The spring semester was tough but CDS is again open for (virtual) business and we had our first CDS Brownbag meeting via Zoom today. It was great to welcome our new MSc students and introduce them to the group!
This semester we will cover topics on data visualization and statistical rethinking in our journal club and already have a number of talks and papers lined up from CDS members. We’ll make our schedule available asap.
I’m looking forward to a productive semester!
Nature is celebrating the recent 40th birthday of meta-analysis by publishing a review on this method (see below for title/abstract/reference). Perhaps this is interesting to those students learning about evidence-based decision making this semester…
Meta-analysis is the quantitative, scientific synthesis of research results. Since the term and modern approaches to research synthesis were first introduced in the 1970s, meta-analysis has had a revolutionary effect in many scientific fields, helping to establish evidence-based practice and to resolve seemingly contradictory research outcomes. At the same time, its implementation has engendered criticism and controversy, in some cases general and others specific to particular disciplines. Here we take the opportunity provided by the recent fortieth anniversary of meta-analysis to reflect on the accomplishments, limitations, recent advances and directions for future developments in the field of research synthesis.
Any student of psychology should be familiar with Darwin and evolutionary theory – that’s why my History of Psychology students have to suffer through a couple of hours of Darwin and evolution each semester!
For this year’s lecture, I read two books that I can highly recommend, a biography by Desmond and Moore and Darwin’s autobiography.
Darwin started his work on natural selection shortly after his Beagle voyage but it took him 20 years to actually publish his ideas. Desmond and Moore aim to explain this by portraying Darwin as a “closet evolutionist” that is torn between science and religion (in particular the philosophical/religious implications of evolution). According to Desmond and Moore, Darwin is conflicted and anxious, fearful of loosing his standing in his Anglican conservative society, and hurting his deeply religious wife. The two books also make clear how Darwin’s “discovery” of natural selection is not the product of the work of an isolated genius but, rather, a good example of how (some?) scientific hypotheses emerge from a given social and historical context – Darwin himself points out how Malthusian ideas about scarcity and competition (that pervaded the political discourse of the time), the concept of long periods of time having shaped the geological record (advocated by Charles Lyell), and the accumulation of facts concerning variation and similarities between species, combined to help him think up natural selection.
Above all, the two books help put a human face to Darwin and it’s good fun to learn about Darwin as a boy and young man, chiefly interested in hunting and poetry, rather than more serious pursuits; so much so, that his father wagered the following rather poor forecast: “You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family.”
I conducted a short survey of students registered for the lecture History of Psychology (N = 112). The results look very similar to those from 2015. In particular, Freud again makes it to the top of the list of best-known psychologists (students were asked to name up to 10 eminent psychologists; I show below the proportion of students that list each name that was mentioned at least twice). Sadly, not many experimental psychologists, including, Wundt, make it to this list! There’s some work to be done…
Can concepts such as self-organisation, participatory leadership, and transparency contribute to making workers both happier and more productive? AUGENHÖHE is an independent movie that raises this question by portraying the experience of workers in companies that have implemented such concepts. All companies portrayed are “revolutionary” in their attempt to put workers and the institution/management on an equal footing. You can see the trailer below.
AUGENHÖHE – OFFICIAL TRAILER from AUGENHÖHEworks on Vimeo.
Markus Schoebel and I have been encouraging some of our students to explore similar ideas in the context of their masters’ theses on the topic of job crafting and aging. Specifically, students have and will be trying to understand how older workers’ opportunities, motivation, and ability to actively change their tasks and interactions with co-workers can produce important consequences for their well-being and, ultimately, productivity. We’re looking forward to seeing what our students will find out this semester!
Phillip Tetlock and Dan Gardner have a new book out – Superforecasting. The book gives an entertaining overview of Tetlock’s work on forecasting, including a large scale forecasting tournament – the good judgment project – in which over 2800 laypeople were asked (across years) to make real-world predictions, such as “will any country withdraw from the Euro zone in the next 3 months?”. I found it particularly interesting that Tetlock and Gardner pitch these efforts as an attempt to introduce evidence-based decision making to policy, in a similar vein as evidence-based practices have taken hold in medicine and sports.
For those University of Basel students interested in the topic, there will be a seminar on forecasting taught by Renato Frey next semester.
Die Zukunft geht mit Unsicherheit einher – deshalb interessieren sich Menschen brennend für die verschiedensten Vorhersagen: Welchen Krankheitsverlauf prognostiziert ein medizinisches Testresultat? Wird eine Finanzkrise eintreten oder nicht? Nicht selten werden wir auch selbst zu „Propheten”, wie zum Beispiel wenn es darum geht, den nächsten Fussballweltmeister vorherzusagen. Vorhersagen sind allerdings nicht nur faszinierend, sondern oft auch komplex und schwierig. Auf welchen Informationen sollten unsere Vorhersagen im Idealfall basieren, und auf welchen Informationen basieren sie tatsächlich? Wie gut sind die Vorhersagen von Menschen vs. Maschinen? In diesem Seminar behandeln wir die Grundprinzipien und die Psychologie von erfolgreichem Vorhersagen und untersuchen insbesondere, wie gut diverse Vorhersagetechniken unter verschiedenen Bedingungen funktionieren.
