Teaching Undergrads vs. MBAs: Four Observations

Hello and sorry I've been away from blogging for so long! I ended up switching departments and jobs--now I work at Yale University at the School of Management. As you might imagine, a lot of things have changed as a result of the move. What I'd like to do today is to briefly summarize what stuck out to me as the main differences between teaching undergraduate psychology majors and first year MBAs.

A note of caution before we dive in: I've only spent about 27 hours teaching MBAs and three years teaching psychology undergraduates, so it's possible that I know little to nothing about teaching BOTH groups. Also, the undergraduates and MBAs experienced different courses and come from different universities, so the differences I observed might not reflect MBA/undergrad distinctions. What is reported here is simply one person's observations from a relatively short time period.

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.

SPSP 2015: Status Shapes Preferences for Redistribution

A lot of people think about political ideology as a powerful causal force that influences the structure of our society and our respective positions within it. In the politics and inequality symposium Jazmin Brown-Iannuzzi of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and her colleagues examined political ideology from a different perspective: Instead of shaping the structure of society, does political ideology arise from our position within that structure? That is, do we create our political beliefs strategically in order to justify our own lives and the lives of those around us?

Everyone Gets a Job!

A terrifying graph for any PhD student! (source)

It's late October and that means we are squarely in the middle of job season for psychology PhDs (and PhD candidates). I was hired during the 2011-2012 job cycle, and so I recently switched to the evaluation side of the job process. Sitting on this side of the fence I feel incredibly fortunate to have a job: There are a ton of accomplished graduate students and postdocs with strong records, interesting research ideas, and stellar (!!!) letters of recommendation. If the system were running optimally, most of these applicants would land jobs. If the system were running optimally...

Crossing Class Boundaries

Yesterday the New York Times published an opinion piece written by University of Toronto, Rotman School of Management Professor, Stephane Cote and I on the challenges of crossing social class boundaries. You can find the article here. This blog post accompanies that article with a few notes about the research.

Psychological Barriers in Economic Inequality Reduction

Today I wrote a blog for New Left Project on psychology research examining perceptions of, and responses to, economic inequality. The post features cutting-edge research by prominent social psychologists Mike Norton and Dan Ariely, as well as research from my own laboratory at the University of Illinois. An excerpt:

"The United States is one of the most unequal and rigidly stratified societies in the industrialised world.  In the wake of the Great Recession, it has become increasingly clear that success in America flows to the wealthy and the well-connected.  Why do these inequities persist in the face of steady unemployment, abject poverty and rising homelessness? 

Psychology at the (Home) Movies: HBO’s The Wire

Source

Although I’m more than a decade late to the party, a recent fortunate Amazon.com prime membership has gifted me with access to HBO’s acclaimed series the Wire. For the last two months I’ve been watching the show weekly, digesting its contents in small consistent doses. My background as a middle class ivory tower academic makes the Wire foreign territory to me—I don’t have much personal experience with drug culture, or poverty, or oppression, or Baltimore (the primary city in the story) for that matter. Nevertheless, there were many themes in the TV series that align well with contemporary research in the social sciences. With an eye towards these themes, I bring you a look into HBO’s the Wire by linking it to our current understanding of basic psychology. As with any piece of film-making, the nuance and detail will not be completely captured in this post, and I welcome comments here or on twitter (@mwkraus). Also, SPOILERS!

The Psychology of Economic Inequality: A Collection

Today I wrote an op-ed piece for livescience about economic inequality. Read the piece here. In it, I argue that though economic inequality is a complex social and political issue, it may be explained, at least in part, in terms of the basic psychological motivations of individuals.

Anyway, I hope you'll check out the piece and send me comments via twitter (@mwkraus). If you'd like to read more about this area of research, below I have collected four past PYM pieces on the topic.

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!!!

The Great Social Ladder of Our Lives

Last week I was on vacation in my hometown of Poway, CA. It's a little suburb outside of San Diego that boasts of being "The City in the Country" (basically that means we have both Starbucks and rodeo!). Whenever I go home, I see my family and I tend to fall into many of the same activities I did when I was in high school--mostly that involves eating Mexican food from the various eateries around the city (Cotijas, Albertos, Aibertos, Robertos, El Robertos, you get the idea). When I'm in Poway I think a lot about high school. One of the main aspects of high school--as we know from careful analyses of movies like the Breakfast Club and Mean Girls--is social status. That is, who is at the top of the social ladder, and how can we either be friends with those people, or if we aren't high status, how can we avoid the wrath of those at the top of the pecking order? I think my first interest in research on social hierarchy started in high school.

The truth is that social hierarchy isn't just confined to the high school cafeteria, but is instead a large part of our everyday social lives. Status hierarchies can be about workplace power, respect among peers, or stereotypes ascribed to us by virtue of our membership in a social category (e.g., gender and race). I believe that one of the, often overlooked, bases of status is social class--the money we make, education we obtain, and the job prestige we garner. Social class is the great social ladder that ranks us in society.

