Psychology News Round-Up (March 21st)

By Dave Nussbaum

I (@davenuss79) wrote an article this week for the launch of Nate Silver’s new FiveThirtyEight.com site based on Joe Simmons (@jpsimmon) and Leif Nelson‘s work on intuitive confidence. They find that people bet on favorites to cover the spread even when the odds even, or tilted against the favorite.

“When people decide how to bet on a game, first they identify who is going to win,” Nelson said. That decision is often fast and easy, particularly when teams are not evenly matched. “The faster and easier it is, the less concerned they are with correcting that intuition when answering the more difficult question of whether the favorite is going to beat the point spread.”

Jamie Pennebaker (@jwpennebaker) sent out a link to a twitter language-analysis tool based on his LIWC program. Based on my last 869 words I’m neither angry nor depressed, but I may be a little distant and analytic.
Amie Gordon (via @mwkraus) has posted the first in a series on the psychology of parenting in which she proclaims that “the one thing I know with certainty is that I still have no clue what exactly I’ve gotten myself into.”
NPR’s Shankar Vedantam (@HiddenBrain) talks to Francesca Gino (@francescagino) about her work that finds that people “who employed rituals before eating savored their food more and found it tastier, [which] was true for chocolate and even carrots.”
Adam Grant (@AdamMGrant) writes about the burdens and benefits of helping others in a great piece in the Atlantic Monthly:

In my book Give and Take, I report evidence that being a “giver” who enjoys helping others can be inefficient in the short run but surprisingly productive in the long run. Givers tend to start out with lower sales revenue and lower medical school grades. In sales, givers often put their customers’ needs above their own sales targets. In medicine, before big exams, givers are so busy helping their friends study that they fail to fill the holes in their own understanding. Yet after a year in sales, the highest revenue belongs to those same generous people, and by the end of medical school, the top grades belong to the students with the most passion for helping others.

Finally, don’t miss Gregory Samanez-Larkin (@GregoryRSL) teaching a memorable class on statistics at Yale (via Laurie Santos)

Success Outside the Dress Code, aka, The Power of Sweatpants. @francescagino's work in the @WSJ: http://t.co/rwA9a2shEM
— Vanessa Bohns, PhD (@profbohns) March 18, 2014

MT @PsychScience Some of the science of #mindfulness | http://t.co/e6keqVP1FT | mention of our work w/ Kirk Brown http://t.co/shxxzUJySl
— Michael Inzlicht (@minzlicht) March 19, 2014

Nice debate in the @nytimes about rivalries with a piece by our own @abmarkman http://t.co/TUDIlrsEby
— 2 Guys on Your Head (@2GoYH) March 17, 2014

The Starbucks Effect http://t.co/ZtWSnkeLap
— Advanced Hindsight (@advncdhindsight) March 18, 2014

How to get others laughing @HumorCode out April 1 http://t.co/Uk8WwC5npF
— Kare Anderson (@KareAnderson) March 18, 2014

Why do girls get called bossy, and how can we prevent it? My take on the Ban Bossy movement: http://t.co/YkmmXcYJch
— Adam Grant (@AdamMGrant) March 16, 2014

We see a lot more in a face than visual features - socially categorize in the blink of an eye - @jayvanbavel #CNS2014 http://t.co/EytQ9TfRYf
— CNS News (@CogNeuroNews) March 17, 2014

Wow. Endlessly insightful post by @Jonathan_Rowson on designing for a behavioral approach to education. http://t.co/Js3ltIIpbP
— Jamie Kimmel (@JamesLKimmel) March 16, 2014

The psychology of rituals in overcoming loss, restoring broken order. With research by @francescagino http://t.co/8e6xMZzMeB @TheAtlantic
— Amy Cuddy (@amyjccuddy) March 16, 2014

Piecing Together the #Flight370 Narrative http://t.co/qdlOQXO8of #malasyiaairlines #airlines #psychology #science
— Scott Sleek (@ScottSleek) March 20, 2014

Playing a violent video game as a Black avatar reinforces negative stereotypes about Blacks and increases aggression. http://t.co/2cZMzhCY1o
— Brad J. Bushman (@BradJBushman) March 21, 2014

@BarrySch is in Vancouver as an All-Star speaker for @TEDTalks's 30th anniversary. We caught up with him for a Q&A: http://t.co/etvI6YWMvD
— The Psych Report (@thepsychreport) March 17, 2014