Studies Gone Wild

A good friend and former colleague of mine turned me into a fan of NY Times Columnist David Brookes a few years ago. My friend is a US politics junkie, and Brookes has lots to say on this subject, but he also has interesting thoughts on many macro societal trends.

Brookes wrote a recent column about social science studies that “struck his fancy”. Here are a few of the more amusing ones that he references:

·         “We communicate, process and feel emotions by mimicking the facial expressions of the people around us. For a study in Basic and Applied Social Psychology, Paula M. Niedenthal, Maria Augustinova and others studied young adults who had used pacifiers as babies, and who thus could not mimic as easily. They found that pacifier use correlated with less emotional intelligence in males, though it did not predict emotional processing skills in girls.

·         “Birth date affects corporate success. In a study for Economics Letters, Qianqian Du, Huasheng Gao and Maurice Levi found that C.E.O.’s are disproportionately less likely to be born in June and July.”

·         “Women use red to impress men. In a study for the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Andrew Elliot, Tobias Greitemeyer and Adam Pazda found that women expecting to converse with an attractive man were more likely to select a red versus green shirt than women expecting to converse with an unattractive man or another woman.”

·         “Organic foods may make you less generous. In a study published in Social Psychology and Personality Science, Kendall J. Eskine had people look at organic foods, comfort foods or a group of control foods. Those who viewed organic foods subsequently volunteered less time to help a needy stranger and they judged moral transgressions more harshly.”

And a couple that make me think about what it means for us:

·         “Women inhibit their own performance. In a study published in Self and Identity, Shen Zhang, Toni Schmader and William M. Hall gave women a series of math tests. On some tests they signed their real name, on others they signed a fictitious name. The women scored better on the fictitious name tests, when their own reputation was not at risk.”

·         “Affluent neighborhoods challenge mental equilibrium. In a study for the Journal of Research on Adolescence, Terese J. Lund and Eric Dearing found that boys reported higher levels of delinquency and girls reported higher levels of anxiety and depression when they lived in affluent neighborhoods compared with middle-class neighborhoods. Boys’ delinquency and girls’ anxiety-depression levels were lowest when they were from affluent families living in middle-class neighborhoods.”

To be honest, I am not sure whether Brookes’ article may be implying something about the value of some studies being funded. But what he does say explicitly is very true. The actions and interactions between people in society are complex and influenced by a myriad of factors, many of which we do not intuitively understand. I think this reinforces the need for education to include a focus on developing emotional intelligence – the ability to read and effectively interact with others – so that our graduates can navigate these complicated waters.

I also now understand why so many women I meet are dressed in green … and, on a positive note, I can now blame my relationship problems back to my pacifier and being a July baby!