Photo: Devin Caldwell s Madonna astutely noted in her 1984 song, we live in a material world. Cars, cash, clothes – the allure of stuff promises feelings of success and happiness. It’s a promise that, despite many of us sensing to be an empty one, still wields enormous power over how we structure our lives […]
Last summer, the news broke that the White House was in the process of setting up its own “Nudge Unit,” modeled after the UK’s version, officially called the Behavioral Insights Team (BIT). Public reaction to the news was a mix between hopeful anticipation on the one hand and big-government alarmism on the other […]
[Methodological Psychology] Mimicking 10 facial expressions gets you $1.60. Taking a 90-minute survey on your emotions is worth a buck. Throughout the social sciences, it’s becoming increasingly common for researchers to employ Amazon’s Mechanical Turk–an online marketplace where “workers”are paid to complete tasks offered by “requesters”–in their empirical research. MTurk, as it’s known, is efficient […]
[Social Psychology] In the workplace, women frequently have to choose between being respected or being liked, with professional achievement often coming at the expense of social acceptance. The dilemma that women face between being liked or respected is especially apparent in cases of sexual harassment. In their recent article, “Goal Preference Shapes Confrontations of Sexism,” […]
We possess a fundamental need to connect with one another, yet connecting with others in a meaningful way can be awkward, elusive, and challenging. The gulf between our need to connect with others and our failure to do so is made all the more apparent now that technology allows us to reach nearly anyone, anywhere at anytime, and still, we find it increasingly difficult to make and maintain meaningful social connections […]
Photo Credit: Her his is part 2 of our conversation with Psychologist Nicholas Epley, of University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business (Part 1 here). With Her as a backdrop, we sat down with Epley to better understand how we succeed and fail to connect with others, and how technology impacts our ability to do so. Much of […]
