP, tweet the following, shortly after Freeland’s tweet:

This was the same Michelle Rempel who came under fire because of the way she posed in her Twitter pic! It’s absurd to me just how awful we still treat women in our society. As Freeland said, it’s 2014, for Pete’s sake!

Beyond all of this, though, I don’t necessarily hold the journalist completely at fault for what he said. [He did apologize, too — twice.] Yes, it was awful and unnecessary, but in a way, we are all a bit culpable. How? Why? Well, because we all live in this society and we all help to create the norms and values upon which we act and behave. One of the best ways to help effect change here: awareness. Go watch Miss Representation and tell your friends to do the same!

Meditation Mitigates Effects of Cognitive Biases

There have been thousands of scholarly articles written about the myriad benefits of meditation, but the one I came across recently was one of the first that confirmed one of my previously held beliefs: meditation helps you make better decisions.

The thing that struck me most about this study were the similarities to an experiment I conducted (on intuition and decision-making) as a research assistant. I had a condition where students would meditate for a short time and then use their intuition to make decisions. The results weren’t as I, (the research assistant I was working nor the professor), had hoped. I wrote it off as the the reluctance of undergraduates to meditate, but in this study, in particular, studies 2a and 2b, the researchers used undergraduates (approximately 200 combined) and they meditated!

In the second study, the researchers had the undergraduates listen to a 15-minute audio track, which was was specifically designed for this study. In one condition, students listened to a mindfulness meditation created by a professional mindfulness-meditation instructor and in the other, the students listened to a track, again, by a professional mindfulness-meditation instructor, that continuously instructed students to think about whatever came to mind. This second condition was called the “mind-wandering” condition and previous research used a similar method as a control for mindfulness experiments.

As I already mentioned in the opening paragraph, the researchers found that increasing mindfulness (i.e. meditation) reduced the effects of cognitive biases (i.e. the sunk cost fallacy). My favourite part of this study [Emphasis added]:

It is particularly notable in this set of studies that increased resistance to the sunk-cost bias occurred after only a brief recorded mindfulness-meditation induction. Many prior mindfulness-meditation interventions have involved 8 weeks of face-to-face training (Brown & Ryan, 2003); by comparison, our 15-min recorded manipulation is substantially more practical.

Many people have gotten it into their heads that the positive effects of meditation takes weeks to manifest. Here is tangible proof that — today — meditation can help you make better decisions. Also:

We also encourage research investigating how mindfulness practice might improve other decision-making processes and outcomes.

Absolutely! I would suspect that meditation would help guard against a whole host of other cognitive biases, but it would be fantastic if there were scientific evidence to back this up. For instance, years ago when I was the president of the student body, I once tried to begin a general assembly meeting with a quick 1-minute meditation, but the maturity level just wasn’t there. Even after 10 seconds, some of the representatives couldn’t handle the silence. I take the blame for that as I probably didn’t do the method justice by properly introducing it with the research. Can you imagine, if, before every semi-major decision, you took 10, 5, 2, or even 1 minute just to sit still and clear your mind of the previous discussion. I wonder how much lost revenue there is from not taking a moment to pause and reflect before a decision is made.

I should say, I’m sure that there is certainly time between major decisions (i.e. mergers & acquisitions, although, there is fascinating research on how big of a failure those can be), but I’m thinking about the mid-level manager who makes many decisions in a day that can affect the bottomline of a company. The managers that make quick decisions about whether to go with this contract or that contract, whether to make this purchase or that purchase. Maybe that’s a good place to start with more research.

ResearchBlogging.orgA. C. Hafenbrack, Z. Kinias, & S. G. Barsade (2013). Debiasing the Mind Through Meditation: Mindfulness and the Sunk-Cost Bias Psychological Science DOI: 10.1177/0956797613503853

My Answers to the 13 Weirdest Interview Questions You’ll Hear in 2014, Part 3

Over the last two days, I’ve been going through Mashable’s list of the 13 weirdest interview questions you’ll hear in 2014. On the first day, the guesstimate question took a little of time to answer because I had to type it out as I was talking through it out loud. In yesterday’s post, I was thrown for a bit of a loop when I answered why tennis balls are fuzzy (note: tennis balls are fuzzy because, “The felt delays flow separation in the boundary layer which reduces aerodynamic drag and gives the ball better flight properties.”) Today, I’ll answer the last three questions.