Psychology At the Movies: Essentialist Musings in Man of Steel

www.imdb.com

Yesterday, my spouse and I dropped our newborn daughter off with Grandma and then popped over to the local theater to see this summer's much anticipated comic-book blockbuster Man of Steel. By any standard, Man of Steel is exceptionally light when it comes to philosophical musings: The plot is predictably linear--good guys fight bad guys who are trying to kill them. At first glance, it may seem like a stretch to write an entire blog entry (for a psychology blog) about the film, given this simple plot design. But, in between the explosions--and there were MANY explosions--the bad guys turned out to be motivated by some very simple psychological principles. Spoilers Ahead!

Why So Serious?* An Insider’s Guide to the Study of Smiling and Dominance

The toughest grad students at the University of Illinois
(J. Hepler & N. Segal)

Over the years, one of my favorite things to hear about in research is the initial personal events that inspired researchers to conduct their investigations into human behavior (e.g., Did your neglectful mother lead you to a study of anxious attachment?). In today’s blog post I would like to talk about the inspiration for a study I conducted last year, with my my colleague David Chen, examining what happens when a professional mixed martial artist smiles before a fight with his opponent.

When I think back to the initial kernel of inspiration for this study, two events stick out in my mind—one concerning myself and a near physical confrontation, and the other concerning a professional fighter facing perhaps the most dangerous martial artist of his generation.

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.

The Daddy Chronicles: What Happened To My Testosterone?

Zoë at two weeks

I'm not sure how many of you know this, but on March 19th of this year I became a new daddy. It's hard to describe the meaning of this event and its impact on my life, but here is a useful comparison that might put things into perspective: My dissertation was accepted for publication on the same day that my daughter was born and despite the near month passing, I still haven't filed the publication forms for the paper. Fatherhood changes the way I see the world in radical ways!

And yet, despite knowing the changes that fatherhood has brought on in my own life, I was still shocked to read about this little finding published in 2011 by Gettler and colleagues--fatherhood reduces testosterone... a lot.

SPSP 2013: How Much Inequality Is Too Much?

“Of all the babies that die every year, what percent should be from the richest 20% and what percent should be from the poorest 20%?” – Mike Norton

In the Saturday morning session, some of my favorite social psychologists/researchers presented their ongoing work on lay beliefs about inequality in the United States. It is encouraging to see the new generation of psychology scholars taking on important issues related to social justice and inequality!

Do I have the least stressful job in 2013?

About a week ago, Forbes magazine published a list of the least stressful jobs in 2013 (here). At the very top of the list was the college Professor. This sparked some outrage among my colleagues who (rightly) point out that a Professor's job is not without stress (here). The swell of outrage was so immense, that the original author posted an addendum stating that indeed, some of the characterizations of a Professorial job made in the original post--e.g., that Professors don't work hard--were inaccurate (here).

So, what kind of stress do Professors actually face in their jobs relative to other professions? It might help to first try to understand what is meant by the word "stress."

PYM: Holiday Edition

Looking for your perfect holiday?

The holidays are upon us, which can mean family, fun, food, and cheer. But also, stress, anxiety, conflict, and caloric guilt. Psychology has a lot to say about how to promote the former and avoid the latter, so like last year, I've compiled posts from the previous year to provide you with tips on how to make your holidays a little bit brighter.

On giving and receiving gifts:

-It is not the thought that counts. There is a mismatch in our preference for giving and our preference for receiving gifts. We like to think that a thoughtful gift is the best kind, but gift recipients really just want to receive a gift they like - so know that picking a gift from someone's amazon wish-list is a surefire way to guarantee a happy Christmas. But if you went off-road this Christmas when buying your presents, temper your expectations for how happy the recipient will be when receiving a gift accompanied by out-of-the-box thinking. And if you are receiving a gift that isn't what you expected, remember that the gift giver thought they were doing something nice by putting in that extra thought and not just clicking on the amazon link.

What is Charisma?

Did charisma win the 2012 election?

Today on PYM we are pleased to bring you the second guest blog from Emily Plutov, advanced undergraduate at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

In some of PYM’s election coverage, Amie cited an example of the incredible influence television has over voters’ conceptions of political figures: the famous debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960. In this debate, Kennedy was the clear victor; not only was he calm and collected, but he also was said to have displayed “charisma,” an attribute that people widely believe makes politicians into effective leaders.

What is charisma?

Is there a feminine side to dominance?

Is there a female dominance hormone? (source)

Today on PYM we are pleased to bring you a guest blog from Emily Plutov. Emily is an advanced undergraduate at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, who has recently become interested in social psychology research on power and dominance.

When it comes to research on the hormonal correlates of dominance behaviors, what becomes clear is that males have garnered considerable attention within this sphere. As Michael mentioned in a previous post, testosterone (an androgen which is produced in the testes in men and the adrenal gland in both men and women), is linked to dominance in men. 

What about women?