May 11, 2011
Posted by Jay Livingston
I’ve learned my lesson. When the bureaucracy offers you a deal, don’t push your luck.
Two years ago, when I challenged a ticket, the Parking Violations Bureau offered me a deal – one-third off. This seemed violate basic sociological ideas – the quintessential government bureaucracy was offering to be flexible about what I would pay – I blogged it (here).* I also continued to maintain my innocence, hoping for a better deal. Silly me. I wound up paying the full $65.
A few weeks ago, I came down to the car on Monday morning to find no license plate on the rear of the car and a ticket on the windshield for failure to have a license plate. Sixty-five bucks. I pled not guilty on the grounds that hey, I’m the victim here, not the offender. Back came the offer – $43. The letter didn’t say, “Final Offer.” But I knew. I paid.
I had learned one lesson. But my trip to the local precinct had two other reminders about public bureaucracies. First, it brought to mind a sentence that I wrote in my crim textbook decades ago. I began the chapter on courts with a brief description of what I saw when I spent a day hanging around at the criminal court. “What you see in the criminal court is what you see at the public hospital or the welfare department: poor people waiting.” At the precinct house for my neighborhood (median household income $78,000) , the income in the room may have been slightly higher, but the atmosphere was similar.
Second, what goes in the file is more important than what really happened. The desk sergeant told me that they would have to classify the license plate as “lost” rather than “stolen.” “Y’know, sometimes if someone hits your bumper a few times squeezing into a parking space, the plate can fall off. “ The two screws that had held the plate in place for several years of New York street parking had been removed – a fact I pointed out to no avail. “If both plates are gone, it’s a theft. Only one, it’s lost.”
Could this classification have had anything to do with a concern for the precinct’s larceny statistics?
* Two months later, the Times ran a story on this policy which, unbeknownst to me and most New Yorkers, had been in place since 2005.
Rupert Murdoch’s Not-As-Safe-As-You-Think House
May 6, 2011
Posted by Jay Livingston
In December, the Wall Street Journal (here) called for death to leakers of government documents, specifically WikiLeaks sources and Julian Assange.
A colleague directed me and my naive optimism to Gawker, which read the fine print in the SafeHouse prospectus and found “a doozy of a caveat in its Terms of Use:”
Posted by Jay Livingston
In December, the Wall Street Journal (here) called for death to leakers of government documents, specifically WikiLeaks sources and Julian Assange.
One alternative would be for Congress and the Administration to collaborate on writing a new statute aimed more precisely at provocateurs like Mr. Assange. At a minimum, the Administration should throw the book at those who do the leaking, including the option of the death penalty. That would probably give second thoughts to the casual spy or to leakers who fancy themselves as idealists.Five months later, the WSJ announced its own version of WikiLeaks called SafeHouse. It sounded pretty good to me. It would do for (or to) capitalists what WikiLeaks did to governments.
Documents and databases: They're key to modern journalism. But they're almost always hidden behind locked doors, especially when they detail wrongdoing such as fraud, abuse, pollution, insider trading, and other harms. That's why we need your help.Business Insider dashed onto the field to lead the cheers, comparing the WSJ most favorably to WikiLeaks.
If you have newsworthy contracts, correspondence, emails, financial records or databases from companies, government agencies or non-profits, you can send them to us using the SafeHouse service.
[An informant] can simply and easily submit his documents to an organization with a reputation for journalistic excellence. The choice between the erratic Julian Assange and WSJ is not a tough one at all.Or is it?
A colleague directed me and my naive optimism to Gawker, which read the fine print in the SafeHouse prospectus and found “a doozy of a caveat in its Terms of Use:”
Except when we have a separately negotiated confidentiality agreement… we reserve the right to disclose any information about you to law enforcement authorities or to a requesting third party, without notice, in order to comply with any applicable laws and/or requests under legal process, to operate our systems properly, to protect the property or rights of Dow Jones or any affiliated companies, and to safeguard the interests of others.[emphasis added]There’s probably a sociological point here – something about technology and information and institutions. Or maybe just something about my own (temporary, I hope) credulity. As our great orator (and apparently great Who fan) said, “There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — [pause] — shame on you. Fool me — [pause] — You can't get fooled again.”
Serious Sociology in Syria
May 5, 2011
Posted by Jay Livingston
UPDATE, June 21: The Gay Girl in Damascus turns out to be a straight man in Scotland – one Tom MacMaster, age 40, married, American, living in Edinburgh. I’m not sure how that information affects the more general ideas in the post below. After all, I am certainly not the first sociologist to use a piece of fiction to illustrate sociological principles. Most of the others have done so knowing that their source material was fiction. (Gawker story is here.)
Two thugs from Syria’s security services knock on the door in the middle of the night. They have come for Amina, who blogs as A Gay Girl in Damascus. The goons in their leather jackets are like bullies everywhere – in the name of patriotism or some noble idea, they brutalize the weak.
Amina’s father goes to the door, and by the time she has thrown on some clothes and come to the door, her father is talking with the thugs. Her blog post describing the encounter offers a wealth of topics – Syrian political and religious conflict, fathers and daughters, and more. But what struck me was that the encounter is a good example of values in use.
In the unit on culture, I try to get across the idea of values as legitimations. I give the standard definition of values as shared ideas about what is right or good. So if you want to discover a culture’s values, you can look at what people do (people using values as guides to action). The trouble is that people do a lot of things that seem to ignore or contradict cultural values.
But if you think of values as legitimations, you listen to what people say about what they do, for when people need justify what they’ve done, they have to invoke assumptions about what is right and good, assumptions that anyone else in the culture would share (people using values to win arguments).
Amina describes the entire conversation, and we can see her father using values and ideas that sound quite familiar to us. Rationality and self-interest to be sure (your Assad won’t live forever, and you’ll need all the friends you can get). And logic (how could she be in league with the sectarian plotters when she rejects their sectarianism, their sex codes, their dress codes).
But his argument also plays on a theme that to my American ears has a distinct foreign accent. He invokes particularistic knowledge, ascribed status (family), and tradition.
Posted by Jay Livingston
UPDATE, June 21: The Gay Girl in Damascus turns out to be a straight man in Scotland – one Tom MacMaster, age 40, married, American, living in Edinburgh. I’m not sure how that information affects the more general ideas in the post below. After all, I am certainly not the first sociologist to use a piece of fiction to illustrate sociological principles. Most of the others have done so knowing that their source material was fiction. (Gawker story is here.)
