Funding Research

Whenever you pick up an academic book, the acknowledgments inevitably contain thanks to Foundations, Universities, and Institutes who financially supported the research and/or the writing of the book. Randomly pulling a book of my shelf, The Deadly Ethnic Riot by Donald L. Horowitz, reveals appreciation expressed in the Preface to the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National center for the Humanities, the United States Institute of Peace, the Carnegie Corporation, the London School of Economics, and Oxford, among others.

These sources of research support are invaluable, but they are not the only means available, and in these trying financial times, scholars are well advised to broaden their research funding horizons.

In the preface and acknowledgments in Lola Montez, a Life by Bruce Seymour (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996), Seymour reveals one source often overlooked:

"I would also like to express my thanks to a number of individuals and organizations who rendered special assistance in the work on this biography. Without my winnings on the television game show Jeopardy! it would have been impossible for me to devote four years of my life to the research and writing of this book...."(p.viii) [Emphasis added]

Therefore, I suggest saving a little time from your next grant-writing binge to try out for a few game shows instead!

Click here for the video version!

Fish, ver 4.0

The owner of the car sheepishly said it was "a little sacreligious."

___________________
Daniel J. Myers
University of Notre Dame
Via Blackberry--please excuse brevity and typos

Chronicalia: Running Late

For some time I'm been tempted to start a new category of post called something like, "The Dumbest Thing in the Chronicle This Week." ("The Chronicle" being the Chronicle of Higher Education, academia's weekly newspaper.) But of course, I then published something in the Chronicle and I didn't want to have to write about myself(!), so I stalled a little. But the stack of Chronicle stuff to blog about has been growing and so I think I'd better start trying to knock a few of these off.

To clarify, I'm not necessarily saying the Chronicle is dumb, or its writers are dumb (although occasionally that might be the case), because sometimes the Chronicle is merely reporting something really idiotic that is happening out there somewhere in academia. Other times, I'm just amused at what I read in there and just can't stop my self from commenting. So, instead of calling these things out as dumb, which would be both unkind and inappropriate, instead, I'll just have a new category of my interested observations about items from the Chronicle and call it "Chronicalia."

So, the first Chronicalia entry. An essay by Chair of Duke Political Science Michael Munger, called "Sorry I'm Late"* caught my eye, because it was about meetings--and you know how I love meetings. This piece had blog entry written all over it--a rant about an everyday life irritant, not particularly well-thought through, more than a little overstated, and occasionally humorous (all characteristics I aspire to in this very blog!). And in fact, it turns out that Prof. Munger does has a blog which includes entries related to the topic of the essay, see here and here. The topic in question is why so many people are late to meetings.

Munger gives us the four reasons all meetings start late: (1) some people consistently underestimate the amount of time it takes them to get places, (2) chronically late people are fundamentally incompetent, (3) people who are physically close to the meetings will try to cram in extra little tasks and end up making themselves late, and (4) early arrivers will turn around and leave--trying to do something else before the meeting starts, thereby making themselves late. Basically all of these reasons are based in the fundamentally poor judgment of late comers. But then, the conclusion, which doesn't really follow from the set up: It's not poor judgment really, it's just that these people are rude. He concludes, "We tend toward lateness because each of us hates waiting more than we feel bad about making others wait." Yep, it's all about self-interest in the end.**

Social psychologists in the crowd, can you give me a critique of these arguments? Sociologists, might there be some social structures out there that produce this problem, beyond the inevitable distribution of competence amongst our colleagues? Well, apparently Prof. Munger doesn't think so, but I do and so I have to first point out a little old thing we like to call the Fundamental Attribution Error. If you took an introductory course in social psychology, you probably remember this little idea*** which says that people have a strong tendency to underestimate the importance of the situation and overestimate the importance of the dispositional in assessing the causes of people's behaviors. If you circle back to the proposed reasons why people are late to meetings, you notice that Munger is squarely (perhaps completely) on the dispositional side: It's all about the marred character of the individuals. It's moments like these that I'm so proud to possess social psychological superiority in my mind!

So what kinds of situational factors might we be missing here? Well, for one, there are other meetings! Have any of you noticed that meetings rarely, if ever, end on time? That being the case, it's kind of hard to get to the next one on time, especially when your boss or boss's boss is still yammering in the current one!

