Category Archives: Science

The Marshmallow Study Revisited: Context Matters!

Have you heard of The Marshmallow Study? It’s a classic experiment in self-control. All kinds of longitudinal research was conducted on those who weren’t able to “control themselves” and wait for the second marshmallow. In fact, there was even a movie that adapted the crux of the marshmallow experiment and used it as part of the plot.

A little over a week ago, the University of Rochester published some research that ‘updates’ the marshmallow experiment. I have to say, I’m quite pleased with the findings. Previously, it was thought that the participant’s ability to control themselves from eating the marshmallow in front of them and hold out for the second marshmallow was an indication that the participant may be more likely to succeed in the future. With this updated addendum, if you will, it now seems that there is more to the experiment than simply self-control.

When juxtaposed, my interpretation of the results of the original experiment from 1972 and the one discussed in the video is, quite simply: context matters.

How The Heck Does The Economy Work, Anyway?

A few months ago, I wrote a post about an online video series I’ve been following by John Green on world history. A few days ago, I learned that two economics professors at George Mason University were starting an online course in the same vein as Stanford. As they’re economics professors, naturally, you’d expect that the course is on economics (it is). In fact, the two professors (Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen) describe the course as:

This course covers theory and empirics and history for the economic growth of developing nations.

I have to say, I’m really excited for this course and I think you should be, too. Similar to my comment about our need to understand the implications of history and the past, I believe we also should have an understanding some of the basic underlying theory of the economy.

There are a few differences between John Green’s crash course and the course being offered by Prof. Tabarrok and Prof. Cowen. First, as I referred to earlier, the economics course is more in the same vein of MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). Second, there aren’t any fun animations from the Thought Bubble (at least I haven’t seen any, yet). Third, there are multiple videos per lesson. With John Green’s course, there was only one video per week on a given topic. With this course from Marginal Revolution University, there are usually multiple videos for a given lesson. For instance, for the lesson on People (as in, leading thinkers on the economy), there are over 30 videos. Finally, there are practice questions. Practice questions? Yes, practice questions. Meaning, the professors have included practice questions along with the videos to help the viewer interact with the material.

I’ve included the introduction video below.

How To Get What You Want: Use the “As If” Principle

I don’t remember how many books I’ve included in the section that use the “As If” principle, but I do remember that Dooley’s books do ( and ). I’m a big proponent of Twitter as it’s where I get most of my news and updates on the topics that I’m interested in (, , , etc.).

I saw a this morning (from my psychology stream) of a psychologist in London, Richard Wiseman. The tweet included a video of the “As If” principle and the preview made it look like the video was going to be animated in the same way that the are animated (with a hand writing down words/pictures, etc.). This was part of the reason that I had bookmarked it to view later.

After having just watched the short (1+ minute) video, I felt compelled to write a quick note about it. Why? Well, I had forgotten that the “As If” principle started with William James (famous psychologist) from the late 1800s. Additionally, the narrator mentions that there is decades of research to support James’ “As If” principle.

Twitter and Dunbar’s Number

I wonder: has there been any research done on Dunbar’s number and the number of people that one follows on Twitter?

For those who don’t know, , “a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships.” The magic number that is is 150, but it was theorized to be somewhere between 100 and 230.

I’ve written about on here on a , specifically about the people that I follow on Twitter, (which has grown quite substantially since my last “Who To Follow” post). I follow more than 350 accounts on Twitter, but I don’t necessarily follow them all with the same attention. Of course, Dunbar would tell us that this is unlikely. Over the summer, I found I had more time to create lists (at one point pushing up against the maximum number of lists that Twitter allows: 20) and manage the people I follow in this way.

Once classes started up again, the amount of time I had to dedicate to this endeavor severely shrank. I’ve pared back the number of lists I have and pared back the number of people on those lists. The other day, I went and counted the total number of accounts on those lists: 210.

On that note, it looks like I’m right in the range of Dunbar’s number. To be honest though, I know that all 210 of those accounts don’t tweet with the same frequency, which is probably a good thing for me. If they did, I might find it harder to keep up with what they are all saying.

Tying Up Loose Ends — Again

Earlier this year, I did a where I talked about a number of ideas in one post. This served a couple of interconnected purposes: 1) it emptied my “posts to write” list, and 2) it allowed me to flood that list with some new ideas. (I said the purposes were interconnected.) My list has again started to grow a little bit, so I thought I would do another one of those to flush out the list. There are a couple of ideas that I won’t include in this post because I do want to write a “fuller” post on them, so look for some posts in the next few days about “balance,” “The Stockdale Paradox,” and the idea that “every game (in a season) counts equally.”

The Enneagram — Through my exposure to transpersonal psychology, I was introduced to the . I don’t know this for a fact, but my suspicion is that the Enneagram is highly underutilized relative to its helpfulness in understand one’s self and others.

