dinsdag 17 april 2018

Friends have similar brains

Another interesting psychological study, as summarized in the NY Times ("You Share Everything With Your Bestie. Even Brain Waves"). They asked a class of students how closely they felt connected to each of their fellow students. And then they showed them film fragments and measured how their brains reacted to them. Similarity proved to be a good guide to who were friends and how close. Of course one shouldn't put too much in this research. They found correlation. But that doesn't mean that that there can't be exceptions. So one might investigate whether there are people who are similar who are not friends - and why. One might also look whether all kinds of traits worked similarly: does having the same sense of humor work the same as being interested in the same fields of science?

donderdag 1 februari 2018

The power of collaboration: children do better

The article "In this group challenge, kindergartners beat the MBAs every time" by Daniel Coyle discusses an experiment where a group needs to build a tower as high as the can with the following material: Twenty pieces of uncooked spaghetti, One yard of transparent tape, One yard of string, One standard-size marshmallow. The marshmallow must come at the top. In dozens of trials, kindergartners built structures that averaged twenty-six inches tall, while business school students built structures that averaged less than ten inches. (Teams of kindergartners also defeated teams of lawyers [who built towers that averaged fifteen inches] as well as teams of CEOs [twenty-two inches]). The explanation of the article is that children are really collaborating while the adults are secretly also competing for status and navigating the resulting social minefield.

zondag 7 januari 2018

Is Your Child Lying to You? That’s Good

In the category counter-intuitive articles this one may not miss: Is Your Child Lying to You? That’s Good. Professor Lewis has found that toddlers who lie about peeking at the toy have higher verbal I.Q.s than those who don’t, by as much as 10 points. (Children who don’t peek at the toy in the first place are actually the smartest of all, but they are a rarity.) Other research has shown that the children who lie have better “executive functioning skills” (an array of faculties that enable us to control our impulses and remain focused on a task) as well as a heightened ability to see the world through other people’s eyes, a crucial indicator of cognitive development known as “theory of mind.” (Tellingly, children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which is characterized by weaker executive functioning, and those with spectrum disorders such as autism, which are characterized by deficits in theory of mind, have trouble with lying.) Young liars are even more socially adept and well adjusted, according to recent studies of preschoolers.