Two thugs from Syria’s security services knock on the door in the middle of the night. They have come for Amina, who blogs as A Gay Girl in Damascus. The goons in their leather jackets are like bullies everywhere – in the name of patriotism or some noble idea, they brutalize the weak.
Amina’s father goes to the door, and by the time she has thrown on some clothes and come to the door, her father is talking with the thugs. Her blog post describing the encounter offers a wealth of topics – Syrian political and religious conflict, fathers and daughters, and more. But what struck me was that the encounter is a good example of values in use.
In the unit on culture, I try to get across the idea of values as legitimations. I give the standard definition of values as shared ideas about what is right or good. So if you want to discover a culture’s values, you can look at what people do (people using values as guides to action). The trouble is that people do a lot of things that seem to ignore or contradict cultural values.
But if you think of values as legitimations, you listen to what people say about what they do, for when people need justify what they’ve done, they have to invoke assumptions about what is right and good, assumptions that anyone else in the culture would share (people using values to win arguments).
Amina describes the entire conversation, and we can see her father using values and ideas that sound quite familiar to us. Rationality and self-interest to be sure (your Assad won’t live forever, and you’ll need all the friends you can get). And logic (how could she be in league with the sectarian plotters when she rejects their sectarianism, their sex codes, their dress codes).
But his argument also plays on a theme that to my American ears has a distinct foreign accent. He invokes particularistic knowledge, ascribed status (family), and tradition.
“What are your names?”Read the entire post (here). I’m surprised it hasn’t gotten more attention.
They tell him. He nods
“Your father,” he says to the one who threatened to rape me, “does he know this is how you act? He was an officer, yes? And he served in ...” (he mentions exactly and then turns to the other) “and your mother? Wasn't she the daughter of ...?”
They are both wide-eyed, yes, that is right,
“What would they think if they heard how you act? And my daughter? Let me tell you this about her; she has done many things that, if I had been her, I would not have done. But she has never once stopped being my daughter and I will never once let you do any harm to her. You will not take her from here. And, if you try, know that generations of her ancestors are looking down on you. Do you know what is our family name? You do? Then you know where we stood when Muhammad, peace be upon him, went to Medina, you know who it was who liberated al Quds, you know too, maybe, that my father fought to save this country from the foreigners and who he was, know who my uncles and my brothers were ... and if that doesn't shame you enough, you know my cousins and you will leave here. . . . .
And time froze when he stopped speaking. Now, they would either smack him down and beat him, rape me, and take us both away ... or ...
”A Man Sees What He Wants to See . . .
May 2, 2011
Posted by Jay Livingston
. . . and disregards the rest. “ (Paul Simon)
If you believe that government welfare programs are the road to serfdom, then whenever you see them, you look down that lonely road and see (what else?) serfdom, regardless of what’s really there.
Brad DeLong unearthed an interview that Friedrich Hayek did with Reason magazine in 1977.
This seems to be a case of ideology guiding perception. I guess Stockholm’s a lonely town when you’re the only serf (er, boy) around. Or maybe he’d just seen a lot of Bergman movies.
Posted by Jay Livingston
. . . and disregards the rest. “ (Paul Simon)
If you believe that government welfare programs are the road to serfdom, then whenever you see them, you look down that lonely road and see (what else?) serfdom, regardless of what’s really there.
Brad DeLong unearthed an interview that Friedrich Hayek did with Reason magazine in 1977.
Reason: If big government is really the culprit, why do Sweden and many Scandinavian welfare states seem to be prospering? . . . Sweden is reasonably successful.
Hayek: Yes. But there is perhaps more social discontent in Sweden than in almost any other country I have been. The standard feeling that life is really not worth living is very strong in Sweden. Although they can hardly conceive of things being different than what they're used to, I think the doubt about their past doctrines is quite strong.
This seems to be a case of ideology guiding perception. I guess Stockholm’s a lonely town when you’re the only serf (er, boy) around. Or maybe he’d just seen a lot of Bergman movies.
To Parse a Purse (and a Person)
May 2, 2011
Posted by Jay Livingston
In French, a “sac” is a bag. The phrase “vider son sac” – literally, to empty ones bag – is roughly equivalent to the now ancient “to let it all hang out” or “to tell all” but with the added connotation of confession and catharsis.
“Sac” also serves as a shorter version of “sac à main” just as in English, women’s handbags become merely “bags.” For women, the literal and figurative meanings of “vider son sac” may be indistinguishable. The handbag and its contents are a representation of the self. At least, that’s part of the message of French sociologist Jean-Claude Kaufmann, last seen in this Socioblog for his study of bare breasts on the beach. He has, of late, turned his gaze to women’s handbags inside and out, and published Le Sac: Un Petit Monde d’Amour.
There’s a bit of the showman about Kaufmann. He passes off pedestrian observations as profundities or sociological analysis. For Elle magazine (several French women’s mags reported on Kaufmann’s book), he even does a cold reading, assessing the personality of two women by parsing their handbags (video here).
Then by coincidence, same idea, same time, same place. Photographer/videographer Pierre Klein (son of photographer William Klein) was talking with a woman friend when she accidentally upended her handbag, spilling its contents. As she picked up the various objects, he asked, and she told. In the few minutes it took for her to restock her handbag, he had learned more about her than he had in the previous months of their acquaintanceship. “Each object was linked to some anxiety or fear, with a story of its own. Once the contents were spread out on the counter, I saw the makings of a photo.”
Make photos he did. It became a gallery exhibition – “Elles vident leur sac.” Fifty women, fifty handbags, fifty photos. (That’s Klein in the picture below, reviewing his photos before they went up on the walls.)
(Click on an image for a larger view.)
When he asked women to empty their bags for a shoot, he also interviewed them, and they spoke freely about the things in their handbags and about themselves. And in keeping with the confession/catharsis theme, they all said that they liked the experience. (In this video, push the slider to 3:50 – “Debriefing.” Even if you don’t speak French, you’ll get the idea. If you do have any French – and my French isn’t all that good – watch the whole thing.)
Here are five of the photos. The pictures stand by themselves, sans interview, though you can see brief clips of five of the sac-videuses in the previous video link).