Life’s all about making decisions — One of my interests is “decision-making.” Books, literature, research: I’m fascinated by how humans make decisions. On that note, one of the things I’ve learned is that life is — really — all about making decisions. More importantly though, it’s important to put yourself in situations that allow you to make good choices. Let me say that again: “It’s important to put yourself in situations that allow you to make good choices.”

Measuring outcomes in the non-profit sector — I’ve talked before about my time with , but I also had a class in this summer. The thing that struck me the most about the non-profit sector is the lack of ways to measure outcomes. That is not to say that there aren’t ways to measure outcomes in the non-profit sector, but when compared to the for-profit sector, it seems that, for whatever reason, there aren’t as many established and agreed upon ways to measure outcomes.

Reframing your life — Many people, myself included, sometimes get caught up in choosing things they want to do (career-wise). An important realization on that front: it’s not what you want to do for the “rest of your life,” but simply, what you want to do “for right now.” Meaning, it’s okay to change your mind later and move into a different position, field, or industry.

Psychological reasons why good people do bad things — I came across this a few days ago that recounts a number of reasons why good people do bad things. I think it’s really important to understand the underlying psychological concepts that contribute to these errors in “decision-making.”

There is No Such Thing As “Left-Brain” and “Right-Brain”

Let me just begin by saying that before I knew better, I often referred to the “left-brain” and the “right-brain.” When I got old enough (and studied the brain a little bit), I learned that those are just colloquial terms that referred to the functions most commonly found in the left hemisphere and the functions most commonly found in the right hemisphere. While I understand the importance of using labels to effectively communicate what could be perceived as complicated theories, I think it’s important that we don’t talk about the ‘left-brain’ and the ‘right-brain.’

The primary reason for this — there is only “one” brain, for which there are two hemispheres. When we begin to talk about the ‘left-brain’ and the ‘right-brain,’ it severs us from reality (even slightly). The secondary reason — we’re now learning a great deal about . This is the idea that — essentially — the brain can change. Through environmental, behavioral, or other changes, the actual structure of the brain can change. I recently came across a great RSA talk by on “The Divided Brain.” I’ve included a few quotes that I found worth repeating. Below, you’ll find the video embedded.

On empathy:

“If you can stand back & see that the other individual is an individual like me, who might have interests & values & feelings like mine, then you can make a bond.”

On imagination being in the right hemisphere and reason being in the left hemisphere:

“Let me make it very clear: for imagination you need both hemispheres. Let me make it very clear: for reason you need both hemispheres.”

In case you don’t watch the video the whole way through, he closes with a :

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift. The rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant, but has forgotten the gift.”

Some Key Differences between a Happy Life and a Meaningful Life

I saw a earlier today from , who’s a Professor of Marketing at Stanford’s , that linked to a she was a contributing author to: “Some key differences between a happy and a meaningful life.” When I clicked over to see the , it got me pretty excited or a couple of reasons.

The first, it’s going to be published in the . It was during my senior year of undergrad when I first came across  — what I think is a rather brilliant subject. In fact, I was even a of the for a brief time. The second, the lead author: . During my time at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology (now called, ), I remember reading a lot of . In fact, one of the papers I wrote on “transpersonal belongingness” relied on a .

Anyway, below is the abstract to the paper that Prof. Aaker linked to. If you find it interesting, I hope you take the time to read the whole journal .

Being happy and finding life meaningful overlap, but there are important differences. A large survey revealed multiple differing predictors of happiness (controlling for meaning) and meaningfulness (controlling for happiness). Satisfying one’s needs and wants increased happiness but was largely irrelevant to meaningfulness. Happiness was largely present-oriented, whereas meaningfulness involves integrating past, present, and future. For example, thinking about future and past was associated with high meaningfulness but low happiness. Happiness was linked to being a taker rather than a giver, whereas meaningfulness went with being a giver rather than a taker. Higher levels of worry, stress, and anxiety were linked to higher meaningfulness but lower happiness. Concerns with personal identity and expressing the self contributed to meaning but not happiness. We offer brief composite sketches of the unhappy but meaningful life and of the happy but meaningless life.

The Theory of Relativity and the 2012 London Olympics

A few hours ago, I was in the for the mid Atlantic watching  in Women’s Soccer in the quarterfinals. The reason I mention that it’s the flagship Whole Foods is because they have an area where there’s 12 (maybe more?) big screen TV’s playing an assortment of sports. As the are currently “the thing” right now, that’s what was on almost every TV. (Aside: I was actually surprised not to see them on every single TV.)

