Gender Imbalance in Discussions of Best Research Practices

Over the last couple of weeks there have been some really excellent blog posts about gender representation in discussions of best research practices. The first was a shared Email correspondence between Simine Vazire and Lee Jussim. The second was a report of gender imbalance in discussions of best research practices by Alison Ledgerwood, Elizabeth Haines, and Kate Ratliff. Before then (May 2014), Sanjay Srivastava wrote about a probable diversity problem in the best practices debate. Go read these posts! I'll be here when you return.

Big Theory

"Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful." --George Box*

I need to be honest with you, I'm not all that good at generating novel ideas: Some of my most well-cited papers involve theories that sociologists came up with decades ago; Reviewers frequently accuse me of running post-hoc analyses (asking the data for ideas, rather than generating apriori predictions); When media cover my research, the most common initial comment is something like: "This is so obvious....blah, blah....you suck." You get the idea. 

I don't view this particular characteristic of my research as a flaw. Rather, I'm acknowledging that not all scientists can be ground-breaking theorists/game changers: Some people come up with great ideas and some people test them. For the most part, I test theories and I do it in (what I hope are) convincing ways. Given this characteristic of my research, you might be surprised then, to learn that I love theory!** 

You read that right.

Notes on Replication from an Un-Tenured Social Psychologist

Last week the special issue on replication at the Journal of Social Psychology arrived to an explosion of debate (read the entire issue here and read original author Simone Schnall's commentary on her experience with the project and Chris Fraley's subsequent examination of ceiling effects). The debate has been happening everywhere--on blogs, on twitter, on Facebook, and in the halls of your psychology department (hopefully).

(Sample) Size Matters

Sample Size Matters

On this blog and others, on twitter (@mwkraus), at conferences, and in the halls of the psychology building at the University of Illinois, I have engaged in a wealth of important discussions about improving research methods in social-personality psychology. Many prominent psychologists have offered several helpful suggestions in this regard (here, here, here, and here).

Among the many suggestions for building a better psychological science, perhaps the simplest and most parsimonious way to improve research methods is to increase sample sizes for all study designs: By increasing sample size researchers can detect smaller real effects and can more accurately measure large effects. There are many trade-offs in choosing appropriate research methods, but sample size, at least for a researcher like me who deals in relatively inexpensive data collection tools, is in many ways the most cost effective way to improve one's science. In essence, I can continue to design the studies I have been designing and ask the same research questions I have been asking (i.e., business-as-usual) with the one exception that each study I run has a larger N than it would have if I were not thinking (more) intelligently about statistical power.

How has my lab been fairing with respect to this goal of collecting large samples? See for yourself:

Why Do We Take Personality Tests?

I often get questions from friends and family that they would like answered in a post. This month, my post is inspired by a question from my grandmother. Kudos to my grandma for asking a question about a popular trend on the internet!

Personality tests

Personality tests are not new, but they have recently skyrocketed in popularity on the internet. This week, Buzzfeed published 15 such tests in one 24-hour period. It seems every day on my Facebook news feed, someone has posted new results from one of these quizzes. Online personality tests have expanded beyond the traditional format of telling us certain traits we possess, although those do still exist (try here and here). Now, there are also tests that give us information about ourselves by comparing us to people or characters we know (“Which pop star should you party with?” or “Which children’s book character are you?”) and by comparing specific behaviors or knowledge to others’ (“How many classic horror films have you seen?” or “How well do you know ‘90s R&B lyrics?”).

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Regardless of which type of personality test you prefer (I’m not sure that all of these can be considered tests of personality, but we’ll stick with that label for now), these tests have two things in common: they ask us questions about ourselves, and then they tell us about ourselves. But aren’t we the experts on ourselves? Why should we need to take these tests to figure out who we are? Though it seems that the clues to our personality simply lie within us, below I outline three reasons we might be motivated to take personality tests anyway. 