Furthermore, we've all (apparently) accepted late-starting meetings--clearly Munger does since he waits around for people to show up instead of getting started. That produces a social context--a context where instead of being punished for showing up late, you are punished for showing up on time! Using our good old theory-for-every-possible-human-behavior, self-interest, which actually dictates that rational people should show up late. It's not about their personal foibles, it's the context of late-starting-meetings that is the culprit.

We also all know that when the meeting actually does get started, that the first few minutes (hell, maybe even all of the minutes) aren't particularly important. The same thing at the beginning of class--if you spend the first few minute reviewing the syllabus and passing papers back, that situation encourages people to be late--because they aren't going to miss anything very important.

The answer, then, is not asking people to change their dispositions--to miraculously become less rude or suddenly and voluntarily change into COLLECTIVE good maximizers instead of INDIVIDUALS good maximizers--it's changing the SITUATION so that the advantages of being on time outweigh the costs. And who is the most responsible for the situation? The person standing up front running the meeting--that right--it's you Mr./Ms. Chairperson/Boss. Start meetings on time, make meetings more worthwhile--including covering the most important stuff first, end meetings on time, and make them shorter--I guarantee that people will be more likely to show up on time.

One final note and then I'll shut up. In response to problem number one, Munger points out (I think correctly) that people often calculate the MINIMUM time they need to travel to a meeting. Since most of the time we can't get there in the minimum travel time, we end up being late a lot. But his solution is that we should calculate the AVERAGE amount it takes to get to the meeting, rather than the minimum, and plan for that amount of travel. That won't work, though. If everyone in the meeting plans for the average amount of travel time, about half of them will get there on time or early (assuming a reasonable normal distribution of error). But, the other half will get there late! So using Munger's method, about half the people for every meeting will show up late--and thus the meeting will still start late.

______________
* November 20, 2009, pp. A31, A33.
** Despite chairing political science, our author has a Ph.D. in economics, so perhaps the conclusion was inevitable!
*** An idea empirically support ad nauseum--to the point where it can be considered one of social psychology's laws.

Comment Verification On

Hi All, My comment section has been getting spammed to death, so I'm going to have to turn the word verification back on, at least for a while. Apologies for the extra step--and I know it is a pain, but I'm spending too much time dealing with the gremlins...

Say it nicely, I'll smile

More people should write like this to me, they really should:

"I am, sir, eternally and profoundly in your debt.

I have the honour to remain your humble and obedient servant,

[Signature]"

The Refs Are Biased? Or Is It the Authors?

I was flipping through the student newspaper today and ran across an AP-derived report about a study of NCAA basketball referees which claims to show that refs are biased, mainly toward evening out the game to make it a closer match in the end. Key findings include:

- They call more fouls on the team in the lead.
- More fouls are called on the visiting team.*
- The bigger the difference in the foul count between the two teams, the more likely it is that the next foul would be called against the team with fewer fouls.

This might all be true, but they've neglected one potentially critical factor--the base rate.** In this case, they're only analyzing the CALLS the referees make. In order to know if the referees are biased, we also have to know what ACTUALLY happened. Suppose, for some reason, that the team in the lead ACTUALLY COMMITS more fouls than the team that is trailing. Then, a perfectly fair referee would have to call more fouls on the leading team--merely as a function of that base rate.

Before decrying the refs then, perhaps we should back up and think this through a little bit more. Without correcting for that (unknown) base rate, we have to assume that both teams are committing fouls at the same rate, whether they are at home or away, whether they are leading or trailing, and no matter how many team fouls have been committed. There are good reasons to suspect that all of those things are not the case.

For example, the authors illustrate their case with a Final Four game in which one team committed the first 7 fouls--but as the game continued, the foul count evened out to 13-12. This illustrates the third finding mentioned above. But let's stop and think about this for a second. If your basketball team fouls seven times in a row, isn't it possible (even HIGHLY likely) that you will change your behavior on the court? That growing foul count is bad for your team and chances are, after seven in a row, players are going to back off and play a little more carefully in order to avoid adding to that count. So, after 7 consecutive fouls, of course it is more likely that the other team is going to commit the next foul--And that has nothing to do with referee bias.

This dynamic is reinforced as teams approach the number of team fouls necessary to put them in the penalty. They will try like heck to avoid the final foul that will put them in the penalty, while the team that has fewer can foul with relative impunity. Who do we think is more likely to commit the next foul in those circumstances? Obviously, it's the one with fewer fouls--again, this has nothign to do with the refs.

