Author: Lloyd Morgan
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Statistical Literacy Guides
I am suitably impressed by the clarity and breadth of the House of Commons Library’s statistical literacy guide on How to spot spin and inappropriate use of statistics (pdf, via @TimHarford). A quick dig around the archives revealed a full series of statistical literacy guides (all pdf), all of which are fantastically readable, accessible and comprehensive. These…
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The Evidence on Breastfeeding
In an article the Royal Statistical Society announced as the runner-up in their annual Awards for Statistical Excellence in Journalism, Helen Rumbelow thoroughly investigates the well-debated subject of breastfeeding. The conclusion of the piece is that much of the evidence in support of breastfeeding is massively misrepresented or inherently flawed. “The evidence to date suggests…
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Immigration Makes Cities Safer
Cities with large immigrant populations are some of the safest places to live, suggest the data and studies, especially those where the police “know how to work with [immigrants], not against them“. The studies in question–including one extensive study by the FBI–go on to suggest reasons why immigrants reduce a city’s crime: This is not just…
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The Presence of Books and Children’s Intelligence
The number of books in your household has more of an effect on your child’s academic achievements than your education or income, a recently published study (pdf) has found. Suggesting that the effects seem to be far from trivial, the conclusion indicates that simply the presence of books in their house can make children more…
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Innovation and the ‘Creation’ of Time
I make no secret of being a huge fan of Matt Ridley’s body of work, and his latest addition to this, The Rational Optimist, seems like a welcome addition. A wonderful summary of the book’s main theme–that innovation and the spreading of theories and ideas is the key to a prosperous future and we should…
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Anchoring Our Beliefs
The psychological principle of anchoring is most commonly discussed in terms of our irrational decision making when purchasing items. However, Jonah Lehrer stresses that anchoring is more wide-ranging than this and is in fact “a fundamental flaw of human decision making”. As such, Lehrer believes that anchoring also effects our beliefs, such that our first…
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Predicting Our Behaviour
Other people are far superior than us at predicting our behaviour as their predictions are based primarily on observation and are not tainted by our psychological narrative. After reading Timothy Wilson’s Strangers to Ourselves, Nick Southgate–faculty member at London’s The School of Life–discusses this idea that our friends and acquaintances are better than us at predicting our…
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Conformity and Its Influences
There are ten “timeless influencers” of conformity, suggests the literature on the topic, and by understanding what these influences are–and how to use and counteract them–we are provided with some insight into our and others’ behaviour in many situations. To that end, PsyBlog helpfully provides a summary of the ten core factors that influence conformity.…
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The Effectiveness of Social Support on Exercise Goals
Informing our friends and family of our resolutions in hope that the social support will encourage us is an effective tactic–as long as these people ‘check-in’ on our progress at semi-regular intervals. That’s the conclusion from a study where three groups of people had their exercise goals tracked under one of three conditions: a regular…