I'm Using the New Statistics

Do you remember your elementary school science project? Mine was about ant poison. I mixed borax with sugar and put that mixture outside our house during the summer in a carefully crafted/aesthetically pleasing "ant motel." My prediction, I think, was that we would kill ants just like in the conventional ant killing brands, but we'd do so in an aesthetically pleasing way. In retrospect, not sure I was cut out for science back then.

Anyway, from what I remember about that process, there was a clear study design and articulation of a hypothesis--a prediction about what I expected to happen in the experiment. Years later, I would learn more about hypothesis testing in undergraduate and graduate statistical courses on my way to a social psychology PhD. For that degree, Null Hypothesis Significance Testing (NHST) would be my go-to method of inferential statistics.

In NHST, I have come to an unhealthy worship of p-values--the statistic expressing the probability of the data showing the observed relationship between variables X and Y, if the null hypothesis (of no relationship) were true. If p < .05 rejoice! If p < .10 claim emerging trends/marginal significance and be cautiously optimistic. If p > .10 find another profession. By NHST standards, an experiment fails or succeeds based solely on this one statistic.

When the Association of Psychological Science proposed using an alternative statistical approach--something called the New Statistics (actually not new, been around for decades)--I was intrigued about the possibility of living an academic life beyond the tyranny of p < .05.

PYM's Graduate Student Guide-Blog

In thinking about the past three years writing for PYM, I just realized that I write a lot of posts about issues that graduate students care about. I've made a list with links to each of these posts below. Now all the "wisdom" I have to offer about graduate school is in one place. I hope this will help you--current and future graduate students in psychology--to navigate the challenges and opportunities that many of us face on our way to a PhD! Good luck in your journey and don't be afraid to leave comments or questions on the post or on twitter (@mwkraus or @psychyourmind).

Pro Tip: Treat Graduate School Like a Job

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I really enjoyed graduate school. I attended UC Berkeley's social-personality psychology PhD program from 2004-2010 and the whole time I felt like a kid in a candy store. Sometimes my typical day included reading a book while lounging outside in the sun on Berkeley's memorial glade. Other days I would spend several hours in a local coffee shop (the ORIGINAL PEET'S!!!!) writing a manuscript describing a study providing knowledge that no-one before me had produced. On still other days I would play pick-up basketball with a hilarious combination of former college basketball players and current Berkeley psychology professors. It's a time in my life that I will always look back on fondly.

Of course I did also get a little bit of work done while I was in graduate school. I collected data obsessively, I wrote for 20-30 hours each week, I coded nonverbal behavior four hours a day for two

I Went Open Access: The Story So Far

This past week, one of my graduate students and I published a paper at PLoS ONE, a leading open access journal (if you are interested in politics and economic inequality, I suggest you head over and check it out here). I'm not the first researcher (or psychologist) to use PLoS ONE as an outlet for my work, but it's still a relatively new place for social/personality psychologists to publish their findings. Because of the "newness" of this whole venture, I thought it might be nice to tell you a bit about my experience, so far.

Mo Money, Mo Problems? Affluenza Doesn't Exist

Affluenza? Doesn't exist! (source)

"I don't know what they want from me,

It's like the more money we come across,

The more problems we see."

--The Notorious BIG

Some people think that the rich live hard knock lives-- I was first made aware of this hypothesis by these lyrics written by the '90s hip hop icon the Notorious BIG. Admittedly, I haven't given much thought to this idea all the way up until last December. It was at that time that a teenage drunk driver caused an accident, leaving four people dead. A judge sentenced the teenage boy to 10 years probation and therapy. The judge was lenient, in part, based on the defense's claims that the boy was afflicted with a rare illness known as affluenza, which, according to the LA Times is "a syndrome that keeps someone from a wealthy background from learning that bad behavior has consequences."

