Tag: Psychology & Cognition

  • New paper explores censorship and self-censorship in science

    New paper explores censorship and self-censorship in science

    In a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, my co-authors and I explore the prevalence, causes and impacts of censorship and self-censorship in science. We find that censorship is driven heavily by scientists themselves and, although the consequences of censorship are often pernicious in practice, censors tend to be…

  • One Lesson To Learn From Ted Kaczynski

    One Lesson To Learn From Ted Kaczynski

    Ted Kaczynski was recognized as a genius at an early age. He graduated high school at age 15, began attending Harvard at 16, and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics at 20. Five years later, he had attained a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Michigan. The next fall, he began teaching at the University of…

  • Contextualizing Ideological Gaps in Mental Illness and Well-Being

    Contextualizing Ideological Gaps in Mental Illness and Well-Being

    In a recent essay for Social Science & Medicine – Mental Health, epidemiologist Catherine Gimbrone and co-authors identified a significant gap in depressive attitudes between liberal and conservative teens. This gap was present in all years observed in the study (2005-2018). However, it grew significantly starting in 2012, as depressive affect unilaterally spiked among liberals.…

  • Some Awkward Truths About the ‘Big Lie’

    Some Awkward Truths About the ‘Big Lie’

    According to a number of polls and surveys, significant majorities of GOP-aligned voters seem to believe the ‘Big Lie’ that Trump was the rightful winner of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election and, consequently, the Biden Administration is illegitimate.   Taking these data at face value, a growing chorus insists that we’re living in a ‘post-truth’…

  • Book Announcement: We Have Never Been Woke

    Book Announcement: We Have Never Been Woke

    I am thrilled to be able to officially announce that my book, We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite has been acquired by Princeton University Press. Huge shoutout to my agent, Andrew Stuart. Much love to PUP Executive Editor Meagan Levinson, who was able to put together an aggressive bid in a…

  • On the January 6 Capitol Riots and ‘Teaching to the Moment’

    On the January 6 Capitol Riots and ‘Teaching to the Moment’

    In the aftermath of the January 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol, which left five people dead, and nearly derailed Congressional certification of the 2020 election results, many in higher ed have been wrestling with questions around what they can do to help mitigate the cultural and political crisis we find ourselves in, and how…

  • Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth

    Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth

    In Science Fictions, psychologist  Stuart Ritchie explores how the scientific enterprise systematically goes awry, and what can be done to right the ship. The book is focused on, essentially, the inverse of the problem that Heterodox Academy was created to solve. The key problem with science today, as Ritchie sees it, is not that there…

  • The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous

    The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous

    American liberals often charge that Christians seem unusually preoccupied (even obsessed) with sex and sexuality, and have a bunch of strange hang-ups about marriage and family structure. Conservatives, meanwhile, argue that the “traditional family” lies at the core of Western Civilization, and that weakening foundational norms around sex, marriage, and child-rearing would likely have destabilizing…

  • How Our Social Networks Shape Our Politics

    How Our Social Networks Shape Our Politics

    An ambitious new project, the American National Social Network Survey, looks at the social networks of thousands of Americans over time, exploring how who people associate with affects their worldview. The project is sponsored by AEI and the Knight Foundation, carried out in partnership with NORC (who administer the General Social Survey). The latest report from the project,…

  • Diversity is Important. Diversity-Related Training is Terrible.

    Diversity is Important. Diversity-Related Training is Terrible.

    In wake of George Floyd’s murder and the protests that followed, many colleges and universities have been rolling out new training requirements – often oriented towards reducing biases and encouraging people from high-status groups to ‘check their privilege.’  The explicit goal of these training programs is generally to help create a more positive and welcoming…

  • My Problem with the ‘Harper’s Letter’

    My Problem with the ‘Harper’s Letter’

    On July 7th, Harper’s Magazine published “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate,” colloquially known as the “Harper’s Letter.” The collective statement was signed by more than 150 public luminaries, from prominent academics and journalists to bestselling authors. The signatories denounced a culture of repression, fear, and reprisal which they claim has overtaken many institutions of cultural…

  • Why Reflexivity is Important for Research and Activism

    Why Reflexivity is Important for Research and Activism

    In a recent essay for Public Seminar, I explored Amy Cooper’s attempts to sic police on a black man for telling her to leash her dog. I argued that her actions should not be understood as novel or surprising, and explained how her likely (liberal) sociopolitical orientation may have contributed to how the confrontation played…

  • The Crisis of Expertise

    The Crisis of Expertise

    There has been a lot of talk in recent years about the “war on science” or the so-called “death of expertise.” However, according to the General Social Survey, there has been no radical decrease with respect to public trust in the scientific community per se.  In fact, contemporary Americans have more trust in the scientific…

  • Students are Ideologically Diverse. Here’s How to Surface that Diversity.

