Category: Weblogging

True Weblogging – referencing other sites around the Web.

Threat and Prejudice and Moral Exclusion, Oh My!

This is why I do the research I do on the power of perceived threat in prejudice and moral exclusion:

Ken Knight, 54, a heating and cooling technician from Florence, S.C., said he agrees with Bush and Cruz that only Christian refugees should be let into the country.”I wouldnt bring the Muslims. They cut your head off. You cant trust them. Im sure there are good ones, but theyre like the mob. Once you get in, you cant trust them,” he said after a church service

I want to understand that strange thought process.

And, of course, Christians and terrorists are mutually exclusive, aren’t they?

Link to the article: Cruz: ‘No meaningful risk’ of Christians committing terrorism – The Washington Post.

Promise derailed

picThe Washington Post has a profile of a star athlete who was bound for the WNBA, until schizophrenia took her off course. It is a striking profile, and well illustrates the potential for stress to sometimes trigger the emergence of this disorder.

Link to the article: How one of the nation’s most promising basketball players became homeless – The Washington Post.

Apple, Human Factors, and I/O Psychology

Fast Company has an excellent analysis, written by the progenitors of the Apple User Interface Guidelines, of Apple’s move away from fundamental design principles in the quest for beauty in their user interfaces.

These principles, based on experimental science as well as common sense, opened up the power of computing to several generations, establishing Apple’s well-deserved reputation for understandability and ease of use. Alas, Apple has abandoned many of these principles.

Human factors and I/O Psychology came into play when they developed the original user interface. It seems they are not paying the same attention to experimental evidence of what works.

I have noticed that the Mac OS has become more inconsistent and difficult to use over the last several years. As iOS and Mac OS converge, there are confusions and requirements for me to remember what works when and where. In the past, the consistency and simplicity of the interface made operations much less demanding on the user.

Link to the article: How Apple Is Giving Design A Bad Name.

Weight stigma negatively impacts mental and physical health

We talked about weight stigma in General Psychology a week or so ago. A good article in the NY Times illustrates the depth of the problem. A new study by a social psychology graduate student, Jeffrey Hunger, at UC Santa Barbara finds:

those who were overweight or obese were more likely to report problems like depression, anxiety, substance abuse and low self-esteem if they had experienced weight-based discrimination in the past.

It also includes a quote from a professor of popular culture, Courtney Bailey:

fat stigma intensified after 9/11, when Americans’ sense of vulnerability translated into increased animosity toward the fat body

This echoes some research we did in Mark Shcaller’s lab at UBC where it was found that perceived vulnerability to disease was correlated with anti-fat prejudice.

Link to the article: Is Fat Stigma Making Us Miserable? – The New York Times.

Making sure we consider the biopsychosocial model

The NY Times has a good Op-Ed piece by George Makari on the problem of mental health being reduced to biological processes. It argues that we need to be careful to not dismiss the power of psychological and social factors in mental health and illness. This is the “biopsychosocial” model I refer to frequently in class. He uses the 2015 study by Kane, et al. that I presented in class as an example of the strength of a multi-modal understanding of mental illness and treatment. He also lambasts the NIH for making new rules that require grants to include biomarkers and neurological circuit investigations in future researcn.

clinical pragmatism has seriously declined in the United States, as psychiatry has veered toward pharmacology

Link to the article: Psychiatry’s Mind-Brain Problem – The New York Times.

Jeb Bush maligns psychology majors and Chick-Fil-A in one fell swoop

Presidential candidate Jeb Bush took a swipe at psychology majors in a speech Saturday morning, as reported in the Washington Examiner. Although I’m not a huge fan of Chick-Fil-A, I’m sure those who love the restaurant, as well as the owners and employees of the chain are likely to take issue with Jeb Bush characterizing its jobs as undesirable. Further, I’m sure lots of psychology majors (and professors) might find his remarks to be distasteful, not to mention just plain ignorant.

Universities … ought to say ‘Hey, that psych major deal … realize, you’re going to be working a Chick-fil-A.’ … I just don’t think people are getting jobs as psych majors

But what is the reality in his statement that psychology majors are destined for a job at Chick-Fil-A, or simply not getting a job? That turns out to be a complex question, and it should come as no surprise that a politician, even one as smart as Jeb Bush, would reduce a complex question to a simplistic statement of fact.