It seems the news media has caught the affluenza bug in the weeks since this story ran: Just this week I came across an article about affluenza in that paragon of journalistic integrity, the Huffington Post. The article reads "Though often used in jest, the term (affluenza) may have more truth than many of us might think." It appears that some journalists are taking the term seriously (oh and hooray, I'm QUOTED in the friggin' article). The same day this article appeared online I was asked to participate in an internet discussion about... affluenza (I declined).

I wrote this blog post today, under a blanket shielding me from the polar vortex outside, to make one small point: NO NO NO NO NO!!!! Stop It!!! Affluenza does not exist!!! EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!

What Your Resistance to Halloween Candy Predicts About Your Life

Tempting Halloween candy

Thanks to yesterday’s festivities, both kids and adults have a few more sweet treats on hand than normal. With a big bowl of candy sitting at home on the kitchen table or stashed in a desk drawer, many of us now face the annual challenge of eating our Halloween candy in moderation. Some of us will succeed; others won’t. We face situations like this constantly in life, where we are tasked with resisting temptations and overriding our impulses.  What might our responses to these situations reveal about the rest of our lives? Are we happy? Are we satisfied? To approach this question, let’s imagine a couple of eight-year olds and their new stashes of Halloween candy. 

Six Guidelines For Interesting Research: The Remix

I may get back pain every now and then when I lift my daughter up off the ground, but I am still relatively early in my career as a social psychologist. And being young, I am always on the lookout for ways to improve my writing and scholarship. This pursuit is great for me, because as my research improves, I conduct better science and help the world understand itself more completely. It's also great for you here at PYM, because if I learn something useful I like to pay it forward to you, the reader!

Anyway, I was lucky enough to read the paper Six Guidelines for Interesting Research over the summer. It's a sure classic written by Kurt Gray--rising star in psychological science and Professor at UNC--and the late Dan Wegner--one of the leaders of modern social psychology. I love this paper because it really got me thinking about what makes interesting research. And though I don't agree with all the points raised by Gray and Wegner, I think the underlying message--be interesting--is one that researchers can sometimes forget. Let's get to my amendments:

The Trouble with Destiny: Relationships Take Work

Do you believe in Soul Mates?

If I could give one piece of advice as a relationships researcher, it would be this: Relationships take work. Sure we’d all like to believe in destiny, thinking there is someone out there who is meant for us. Then when we find our soul mate, we will slip into an easy and comfortable companionship that provides us with decades of endless laughter and joy, and not a single fight or tense moment. But that is the stuff of dreams, people. Of course there will be times of joy greater than you imagined and laughter that brings you to tears, and those moments should far outweigh the fights and tension. But to believe that you are destined to be with one person and when you find the right relationship for you, it will be one that doesn’t take work, well that belief may be detrimental for your relationship.

In a great test of what happens when people believe they are "meant to be", close relationships researcher C. Raymond Knee looked at the extent to which people held Destiny Beliefs or Growth Beliefs, and the consequences of these beliefs for their relationships.

Destiny Beliefs. People who hold high destiny beliefs report that potential relationship partners are either compatible or they are not, that successful relationships are built on finding a compatible partner, and that relationships that begin poorly will inevitably fail.

Growth Beliefs. People who hold high growth beliefs report that the ideal relationship develops over time, that challenges to a relationship can make it even stronger, and that successful relationships are mostly the result of hard work and learning to resolve incompatibilities.

Four (Wrong) Ways To Interpret Links Between Genes and Education

Last week Science published a neat little paper examining links between specific human DNA sequences and educational attainment. The paper, which is a bit shorter than the list of authors who worked on the project, examined a total sample of more than 120,000 participants who had their entire genome sequenced for a number of small clusters of repeating nucleotides (single nucleotide polymorphisms or SNPs). They then examined all the SNPs and their associations with the level of educational attainment of each of the participants in the sample. After controlling for bias, in that a genome wide study performs thousands of significance tests, three SNPs emerged as significant predictors of educational attainment.

I find this study very interesting because there are a number of provocative ways to interpret the results of this study, and most of those would be incorrect! In what follows, I highlight four (wrong) ways to interpret the results of this study.

