The New York Times: Here at The Upshot, we love charts. And I have a chart to explain why. But first, some background. In a study recently published in the journal “Public Understanding of Science,” two Cornell researchers, Brian Wansinkand Aner Tal, ran a small online survey to assess whether alternative descriptions of the same information were more More
A 5-day short course on “Strengthening Causal Inference in Behavioral Obesity Research” will be hosted at the University of Alabama at Birmingham from July 20, 2015–July 24, 2015. Identifying causal relations among variables is fundamental to science. Obesity is a major problem for which much progress in understanding, treatment, and More
Time: Why is there an obesity epidemic? It’s not because we eat the wrong things or we lack exercise. Research shows that, plain and simple, most of us just eat too much: “Reported consumption increased by 268 calories for men and 143 calories for women between the two surveys. This increase More
Die Welt: Wenn Kleinkinder auf dem Spielplatz erfolglos versuchen, auf ein hohes Klettergerüst zu kommen, dann haben sie recht schnell eine Idee, wie das Problem zu lösen ist: einfach mal gucken, wie die anderen Kinder das so machen. Imitation spielt beim Lernen eine wichtige Rolle. Wer gut beobachtet und Verhaltensweisen More
The Atlantic: In 1998, Adam Vasser, a 13-year-old teenager who loved playing baseball, was vacationing in Montana with his family when he suddenly came down with what felt like the flu. When he had trouble breathing and his ankles became swollen, his parents took him to a nearby clinic where More
From the playground to the board room, people often follow, or conform, to the behavior of those around them as a way of fitting in. New research shows that this behavioral conformity appears early in human children, but isn’t evidenced by apes like chimpanzees and orangutans. “Conformity is a very More
