Category Archives: News

How to Solve the Password Problem: Teach Kids When They’re Young

I came across an article a few days ago that explained how to teach humans to remember really complex passwords. As I was reading it, I couldn’t help but think that there’s an important piece to the solution to helping humans remember really complex passwords: habit.

When we first started using computers, coming up with a super-difficult password wasn’t necessary as we were usually just trying to keep our stuff protected from our family members. Then, it was trying to keep things protected from our co-workers. Slowly, that grew and grew until now, someone (or something!) on the other side of the planet can figure out your password and hack into your online accounts.

I wonder, if we were taught how to come up with complex passwords when we were younger, would there still be such a high percentage of people using easy-to-crack passwords? That is, if we only knew passwords to be in the form of “passphrases,” would someone still try to use a word as their password? While there would still probably be some, my guess is that the percentage would drop.

So, how do we teach our kids to use smarter passwords? Well, assuming that kids at some point are still taught how to type in school, I see this as the perfect opportunity to also teach them about how to use passphrases for accounts. Assuming that students will have to logon to a computer to use the program that teaches them how to type, this is the best time to imprint the habit of using an effective password.

Of course, this won’t solve the problem of all the people out there today who still use “password” or “1234password” for their password, but it will help to correct problem by not adding more people to the number of people who use poor password habits.

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Extending this idea, there may still be some adults or teens out there who are still learning how to type. In these cases, we could have the software that is teaching them how to type also teach them about good password habits. If the adults are learning how to type in some sort of class, this could also be a good place to teach them about good password habits.

A Lesson in Overcomplicated: Gender-Neutral Washrooms

If you’ve ever been part of an organization, there’s a better chance than not that you’ve been involved in a meeting where at some point, you found yourself thinking, “what the heck are we doing?” Well, hopefully you’ve found yourself saying that, otherwise you might have fallen into the trap of overcomplicating something.

There was a great (and short!) post on Pacific Standard about the “problem” of a sign for a gender-neutral bathroom:

“But what would you put on the door?!” said a facility manager at an airport, his concern echoed by an administrator at a university: “When people are looking for a restroom, they look for the ‘man’ or ‘woman’ icon. It’s what we know to look for that means restroom.”

And the sign that answers this problem:

Wow, right?

This situation is a perfect example of how overthinking something can lead to a terrible and overcomplicated solution. Is this sign really necessary to signify that there’s a toilet behind the door (or around the corner, in the case of many airports)? Absolutely not.

While there are many problems we can talk about, let’s look at the key issue: false dilemma. Presumably, upon trying to to develop a solution to this problem, the people in the meeting thought that something had to be added to the existing sign. That is, the sign is usually a little man or a little woman, so we’ve got to make it resemble that little man or woman or people might be confused. There are clearly more options than creating that weird looking sign. From the post, there’s this sign offered:

That seems like a pretty good alternative to me. It’s universal in that many people know what a toilet looks like. To be sure, the person who came up with the idea of this pictorial representation took his laptop to a coffee shop to ask patrons if they could hazard a guess as to what was being the sign: 100% of participants were able to identify what would be behind a door with this sign on it. The author, obviously in jest, explained that his research was limited to a corner in Philadelphia, but I think it’s safe to say that most people would be able to perform as well as his participants.

So, the next time you’re in a meeting where your team is trying to come up with an idea that uses an existing structure/idea, double-check that it might not be better to approach the problem from a different perspective.

Do Public Salaries Increase Performance?

With the recent news regarding Jill Abramson and the New York Times, I wanted to take a closer look at the academic literature to see if I could find something about public salaries. There’s certainly been a lot written about whether she was fired or she quit or whether it had to do with secretive salaries or her gender. I’m not writing this post to debate any of that because I consider myself grossly uninformed on what may or may not have happened, but I am writing this post to talk about pay secrecy.

The research showed that pay secrecy adversely affected individual task performance. Meaning, the absence of public salaries led to a worse performance. Why? Pay for performance. That is, because the salaries weren’t public, workers didn’t have a perception that an increase in performance would lead to better pay.

There were a couple other important pieces that I wanted to highlight.

1. The best workers were more sensitive when it came to the perception of link between pay and performance.

This certainly makes sense as those folks who are working the ‘hardest’ would want to know that they’re being appropriately compensated for their hard work. An implication from this point is that organizations that don’t have public salaries might have a harder time retaining their top talent. We can tie this back to the situation between the New York Times and Abramson. Again, I wouldn’t say I’m informed of the situation, but from what I understand, Abramson was rather high up in the NYT hierarchy, which indicates to me that it was fair to consider her “top talent.”