Another of the scenarios: Is there a reason teams in the lead might actually commit more fouls than teams that are behind? Well, maybe. One thing is for sure, if a game is close and the lead keeps changing hands, it is almost inevitable that the team in the lead will foul more. At the moment a lead change occurs, the team that is ahead will have just scored, and therefore will immediately be on defense--and there are far more defensive fouls committed than offensive fouls. Further, as in the situation with fouls counts above, the team that is ahead is simply more willing and able to absorb some foul calls--whereas the team that is trying to catch up is probably less willing to send someone to the foul line.

I'm not sure these are enough to account for all of the differences the authors report, but ignoring these factors hopelessly biases the study. The analysis must correct for the base rate somehow or the results are never going to be worth a damn.

___________
* This isn't consistent with the "evening it out" logic, I'd also note...
** Truth in Advertising: I say all this without actually reading the study--I wasn't able to access it electronically and our library doesn't carry the journal. I just read the AP and newspaper reports--which might not tell the whole story. With that disclaimer, here's the citation so you can track it down yourself, and if so inspired, can inform me that I've got something wrong.

Anderson, K. & Pierce, D. (2009). Officiating bias: The effect of foul differential on the subsequent fouls in NCAA basketball. Journal of Sport Sciences, 27(7), 687-694.

Twilight: New Moon

Very short review: Remember that show that Claire Danes was in, "My So Called Life," where the characters were all terribly inarticulate high school students, couldn't ever spit out what they were trying to say, and just hemmed and hawed for a hour each week? Well, this movie is the vampire-laced, emo-soundtracked version of that show--which is all the more ironic when you see the role that Romeo and Juliet plays in the movie and recall that god-awful gangsta version of R&J that Claire Danes did with Leonardo DiCaprio shortly after "My So Called Life" ended. This one struggled to get one star.

Famous Dave's Rip-off

Big fan--BIG fan of barbecue--especially the St. Louis variety. So I have to like Famous Dave's. In addition to the barbecue and some really lovely corn muffins, they also have one of the best soups in town--Chicken Wild Rice. It's kind of on the expensive side, $2.99 for a cup and $4.99 for a bowl, but it's so good it's hard to pass up. But if you're really hungry and you're tempted to go for the bowl, I've got a money-saving tip for you: stick with the cup.

I was curious tonight: since the bowl costs 66% more than the cup, do we get enough extra to make the upgrade worthwhile? So, I ordered both a bowl AND a cup so I could compare. At first glance, it certainly looks like the big bowl is worth it. I mean look at those two. Clearly that bowl is WAY bigger than the cup!


But wait a second--is it really? Optical illusion number one--the bowl comes on a MUCH bigger plate than the cup. Did ya notice that? Really makes it look like you are getting a lot more delivered by Famous (insert name of server here) that way doesn't it? If I take those plates away, the difference doesn't seem anywhere near as big.


But still, there appears to be a difference in both the height and width of the bowl and the only good way to really find out is to measure the volume. So, I asked for a refill of my favorite cola and poured it into the cup.


And now the moment of truth--I poured the contents of the cup into the bowl. Holy moly! The bowl is a little bigger, but just barely! That difference is not anywhere near 66% of the cup and certainly isn't worth $2! What a rip!!! Karma comes around though--after all of this, the server forgot to charge me for BOTH the cup and the bowl!


It all reminded me of my friend who worked at the movie theater where they had small, medium, large, and extra-large drink sizes. She tried the same test and discovered that the medium and large drink cups, although shaped very differently, held EXACTLY the same amount of fluid. I can hear the "suggestive selling" to anyone who orders a medium drink: "Did you know that for only 50 cents more, you can get exactly the same size?"

Gender and the 4.0

Today I attended the 4.0 honors reception/breakfast with my daughter, who is in the 7th grade. She attends a middle school that covers three grades, 6th, 7th, and 8th. The school has just under 1000 students, evenly split across the three grades, and the gender breakdown in the school is almost exactly 50/50.

The program involved calling each student's name (all of whom received a perfect 4.0 GPA in the most recent grading period), giving them a certificate and a star to sew on their school jacket, and having them line up on the stage by grade for applause delivered by the assembled parents and faculty.