The objects themselves are not particularly intimate or revealing, and the women did not feel that Klein was intruding on their privacy. Instead, as Klein says, it is in talking about the the things in their purses that they vident leur sac. It suggests a new strategy for sociological interviews: start with tangible objects.
(A Guardian article about the exhibit is here).
Posted by Jay Livingston
In French, a “sac” is a bag. The phrase “vider son sac” – literally, to empty ones bag – is roughly equivalent to the now ancient “to let it all hang out” or “to tell all” but with the added connotation of confession and catharsis.
“Sac” also serves as a shorter version of “sac à main” just as in English, women’s handbags become merely “bags.” For women, the literal and figurative meanings of “vider son sac” may be indistinguishable. The handbag and its contents are a representation of the self. At least, that’s part of the message of French sociologist Jean-Claude Kaufmann, last seen in this Socioblog for his study of bare breasts on the beach. He has, of late, turned his gaze to women’s handbags inside and out, and published Le Sac: Un Petit Monde d’Amour.
There’s a bit of the showman about Kaufmann. He passes off pedestrian observations as profundities or sociological analysis. For Elle magazine (several French women’s mags reported on Kaufmann’s book), he even does a cold reading, assessing the personality of two women by parsing their handbags (video here).
Then by coincidence, same idea, same time, same place. Photographer/videographer Pierre Klein (son of photographer William Klein) was talking with a woman friend when she accidentally upended her handbag, spilling its contents. As she picked up the various objects, he asked, and she told. In the few minutes it took for her to restock her handbag, he had learned more about her than he had in the previous months of their acquaintanceship. “Each object was linked to some anxiety or fear, with a story of its own. Once the contents were spread out on the counter, I saw the makings of a photo.”
Make photos he did. It became a gallery exhibition – “Elles vident leur sac.” Fifty women, fifty handbags, fifty photos. (That’s Klein in the picture below, reviewing his photos before they went up on the walls.)
(Click on an image for a larger view.)When he asked women to empty their bags for a shoot, he also interviewed them, and they spoke freely about the things in their handbags and about themselves. And in keeping with the confession/catharsis theme, they all said that they liked the experience. (In this video, push the slider to 3:50 – “Debriefing.” Even if you don’t speak French, you’ll get the idea. If you do have any French – and my French isn’t all that good – watch the whole thing.)
Here are five of the photos. The pictures stand by themselves, sans interview, though you can see brief clips of five of the sac-videuses in the previous video link).
(Click on an image for a larger view.)
The objects themselves are not particularly intimate or revealing, and the women did not feel that Klein was intruding on their privacy. Instead, as Klein says, it is in talking about the the things in their purses that they vident leur sac. It suggests a new strategy for sociological interviews: start with tangible objects.(A Guardian article about the exhibit is here).
The Art of the Chart - Visualizing Comparisons
April 29, 2011
Posted by Jay Livingston
My graphic design talents fall in the leftward tail of the distribution.* So I have great admiration for those who can make data visually accessible, and especially for those who improve on existing visualizations.
Here is a chart The Economist posted showing how people in six different countries allocated their time.
(Click on the graphic for a larger view.)
This was of interest to me since I had once posted (here) about US-France differences in time spent at meals. I tried to see if the data confirmed what I had said then. But finding the relevant numbers wasnct easy.
Enter Andrew Gelman. After only a few minutes (well, hours actually), he took the original data, translated the hours from absolute to relative – above or below the mean – and created this chart . . .
(Click on the graphic for a larger view).
. . . which allows for much easier comparisons among the six** countries.
The full post is here and includes a link to the R code for the chart.
* My students complained in class that my writing on the board was illegible. Montclair students rarely voice their displeasure to the instructor. They may grumble among themselves about their teachers, but that, however much they may grumble among themselves about their teachers,s usually as far as it goes. So when they spoke up in class, I knew things were seriously bad.
** Why Turkey, you may ask. I have no idea, and The Economist isn’t saying.
Posted by Jay Livingston
My graphic design talents fall in the leftward tail of the distribution.* So I have great admiration for those who can make data visually accessible, and especially for those who improve on existing visualizations.
Here is a chart The Economist posted showing how people in six different countries allocated their time.
(Click on the graphic for a larger view.)Enter Andrew Gelman. After only a few minutes (well, hours actually), he took the original data, translated the hours from absolute to relative – above or below the mean – and created this chart . . .
(Click on the graphic for a larger view).The full post is here and includes a link to the R code for the chart.
* My students complained in class that my writing on the board was illegible. Montclair students rarely voice their displeasure to the instructor. They may grumble among themselves about their teachers, but that, however much they may grumble among themselves about their teachers,s usually as far as it goes. So when they spoke up in class, I knew things were seriously bad.
** Why Turkey, you may ask. I have no idea, and The Economist isn’t saying.
Easter Parade 2011
April 27, 2011
Posted by Jay Livingston
The public rituals of Easter are not about the Passion, just as most public Christmas rituals have little to do with the birth of Jesus. The song “Easter Parade” (written by the same Jew who wrote “White Christmas”) is all about hats and photographers. That was over a half-century ago. Some things don’t change.
(Click on a picture for a larger view.)
That creation on the right was not the only house hat, but that theme was not as common as bunnies or eggs . . .
or, especially, flowers.
The above scene is on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which celebrated its celebrated mass. Outside, things were much more secular (apparently, what happens in St. Patrick’s stays in St. Patrick’s).
Men too wore hats.
And some of the guys dressed up in fancy suits to pose for the photographers.
This woman had her arms tattooed to match her skirt.
I did see one religious message, but even that one added a somewhat post-Biblical context.
New York City does not do much officially for Easter. The police wear their traditional hats.
But in Rockefeller Plaza, you could get this view of 30 Rock.
I hope all readers of the Socioblog had a wonderful Easter.
Posted by Jay Livingston
The public rituals of Easter are not about the Passion, just as most public Christmas rituals have little to do with the birth of Jesus. The song “Easter Parade” (written by the same Jew who wrote “White Christmas”) is all about hats and photographers. That was over a half-century ago. Some things don’t change.
(Click on a picture for a larger view.) That creation on the right was not the only house hat, but that theme was not as common as bunnies or eggs . . .
or, especially, flowers.
The above scene is on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which celebrated its celebrated mass. Outside, things were much more secular (apparently, what happens in St. Patrick’s stays in St. Patrick’s).Men too wore hats.
