Example 1: Religious folks say “Divorce is a sin. It’s not part of god’s plan.” etc. Then, when someone gets divorced, they are criticized, judged and/or shunned. This contributes to kids from divorced families not doing as well. These data are then used as proof that “god’s plan” is best. Example 2: Teens are told [...]
Archive for August, 2011
Sin is bad: self-fulfilling proofs
Posted in behavior, rationality, cognitive biases, religion, science on August 19, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Robustness of subjective well being is simultaneously beneficial and harmful
Posted in behavior, rationality, cognitive biases, science, tagged happiness on August 14, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Some research suggests that people are happier when they have fewer choices (less opportunity for second guessing and regret). For example, see these TED talks. I think what happens is that whatever it is that we cannot change about our circumstances gets internalized (perhaps subconsciously — see anterograde amnesia paintings experiment) and sets the baseline. [...]
Heritability
Posted in behavior, rationality, science, statistics, tagged heritability, twin studies on August 2, 2011 | 4 Comments »
“Heritability is the proportion of phenotypic variation in a population that is due to genetic variation between individuals.” -wikipedia Not all genetic variation is inherited. We used to think that essentially genotype=phenotype (i.e., having a gene meant you had whatever trait goes along with it). But now we know that all kinds of more complicated [...]