Sour in the Sun? 3 Unexpected Ways the Weather May Affect Your Mood

Warm Weather = Happy Amie

Last weekend I returned from the tropics to find myself outside the San Francisco airport basically barefoot in sub-40 degree weather. As I stood there shivering in disbelief, the shock to my system made me wonder about the effect of the  weather on my mood and well-being. Like Kate, I often find myself a little more blue as winter progresses and the sun sets early in the day. But in what other ways might the weather be affecting how we feel from one day to the next? Some of what I found surprised me. Below I detail three unexpected (at least to me!) ways in which the weather may be influencing your mood…

Summer can sour your mood. Just because there is a lot of sunshine in the summer doesn’t mean it is the time when people are the happiest. In one study, rates of depression and sadness among the general population of the Netherlands were highest in the summer and fall. In a separate line of research, although participants’ moods tended to become more positive as the weather became more pleasant in the springtime, in the summer, hotter weather was associated with being in a more negative mood. Heat is also associated with increased aggression. So when you find yourself feeling sad, grouchy, or wanting to punch someone in the middle of summer, try taking a weekend trip to somewhere cool.

Olympics Fun: National Personality Types: Fact or Figment?

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With the summer Olympics fast approaching, and our nation's birthday on Americans' minds, July seemed an apt month to dig a little into the concept of national personalities. For instance, we may have ideas of what typical French or German or British people are like relative to typical Americans. But are these ideas just oversimplified stereotypes, or are they rooted in actual country-level differences in personality characteristics?

Well, opinions vary.

How to survive a break-up: Give yourself a break

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There is no shortage of advice on how to recover from a bad break-up: keep busy, don't contact your ex, go out with friends, make a break-up mix (preferably one that includes "I will survive"), etc. But according to a new study, something important is missing from this list.

In the study, led by David Sbarra and published in Psychological Science, participants who had recently separated from their spouses were recorded talking for four minutes in a stream-of-consciousness format about the separation. Then four judges rated the extent to which these statements included evidence of self-compassion, which involves treating yourself with kindness and understanding rather than beating yourself up when things go wrong.

SPSP Conference: Where social and personality psychologists come to gather

Sunny San Diego

In just a few days Anna, Juli, Michael and I, as well as thousands of other social and personality psychologists, will descend on San Diego, California for the festivities known as the annual conference for the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP). For two full days we will be fully steeped in the world of social and personality psychology. What exactly does fully steeped mean? Well, from 8:15am until 7:45pm there will be approximately 11 symposia per hour (each symposium is composed of four 15 minute talks on a particular topic) for a total of 9 hours across the two days, in addition to special speeches scattered throughout the days and seven poster sessions with several hundred posters on display at each session (picture your elementary school science fair, but all grown up and on steroids). If that's not enough, there are meetings with mentors, evening networking sessions, and on the day before the conference begins, there is a full day of "preconferences" on particular topics in the field. For example, I know people attending preconferences on topics as varied as close relationships, emotion, humor, and the self and identity.

This annual conference is a bit of a whirlwind but its a chance to hear about recent research in the field, catch up with old friends, network with new ones, and share your own research findings. Although this conference focuses on social and personality psychology, the talks are still on a wide variety of topics. For example, here are a few random symposia titles selected from the schedule:

• "Moral Ironies"
• "Every Rose has its Thorns: Navigating the Risks and Rewards of Relationships"
• "Menstrual Cycle Effects on Women's Mate Preferences? Critical Perspectives"
•  "'A Christian Nation' Facing the 21st Century: How Religion Shapes Modern America, and its Role in a Changing Society"
• "The Consequences of Being Low on the Totem Pole: Deprivation, Status, and Resource Choices"
• "Latino Culture and the Shaping of Social and Personality Processes"
• "Money as a Motivator: From Brain to Behavior"

 Although I haven't counted each and every talk, some simple multiplication leads me to conclude that are probably more than 500 individual talks being given during the conference. This means that many talks are going at once and you can't possibly see all of them (unless of course you were Hermione Granger and had a time-turner). Most people sit down with the conference schedule ahead of time and map out their own personal schedule for the weekend, picking which talks and posters are must-attends in each session. And when all of your favorite talks are at the same time? Well you just hope you wore comfortable shoes so you can run from one end of the conference hotel to the other.