    Students are Ideologically Diverse. Here’s How to Surface that Diversity.

    It has long been a talking point on the right that leftist professors are ‘indoctrinating’ college kids (an elaboration on why many quite reasonably hold this belief is available here). However, a number of recent studies suggest that this narrative is incorrect: students can reliably determine what their professors’ political beliefs are, and when they…

  • Refashioning Futures: Criticism after Postcoloniality

    Refashioning Futures: Criticism after Postcoloniality

    “Political discussion possesses a character fundamentally different from academic discussion. It seeks not to be in the right, but also to demolish the basis of its opponents social and intellectual existence… Political conflict, since it is from the very beginning a rationalized form of the struggle for social predominance, attacks the social status of the…

  • There’s No Reason to Be Smug About the Partisan Diploma Divide

    There’s No Reason to Be Smug About the Partisan Diploma Divide

    “We were laughing at the stars while our feet clung tight to the ground — so pleased with ourselves for using so many verbs and nouns…” Modest Mouse, “Black Cadillacs,” Good News for People Who Love Bad News Dr. Amir Attaran, a professor of Law and Medicine at University of Ottawa recently set off a…

  • The Radical Black Liberation Theology of Kanye West

    The Radical Black Liberation Theology of Kanye West

    Kanye West has always had a streak of what one might call conservatism. He defiantly included “Jesus Walks” on his 2004 debut album, despite repeated urging from record execs to drop it, and predictions that it would never get play. Instead, the single helped make his career. The track begins with Kanye revealing, “We at…

  • Q&A: Why Care About Ideological Diversity in Social Research?

    Q&A: Why Care About Ideological Diversity in Social Research?

    Perhaps the most common response I get from my fellow scholars when I mention the dearth of conservative perspectives in the academy (and especially in social research fields) is something like, “what about other historically disadvantaged or underrepresented groups? Isn’t the underrepresentation of blacks, Hispanics, women, LGBTQ scholars a bigger problem than the lack of…

  • Navigating Moral Disagreements: Three Strategies from the Literature on Moral and Cultural Cognition

    Navigating Moral Disagreements: Three Strategies from the Literature on Moral and Cultural Cognition

    We in America and Western Europe, and by now many other places in the world, have this idea of people as fundamentally rational. On this account, our profound cognitive abilities are designed to help us discover objective truths about the world through logical argument and empirical observation. Contemporary research in cognitive science, psychology and related…

  • Charlottesville and Americans’ Increasingly Polarized Response to Terrorism, Political Violence

    Charlottesville and Americans’ Increasingly Polarized Response to Terrorism, Political Violence

    On the night of August 11th, white nationalists held a torch-lit pride parade through the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. They were met with counter-protests, and the demonstrations descended into a melee. The next morning, these same organizers held a “Unite the Right” rally in Emancipation Park, centered on a statue of Confederate General Robert…

  • Gender Differences, Silicon Valley and that Controversial Google Memo

    Gender Differences, Silicon Valley and that Controversial Google Memo

    Google software engineer James Damore set off a firestorm with the publication of a company memo titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber.” The essay criticized Google’s policies for promoting a more diverse and inclusive workplace, alleging that they instead fostered a company culture of fear and conformity which runs contrary to the company’s stated ethos–and likely…

  • Social Research Will Benefit from Greater Ideological Diversity

    Social Research Will Benefit from Greater Ideological Diversity

    Beginning in the late 18th century, post-secondary education was restructured across Europe—in part under the auspices of accelerating the transition to an envisioned rational and secular age.[1] In order to enroll the broadest swath of the public in this enterprise, institutions and curricula were rendered more accessible, inclusive, and professionally-oriented. Similarly, across the pond, in…

  • The Big Debate About Microaggressions

    The Big Debate About Microaggressions

    The concept of microaggressions gained prominence with the publication of Sue et al.’s 2007, “Racial Microaggressions in Everyday Life,” which defined microaggressions as communicative, somatic, environmental or relational cues that demean and/or disempower members of minority groups in virtue of their minority status. Microaggressions, they asserted, are typically subtle and ambiguous. Often, they are inadvertent…

  • One Thing Trump Gets Right About Muslims, Terrorism (Kind of)

    One Thing Trump Gets Right About Muslims, Terrorism (Kind of)