Tuesday, 10.15-11.45 Missionsstrasse 64a (ehem. Nebenhaus). Link to Vorlesungsverzeichnis.
Einen ganzen Vormittag lang sendete Radio X am 12. September 2015 live vom Flohmarkt auf dem Petersplatz zum Thema “Isch weniger meh? Grossi Froge zum Ressouceverbruch”. Es ging um Suffizienz, also darum, wie man sein Verhalten verändern kann, um Energie- und Ressourcen zu schonen.
Eine Gruppe von Psychologie-Studentinnen der Uni Basel hat diese Radio-Sendung im Rahmen des Seminars “Psychologie im Dienste der Nachhaltigkeit” mitgestaltet. Wer die Studentinnen sind und was sie genau gemacht haben, erfahrt ihr hier. Und hier findet ihr noch mehr Infos und Bilder zur Sendung sowie Ausschnitte zum Nachhören.
It is a bit ironic that one of the first overviews of the history of psychology was written by someone named Boring (Ewdin Boring; A history of experimental psychology, 1929). But do students today really think history is dull?
I conducted a short survey of 1st semester Psychology students (n = 109) to gauge their interest and knowledge of Psychology before the beginning of their studies. Specifically, I asked them to rate how much they agreed with different statements such as “I am looking forward to learning about the history of psychology” or “I find history boring”. As you can see below, with few exceptions, students seem quite eager to learn about the history of our field.
I also asked students to name up to 10 eminent psychologists (dead or alive!). The vast majority of students named fewer than 10 (average of about 5) and the list includes the usual suspects, such a Freud, Jung, Pavlov, or Piaget. One eminent researcher in the area of the decision sciences, the Nobel laureate, Daniel Kahneman, also makes it to the list, as do a number of social psychologists, such as Stanley Milgram. Overall, these are good news but I’m hoping this semester I can still improve the fluency with which 1st year psychology students can name eminent psychologists!
The “Fachgruppe Psychologie” organizes two movie nights this semester and welcomes all interested. One of the movies will be introduced from a social psychological perspective. Please register in advance, see flyer.
I will be teaching a lecture on the History of Psychology this semester so I’ve been reading up on the topic. One book I found really interesting and yet concise was Ludy Benjamin’s “A brief history of modern psychology.”
One aspect about the history of our field that is nicely captured in the book concerns the tension between the purists, that would like to see psychology tackle scientific questions without regard for application, and the transformers, that see psychology as an instrument for changing the world (mostly for the better!). It was quite interesting to see that this discussion has raged since the beginning of the field and in many ways, from discussions in the published literature, to the ebb and flow of major professional organisations, such as the American Psychological Association (APA). For example, it took over 50 years since the formation of APA (in 1892) to change the charter from “The American Psychological Association shall exist to advance psychology as a science” to (in 1945) “The American Psychological Association shall exist to advance psychology as a science, as a profession, and as a means of promoting human welfare” (emphasis added). However, this emphasis on applied work has partly been responsible for splits from APA and formation of new societies such as the Psychonomic Society (1959) and the Association for Psychological Science (1988). Let’s see what the next 50 years bring…
Leading a healthy life is on everyone’s agenda. But is there a role for the decision sciences in achieving this goal? One interesting approach concerns the use of choice architecture principles or nudging to guide individual choices. The main idea is to design choice situations such that individuals are more likely to make personally or socially desirable choices without limiting their freedom of choice.
There are many societal problems that could profit from the choice architecture approach and the concept seems to get traction in Switzerland. For example, a recent NZZ piece gives a few examples of studies that have redesigned cafeterias to improve children’s food choices and suggests that these strategies could be applied here. A recent report on health in Switzerland from the Swiss Health Observatory suggests that such measures may be sorely needed. The prevalence of non-communicable diseases (e.g., diabetes, heart disease, obesity), also sometimes called lifestyle diseases, is on the rise: The proportion of overweight 16- to 24-year-olds has doubled in the last 20 years, from 11% to 24% in males (8% to 14% in females).
Bettina von Helversen here in Basel is contributing to make the use of choice architecture a reality by offering a seminar that could be interesting for those interested in applying such methods to real-world problems. Here’s a link and description of the seminar:
Nudges: Verhalten beeinflussen ohne die Wahlfreiheit einzuschränken
Policymaker für Firmen oder die Regierung versuchen die Entscheidungen von Menschen zu beinflussen. Eine Möglichkeit sind sogenannte Nudges: Veränderungen der Umwelt oder der Aufgabenstruktur, die das Verhalten verändern, ohne dass es explizite Instruktionen oder Verbote gibt und ohne dass die Walhfreiheit eingeschränkt wird. Zum Beispiel zeigt eine Studie, dass Pfeile, die den Weg zu der nächsten Mülltonne markieren, reduzieren wie viele Abfall auf die Strasse geworfen wird. Das Ziel des Seminars ist zu untersuchen wie Nudging funktioniert und welche Mechanismen den verschiedenen Nudges zugrunde liegen.