What about his first proposition: working at Chick-Fil-A? Lets look at the data and see if we can glean anything useful about our majors’ chances of working at Chick-Fil-A.

Thus far, there are no studies looking specifically at psychology majors’ employment at Chick-Fil-A, or fast-food style restaurants in general. But there are studies that have looked at employment prospects for various majors.

The bad news is that he is partly right. When looking at data on employment of recent college graduates by major from 2009–2011 in a recent report published by the New York Federal Reserve Bank (Abel, Deitz, & Su, 2014), 48% of “social sciences” majors were working in jobs where a bachelor’s degree is not required. 45% were working in jobs where it is required, and 7% were unemployed.

It’s tough to know whether psychology is included in “social sciences” because the report’s categories do not align with the source of the data, the American Community Survey. If, for example, psychology is included in the “Sciences” category in the NY Fed’s report, then the numbers are 43%, 51%, and 6% respectively. Both of these major groups fall squarely in the middle of the pack in regards to employment of graduates in jobs not requiring a Bachelor’s degree.

So, yes, Jeb!, a substantial minority of psychology grads might be working in jobs at Chick-Fil-A, but I doubt even that large company (or food service in general) can handle 43–48% of the 109,000 (2011-12 year, NCES data) psychology majors. So, where are they going to work then?

Well, to answer that, we turn to a report authored by a group at the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce (Carnevale, Strohl, & Melton, 2011). The data from the 2009 American Community Survey indicates that 45% of Psychology and Social Work* graduates are working on a graduate degree (from which they will reap a 43% boost in earnings), and at least some of those (likely those in terminal Masters programs that provide little financial support) have part-time jobs, perhaps at employers who have flexible work schedules (evenings and weekends) such as Chick-Fil-A. The supposition that some are working part-time jobs is supported by the data: 21% of employed graduates are working part time, while 79% are working full-time. Overall, 94% of psychology and Social Work graduates have a job after graduation. So much for his second proposition: psych majors are getting jobs.

Okay, so what about those Psychology and Social Work major group graduates with a terminal bachelor’s degree—those who do not go on for a graduate degree? Well, here’s the occupations they go into in order of percentage (Carnevale, Strohl, & Melton, 2011): Community Service (18%), Management (16%), Office (15%), Sales (11%), and Education (8%). The percentages total 68% of the terminal Bachelor’s candidates. Food Service did not even make the top five. By industry classification, the top five were: Health Services (26%), Education (12%), Public Administration (12%), Financial Services (9%), and Professional Services (7%). That totals 66%, and again Food Service was not even in the list**.

So that settles his first proposition: psych majors do not wind up working at Chick-Fil-A (or by extension other food service jobs).

OK, so Jeb! was making a comparison to other fields like electricians, welders, plumbers, information technologists, and teachers. Well, we have shown that 8% of Psychology and Social Work majors go into education occupations. So, psychology seems to be a good preparation for that career.

I am inferring that Jeb! means no disrespect for these occupations, but by saying, “hey, why don’t those psych majors go into the trades?” he is fundamentally saying that anyone can get into trades like plumbing, welding, and electrical. The fact is, that those trades most likely require a very specific set of cognitive abilities, namely the spatial relations, mathematical, and visualization skills that people who can convert ideas and drawings into functional objects connected to complex plumbing and electrical systems. Not to mention that not everyone has the orientation toward or interest in doing these kinds of jobs. Concordance between interest and job is important for job satisfaction. As for Information Technology, again, that requires a rather specific set of mental skills and interests, and not everyone is going to be interested or successful at those.

It is also ironic that Jeb!’s colleague, Congressman Trey Gowdy ridiculed his son’s choice of a philosophy major, saying “he is in law school.” Did he even stop to consider that training in the complexities of logic, reasoning, and argumentation that his son learned in his philosophy classes likely prepared him extremely well for the skills he will use as a lawyer?

OK – so the reality is that no, Jeb!, psych majors are not going to work at Chick-Fil-A. They are getting jobs, and jobs in the important areas of community service, education, health service, management, etc. They are, on average earning much less than some other bachelor’s majors such as engineering, but that is a topic I have addressed previously here.

If, as the article states, Jeb!’s campaign is trying to reach college voters, it is not a great idea to malign one of the most popular college majors!

(edit) If you want to tell Jeb! and the Twitterverse what psychology majors do, use the hash tag: #thispsychmajor.