11. Can you instruct someone how to make an origami ‘cootie catcher’ with just words? – LivingSocial

Yes. There are two tricks for doing this. One would be to actually make an origami ‘cootie catcher’ and then retell the process to someone else as I’m doing it. The second way, and probably closer to an answer your looking for would be for me to imagine that I were making the ‘cootie catcher’ as I was telling someone how to do it. In this second way, I’m able to flex that part of my brain that is used for spatial reasoning.

12. How honest are you? – Allied Telesis

The research from psychologist and behavioural economist, Dan Ariely, would indicate that I’m at least a little dishonest — as we all are. The degree to which I’m dishonest might vary depending on one’s perspective. I would say I’m more honest than the next person, but the next person might say they’re more honest than me. A testament to my honesty: I’m honest when no one’s looking. There are times in our lives, when we have the opportunity to ‘cheat’ and do something for which we know is dishonest. Of course, as Ariely would tell us, we rationalize our behaviour. In knowing that we have this inkling towards rationalizing our behaviour, I do as best I can to be aware in these moments, so that I can prevent myself from being dishonest. For instance, maybe I don’t take an extra cookie when no one’s looking. Or maybe I am honest about what time I arrived and sign in at the ‘right’ time rather than back-dating my time a few minutes.

13. If you were on an island and could only bring three things, what would you bring? – Yahoo

[Note: In arriving at this question at the end, it feels like a chance to say… “there’s always one…” with the implication being, that there’s always one of ‘these’ questions where you’re asked to name some things you’d bring to an island based on certain criteria. This one doesn’t seem to have any specific criteria. It’s also worth noting that there’s no specificity in the kind of island one’s on. Anyways…] If I were on an island and could only bring three things, I’d bring my laptop, my Aeropress, and a surfboard. I’d bring my laptop, so that I could continue to write — I really enjoy writing. I’d bring my Aeropress because — hands down — I make the best coffee using it. And I’d bring a surfboard because I always wanted to learn how to surf.

My Answers to the 13 Weirdest Interview Questions You’ll Hear in 2014, Part 2

In yesterday’s post, I started to answer some of the weirdest interview questions you’ll hear in 2014 as chosen by Mashable. Today, hopefully, I’ll get through the rest of ’em. Let’s get to it!

7. Describe to me the process and benefits of wearing a seatbelt. – Active Network

When one sits down inside a car, in most cases, there’s a belt that they can fasten across their lap and/or over their shoulder. If you enter on the right side of the car, the seatbelt will normally be found on the right side of your leg/shoulder. If one enters on the left side of the car, the seatbelt will normally be found on the left side of one’s leg/shoulders. To fasten the seatbelt, pull the belt across your body/lap and insert the metal fitting into the buckle, until you hear a *click*. Then, if you have a lap belt, you’ll need to pull the strap until the belt is snug — but not too uncomfortable — over your body. The primary benefit of a seatbelt is to ensure that your body is in the optimal position, in the event of a collision. If one weren’t wearing a seatbelt and one’s car was in a collision, one’s rate of injury is extraordinarily higher than if one were wearing a seatbelt.

8. How does the Internet work? – Akamai

Very well for some. Two very good examples: Justin Bieber and Carly Rae Jepsen. Without the internet, there’s an extremely low probability that Bieber’s eventual manager finds Bieber’s YouTube account and sees him singing. And without Justin’s manager finding him through YouTube, his world, and the world of many “Beliebers,” would be quite different today. Building on that is Carly Rae Jepsen. Jepsen had made a name for herself in Canada, but when Bieber tweeted a YouTube video of her song, she became an international star.

9. If you were a pizza delivery man, how would you benefit from scissors? – Apple

If I were a pizza delivery man, it’s probably only because that’s my cover for being a spy. As a spy who’s walking around as a pizza delivery man, the scissors would come in handy when I needed to cut the electricity to house that I was delivering pizza to, but I needed to do so under a cloud of darkness.

10. Why is a tennis ball fuzzy? – Xerox

When people play tennis, they usually hold more than one ball at a time and in order to do this, sometimes they’ve got some sort of velcro like receiver on their hip. The makers of tennis balls found that as a way to ensure that tennis balls didn’t fall off of the velcro on player’s hips and to ensure their safety, they needed to make the balls fuzzy. [Note: I’m almost 100% sure this isn’t the reason why tennis balls are fuzzy because tennis has been around for a lot longer than velcro, but it was the first thing that came to mind and better represents how I might have answered if I were surprised with this in an interview.]