    Let’s start with all the usual caveats: Trump is a demagogue. He and his advisory team are painfully ignorant about Islam—and as a result, most of his policy proposals and rhetoric about Islamic terrorism have been ill-informed and counter-productive. But for all that, Trump has repeatedly emphasized a point which many of his rivals and…

  • Epistemological Pluralism, Cognitive Liberalism & Authentic Choice

    Epistemological Pluralism, Cognitive Liberalism & Authentic Choice

    Originally published in Comparative Philosophy, Vol. VII, No. 2 (Fall 2016) Print version available here.   In “Perfectionist Liberalism and Political Liberalism,” Martha Nussbaum (2011) persuasively argues that political liberalism is superior to its perfectionist cousin. However, her critique of perfectionism also problematizes Rawls’ account of political liberalism—particularly as it relates to his account of…

  • Why 2016 May Be Donald Trump’s Race to Lose

    Why 2016 May Be Donald Trump’s Race to Lose

    As the 2016 presidential primaries got underway, there seemed to be a couple incontrovertible truths: Hillary Clinton’s nomination was inevitable, and Trump stood no chance (it was going to be Jeb or Rubio). Yet, here we are six months before the election, and Trump has seized the Republican nomination while Clinton is still working to…

  • Creating Visionaries

    Creating Visionaries

    Education plays a pivotal role in cultivating excellence—although its function is largely misunderstood. Consider the case of entrepreneurs: Successful entrepreneurs tend to be both more intelligent than average, but also more confident. Perhaps for these very reasons, they are also far more likely to engage in disruptive or even illicit activity in their youth. Fortunately,…

  • It’s Time to Stop Patronizing White People

    It’s Time to Stop Patronizing White People

    On average, whites are far better off than blacks. But the problem with averages is that they often conceal radically uneven distribution of the phenomena in question. This is certainly true of wealth among white Americans. It is well-established that white people are overrepresented in the upper classes. And even in the middle class, whites…

  • Do Black Lives Matter? The World’s Shameful Response to Charleston

    Do Black Lives Matter? The World’s Shameful Response to Charleston

    In the wake of the massacre at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), analysts have been busying themselves with apparently self-evident questions as to whether the atrocity was racially motivated, or constituted an act of domestic terrorism. Americans have been focused on questions about gun control and the ubiquity of the Confederate Flag—with an emerging…

  • Understanding ISIL’s Appeal

    Understanding ISIL’s Appeal

    [su_quote cite=”Slavoj Zizek” url=”https://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Zizek/70043440″]Thirty, forty years ago, we were still debating about what the future will be: communist, fascist, capitalist, whatever. Today, nobody even debates these issues. We all silently accept global capitalism is here to stay. On the other hand, we are obsessed with cosmic catastrophes: the whole life on earth disintegrating, because of some…

  • Foreign Policy Fundamentalism

    Foreign Policy Fundamentalism

    Originally published in The Wilson Quarterly, Vol. XXXIX, No. 3 (Summer 2015) Print version available here.   With pomp and polish and platitudes, the 2016 presidential campaign is underway. It began in December, as former Florida Governor Jeb Bush announced he was “actively exploring” a run for the White House. Bush is more moderate than much…

  • If Underpants Gnomes Took Over the Pentagon, Very Little Would Change

    If Underpants Gnomes Took Over the Pentagon, Very Little Would Change

    In the Comedy Central television series South Park, the boys discover a cartel of gnomes who steal people’s underwear. Over the course of the episode it’s revealed that these seizures are part of their business plan which goes:   Step 1: Collect Underpants → Step 2: ? → Step 3: Profit   The punchline, of…

  • Social Movement Requires Force

    Social Movement Requires Force

    “It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative…

  • Factions Speak Louder Than Herds

    Factions Speak Louder Than Herds

    There is a growing body of research suggesting that when beliefs become tied to one’s sense of identity, they are not easily revised. Instead, when these axioms are threatened, people look for ways to outright dismiss inconvenient data. If this cannot be achieved by highlighting logical, methodological or factual errors, the typical response is to…

  • On the Strategic Logic of ISIL’s Atrocities

    On the Strategic Logic of ISIL’s Atrocities

    Following ISIL’s immolation Moaz al-Kasasbeh, many attributed the viciousness of his execution to the fact that he was a Jordanian pilot. The narrative is that the coalition airstrikes have been devastating for ISIL, and this extreme act was a desperate bid to dissuade allied forces from further strikes. By this logic, their tactic backfired: not…