2. If public salaries isn’t an option, partial pay openness could mitigate the negative effects of pay secrecy.

It might be that a firm or organization isn’t yet comfortable with releasing all data about salaries, so an intermediary step could see them gently open up the salaries by talking about ranges. This point reminded me about government salaries that often have ranges for each level that an employee reaches. One may not know exactly what their co-worker makes, but if one knows that their co-worker has reached a certain level, one would know that one’s co-worker’s salary is in a certain range.

Just before ending this post, I wanted to circle back to the point about pay for performance. In this study, the task that participants completed was a “computer matching game.” Based on what’s been written about pay for performance, this is the right kind of task to test these sorts of hypotheses. However, when it comes to more creative tasks, the pay for performance model doesn’t always fit the best. Tying this back to the situation with Abramson and the NYT — it’s not clear to me whether the “pay for performance” model fits best. Having never worked at a newspaper or publishing outlet, I don’t exactly know the role of an Executive Editor, but from what I’ve been able to read through Google searches, it sounds more like creative tasks.

ResearchBlogging.orgBelogolovsky, E., & Bamberger, P. (2014). Signaling in secret: Pay for performance and the incentive and sorting effects of pay secrecy Academy of Management Journal DOI: 10.5465/amj.2012.0937

Journalism, Republicans, and the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

I saw a post yesterday from Chris “The Fix” Cillizza that made me instantly think of the self-fulfilling prophecy. I didn’t include this as part of my series on biases in judgment and decision-making, but it’s certainly something to keep in mind. The post from The Fix was titled: “Just 7 percent of journalists are Republicans. That’s far fewer than even a decade ago.” At first, I thought that number seemed kind of low, but after reading through the post (and the primary source), it makes sense — there are less Republican journalists because of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Let me explain.

A self-fulfilling prophecy is exactly what it sounds like — a prediction that (in)directly causes that prediction to come true. For instance, if you say that you’re going to fail your finals over and over again, and then you fail your finals, that could be said to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. So, how have I concluded the results of this survey to be a self-fulfilling prophecy? “Mainstream media.”

This phrase — mainstream media — is often said in a pejorative manner by Republicans and conservatives who accuse news outlets of having a liberal bias. According to Wikipedia, the use of this term grew in the 1990s. So, if you had a desire to be a journalist and were coming-of-age when journalists were being grouped in with the “lamestream media,” do you think that this is a a career you’d want to pursue? If you did, there’d certainly be an element of cognitive dissonance to your choice. My guess is that you probably wouldn’t make that choice and that you’d steer clear of journalism as your profession. Or, if you did pursue journalism, you’d probably go into thinking of yourself as an Independent. Not surprisingly, as you can see from the graphic below, the number of journalists who identified as Independents in the 2013 increased more than 50%!

Screen Shot 2014-05-06 at 11.29.07 PM

While this hypothesis might be difficult to (dis)prove, it’s certainly interesting to think about the ramifications of how the things we’re talking about today can and will affect the lives of those to come.

What Do You Want to Hear First: Good News or Bad News?

As it turns out, our answer to this question is different depending on whether we’re the one delivering the news or we’re the one receiving the news. If we’re delivering the news, we’re more likely to want to lead with the good news and if we’re receiving the news, we’re more likely to want to hear the bad news before the good news. Research published in last month’s Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin indicates that the order the news is delivered has implications for both the deliverer and the recipient.

The deliverer, wanting to avoid the ‘pain’ of delivering bad news and acting on egocentric biases, prefers to lead with the good news. The receiver, wanting to allay their anxiety about the bad news, much prefer to receive it before the good news. There’s certainly a disconnect here between the giver and the receiver. The giver, wanting to delay the painful experience of delivering bad news, prefers to save it for the end of the conversation. Conversely, the receiver would rather get the bad news out of the way from the outset.

The researchers found that if deliverers were to take the perspective of news-recipients, they’d be more inclined to lead with the bad news. While not specifically labelled as such, in testing this hypothesis, the researchers have found another positive to empathy. If the deliverers were to empathize with the the news-recipients, that is, pretend as if they were the ones receiving the news, they’d much rather hear the bad news first.

As it happens, hearing the bad news first might not be what’s best for the recipient.