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That last question from Xerox kind of threw me off a bit, so I’m going to put this on pause and come back tomorrow to finish up the last three questions.

My Answers to the 13 Weirdest Interview Questions You’ll Hear in 2014, Part 1

Yesterday, Mashable published a listicle of the 13 weirdest interview questions you’ll hear in 2014, along with the origination of the questions (i.e. in which company’s interview they were [or will be] asked). I thought it’d be fun to go through and answer the questions as if I were in an interview with that company. I specify in an interview with that company because that would change the way that I answer the question. One last thing: I didn’t read the questions before answering them. That is, I’ve tried to maintain the element of surprise that the companies were trying to have in answering these kinds of questions. Here we go!

1. Are you more of a hunter or gatherer? – Dell

I know it’s clichéd to say this, but I like to think of myself as a hunter and a gatherer. There are times when I’d consider myself a gatherer, for instance, when trying to collect information to make an important decision on green-lighting an aspect on a project/product or when I’m trying to build support for a project idea in an upcoming meeting. In this way, I’ve got to use my skills at working around the edges — gathering — the right data or the right employees. There are also times when I’d consider myself a hunter, for instance when I’m looking for the right junior employee to motivate with an important project. In this way, I’ve got to use my prowess — hunting skills — to find the right employee for the job.

2. What is your least favorite thing about humanity? – ZocDoc

Without a doubt, it’s how mean we can be to each other. It can be so jarring to watch someone ‘hate’ another person either with words or with actions.

3. If you could throw a parade of any caliber through the Zappos office, what type of parade would it be? – Zappos

A sock party. Quite simply, socks are the unsung hero of Zappos’ business. Yes, some people don’t wear socks with their shoes, but the vast majority of people [Note: if I had statistics, I’d quote it here!] still prefer to wear socks with their shoes. We should appreciate what the sock has done for shoes.

4. How many square feet of pizza are eaten in the U.S. each year? – Goldman Sachs

[Note: I’m familiar with this kind of question. After having completed an MBA, I’m quite familiar with the types of questions that you might get in interviews with investment banks like Goldman Sachs or management consulting firms. A question like this is trying to determine how you solve this kind of a problem — not whether you know how many square feet of pizza are eaten in the US each year. To do this, you’re meant to talk through the problem aloud, so…] To begin, the US population is approximately 300 million. Let’s say that about every 2 out of 3 people eat pizza and of those 2 people, the average person will eat pizza two times every month (or once every other week). In eating pizza, some may eat quite a few pieces, while others will eat far less, so let’s say the average person will eat approximately 2 slices every time they have pizza. This amounts to 4 slices of pizza a month, per person. Now, let’s say that the average slice of pizza is 6 inches across at the crust and 12 inches long, then each slice of pizza is approximately 36 square inches. So, four slices of pizza amounts to 144 square inches of pizza, which also happens to equal the amount of 1 square foot of pizza (144 square inches is 12 times 12). So, one person will eat approximately one square foot of pizza each month. We can then say that there will be 200 million square feet of pizza eaten each month — multiply this by 12 months, and we get 2.4 billion square feet of pizza eaten each year in the US.

5. It’s Thursday; we’re staffing you on a telecommunications project in Calgary, Canada, on Monday. Your flight and hotel are booked; your visa is ready. What are the top five things you do before you leave? – ThoughtWorks

1. Find out if anyone else on the project team has lived in Calgary for any amount of time (questions regarding weather, things to do in Calgary).
2. Find out if Calgary is still dealing with the aftermath of the floods and if there’s a way I could volunteer to help while I’m there.
3. Find out how far Banff is from Calgary for a weekend trip.
4. Find out if there are “tours” to see the Canadian Tar Sands.
5. Book a weekend train ride to through the Rocky Mountains.

6. Have you ever been on a boat? – Applied Systems

Yes. In fact, I’ve lived on a boat. When I was living in Victoria, British Columbia, I was fortunate enough to live in a floathome. It is exactly what it sounds like — a house that floats. It was an experience that took some getting used to, but it was absolutely amazing to be able to open my eyes in the morning and see the Pacific ocean (!) right outside my bedroom window.