A glance at an SPSP Poster Session

So why am I telling you all of this, besides to invoke a bit of sympathy for how tired we will all be by Sunday morning? To let you know that its not going to be a normal week here at Psych Your Mind. We've decided to forgo our usual posts this week in order to do a semi "live-blogging" from the SPSP conference. We are not entirely sure what this will look like, but likely it will end up being each of us posting one or two brief write-ups summarizing the talks we heard that day, highlighting interesting or favorite findings, or merely complaining about the sheer enormity of the entire event (okay, less likely to be that last one, I'll save that for the personal blog). We may also be tweeting one-liners if we hear an interesting tidbit or attend a particularly cutting-edge talk that we just can't wait to tell the world about. So keep checking back with us here at PYM all weekend long (starting Thursday)!

If you'd like to find out more about the conference, you can go to the website here or check out their schedule here.


Any questions about the SPSP Conference? Any particular talks or topics you want us to blog about? Perhaps some words of comfort?

Why you might not like when others like you.

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Take a moment to think carefully about the answers to these questions:

Do you prefer when others dislike you?
Do you feel bad when you get positive feedback?
Do successes make you anxious?
Do you choose romantic partners that think poorly of you?

For many of you, these questions seem absurd, the answer a resounding no to all of them. Others, however, may be less sure. Why? Although common wisdom tells us that as humans we want, strive, and desperately need positive feedback from the social world, an intriguing psychological theory, backed by convincing experimental research, says that this is not always the case.

Self-verification theory, the brainchild of Bill Swann at the University of Texas, Austin, posits that despite the desire for social approval and praise people also have a deep-seated need to be seen in ways consistent with their self-views (see Swann, 1997 for review). This works well for individuals with positive self-views such as those with high self-esteem. These individuals like themselves, think that they are lovable, competent, and worthy and want others to see them favorably as well. Not surprising, right?

The theory gets more interesting, however, when considering individuals with negative self-views, such as those with low self-esteem or depressive symptoms. These individuals don't like themselves very much, and may consider themselves unlovable, incompetent or unworthy. Although you may be thinking that a person with such a negative self-image should be the most motivated to seek out positive feedback, self-verification theory argues to the contrary. It says that these individuals prefer that others see them just as unfavorably as they see themselves. What the heck?!

Friday Fun: Take a (real) personality questionnaire!!

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This post originally appeared back when PYM was just getting started. We thought our newer readers would be interested in this as well. Enjoy!

Many psychologists are interested in understanding personality – characteristics that can describe and explain how individuals think, feel, and behave across situations. Early work in the field of personality psychology sought to uncover the core dimensions on which people differ. To answer this question researchers looked to language as they believed that all of the important dimensions of personality must be described within a culture’s lexicon.

Researchers, like Gordon Allport, spent painstaking years going through the dictionary to identify traits words (those that describe personality) in the English language. Many of the words they identified were synonyms, however. For example, we can describe someone as gregarious or extraverted. Effectively these mean the same thing.

To deal with this overlap issue, researchers had participants rate themselves on all of the different trait words identified. Then they submitted participants’ responses to a fancy statistical procedure called factor analysis. This method identifies groups of words that hang together. For example, someone who scored high on extraversion would likely score high on gregariousness as well. Using this technique, researchers learned that there are five basic dimensions that underlie personality: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

Supporters of this Big-Five Theory of Personality have since created personality questionnaires to measure where people fall on each of these dimensions. Now for the fun part. Want to know more about your own personality? Click here to take a Big-Five Personality questionnaire.

Happy Friday!