  • Al-Badghadi: Jihadist Provocateur

    Al-Badghadi: Jihadist Provocateur

    ISIS distinguishes itself from other jihadist organizations, particularly its progenitor al-Qaeda, by positioning itself as the group that will do what other groups are unwilling or unable to do. There is a clear dialectic wherein other terror organizations will commit an a heinous act that receives widespread media coverage; ISIS will then try to divert…

  • Why the SSCI Report on CIA Torture Doesn’t Matter

    Why the SSCI Report on CIA Torture Doesn’t Matter

    In 1984, the United Nations adopted the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The treaty forbade signatories from carrying out torture or related practices, or from deporting to detainees to other places where they knew these acts would be carried out. It would be ten years before the U.S.…

  • Credibility is about Outcomes, not “Resolve”

    Credibility is about Outcomes, not “Resolve”

    In wake of Vladimir Putin annexing Crimea into the Russian Federation and supporting Eastern separatists against a Ukrainian government it perhaps rightly views as illegitimate, U.S. policy hawks argued the entire crisis could have been prevented: had President Obama followed through on his August 2013 commitment to bomb the Syrian government in retaliation for its…

  • Obama is Falling into Al-Baghdadi’s Trap

    Obama is Falling into Al-Baghdadi’s Trap

    Just prior to the U.S.-led anti-Daish (ISIS) campaign into Syria, the group released a highly-polished 55-minute documentary, “Flames of War,” in which they challenged the United States to heavily mobilize in Iraq and Syria. They have made similar taunts when they executed Western hostages, seized American weapons, or co-opted the rebels trained to fight against…

  • On the Philosophical Underpinnings of Al-Qaeda & the Islamic State

    On the Philosophical Underpinnings of Al-Qaeda & the Islamic State

    The public discourse about transnational jihadist organizations indiscriminately lumps together al-Qaeda, its forerunners (such as the Taliban), affiliates (such as Jahbat al-Nusra), its derivatives (such as Ansar al-Sharia or the Islamic State), and even groups which have no strong connection to al-Qaeda or such as Hamas, Hezbollah, or local tribal militants. It is not just…

  • A Primer on Social Epistemology

    A Primer on Social Epistemology

    Much of what we believe is poorly-justified or believed in the total absence of evidence, or even in defiance of abundant counterevidence. So many cherished axioms are problematic or outright false—or else vague, inconsistent, or of an otherwise indeterminable truth-value (in part because the world cannot be cleanly reduced into language at all). And you…

  • Rethinking Rationality

    Rethinking Rationality

    In previous analyses, I have argued that while the Enlightenment-era axioms which undergird contemporary liberalism (and its relatives) have long been presumed as facts about “the way the world works,” they are sociocultural artifacts of a particular phase of history of particular peoples. Accordingly, attempting to instantiate these ideologies and systems in exogenous contexts is…

  • Nakba or Fursa? The Collapse of the Syrian Opposition

    Nakba or Fursa? The Collapse of the Syrian Opposition

    The Syria National Coalition (SNC), much like its predecessor, the Syrian National Council, has never enjoyed much legitimacy or influence within Syria. Their only meaningful link to events on the ground has been the Supreme Military Council (SMC), headed up by the military defectors who initially called themselves the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and ostensibly…

  • “Enhanced Interrogation,” Tortured Logic

    “Enhanced Interrogation,” Tortured Logic

    Underlying any interrogation technique are a number of assumptions about how people think and behave. Contemporary cognitive science and psychology suggest rather robustly that the axioms which have historically lent credence to some of today’s most-popular interrogation techniques are more-or-less false. For instance, investigators have long believed (and many continue to believe) that fidgeting, avoiding…

  • Breaking the Stalemates in Syria (Literal & Rhetorical)

    Breaking the Stalemates in Syria (Literal & Rhetorical)

    In a number of interviews in recent months, U.S. Secretary of State Kerry has been talking about the need to “change Bashar al-Asad’s calculus” with regards to the conflict in Syria. While there is a sense in which this statement is correct (should the goal be the President’s resignation), Kerry seems to misunderstand what Bashar’s…

  • Contextualizing Syria’s Civil War: Beyond the Numbers

    Contextualizing Syria’s Civil War: Beyond the Numbers

    Originally published in Middle East Policy, Vol. XX, No. 1 (Spring 2013) Print version available here.   The popular discourse on the Syrian conflict has largely taken for granted that Bashar al-Asad and his regime are unpopular in Syria, the revolution is widely supported domestically, the rebels are “winning” the war, and the fall of…