-
Racism in the Kindergarten Classroom
Pacific Standard: If the current election cycle hasn't convinced you that racism has yet to be eradicated, consider this: The mere image of a black man is enough to stimulate an automatic threat response in whites. Research has found faces of African-American males are more likely to be perceived as angry, and can trigger neural activity associated with rapid detection of danger. While even pre-teens can stimulate this reaction (which helps explain the tragic shooting of a 12 year old holding a pellet gun in Cleveland two years ago), it presumably doesn't apply to very young black boys. It's hard to believe they are perceived as dangerous as they emerge from the womb.
-
The Shape of a Logo Has a Powerful Impact on Consumers
Companies have been known to spend millions of dollars designing their corporate logos – for good reason. A bad logo design can doom a brand. When the clothing retailer the Gap attempted to refresh its logo in 2010, the reaction from the public and the shareholders was harsh. One Harvard Business Review writer declared, “[T]he logo looks like something my pet hamster could cook up in PowerPoint.” But new research suggest that there’s more to a logo than its basic aesthetic appeal. The study, conducted by an international team of researchers, suggests that people make complex assessments of a company or product based merely on the shape of the logo.
-
Milk, Bread, and Eggs: The Trinity of Winter-Storm Panic-Shopping
The Atlantic: Lines of frantic shoppers have mobbed grocery stores in Washington, D.C., after the National Weather Service gently advised residents on Wednesday that an intense weekend storm will pose “a threat to life and property” and impact “you, your family, and your community.” Which led me to wonder: After people hear a message so ominous, and after reminders of their employers’ inclement-weather policies hit inboxes, what do they buy to prepare for spending a good deal of time indoors? I called up the managers of some grocery stores in D.C. to find out, and they all had more or less the same answer: bread, milk, and eggs.
-
In Iowa, Voting Science at Work
The New York Times: OF the two winners of the Iowa caucuses, who’s the better behavioral scientist, Ted Cruz or Hillary Clinton? To judge from their campaigns’ respective “get out the vote” efforts, both politicians seem to have studied up on recent research in the field. Let’s start with Mr. Cruz. His campaign sent a mailer to the homes of Iowans pressuring them to show up to their caucus locations. The mailer noted “low expected voter turnout” in their area, gave them a grade for their past voting participation and disclosed the grades that the campaign had assigned to the recipients’ neighbors. Read the whole story: The New York Times
-
Near Wins, And Not Quites: How Almost Winning Can Be Motivating
NPR: Monica Wadhwa had a thing for lottery tickets. As a teenager in India she was obsessed with winning a fortune. Until one day, when she actually came very close to winning, and inadvertently learned that a "near victory" can be incredibly motivating. We'll hear her story on this week's episode of the podcast. Then, Daniel Pink is back for another round of Stopwatch Science! He and Shankar share a bunch of interesting research about the science of what motivates us to reach our goals. ... In a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Thomas Gilovich and his colleagues looked at videotape of silver and bronze medalists from the 1992 Summer Olympics.
-
Faces of Black Children as Young as Five Evoke Negative Biases
A new study suggests that people are more likely to misidentify a toy as a weapon after seeing a Black face than a White face, even when the face in question is that of a five-year-old child. The research is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. “Our findings suggest that, although young children are typically viewed as harmless and innocent, seeing faces of five-year-old Black boys appears to trigger thoughts of guns and violence,” said lead study author Andrew Todd, an assistant professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Iowa.
