tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post6589484992776502736..comments2024-03-28T19:14:33.619-07:00Comments on The Splintered Mind: Psychology Research in the Age of Social MediaEric Schwitzgebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11541402189204286449noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-5097108796603032052015-01-10T07:10:56.912-08:002015-01-10T07:10:56.912-08:00I wrote you to this email address eric.schwitzgebe...I wrote you to this email address eric.schwitzgebel@ucr.edu<br />the other one does not work for me<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-8330400004278708482015-01-09T14:46:21.330-08:002015-01-09T14:46:21.330-08:00Yes, Tamler -- that's an interesting point. H...Yes, Tamler -- that's an interesting point. Haidt's dumbfounding studies are also wonderfully teachable. Now, I'm not so down on trolleys or on dumbfounding, but your point leads me to wonder whether their teachability substantially raises their visibility and influence, even in the scholarly community itself.Eric Schwitzgebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11541402189204286449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-25690196402012862162015-01-09T14:41:40.620-08:002015-01-09T14:41:40.620-08:00Anon, I sometimes read Spiros, but I'm afraid ...Anon, I sometimes read Spiros, but I'm afraid I still don't know what you're talking about. Feel free to email me if it's something confidential.Eric Schwitzgebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11541402189204286449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-6067847959654762982015-01-09T06:21:35.427-08:002015-01-09T06:21:35.427-08:00Hey Eric, great post, I agree with everything and ...Hey Eric, great post, I agree with everything and I have no idea how it gets better. The only thing I'd add is the additional influence of "teachability". Sexier results are more fun to teach so the studies and our less than critical approach to them get passed on to new generations of students who continue the cycle. I've said on many occasions that I think trolley problem research is deeply flawed and on balance does more harm than good. Yet I still find myself teaching them and reporting results in intro classes! They always get a laugh, students perk up. And sexy results are far more likely to get popularized, so you have brilliant thinkers and minds like George Pelecanos (on a recent Fresh Air) regurgitating atrocious neuroscience research on adolescent brains. It's depressing.Tamlerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09345122059936018977noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-13564906488491226072015-01-08T08:54:27.706-08:002015-01-08T08:54:27.706-08:00you do not read spiros blog?
I thought you do.
do...you do not read spiros blog?<br />I thought you do.<br /><br />does chalmers tell you what he does to me?<br />do you know anything?<br />will you tell me the truth or will you lie to me?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-57682949042313724892015-01-08T07:25:45.995-08:002015-01-08T07:25:45.995-08:00Thanks for the comments, folks!
Callan: I'd s...Thanks for the comments, folks!<br /><br />Callan: I'd say probably a mix of information from other sources and also less information in total about up-to-date research in psychology. The value or disvalue of having less information depends both on how trustworthy the information is and whether there are other sources of knowledge that would take its place.<br /><br />chinaphil: I agree with your concern, but I disagree that we shouldn't be worried about academics! My view is that they are less different in their thinking from non-academics than we academics would like to believe.<br /><br />Anon 4:20: Well, in that particular respect, perhaps. But there are other types of behavior that might go the other way given the economic incentives (such as soda-stealing). Perhaps the point was not as clearly made as it should have been. I entirely agree with your other points, though I do think that it's a fact about the current social structures in academia as a whole that it the group would be decidedly less keen on a study impugning the moral character of the poor than of the rich.<br /><br />Anon 5:55: I'm not sure I understand what you're asking.Eric Schwitzgebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11541402189204286449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-54748069817575537642015-01-08T05:55:06.108-08:002015-01-08T05:55:06.108-08:00do you know as well?
I never wrote to you but you ...do you know as well?<br />I never wrote to you but you do philosophy of mind as well.<br />did they tell you?<br />I keep writing on philosophers anonymous.<br />so, please answer me.<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-65698837476121204282015-01-08T04:20:21.255-08:002015-01-08T04:20:21.255-08:00A couple of nitpicky points:
"Of course, ano...A couple of nitpicky points:<br /><br />"Of course, another possibility is that the wealthy are just more willing to risk the cost of a parking ticket." Doesn't this still make them assholes though? The fact that they can afford to make that calculation doesn't really excuse the inconvenience this creates for other people. Of course your point on methodology still stands, I just thought it was an odd statement.<br /><br />Re: the bias for or against the poor in studies, this strikes me as something that really depends on your political affiliation. Your news intake is heavily influence by your beliefs, so while a liberal may look for studies which "excuse" the poor, a conservative will often look for the opposite.<br /><br /> So you have to look at social media as something that is not only biased towards the sensational and pretty, but also something that's really balkanised and which aggregates stories based on their user's beliefs. And given that social media is really dependent on online advertising, I don't see how this can change for the better in the near future.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-6558176875226783202015-01-07T18:25:35.934-08:002015-01-07T18:25:35.934-08:00I'm not too worried about academics. This is w...I'm not too worried about academics. This is what universities are for: to teach the people who actually do this research what is valid and what isn't. If universities can't successfully train psychologists to apply filters (and supply institutional filters themselves), then it's the universities which need to step up their game.<br /><br />The much bigger problem here is not the new one of social media, but the old one of interpreting a statistical average as an absolute result. Men are taller than women, but we're all familiar with the fact that sometimes a woman is taller than a man. But report that "the rich are jerks" or "northern Chinese are more individualistic" and lay readers will and do interpret it to mean that every rich person is a jerk and every northern Chinese is John Galt in waiting. Columnists will publish columns which literally say "I know a rich guy who's not a jerk, therefore the research is wrong".<br /><br />Psychology is more vulnerable to this rampant misreading because its results are so salient and juicy. I think the answer is worldwide censorship of headlines, forcing all news sources to cast them in the form: "Science geeks claim: wealthier individuals may be greedier 60% of the time."chinaphilhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14572591745611690731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-58363543324931171392015-01-07T17:00:04.423-08:002015-01-07T17:00:04.423-08:00But what would this suggest - that academics quali...But what would this suggest - that academics quality of work before was founded on a lack of various forms of information? That they required being issolated to keep up 'quality'? That'd be fairly damning and indicative of an echo chamber being the prime constituant of quality, in such a case.<br /><br /><i>(though they might be found to have more criminal convictions or other "bad outcomes")</i><br /><br />I think you'd have to look at charges laid rather than charges dropped. The rich have better lawyers, after all. Potentially making them look more moral.Callan S.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15373053356095440571noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-58787910734132407132015-01-07T14:47:57.045-08:002015-01-07T14:47:57.045-08:00Yes, Rolf -- and thanks for your own work on these...Yes, Rolf -- and thanks for your own work on these issues!Eric Schwitzgebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11541402189204286449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-85157942336501226052015-01-07T13:12:28.756-08:002015-01-07T13:12:28.756-08:00Thanks, Eric, you hit the nail on the head with th...Thanks, Eric, you hit the nail on the head with that one: psychology is ruining its reputation with striving for sexy and tweetable results. That research about the rich being jerks has already been debunked on methodological grounds and because new research refuted it. Ever heard of it? Not sexy. No wonder that Diederik Stapel, the "King of Cheats",played that game like a master. His latest research, which never made it into a journal because he got busted, "proved" that vegetarians behave more ethically than meat eaters. The press release hit the headlines, and that study would have become THE hit of the year if he hadn't been caught. Look what he writes in his memoirs, it is an eye opener:<br /><br />https://plus.google.com/101046916407340625977/posts/AsE9etSgBQjRolf Degenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11189924731801181022noreply@blogger.com