And some of the guys dressed up in fancy suits to pose for the photographers.
This woman had her arms tattooed to match her skirt.
I did see one religious message, but even that one added a somewhat post-Biblical context.
New York City does not do much officially for Easter. The police wear their traditional hats.
But in Rockefeller Plaza, you could get this view of 30 Rock.
I hope all readers of the Socioblog had a wonderful Easter.
Compulsory Fun
April 24, 2011
Posted by Jay Livingston
“I don’t want a ‘fun’ beer,” said my father. (This was a long time ago.)
It took me a second, but I realized he was talking about the ad that had just been on the radio. I had mentally tuned out the commercial – background noise between innings in a ball game broadcast – and I was far too young to drink beer. But I knew the jingle (“ . . . blended into one beer / a light, bright, fun beer . . “). I had just never thought about the words. Now my father had pointed out their absurdity. What is a fun beer anyway? More to the cultural point, why must a beer be fun?
In last week’s New Yorker (April 18, here, gated), Yiyun Li has a short piece about her first months in the US as a graduate student in Iowa. What astonished her at first was the lighting -- every place was well lit, and Americans left lights on all the time. That and fun. “Be there or be square,” said the instructional voice on her four-cassette course in American English. The phrase did not turn out to be especially useful.
Fun is a newcomer in the house of American values. I doubt deToqueville had much to say about it. The Google Ngram chart shows fun rising steadily to mid-century, then declining briefly in the 1950s only to zoom in the 1980s.
(Click on the chart for a larger view)
The first academic mention I know of is Martha Wofenstein’s 1951“fun morality” article (in the context of the Ngram chart, it now seems unusually prescient).
Posted by Jay Livingston
“I don’t want a ‘fun’ beer,” said my father. (This was a long time ago.)
It took me a second, but I realized he was talking about the ad that had just been on the radio. I had mentally tuned out the commercial – background noise between innings in a ball game broadcast – and I was far too young to drink beer. But I knew the jingle (“ . . . blended into one beer / a light, bright, fun beer . . “). I had just never thought about the words. Now my father had pointed out their absurdity. What is a fun beer anyway? More to the cultural point, why must a beer be fun?
In last week’s New Yorker (April 18, here, gated), Yiyun Li has a short piece about her first months in the US as a graduate student in Iowa. What astonished her at first was the lighting -- every place was well lit, and Americans left lights on all the time. That and fun. “Be there or be square,” said the instructional voice on her four-cassette course in American English. The phrase did not turn out to be especially useful.
No one told me to “be there or be square,” but everyone I met, it seemed, expected me to have fun.Her science adviser (“Have fun”), the nurse she saw regularly because she had not passed the TB skin test (“Have a good time”), and a sorority mother who
asked repeatedly, “Did you have fun?” after I visited the sorority house and dined with her girls.Cultural help for foreign students also included a midnight to 3 a.m. ride-around in a police cruiser.
In parting, I said goodbye to the officer, and he wished me “a fun time in America.”Not all cultures think so highly of fun, and I don’t just mean dour dictatorships and theocracies. In France, for example, as people mature into their late teens and beyond, they are supposed to become sérieux. Those stereotypical left-bank students deep in philosophical discussions. But look at the pictures here on US students’ dorm-room doors and on the walls of their rooms and Facebook pages. The dominant value is fun. The snapshots, with their laughter and exuberance and ubiquitous red plastic cups, proclaim the ideal: we are wild and crazy guys.
Fun is a newcomer in the house of American values. I doubt deToqueville had much to say about it. The Google Ngram chart shows fun rising steadily to mid-century, then declining briefly in the 1950s only to zoom in the 1980s.
(Click on the chart for a larger view) The first academic mention I know of is Martha Wofenstein’s 1951“fun morality” article (in the context of the Ngram chart, it now seems unusually prescient).
A recent development in American culture is the emergence of what we may call “fun morality.” Here fun, from having been suspect if not taboo, has tended to become obligatory. Instead of feeling guilty for having too much fun, one is inclined to feel ashamed if one does not have enough.It often takes an outsider to see the obvious. I didn’t notice all those fun messages flowing in the media. But Martha Wolfenstein and my father did – they both had come of age in a pre-fun America. Then, forty-five years after Wolfenstein’s article, a Chinese girl arrives in the American heartland.
What a strange country, I thought, where fun, like good lighting, seemed mandatory.
Change Blindness II
April 22, 2011
Posted by Jay Livingston
As a sequel to yesterday’s post on change blindness, here’s a card trick by Richard Wiseman – magician, psychologist, and blogger. He’s the one on the left. And he stays that way. But watch the trick, and see how observant you are.
I quickly guessed (correctly) how the card trick was done, but just as I was thinking how clever I was not to have been fooled, the video pointed out my change blindness.
Posted by Jay Livingston
As a sequel to yesterday’s post on change blindness, here’s a card trick by Richard Wiseman – magician, psychologist, and blogger. He’s the one on the left. And he stays that way. But watch the trick, and see how observant you are.
I quickly guessed (correctly) how the card trick was done, but just as I was thinking how clever I was not to have been fooled, the video pointed out my change blindness.
Notice Anything Different?
April 21, 2011
Posted by Jay Livingston
It’s sitcom cliche – the man failing to notice that his wife or girlfriend is now blond instead of brunette or that the living room walls, once a pale gray, are now day-glo orange.
It may be a cliche, one bursting with gender stereotyping, but the phenomenon is real. It’s called “change blindness.” All it means is that we ignore aspects of the setting that aren’t important to us, so we don’t notice when they change. If we had to remember every little detail in every encounter and setting, we’d never get anything done. What’s surprising is how huge the changes can be yet still go unnoticed .
In a psychology experiment by Daniel Simons, subjects turn in their release form at a counter. The assistant behind the counter takes the form, ducks down behind the counter to get another piece of paper, and when he reappears a second later, he’s a different person.
Three-fourths of the subjects didn’t notice that the guy on the left had become the guy on the right. The voiceover on the video says that the differences between the men are “obvious.” “Their faces are different, their hair is different, even their shirts are a different color.”
But they are the same race, the same age, roughly the same height and build, and their shirts are the same Ivy-league uniform – pale, button-down, Oxford cloth. I’m impressed that 25% of the subjects did notice.