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It took a little longer than I thought to answer the first 6 questions, so I’ll save the next 7 questions for tomorrow.

Why Poor People Have Harsher Moral Judgments

Morals is certainly one of my interests, as is evidenced by my series on Michael Sandel’s book, What Money Can[‘t] Buy. And so, when I came across a journal article called, “A Lack of Material Resources Causes Harsher Moral Judgments,” I was intrigued, if not a bit saddened.

The researchers attempted to test the idea of whether a lack of material resources would cause people to have harsher moral judgments. The reason they posited this was because a lack of material resources is correlated with a lower ability to cope with other people’s harsh behaviour. Not only were they able to prove that a relationship exists between a lack of material resources and harsher moral judgments, but they were also able to prove this true in state dependent instances. Meaning, yes, a lack of material resources corresponded to making harsher judgments, but even when participants perceived themselves as having a lack of material resources, they offered harsher moral judgments.

The implications of this research seem rather important.

While it’s not specifically addressed in the study, I wonder what the plotted relationship between harsher moral judgments and income would look like. That is, I wonder at what point does income no longer correlate with harsher moral judgments. In particular, I wonder about the whole idea that there are 24 times as many millionaires in the US Congress than there are in the US population. As a result, I’d expect that moral judgments would be less harsh (than if there were fewer millionaires), but we know that doesn’t quite make sense because there are more things than just income that affect moral judgments.

More recently, however, I wonder about the World Economic Forum and the data released that less than 100 people have as much wealth as over 50% of the world’s population. By the information gleaned from the study, we’d expect that over half of the world’s population would have harsh moral judgments.

On a smaller scale, I’d wonder about the psychological health of people who have harsher moral judgments. It may seem only tangentially related, but negative thinking has been shown to have negative effects on one’s health. As  result, I’d expect that these harsher moral judgments might have an effect on one’s health.

ResearchBlogging.orgM. Pitesa, & S. Thau (2014). A Lack of Material Resources Causes Harsher Moral Judgments Psychological Science DOI: 10.1177/0956797613514092

Is There Really Less Turnover in Fun Workplaces?

In first considering this question, my reflexive response is — of course! But do you know why fun contributes to less turnover? Hold onto that thought and see if it turns out to be the same answer that researchers came up with earlier this year.

Three researchers took a closer look at fun and the workplace. Specifically, they looked at how three forms of fun affected turnover: fun activities, coworker socializing, and manager support for fun. They looked at almost 300 servers (from 20 restaurants) at national restaurant chains in the US. So right away, we need to be careful generalizing these results outside of the service industry and in particular, servers at restaurants in the service industry. The results:

First, this research demonstrated that fun is significantly related to employee turnover, serving to further validate claims in the popular management press that fun has a beneficial impact on individuals and organizations. Second, this research highlighted that only some forms of fun relate directly to employee turnover. These results signal the importance of focusing on the component parts of workplace fun, rather than treating fun as a single construct, as has been done in other research (Fluegge, 2008; McDowell, 2004). Third, this research demonstrated that constituent attachment is a key mediator in the fun−turnover relationship. In doing so, this research has helped to answer how and why fun impacts the turnover process.

That third and final point is the key: constituent attachment is a key mediator in the fun-turnover relationship. Meaning, relationships/friendships at work help to mitigate one’s likelihood of quitting. And one way of enhancing relationships/friendships at work? Fun. That is, fun can facilitate the opportunities by which co-workers can get to know each other and develop relationships. By doing so, employees are less likely to quit.

So, while the research helped to confirm previously held thoughts about fun having an impact on employee turnover, the important discovery here is that fun isn’t the “end,” but merely the means to an end. By promoting and facilitating fun in a workplace environment, a manager can create the opportunity for employees to develop relationships.

As the researchers mention in the discussion section, I wonder how generalizable these results can be across industries. Of course, there’d need to be more research to validate it’s reliability in other industries, but my guess is that the results are going to hold across certain industries. For instance, I’d imagine that many office cultures that are similar to the restaurant industry might show a similar effect. That is, office cultures that have ups and downs in workloads, like you would find in the restaurant industry.

ResearchBlogging.orgM. J. Tews, J. W. Michel, & D. G. Allen (2014). Fun and friends: The impact of workplace fun and constituent attachment on turnover in a hospitality context Human Relations DOI: 10.1177/0018726713508143