SWAG: My favorite reason to "Just Post It!"

Every Wednesday Thursday afternoon, I gather with a bunch of faculty and graduate students at the University of Illinois to discuss a journal article about social psychology, and to eat a snack. This blog post reflects the discussion we had during this week's seminar affectionately called Social Wednesdays Thursdays and Grub (SWTAG)--we're going STAG now!

In last week's journal club we read about a recent paper in Psychological Science with a very clear message: It should be the norm for researchers to post their data upon publication. In the article, the author (Uri Simonsohn) lays out the major reason why he thinks posting data is a good idea: It helps our field catch scientific fraud in action (e.g., fabricated data). Simonsohn details some methods he has used in the past to catch fraud in the paper and on his new blog over at datacolada.org (I'll have mine blended!).

I agree that posting data will make it harder for people to fabricate data. However, my favorite reason to increase norms for posting data has nothing to do with data fabrication.

SWAG: Racial Bias in Pain Perception

Tom Brady is no stranger to pain (source)

Every Wednesday afternoon, I gather with a bunch of faculty and graduate students at the University of Illinois to discuss a journal article about social psychology, and to eat a snack. This blog post reflects the discussion we had during this week's seminar affectionately called Social Wednesdays and Grub (SWAG).

This week in SWAG we read an article about racial biases in perceptions of others’ pain. The American medical field has a long history of racial bias (Note: I think if you switched the words “medical field” with almost any other field, the sentence would be factually accurate. For example, “mathematics field” or “psychology field” but not “magnetic field”). American blacks tend to be diagnosed less accurately by medical staff than whites, to receive less optimal health care, and to be cared for less intimately. The authors, led by Sophie Trawalter of the University of Virginia, wondered about the source of this racial bias. They reasoned that it might arise in part from a belief that low status groups experience less pain than other groups in society. Blacks and other traditionally low status groups in America are perceived as having overcome greater hardships throughout their lives. As a result of contending with, and overcoming these hardships, low status groups are perceived to experience less pain than their more advantaged counterparts—their tough circumstances have made them tougher. This racial bias in pain perception is theorized to underlie the black-white treatment gap in medicine.

SWAG: Video Games and Violence

wikipedia.org

Every Wednesday afternoon, I gather with a bunch of faculty and graduate students at the University of Illinois to discuss a journal article about social psychology, and to eat a snack. This blog post reflects the discussion we had during this week's seminar affectionately called Social Wednesdays and Grub (SWAG). This week, SWAG was led by Jesse Preston, Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois. Her summary of the SWAG discussion follows below:

Can playing violent video games cause violent behavior? After the massacre at Columbine, it was revealed that the shooters spent much of their free time playing Doom, and James Holmes, who shot 71 people in a theatre in Aurora Colorado, was also an avid gamer. High profile cases like these seem to confirm the belief many people already hold – that the simulated violence enacted in these games is projected into the real world, with real life and death consequences. Many studies in social psychology (see work by Craig Anderson and Brad Bushman) also support the conclusion that violent video games beget violent behavior. But in a 2011 case (Brown vs. Entertainment Merchants Association), the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) was not convinced. This week in SWAG, we read an article by Christopher J. Ferguson in American Psychologist, describing the SCOTUS decision and the role of social psychology research in making the case against video games.

SWAG: The American Choice Fixation

Yes. I Exist! (source)

Every Wednesday afternoon, I gather with a bunch of faculty and graduate students at the University of Illinois to discuss a journal article about social psychology, and to eat a snack. This blog post reflects the discussion we had during this week's seminar affectionately called Social Wednesdays and Grub (SWAG).

Right before our SWAG meeting this week, I attended a laboratory meeting of a colleague here at the University of Illinois. One of the graduate students at the meeting was drinking a caffeine free, diet Mountain Dew (they exist). The faculty member questioned this student, asking what many of us were probably thinking, "What is the point of drinking diet, caffeine free Mountain Dew?" In this case, the student was expected to deliver (and delivered) a reasoned response for why he had made that particular dietary choice. The student's choice in this example was thought of, by the rest of us, as a defining feature of his unique social self (i.e., drinking diet, caffeine free Mountain Dew tells us a bit about what kind of person the student is).