In Simons’s “door experiment,” one person asking directions is replaced by another.
Again, they don’t look so different (a video is here )
Outside of academia, Candid Camera style TV versions show just how far you can take this sort of thing. Derren Brown, a sort of British Penn Jillette, though much less abrasive, does a version of the door experiment with the transformations getting more and more exaggerated (video here, not embeddable). It ends with this – as different as Black and White.
And then there’s the Japanese version. The switcheroo is unmistakeable, nor is there any attempt at misdirection by focusing the person’s attention on a map. The victims of the prank are asked to point the camera directly at the two young girls, who then become two old men So people do notice. But to befuddle them further, the experimenters add a gaffed Polaroid camera.
The victims are confused, obviously. But if you didn’t reveal the gag and you asked them a few days later what they remembered of it, would they adjust their memories to make the events consistent with the law of conservation of reality?:Does change blindness go both forwards and backwards in time? Is the impulse towards retrospective interpretation strong enough to overcome such a huge difference?
Then there’s the question crucial for the issue of eyewitness testimony: would they forget the most important detail – the car?
Posted by Jay Livingston
It’s sitcom cliche – the man failing to notice that his wife or girlfriend is now blond instead of brunette or that the living room walls, once a pale gray, are now day-glo orange.
It may be a cliche, one bursting with gender stereotyping, but the phenomenon is real. It’s called “change blindness.” All it means is that we ignore aspects of the setting that aren’t important to us, so we don’t notice when they change. If we had to remember every little detail in every encounter and setting, we’d never get anything done. What’s surprising is how huge the changes can be yet still go unnoticed .
In a psychology experiment by Daniel Simons, subjects turn in their release form at a counter. The assistant behind the counter takes the form, ducks down behind the counter to get another piece of paper, and when he reappears a second later, he’s a different person.
Three-fourths of the subjects didn’t notice that the guy on the left had become the guy on the right. The voiceover on the video says that the differences between the men are “obvious.” “Their faces are different, their hair is different, even their shirts are a different color.”
But they are the same race, the same age, roughly the same height and build, and their shirts are the same Ivy-league uniform – pale, button-down, Oxford cloth. I’m impressed that 25% of the subjects did notice.
In Simons’s “door experiment,” one person asking directions is replaced by another.
Again, they don’t look so different (a video is here )Outside of academia, Candid Camera style TV versions show just how far you can take this sort of thing. Derren Brown, a sort of British Penn Jillette, though much less abrasive, does a version of the door experiment with the transformations getting more and more exaggerated (video here, not embeddable). It ends with this – as different as Black and White.
And then there’s the Japanese version. The switcheroo is unmistakeable, nor is there any attempt at misdirection by focusing the person’s attention on a map. The victims of the prank are asked to point the camera directly at the two young girls, who then become two old men So people do notice. But to befuddle them further, the experimenters add a gaffed Polaroid camera.The victims are confused, obviously. But if you didn’t reveal the gag and you asked them a few days later what they remembered of it, would they adjust their memories to make the events consistent with the law of conservation of reality?:Does change blindness go both forwards and backwards in time? Is the impulse towards retrospective interpretation strong enough to overcome such a huge difference?
Then there’s the question crucial for the issue of eyewitness testimony: would they forget the most important detail – the car?
Overcoming Social Desirability Bias – He’s Got a Little List
April 19, 2011
Posted by Jay Livingston
As some day it may happen that a survey must be done, you need a little list, a quick five-item list – for sex or race or crime or things quite non-PC but fun, where pollsters all have missed, despite what they insist. There’s the guy who says he’d vote for blacks if they are qualified; he’d vote for women too, but are we sure he hasn’t lied? “How many partners have you had?” Or “Did you ever stray?” With things like this you can’t always believe what people say. You tell them it’s anonymous, but still their doubts persist, and so your methodology can use this little twist.
It’s called the List Experiment (also the Unmatched Count Technique). It’s been around for a few years, though I confess I wasn’t aware of it until I came across this recent Monkey Cage post by John Sides that linked to another post from the presidential year of 2008. Most surveys then were finding that fewer than 10% of the electorate were unwilling to vote for a woman (Hillary was not mentioned by name). But skeptical researchers (Matthew Streb et al., here gated), instead of asking the question directly, split the sample in half. They asked one half
The technique reminds me of a mentalist act: “Look at this list, sir, and while my back is turned tell me how many of those things you have done. Don’t tell me which ones, just the total number. Now I want you to concentrate very hard . . . .” But I can certainly see its usefulness as a way to check for social desirability bias.
Posted by Jay Livingston
As some day it may happen that a survey must be done, you need a little list, a quick five-item list – for sex or race or crime or things quite non-PC but fun, where pollsters all have missed, despite what they insist. There’s the guy who says he’d vote for blacks if they are qualified; he’d vote for women too, but are we sure he hasn’t lied? “How many partners have you had?” Or “Did you ever stray?” With things like this you can’t always believe what people say. You tell them it’s anonymous, but still their doubts persist, and so your methodology can use this little twist.
It’s called the List Experiment (also the Unmatched Count Technique). It’s been around for a few years, though I confess I wasn’t aware of it until I came across this recent Monkey Cage post by John Sides that linked to another post from the presidential year of 2008. Most surveys then were finding that fewer than 10% of the electorate were unwilling to vote for a woman (Hillary was not mentioned by name). But skeptical researchers (Matthew Streb et al., here gated), instead of asking the question directly, split the sample in half. They asked one half
How many of the following things make you angry or upset?Respondents were told not to say which ones pissed them off, merely how many. Researchers calculated the average number of items people found irritating. The second half got the same list but with one addition:
- The way gasoline prices keep going up.
- Professional athletes getting million dollar-plus salaries.
- Requiring seat belts to be used when driving.
- Large corporations polluting the environment.
If the other surveys are correct, adding this one item should increase the mean by no more than 10%. As it turned out, 26% of the electorate would be upset or angry about a woman president, considerably more than the 6% in the GSS sample who said they wouldn’t vote for a woman.
- A woman serving as president.
The technique reminds me of a mentalist act: “Look at this list, sir, and while my back is turned tell me how many of those things you have done. Don’t tell me which ones, just the total number. Now I want you to concentrate very hard . . . .” But I can certainly see its usefulness as a way to check for social desirability bias.