Anyway, as I was watching Canada salt away the second half, I was also keeping tabs on a few other events. There was , , , and . It was really cool seeing badminton because, well, for one, I haven’t seen it since the and for two, it was ! While it was a bit dizzying to keep tabs on all these sports, I started to notice something — tennis started to look veeeerrrrryyy sloooowwww. This seemed odd to me because tennis players 180+ km/h. For those of you reading this in the US, that’s approximately 112 mph. So — not slow.

Why did it look slow? The badminton players could hit the birdie (or ) back and forth over the net 4 or 5 times before the second tennis player can hit the first tennis player’s shot. Incredible!

As you’ll note from the title of this post, I mentioned the . Why? Because the Theory of Relativity can explain why the  gameplay of tennis looked slow in relation to the gameplay of badminton. There’s a that sums up the theory of relativity quite nicely:

When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it’s longer than any hour. That’s relativity.

How Do I Know Which Chart To Use?

Have you ever had a set of data and not been sure of the most effective (and appropriate) way to visualize it in the form of a chart or graph? The folks over at have put together a page that  — should be able to — answer just about all your questions or problems. The image to the right is a screenshot of the page to which I’m referring. If you click on it, you’ll be taken to the URL of the image and then you can zoom in to see just what I’m talking about when I say that this should be able to answer, “Just about all your questions or problems,” when it comes to picking a chart.

When I first had bookmarked, I knew that this was going to be good when it came to picking charts for Microsoft Excel. After revisiting it to write this post, I noticed that it will also be useful in picking charts for Microsoft Powerpoint! How is it useful for these two programs?

Well, when you click-through to , you’ll see a number of charts. If you hover over one of the charts, it will show you the kinds of data that are appropriate for that chart. That sounds simple enough and would be useful (if that were all), but they went one step beyond useful — you can also download the template! And not only are there templates for Excel, there are templates for Powerpoint, too! (Near the top of the screen, you can sort by Excel or by Powerpoint. You can also sort by different types of data, too, rather than hovering over each and every chart.)

I most certainly have and will be returning in the future. I hope you can find use out of it, too!

Twitter: Who I’m Following, Part 8

It’s been quite awhile since I last did a post in my series of “”Who I’’m Following”” on Twitter. In fact, it’s been 6 months! That’s almost half as long as I’ve been participating on Twitter. In looking at the some of these old posts (see below) of who I’m following, I seemed to have unfollowed a number of folks. I wish I had kept a list of the people I’ve unfollowed, so I could offer reasons as to why I decided to unfollow some folks. Briefly, I can say that sometimes the reason is because the person isn’t very active on Twitter. Other times, it’s because I became frustrated with the amount of negativity (sometimes in the form of the person retweeting “trolls” or people being unnecessarily negative in the form of ad hominem attacks). I most certainly won’t be able to get to all the new people I’m following on Twitter (it’s approximately doubled!), so look for a few of these posts in the coming weeks (or months).

If you missed any of the earlier posts in this series, here they are:







Part 7

Here we go!

Big Think@bigthink: Big Think aims to, “help you move above and beyond random information, toward real knowledge, offering big ideas from fields outside your own that you can apply toward the questions and challenges in your own life.”

Wired@wired: Wired is the digital home of Wired Magazine and it acts as a daily technology site.

Austan Goolsbee@Austan_Goolsbee: Goolsbee is a Professor of economics and Economics at the Booth School of Business (University of Chicago). He is also the former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.

Richard H Thaler@R_Thaler: Thaler is a Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the Booth School of Business (University of Chicago) and the co-author of Nudge.

Maria Popova@brainpicker: “Brain Pickings is a human-powered discovery engine for interestingness, culling and curating cross-disciplinary curiosity-quenchers, and separating the signal from the noise to bring you things you didn’t know you were interested in until you are.”

Ashoka Changemakers@changemakers: “The latest in innovation, social entrepreneurship, and how you can make a difference. Why? Everyone Can Be a Changemaker.”

Ashoka@Ashoka: “Ashoka is an international citizen-sector organization that is leading the way to an Everyone a Changemaker World.”

Rick Mercer@rickmercer: Mercer is a Canadian comedian and political satirist. He’s an alumnus of This Hour Has 22 Minutes and is currently the host of the Rick Mercer Report.

Josh Barro@jbarro: “I write on fiscal and economic policy issues at all levels of government. Areas of particular interest for me include tax policy, entitlements and public employee compensation.”

Matt Yglesias@mattyglesias: “Matthew Yglesias is Slate‘s business and economics correspondent. Before joining the magazine he worked for ThinkProgress, the Atlantic, TPM Media, and the American Prospect.”

Lifehacker@lifehacker: “Lifehacker curates tips, tricks, and technology for living better in the digital age.”

Timothy P Carney@TPCarney: “Timothy P. Carney is the Washington Examiner‘s senior political columnist.” Carney is also a prominent conservative voice.

