Category Archives: Reasoning

When justice fails

August 23, 2010 – 12:37 am

I’ve just read a jaw-dropping Slate interview with the co-founder of the Innocence Project, an organisation that has uncovered hundreds of wrongful convictions on the basis of DNA analysis techniques which weren’t available when the case was prosecuted. The interview is repeatedly astounding and has some terrifying insights into personal conviction, group think and the […]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Togetherness | Leave a Comment

A gut reaction to moral transgressions

August 16, 2010 – 9:19 pm

The Boston Globe has an excellent article on whether ‘gut feeling’ emotions, particularly disgust, are the unrecognised basis of moral judgements and social customs. It’s an in-depth feature article that gives a great overview of the idea that social judgements may have an emotional basis, and, more controversially, that this tendency may have developed as […]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Theory, Togetherness | Comments (6)

A bit of all right

July 24, 2010 – 8:00 am

An interesting point made in a new book about the psychology of being wrong, appropriately called Being Wrong by author Kathryn Schulz. Taken from The New York Times book review: Schulz begins with a question that should puzzle us more than it does: Why do we love being right? After all, she writes, ‚Äúunlike many […]

By vaughanbell | Comments (1)

The illusion of progress lights a fire

July 20, 2010 – 12:00 pm

Psychologists have longed talked about ‘goal gradient’ which describes how we work harder to achieve a goal as we get closer to it. I just came across a fantastic study published in the Journal of Marketing Research which shows that we can be convinced to shift into a higher gear of work and spending, even […]

By vaughanbell | Comments (4)

More a danger to ourselves

July 19, 2010 – 8:00 pm

The latest Wired UK has an interesting piece by behavioural economist Dan Ariely who notes that we are now more likely than ever to be the agents of our own demise – through the poor choices we make. “One of the most interesting analyses on the ways in which our decisions kill us is by […]

By vaughanbell | Comments (2)

Staying cool when stealing cars

July 19, 2010 – 8:00 am

Staying calm is a car thief’s biggest challenge, according to a study published in the British Journal of Criminology that explored the psychology of looking inconspicuous when driving a stolen vehicle. Criminologists Michael Cherbonneau and Heith Copes interviewed 54 car thieves from Tennessee and Louisiana about their experience of stealing automobiles, particularly focusing on what […]

By vaughanbell | Leave a Comment

Adjust the facts, ma’am

July 11, 2010 – 8:00 am

The Boston Globe has an interesting piece on democracy, knowledge and reasoning biases, highlighting the fact that we can often decide facts are true based more on our pre-existing political biases than the evidence for their accuracy. The article is full of fascinating snippets from recent studies. One, for example, finding that people who are […]

By vaughanbell | Leave a Comment

Gambling on our cognitive biases

July 9, 2010 – 12:00 pm

The Economist has an excellent special report on gambling that covers everything from what makes slot machines attractive to the psychology of poker. If you read the lead article there are links to the whole series in a sidebar embedded in the text. However, those particularly interested in the psychology of gambling may want to […]

By vaughanbell | Comments (1)

On violating the computational contraints of the mind

July 5, 2010 – 8:00 am

One of the Reuteurs blogs has a somewhat rambly post about being wrong in journalism which does, however, contain this absolute gem: I try hard to believe the opposite: that many if not most of my opinions are wrong (although of course I have no idea which they are), and that many of the most […]

By vaughanbell | Leave a Comment

The mighty fortress of belief

July 3, 2010 – 8:00 am

Bad Science has an excellent piece on the psychology of how we deal with evidence that challenges our cherished beliefs. Needless to say, our most common reaction is to try and undermine the evidence rather than adjust our beliefs. The classic paper on the last of those strategies is from Lord in 1979: they took […]

By vaughanbell | Comments (5)

That’s what they want you to believe

July 1, 2010 – 12:00 pm

The Psychologist has a fascinating article on the psychology of conspiracy theories, looking at what characteristics are associated with believing in sinister far-reaching explanations and what role these beliefs play in society. I was particularly interested in one part where they note that we are influenced by such ideas even when we’re not aware of […]

By vaughanbell | Comments (2)

99 problems but the rich ‘aint one

June 30, 2010 – 12:00 pm

I’ve just picked up on this thought-provoking 2008 article from the Boston Globe on a psychological theory of poverty that suggests that traditional economic models just don’t apply to the poor. The article riffs on an apparently under-recognised book by philosopher Charles Karelis called The Persistence of Poverty: Why the Economics of the Well-off Can’t […]

By vaughanbell | Comments (3)

Against narrativity

June 24, 2010 – 6:37 pm

‘We understand ourselves through stories’ is a common, even fashionable, sentiment. Not everybody agrees. Philosopher Galen Strawson‘s 2004 article “Against Narrativity” is a both-barrels attack on this idea. Strawson identifies two theories which he wishes to emphatically reject. The psychological Narrativity thesis is the idea that it is unavoidable human nature to experience their lives […]

By tomstafford | Comments (6)

Holidays through rose tinted sunglasses

June 23, 2010 – 10:00 pm

The Boston Globe has a counter-intuitive piece on the psychology of holidays, noting, among other things, that overall enjoyment is not what makes a break likely to feel better and that we often enjoy planning the vacation more than taking it. The article speculatively (but reasonably) applies findings from the behavioural economics of pleasure but […]

By vaughanbell | Comments (1)

Smells like retail

June 21, 2010 – 12:00 pm

Business Week has a fascinating article on the rise of ‘ambient scenting’ – a type of smell-based marketing used in High Street stores to alter the buying behaviour of shoppers. There is now a small but determined scientific literature on the effect of scents on consumer behaviour. These studies have found, for example, that a […]

By vaughanbell | Comments (1)

Winners wanted: lucky bastards need not apply

June 10, 2010 – 12:00 pm

A delightful experiment in the Journal of Gambling Studies demonstrates how susceptible we are to social persuasion to the point where even our established cognitive biases yield to the influence of others. The illusion of control is the tendency to believe that we have influence over uncontrollable events. It has been well demonstrated in gamblers […]

By vaughanbell | Leave a Comment
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