Iyengar Management
April 14, 2011
Posted by Jay Livingston
I think it came up in a discussion of culture and the observation that American culture generally values rationalism over traditionalism.* I was reminded of this anecdote that Sheena Iyengar tells in her TED talk (it’s also in her recent book The Art of Choosing).
That in turn reminded me of the famous** diner scene from “Five Easy Pieces.” The conflict is similar – individual goals in conflict with rules, though in this case the rules are bureaucratic regulations rather that cultural norms.
These clips relate to other issues besides culture and bureaucracy – social class comes quickly to mind – but also occupational roles , the self and presentation of self, and of course, conflict resolution (I can’t imagine Prof. Iyengar sweeping the crockery off the table).
-------------
* From Robin Williams (no, not that Robin Williams, not the one of “Mrs. Doubtfire” and “Flubber”) American Society, first published sixty years ago.
** Or maybe not so famous. None of my students had heard of it (the movie was made twenty years before they were born). They did, however, recognize a very young Jack Nicholson.
Posted by Jay Livingston
I think it came up in a discussion of culture and the observation that American culture generally values rationalism over traditionalism.* I was reminded of this anecdote that Sheena Iyengar tells in her TED talk (it’s also in her recent book The Art of Choosing).
That in turn reminded me of the famous** diner scene from “Five Easy Pieces.” The conflict is similar – individual goals in conflict with rules, though in this case the rules are bureaucratic regulations rather that cultural norms.
These clips relate to other issues besides culture and bureaucracy – social class comes quickly to mind – but also occupational roles , the self and presentation of self, and of course, conflict resolution (I can’t imagine Prof. Iyengar sweeping the crockery off the table).
-------------
* From Robin Williams (no, not that Robin Williams, not the one of “Mrs. Doubtfire” and “Flubber”) American Society, first published sixty years ago.
** Or maybe not so famous. None of my students had heard of it (the movie was made twenty years before they were born). They did, however, recognize a very young Jack Nicholson.
AKD 2011
April 13, 2011
Posted by Jay Livingston
Montclair had its annual AKD induction ceremony a week ago. This year, fourteen students joined – a good number, especially considering that this year we raised the minimum GPA.
(Click on the photo for a larger view.)
From left to right:
You can get more of Peter’s take on all this in his book, or at his Website.
Posted by Jay Livingston
Montclair had its annual AKD induction ceremony a week ago. This year, fourteen students joined – a good number, especially considering that this year we raised the minimum GPA.
(Click on the photo for a larger view.)From left to right:
- Malgorzata Slusarek
- Courtney Artz
- Lisa M. Applegate
- Jesenia Rivera
- Irina Gavdanovich
- Anthony DeLello
- David Stever
- Lauren Breem
- Concetta Cardellicchio
- Staycee Marshall
- Seth Mendez
- Cassandra Moran
- Jenna Pariso
- Gabrielle Walker
You can get more of Peter’s take on all this in his book, or at his Website.
What’s Wrong With (Percentages in) Mississippi
April 10, 2011
Posted by Jay Livingston
A Public Policy Polling survey asked Mississippi Republicans about their opinion on interracial marriage. It also asked how they felt about various politicians. The report concludes, “Tells you something about the kinds of folks who like each of those candidates.”
Not quite.
What’s been getting the most attention is the finding that Mississippi Republicans think interracial marriage should be illegal. Not all Mississippi Republicans. Just 46% of them (40% think it should be legal).* Does their position on intermarriage tell us anything about who they might like as a candidate? Does a Klaxon wear a sheet?
(Click on the chart for a larger view.)
It’s no surprise that Sarah Palin is much preferred to Romney. But as PPP points out racial attitudes figure differently depending on the candidate. When you go from racists to nonracists,** Palin’s favorable/unfavorable ratio takes a hit. But Romney’s gets a boost.
But does this tells us something about “the kinds of folks who like each of those candidates”? The trouble is that statement is percentaging on the dependent variable, implicitly comparing Romney supporters with Palin supporters. But the percentages actually given by PPP compare racists with nonracists** The statement is implying that candidate preferences tell us about racial attitudes. But what the data show is that racial attitudes tell us about candidate preferences. The two are not the same. From the data PPP gives, we don’t actually know what percent of Palin supporters favor laws against intermarriage. Ditto for Romney supporters.
In any case, neither Palin nor Romney is the top choice of Mississippi Republicans (especially the racists), who may be thinking racially but are acting locally and going with their own governor first and the former governor of neighboring Arkansas second.
* The sample was only 400. But the results aren’t too different from what the GSS has found. The most recent GSS I could find that included RACMAR was from 2002. In the “East South Central” region, the percent favoring laws against interracial marriage was 36%. So among Republicans, it might have been ten points higher.
**I realize that neither of these terms “racist” and “nonracist” is necessarily accurate. I use them as shorthand for, respectively, “people who think interracial marriage should be illegal” and “people who think interracial marriage should be legal.”
Posted by Jay Livingston
A Public Policy Polling survey asked Mississippi Republicans about their opinion on interracial marriage. It also asked how they felt about various politicians. The report concludes, “Tells you something about the kinds of folks who like each of those candidates.”
Not quite.
What’s been getting the most attention is the finding that Mississippi Republicans think interracial marriage should be illegal. Not all Mississippi Republicans. Just 46% of them (40% think it should be legal).* Does their position on intermarriage tell us anything about who they might like as a candidate? Does a Klaxon wear a sheet?
(Click on the chart for a larger view.)It’s no surprise that Sarah Palin is much preferred to Romney. But as PPP points out racial attitudes figure differently depending on the candidate. When you go from racists to nonracists,** Palin’s favorable/unfavorable ratio takes a hit. But Romney’s gets a boost.
But does this tells us something about “the kinds of folks who like each of those candidates”? The trouble is that statement is percentaging on the dependent variable, implicitly comparing Romney supporters with Palin supporters. But the percentages actually given by PPP compare racists with nonracists** The statement is implying that candidate preferences tell us about racial attitudes. But what the data show is that racial attitudes tell us about candidate preferences. The two are not the same. From the data PPP gives, we don’t actually know what percent of Palin supporters favor laws against intermarriage. Ditto for Romney supporters.
In any case, neither Palin nor Romney is the top choice of Mississippi Republicans (especially the racists), who may be thinking racially but are acting locally and going with their own governor first and the former governor of neighboring Arkansas second.