References (sorry, but I can’t get hanging indents to work):
Abel, J. R., Deitz, R., & Su, Y (2014). Are recent college graduates finding good jobs? Current Issues in Economics and Finance, 20(1). Retrieved from Federal Reserve Bank of New York website: http://newyorkfed.org/research/current_issues/ci20-1.pdf

Carnevale, A. P., Strohl, J., & Melton, M. (2011). What’s it worth? The economic value of college majors. Retrieved from Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce website: http://cew.georgetown.edu/whatitsworth

Link to the article: Jeb Bush: Psych majors work at Chick-fil-A | Washington Examiner.

* This group includes the following majors:

• Clinical Psychology

• Communications Disorders Sciences and Services

• Counseling Psychology

• Educational Psychology

• Human Services and Community Organization

• Industrial and Organizational Psychology

• Miscellaneous Psychology

• Psychology

• Social Psychology

• Social Work

** There are a few majors which have a substantial portion of graduates in food service. As you might imagine, Cosmetology Services and Culinary Arts comes in at 36%, and Hospitality Management comes in at 35%. The remainder are small percentages: Genetics (9%), Astronomy and Astrophysics (8%), Court Reporting (8%), Nutrition Sciences (7%), Architectural Engineering (5%), and 2% each for Pharmacy Pharmaceutical Sciences and Administration, and Treatment Therapy Professions.

The power of false memory

In General Psychology, we just finished talking about memory. There is a good article in the NY Times today demonstrating how eyewitnesses can very easily create false memories of events. Largely this process is enhanced by the strong emotions surrounding traumatic events. We tend to try filling in gaps in memories with our ideas of what “should” have happened, largely as a product of schemas.

Link to the article: Witness Accounts in Midtown Hammer Attack Show the Power of False Memory – The New York Times.

Loss Aversion and the Stock Market

stockThe stock market losses over the last several days leads some individual investors to panic and start selling, or if they don’t sell, they moan and groan about the losses.

The problem is that the losses are relatively small, but feel like they are bigger than they really are. And the loss feels twice as painful as the equivalent gain would feel joyous. So we freak out.

This is the basis for a well-demonstrated cognitive bias called “loss aversion” in psychology. Justin Wolfers writes about it in the New York Times, and gives credit to the Nobel prize winning psychologist Dan Kahneman, developer of prospect theory.

Link to How Emotion Hurts Stock Returns – The New York Times.

When You’re in Charge, Your Whisper May Feel Like a Shout – The New York Times

In Industrial-Organizational Psychology this fall, the class will be exploring issues such as leadership, organizational systems, and motivation, etc. Adam Galinsky is a social psychologist who has done a lot of research on the dynamics of power in organizational contexts. He has written a good Op-Ed piece about the strong effects (both positive and negative) that we can have on others when we are in a position of power over them.

the words of those with power loom large over those with less power. This is a phenomenon I call the power amplification effect.

via When You’re in Charge, Your Whisper May Feel Like a Shout – The New York Times.

Justice and Bias, Mental Health and Poverty, Oh My!

Two recent opinion pieces provide some interesting perspective on topics we have discussed recently in Social Psychology class: implicit bias and social drift. Implicit bias is the ways we are influenced to judge other people based on baises we are completely unaware of. It has influence in many areas of law and decision making from police shootings to suspect lineups to jury and judge decisions. Adam Benforado is a law professor at Drexel University:

With the aid of psychology, we see there’s a whole host of seemingly extraneous forces influencing behavior and producing systematic distortions. But they remain hidden because they don’t fit into our familiar legal narratives.

via Flawed Humans, Flawed Justice – NYTimes.com.

We also talked about social drift in Abnormal Psychology. Nicholas Christof has an excellent opinion piece summarizing a lot of research on the relationships between poverty and mental health (among other health problems):

If you’re battling mental health problems, or grow up with traumas like domestic violence (or seeing your brother shot dead), you’re more likely to have trouble in school, to self-medicate with drugs or alcohol, to have trouble in relationships.“There’s a strong association between poverty and low mental health,” notes Johannes Haushofer, a psychologist at Princeton University.

A second line of research has shown that economic stress robs us of cognitive bandwidth. Worrying about bills, food or other problems, leaves less capacity to think ahead or to exert self-discipline. So, poverty imposes a mental tax.

via It’s Not Just About Bad Choices – NYTimes.com.