Author: Lloyd Morgan
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The Benefits of a Classical Education
Asked by Forbes about his Classical education, Tim O’Reilly discusses at length lessons learnt from the classics that have influenced both his personal and business life. A great post looking at how the classics not only influence culture, but the adoption and adaptation of technology. The unconscious often knows more than the conscious mind. I believe…
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Laziness, Impatience, Hubris
The three virtues of a programmer, according to Larry Wall (in Programming Perl): Laziness The quality that makes you go to great effort to reduce overall energy expenditure. It makes you write labor-saving programs that other people will find useful, and document what you wrote so you don’t have to answer so many questions about…
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The Parental Limit
Birth order and parental influence matter much less than a child’s peer group when it comes to determining behaviour, according to Judith Rich Harris‘ polarising book, The Nurture Assumption. In the ten years since the book’s publication her ideas have gained support from prominent developmental psychologists (notably, Steven Pinker), and now Jonah Lehrer interviews Harris,…
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A Brief Summary of Group Psychology
If, like me, you’re even remotely interested in the dynamics of group psychology you’ve probably already read a couple of these. Nonetheless, these 10 psychology studies highlighted as ‘rules’ governing groups are worth noting: Groups can arise from almost nothing Initiation rites improve group evaluations Groups breed conformity Learn the ropes or be ostracised You become…
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Validation vs Correctness
In order to avoid cognitive dissonance you have a number of choices. Primarily: selective exposure and/or confirmation bias. Researchers from a number of US universities are now attempting to quantify these phenomena, looking at how we seek validation as opposed to correctness. The researchers found that people are about twice as likely to select information that supports their…
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The Benefits of Child Bilingualism
Outside of the UK, bilingualism (or even trilingualism+) is the norm in Europe and, in some countries and/or regions, even expected. With that said, The Economist takes a look at the effect bilingualism has on a child’s brain. Monitoring languages and keeping them separate is part of the brain’s executive function, so these findings suggest that…
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Traffic Psychology and The Commuters Paradox
There aren’t many people, I believe, who are able to drive and who are not interested in traffic dynamics. Jonah Lehrer, in a recent column for Seed, takes a brief look at traffic psychology; including ‘the commuters paradox’ and the ‘critical density’. They found that, when people are choosing where to live, they consistently underestimate the pain of…
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Weather Forecasts and Economic Development
The economic impact of meteorological forecasts is wide-ranging and, sometimes, unexpected. A few of these influences are described briefly before this (tongue-in-cheek, yet still somewhat logical) piece of advice is offered to developing countries: A study from the mid-1990s […] concluded that every dollar invested in weather forecasting services would save $10 in economic losses.…
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Harnessing Collective Intelligence Online
The ‘Wisdom of Crowds’ theory, as popularised by James Surowiecki’s 2004 book of the same name, is an important—if misunderstood—theory that has influenced a lot of recent online ventures that rely on social networks and collaboration to work intelligently. For those who want to take advantage of the wisdom of crowds for their own ventures,…
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Cognitive Benefits of Exercise
Walter van den Broek (AKA Dr Shock) provides a summary of the research on the neuroscience of exercise, or: the cognitive benefits of an active lifestyle. Exercise… improves learning and intelligence scores. increases the resilience of the brain in later life resulting in a cognitive reserve. [attenuates] the decline of memory, cortex and hippocampus atrophy…