Would it surprise you to learn that this idea of choice is a uniquely American one?

SWAG: Do the ends justify the means?

source

Every Wednesday afternoon, I gather with a bunch of faculty and graduate students at the University of Illinois to discuss a journal article about social psychology, and to eat a snack. This blog post reflects the discussion we had during this week's seminar affectionately called Social Wednesdays and Grub (SWAG).

Are you familiar with Watchmen? The popular graphic novel turned semi-popular summer blockbuster describes a deeply dystopian future in which Richard Nixon has been declared supreme ruler, constant threats of nuclear attack are on everyone's mind, and the practice of playing a vigilante super hero has been outlawed. The characters of Watchmen walk a fine line of human morality: Would the most good come from always doing the right thing? That is, is it always the best course of action to prevent others from entering into harm's way? Or, would the most good come from doing a little bit (or a lot) of bad? The characters of Watchmen walk through murky moral waters throughout the novel, sometimes making decisions to stick to their principles. Other times, characters justify doing a great amount of terrible to promote ultimate good. On this point, one of the central characters, Adrian Veidt, famously quips, "My new world demands less obvious heroism."

Watchmen poses some very interesting questions about our moral lives. Specifically, when is doing bad sometimes a good thing?

SWAG: Thoughts as Physical Objects

Ideas as Objects (Source)

Every Wednesday afternoon, I gather with a bunch of faculty and graduate students at the University of Illinois to discuss a journal article about social psychology, and to eat a snack. This blog post reflects the discussion we had during this week's seminar affectionately called Social Wednesdays and Grub (SWAG).

We typically think of thoughts as mental constructs without physical properties. And yet, it is remarkably common to use physical metaphors when dealing with these mental constructs. For instance, to say that you "cooked up" an idea is to suggest that ideas may have physical properties. With this logic, it is possible that engaging in physical acts with our thoughts might actually change their influence on our attitudes. A recent article that we read in SWAG tested this prediction.

SWAG: I'm good enough, I'm smart enough... and I give up!

wikipedia.org

Every Wednesday afternoon, I gather with a bunch of faculty and graduate students at the University of Illinois to discuss a journal article about social psychology, and to eat a snack. This blog post reflects the discussion we had during this week's seminar affectionately called Social Wednesdays and Grub (SWAG).

This week we read a recent collection of studies written by Kathleen Vohs and her colleagues (2013) about goal disengagement and self-affirmation. Usually self-affirmations are a good thing for us because they remind us that we are, as Stuart Smalley put it, "Good enough, smart enough, and dog-gone-it, people like (us)!" Sometimes these affirmations can lead one to actually disengage from goals.

SWAG: The World is ending and that's unfair!

www.earthtimes.org

Every Wednesday afternoon, I gather with a bunch of faculty and graduate students at the University of Illinois to discuss a journal article about social psychology, and to eat a snack. This blog post reflects the discussion we had during this week's seminar, affectionately called Social Wednesdays and Grub (SWAG).

Ever watch a video like this one? I imagine that for different people it activates very different emotions. For some, this sort of video might galvanize people, strengthening resolve for reducing their carbon footprint. For others, however, it might be a very threatening video to watch, a video that could potentially challenge some of your deeply held assumptions about the world being a fair and safe place.

SWAG: The Aversion to Harm Others

Every Wednesday afternoon, I gather with a bunch of faculty and graduate students at the University of Illinois to discuss a journal article about social psychology, and to eat a snack. This blog post reflects the discussion we had during this week's seminar affectionately called Social Wednesdays and Grub (SWAG).

This week in SWAG we read a paper on committing harmful actions by Fiery Cushman and colleagues (2012), who may have the most fantastic name in all of the academic world. Cushman was curious about why people are averse to committing harmful acts on others.