If there is behaviour that needs to be changed, hearing the good news after the bad news might leave the recipient on their preferred high note, but also might diminish any motivation they might have had to act on the bad news. In Study 3:

News-recipients who received bad news first were less likely to take an easy opportunity to improve, choosing instead to engage in a boring and personally unproductive task (i.e., stapling papers for the researcher).

While deliverers of bad news might be acting out of their own self-interest when they prefer to deliver the good news first, they might actually be doing what’s in the best interest of the receiver. So, what order should you deliver the news? Well, that seems to depend on whether you want to motivate the receiver to act on the bad news.

One other implication of the good then bad sequence is that sometimes people like to tack on another piece of good news after the bad news to soften the impact. This is often referred to as a sandwich. While this may make the deliverer feel better, it tends to quash the motivational effect of ending with the bad news.

ResearchBlogging.orgLegg, A. M., & Sweeny, K. (2014). Do You Want the Good News or the Bad News First? The Nature and Consequences of News Order Preferences Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40 (3), 279-288 DOI: 10.1177/0146167213509113

The Pentagon Spends More on War Than All 50 States Combined Spend on Health, Education, Welfare, and Safety

I realize that the US is a big country and it has a lot of land that it needs to defend, but that seems like an unbelievable figure, doesn’t it? More on war than all 50 states spend on health, education, welfare, and safety — combined!

That’s just one of the many alarming statistics that I found in this post from Business Insider from 3 years ago. As it’s 3 years old, I don’t know if the the title of this post remains true, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s far off. I first went digging on this issue because one of the things I’ve been meaning to write about is how much the US spends on defense.

 

As the above graphic shows, the US spends a lot on its military and not just a lot in terms of the amount of money it spends, bit it spends so much more than the country that spends the second most, China. In fact, the US spends more on its military than the next ten countries — combined!

Do you think that the US spends too much on defense spending? If I were answering honestly, I’d have to say probably. According to a Gallup poll from February of this year, a plurality of American seem to agree. And it’s not just average Americans who think the US spends too much on defense, but scholars of international relations.

That’s almost 75% of scholars of international relations who believe that the US spends too much on defense. The post where it comes from even parsed out some of the different types of international relations scholars. For instance, over half of “realists” believe that the US spends too much on defense and “realists” view international relations through the lens that the primary aim of a country (but they would call them states) is survival.

There are probably a whole host of reasons why the US defense budget has inflated to the size that it is. There was one answer I found on Reddit that seemed particularly enlightening:

Because the US military doesn’t just exist to defend the invasion of the physical United States.

As the country with the biggest economy in the world, the US has a vested interest in maintaining a global environment that favorable to its interests.

This means having the power to impose its will (for better or worse) on other countries that act against the US’s interests. To do this the US has to spend an incredible amount of money on research and development to make sure that it has the best military technology while also projecting force abroad to make sure its interests are maintained.

Nonetheless, in a parallel universe, it would be interesting to see how the citizens of the US would survive/thrive in a world where defense budget for the the US is cut in half and that money is redirected to other important areas like health and education.

Is There a Way to Broadcast Ideology Without it Colouring Opinion?

There was a good article in the New York Times this past weekend from a professor of economics at Harvard, N. Greg Mankiw. He talked about how when economist give advice on policies, they’re also giving advice as political philosophers. While this should come as no surprise to anyone, I think it’s good that it’s being discussed.

What’s more interesting to me, though, is how we can offer opinions or advice on matters as experts, while at the same time disclosing our inherent bias to a given political philosophy. And if we do this, does that then colour the way the opinion is received? Most folks would say that of course it is going to colour the way the opinion is received, but maybe it wouldn’t. Regardless, I think it’s necessary to disclose biases, especially when it comes to making policy advice.

The problem here is that people aren’t always aware that they have a given bias towards one political philosophy over the other. While I’m relatively sure that I lean towards the “left” of the political spectrum when it comes to social issues, where I fall upon the political spectrum when it comes to other matters can vary by issue. This is part of the reason why I encourage folks to take the time and read through some of the more notable philosophers.

I suppose the idea of signaling also comes into play on this matter. That is, if someone has a more conservative viewpoint on health policy and they support a more liberal policy, does that change the way other conservatives view the policy? Does it change the way liberals view the policy? Should it?

There are lots of questions, but no easy answers. As someone who’s steeped in biases in judgment and decision-making, I’m not sure which way would be best, but I’m glad that — at a minimum — it’s being discussed.

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!

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.