* The sample was only 400. But the results aren’t too different from what the GSS has found. The most recent GSS I could find that included RACMAR was from 2002. In the “East South Central” region, the percent favoring laws against interracial marriage was 36%. So among Republicans, it might have been ten points higher.
**I realize that neither of these terms “racist” and “nonracist” is necessarily accurate. I use them as shorthand for, respectively, “people who think interracial marriage should be illegal” and “people who think interracial marriage should be legal.”
Stamp of Approval?
April 8, 2011
Posted by Jay Livingston
Stamps allow you to learn all about the world. That’s the sort of thing I used to hear as a kid, usually from grown-ups encouraging kids to get involved in a hobby, like stamp collecting.
Here’s the Royal Wedding commemorative stamp thatNew Zealand Niue issued. It’s worth 5.80 NZ dollars, but conveniently, if your letter requires less postage, you can tear the stamp on the perforation.
It reminds me of those photos (from the pre-Photoshop era) of now-divorced couples, the photo torn in half to remove a husband or wife. The New Zealand Niue stamp is like a pre-nup – we’re not saying you’re going to split up, but in case you do, this will make thing easier.
There’s a second problem, one pointed out by many others (including The Equality Myth, which is where I found this thanks to a link by Philip Cohen): Prince William is worth 3.40, Kate is worth only 2.40.
Those grown-ups of my childhood – maybe they were right. Stamps can tell you something about real world.
Posted by Jay Livingston
Stamps allow you to learn all about the world. That’s the sort of thing I used to hear as a kid, usually from grown-ups encouraging kids to get involved in a hobby, like stamp collecting.
Here’s the Royal Wedding commemorative stamp that
It reminds me of those photos (from the pre-Photoshop era) of now-divorced couples, the photo torn in half to remove a husband or wife. The 
There’s a second problem, one pointed out by many others (including The Equality Myth, which is where I found this thanks to a link by Philip Cohen): Prince William is worth 3.40, Kate is worth only 2.40.
Those grown-ups of my childhood – maybe they were right. Stamps can tell you something about real world.
Academic Discplines and Labeling
April 8, 2011
Posted by Jay Livingston
In a post on the teaching of economics in the US, Brad deLong drops this aperçu
Posted by Jay Livingston
In a post on the teaching of economics in the US, Brad deLong drops this aperçu
Warning labels should inform right-wing students that economics will encourage their bad intellectual habits just as labels should inform left-wing students that sociology will encourage theirs.(Sociology faculty and students probably thought this was going to be about that other kind of labeling, an assumption that maybe illustrates Brad’s point.)
Undeserving
April 6, 2011
Posted by Jay Livingston
Jenn Lena blogs something a relative sent her, with a picture of some dogs.
A day or two earlier, I came across this in the blog of Scott Sumner, who is, inTyler Cowen’s words, a “very smart monetary economist.” He knows the difference between a possessive and a plural, and I’m sure he has sophisticated economic theories and models that justify all his policy preferences. But read his gut reasons for mistrusting the Democrats on Social Security.
* This is a reference to the famous Stanford “marshmallow experiment,” where four-year-olds were given a marshmallow but were told that if they didn’t eat the marshmallow now, they could have two marshmallows later.
**I wonder how these people react to Rep. Ryan’s recent proposal, which does the reverse Robin Hood thing of shrinking programs for the poor and giving tax breaks the rich. Two-thirds of his proposed budget cuts hit programs for the poor (details here). At the same time, he would lower the income tax for millionaires from 35% to 25%. The former is for the noble purpose of saving the economy by reducing the deficit. I’m not sure how the latter helps in this regard, but I’m sure Rep. Ryan has some noble purpose in mind.
Posted by Jay Livingston
Jenn Lena blogs something a relative sent her, with a picture of some dogs.
This morning I went to sign my dogs up for welfare. At first the lady said, “Dogs are not eligible to draw welfare.” So I explained to her that my dogs are mixed in color, unemployed, lazy, can’t speak English and have no frigging clue who their Daddy’s are. They expect me to feed them, provide them with housing and medical care. So she looked in her policy book to see what it takes to qualify. My dogs get their first checks on Friday.The relative’s ignorance extends far beyond not knowing how to form plurals in written English, and Jenn provides, point by point, actual evidence that refutes the assumptions behind this supposed satire.
Damn, this is a great country! [emphasis in original]
A day or two earlier, I came across this in the blog of Scott Sumner, who is, inTyler Cowen’s words, a “very smart monetary economist.” He knows the difference between a possessive and a plural, and I’m sure he has sophisticated economic theories and models that justify all his policy preferences. But read his gut reasons for mistrusting the Democrats on Social Security.
Here’s why I don’t trust the Dems—I see them as the party of one marshmallow eaters.* They represent people who have less self-control. I fear they will cut my benefits, but not cut the benefits of people who didn’t save for retirement. . . . .Sumner is talking here not about the poor but about middle income (or somewhat higher) people who spent rather than saved. Still, the same moral sentiment underlies much opposition to policies designed to reduce inequality: they take from prudent ants and give to profligate grasshoppers.** The tone is different from the dogs-as-poor-people bit of hilarity. But it’s the same song, just played in a different key.
In my view there is nothing egalitarian about redistributing income from two marshmallow eaters to one marshmallow eaters. They’ve already had their fun when young, loading up their three car garages with all sorts of fun toys. I’ve never even had a garage. (full text here )
* This is a reference to the famous Stanford “marshmallow experiment,” where four-year-olds were given a marshmallow but were told that if they didn’t eat the marshmallow now, they could have two marshmallows later.
**I wonder how these people react to Rep. Ryan’s recent proposal, which does the reverse Robin Hood thing of shrinking programs for the poor and giving tax breaks the rich. Two-thirds of his proposed budget cuts hit programs for the poor (details here). At the same time, he would lower the income tax for millionaires from 35% to 25%. The former is for the noble purpose of saving the economy by reducing the deficit. I’m not sure how the latter helps in this regard, but I’m sure Rep. Ryan has some noble purpose in mind.
Obviously
April 4, 2011
Posted by Jay Livingston
We sociologists don’t get much respect.
Duncan Watts, in a Scientific American Q & A, describes how other people’s perceptions of him changed when he left physics/math and got into sociology – good-bye Einstein, hello Rodney Dangerfield:
Posted by Jay Livingston
We sociologists don’t get much respect.