Joseph Weisenthal@TheStalwart:  Joe Weisenthal is the Deputy Editor Of Business Insider. “He previously was a writer and analyst for Techdirt.com, and before that worked as an analyst for money management firm Prentiss Smith & Co.”

Bob Rae@bobraeMP: Bob Rae is the current (interim) Leader of the Liberal Party (of Canada). He was previously the leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party.

Mediaite@mediaite: “The site for news, info and smart opinions about print, online and broadcast media.”

Susan Rice@AmbassadorRice: Susan Rice is the US Ambassador to the United Nations. According to Wikipedia, she is not related to Condoleezza Rice.

Josh Rogin@joshrogin: “Josh Rogin reports on national security and foreign policy from the Pentagon to Foggy Bottom, the White House to Embassy Row, for The Cable.”

Andrew Exum@abumuqawama: “Andrew Exum is a Senior Fellow with the Center for a New American Security,” and “Abu Muqawama is a blog that focuses on small wars and insurgencies in addition to regional issues in the Middle East.”

Anne-Marie Slaughter@SlaughterAM: “Princeton Professor. Director of Policy Planning, U.S. State Dept 2009-2011. Foreign policy curator.”

Library of Congress@librarycongress: “We are the largest library in the world, with millions of books, recordings, photographs, maps and manuscripts in our collections.”

Bill Nye@TheScienceGuy: “‘Bill Nye the Science Guy’ is an American science educator, comedian, television host, actor, mechanical engineer, and scientist.”

Bill Cosby@BillCosby: “Bill Cosby is an American comedian, actor, author, television producer, educator, musician and activist.”

Jeffrey Levy, EPA@levyj413: “Jeffrey Levy is the EPA Director of Web Communications, Co-Chair of the Federal Web Managers Council, and Gov’t 2.0er.”

Ed Husain@Ed_Husain: “Ed Husain is a Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of ‘The Islamist.'”

Daniel Drezner@dandrezner: “Daniel W. Drezner is professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.”

John Green@realjohngreen: I just wrote a post about John Green’s Crash Course in World History. Check it out!

Amazing Photography@AmazingPics: This Twitter feed regularly posts some of the best photographs. You’ll want to see these.

kelly oxford@kellyoxford: Kelly Oxford’s current Twitter Bio: “Writer. Designed to make you feel like everything is going well. I am your Perestroika.”

Joe Randazzo@Randazzoj: “Joe Randazzo is currently the editor of the satirical newspaper, The Onion.” As you might think, his tweets are often sarcastic (and funny).

Ken Jennings@KenJennings: Of Jeopardy! fame. He’s written a bunch of books, including Maphead. His tweets are often intended to be funny.

Seth Meyers@sethmeyers21: “Seth Meyers currently serves as the head writer for Saturday Night Live and hosts its news parody program segment Weekend Update.”

Anjeanette Carter@anjeanette: I found Anjeanette’s twitter feed as a result of this article. “The aspiring actress isn’t afraid to let the sarcasm fly – and sometimes that’s just the sort of thing you need to pop up on your screen.”

Andy Carvin@acarvin: “Senior strategist at NPR. Online community organizer since 1994. Former director of the Digital Divide Network. Writer. Photographer. Dad.”

AJELive@AJELive: “Breaking news alerts and updates from Al Jazeera English, a 24-hour news and current affairs channel.” By now, you should all know that I’m a big fan of different perspectives (here or here).

Brian Stelter@brianstetler: A really good person to follow if you enjoy things in “meta.” Stetler reports on TV & Media for the New York Times.

johnmaeda@johmaeda: “President, Rhode Island School of Design, RISD, College, Museum, USA, 1877, Laws of Simplicity, MIT, Design, Art, Business, Technology, Life.”

OMG Facts @OMGFacts: As you might expect, this Twitter feed specializes in tweets that are facts that might “knock your socks off.”

BuzzFeed@BuzzFeed: “BuzzFeed is a website that combines a technology platform for detecting viral content with an editorial selection process to provide a snapshot of “the viral web in realtime.”

Tim O'Reilly@timoreilly: “Founder and CEO, O’Reilly Media. Watching the alpha geeks, sharing their stories, helping the future unfold.”

Jay Rosen @jayrosen_nyu: “I teach journalism at NYU, direct the Studio 20 program there, critique the press and study new media. I don’t do lifecasting but mindcasting on Twitter.”

daveweigel@daveweigel: Dave Weigel is a political reporter for Slate. While his main focus is politics, his tweets are often laced with humor.

Mark Knoller@markknoller: Mark Knoller is a CBS News White House Correspondent. Similar to Stetler, he sometimes comments on what other networks are reporting.

~

I’m well past my self-imposed 1000 word limit, but I wanted to begin to squeeze a bunch more feeds into one post (because I have a lot to make up in this series). As always, I welcome your suggestions in the comments or tweet me!