Duncan Watts, in a Scientific American Q & A, describes how other people’s perceptions of him changed when he left physics/math and got into sociology – good-bye Einstein, hello Rodney Dangerfield:
I started out life in physics and then mathematics, and at some point I switched over to become a sociologist—and in the process of transitioning, I noticed this interesting phenomenon: When people perceived me as a mathematician, and I would describe my research, they would say, "Wow, that's really fascinating. How do you figure these things out? It's complicated and difficult." But when a few years later I was describing the same work in terms of social phenomena and the behavior of people, fads and historical events, success and failure, and so on, people would say, "That sounds kind of obvious. Don’t we all know that?"It’s probably because we study people. Everybody has a working theory– probably several theories – about why people do what they do. Those ideas are dime a dozen. Ah, but scientists . . .
When someone tries to explain to us how electrons behave, we think it’s amazing and completely unintuitive, but when we explain how people behave, it always seems trivial.I’m not familiar with Watts’s work. Sight unseen I’m fairly sure I don’t have the math chops to handle much of it (the library call number prefixes on his earlier books are QA, not HM). It’s about social influence and networks – he takes issue with some of the “tipping point” and “small world” models. I might have better luck with his new book (published, less dauntingly, by Crown Business), Everything Is Obvious:* *Once You Know the Answer
Names -- Traditional or Trendy
April 4, 2011
Posted by Jay Livingston
I suspect the recent upsurge in Old Testament names for boys expresses not so much a religious sentiment as it does a desire to be different but not too different. This trend towards trendiness and away from tradition isn’t just an American thing. It’s also true in France, where parents have had a free choice of names for less than 20 years. Before that, there was a government-approved list parents had to choose from.
The government still offers new arrivals some advice on names. Bapiste Coulmont links to a list of “French” names the government recommends to immigrants who want to become French – a process called “francisation.”* The list has about 400 names that are “French or currently used in France.”
But the French themselves don’t seem to have much use for that list. When I checked the most popular names that actual French parents were giving their newborns (the most recent year I could get was 2006), for both boys and girls, three of the top ten names were not on the list of “French” names.
From what I understand, other unlisted names – Margaux, Apolline, and Victoria – have since climbed into France’s top ten.
Japan too. Several decades ago, when I was in Japan, nearly all girls’ names ended in either ko (子), a few in mi (美) or e (江). Now none of the popular girls’ names have these endings.
The trend isn’t universal. In Italy, all the top names are traditionally Italian.** Joseph and Mary (Giuseppe and Maria) top the list.
* The counterpart of Americanization. When the movie “The Americanization of Emily” was released in 1964, that name wasn’t even in the top 250, but the title was prescient. Thirty-two years later, Emily had climbed to #1, and she held that spot for over a decade.
** Italy has no list of approved names. But the law does allow a civil official to “advise and dissuade overly-creative parents” who propose names that are “ridiculous, shameful, or embarrassing.” (A newspaper article on this is here.) In the US, you can name your daughter Brooklyn no questions asked. But in Italy, tying to name your kid Testaccio might not go so smoothly.
Posted by Jay Livingston
I suspect the recent upsurge in Old Testament names for boys expresses not so much a religious sentiment as it does a desire to be different but not too different. This trend towards trendiness and away from tradition isn’t just an American thing. It’s also true in France, where parents have had a free choice of names for less than 20 years. Before that, there was a government-approved list parents had to choose from.
The government still offers new arrivals some advice on names. Bapiste Coulmont links to a list of “French” names the government recommends to immigrants who want to become French – a process called “francisation.”* The list has about 400 names that are “French or currently used in France.”
But the French themselves don’t seem to have much use for that list. When I checked the most popular names that actual French parents were giving their newborns (the most recent year I could get was 2006), for both boys and girls, three of the top ten names were not on the list of “French” names.
| Enzo (1) | Ines (7) |
| Nathan (4) | Jade (9) |
| Tom (8) | Lola (10) |
From what I understand, other unlisted names – Margaux, Apolline, and Victoria – have since climbed into France’s top ten.
Japan too. Several decades ago, when I was in Japan, nearly all girls’ names ended in either ko (子), a few in mi (美) or e (江). Now none of the popular girls’ names have these endings.
The trend isn’t universal. In Italy, all the top names are traditionally Italian.** Joseph and Mary (Giuseppe and Maria) top the list.
* The counterpart of Americanization. When the movie “The Americanization of Emily” was released in 1964, that name wasn’t even in the top 250, but the title was prescient. Thirty-two years later, Emily had climbed to #1, and she held that spot for over a decade.
** Italy has no list of approved names. But the law does allow a civil official to “advise and dissuade overly-creative parents” who propose names that are “ridiculous, shameful, or embarrassing.” (A newspaper article on this is here.) In the US, you can name your daughter Brooklyn no questions asked. But in Italy, tying to name your kid Testaccio might not go so smoothly.
Defectors
April 1, 2011
Posted by Jay Livingston
After putting up the previous post, I wondered if maybe there actually had been some Moussa Koussa jokes. So I check Andy Borowitz’s tweets. Borowitz is a funny guy (one of today’s tweets:
In fact, he did have some Koussa tweets, but they were mostly jokes about the name, not the man. For example,
Posted by Jay Livingston
After putting up the previous post, I wondered if maybe there actually had been some Moussa Koussa jokes. So I check Andy Borowitz’s tweets. Borowitz is a funny guy (one of today’s tweets:
“What does Fox News do on April Fool's Day?” is a question akin to “What do slutty nurses do on Halloween?”
Gaddafi Replaces Moussa Koussa with New Foreign Minister, Banana FannaNow, here’s the sociological connection. Andy Borowitz was a sociology researcher. Well, not quite. But he appears in the initial footnote of a classic article, Wendy Griswold’s “American Character and the American Novel” (AJS 1981).
The indefatigable research team consisted of Andy Borowitz . . . .Clearly, Borowitz coulda been a contender. Instead, he turned his back on sociological research (maybe he wasn’t all that indefatigable after all) and went with comedy. I guess it was a choice between sending out reprints or cashing in residuals. In Hollywood, he created “Fresh Prince,” which ran for six seasons and is probably still being recycled today somewhere on cable.
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