As the sixth grade group became to accumulate on the stage, I couldn't help noticing that there was a significant gender disparity amongst those earning a 4.0. Of the first ten students named, only ONE boy and NINE girls. It evened out a little by the time they all got up there, but still only 16 out of 48 were boys--twice as many girls as boys in the 4.0 club. I wondered if this would continue through the other grades...but it did not.

6th grade: 33% boys, 67% girls
7th grade: 48% boys, 52% girls
8th grade: 63% boys, 37% girls

Trend, or statistical anomaly?

On a more humorous note, I was also able to detect some lingering uncomfortableness with the opposite sex. The alphabetic recital of names more or less randomly arranged the students relative to gender. And a close examination of how they distanced themselves relative to those standing next to them made it very clear that girls stood closer to girls than than they did to boys, and boys stood closer other boys than they did girls...

1-900-MAD-ISON

If you are from Madison and you call me, don't expect me to pick up the phone. Whenever I see that 608 area code, I'm not going to answer--because 99 times out of 100, it's the University of Wisconsin calling on a fund-raising gambit. I made the mistake of donating a couple of times and now...well, these people are simply unstoppable.

Last night, I got another one of these calls and when I saw the number, I let it go to voice mail. Later, upon retrieving the message, I discovered that hard economic times has driven the once proud university to desperate measures. To quote the young woman on the other end of the phone, "My name is Jan and I'm a student from the University of Wisconsin Madison. I'm just calling to see if you want to update your information, give a gift, or just chat with a student."

What is this, one of those late night commercials targeted at lonely guys who watch Star Trek reruns at 3:00 am? "Chat with a hot Badger co-ed for only $4.99 a minute"? I wondered what would happen if I called back and said I didn't want to update my information or make a gift, but I just wanted to chat with Jan for a while....

Halloween Ain't What It Use to Be

Wow, have I gotten behind on blogging! I had a really busy week, and then, horror of horrors, I got a &%$#% virus on my computer, which really got in the way of everything in my life. I still haven't totally recovered, but at least I'm marginally functional. We cruised right by Halloween in the mix--and I had one little post queued up. So, belatedly:

My daughter bought this make-up kit as part of Halloween prep--from probably my favorite store to spend some browsing time, Sephora.

You'll note that the package promises three totally different looks: The Vampire, The Witch, and the Wardrobe...I mean, The Vampire, the Witch, and the Rockstar! Ok, great. And there are pictures on the inside that demonstrate how to achieve these variants. So now, for a quiz. I will give you the three pictures in random order and I want you to identify which one is the Vampire, which is the Witch, and which is the Rockstar. Ok? Ready?

A

B

C

Of course, none of these match the orginal cover drawing, which I'm guessing is supposed to be a witch, but really looks more like "sexy pilgrim."

The End of Western Civilization

Some States are Bigger Than Others

In Indiana, our license plates use the 3-numbers, 3-letters formula. For example, the plate might be 754-DFG. This produces a total of 10*10*10*26*26*26 = 17,576,000 possible combinations, thereby accommodating approximately that number of cars (with some additional fraction more for vanity plates and so forth). Illinois, on the other hand, is bigger than Indiana, and they use the 7 letters-or-numbers system, for example DR7-JU87. This produces 36*36*36*36*36*36*36 = 78,364,164,096. (see above) That's a heckuva lot of cars!

Other states, being less populous, require fewer options. North Dakota, for example, apparently only requires 26 possibilities:

Swine Flu Paranoia Grips the Hundred Acre Wood

Irish Alert: We Lost Last Week

This is probably going to mark me as some kind of football nut, but I signed up for something called the Irish Alert service, which is supposed to send a text message to my phone every time there is a score in a Notre Dame football game. It's a handy way to keep track of what's going on when you can't watch the game.

Rather, it's supposed to be handy. Here's the transcription of the messages I received today along with the times they were sent. The game ran from about 3:30pm to about 7:15pm.

-- Game Begins --

4:06pm ND 3 BC 2 (1st Quarter) [both scored at the same time?]
4:38pm ND 3 BC 0 (1st Quarter) [Somehow, BC lost 2 points!]

-- Halftime --

6:38pm ND 13 BC 16 (3rd Quarter) [Whaaaat??]
6:40pm ND 6 BC 2 (2nd Quarter) [Catch up people!]

-- Game Ends -- (about 7:15pm)

7:39pm ND 20 BC 16 (4th Quarter)
7:40pm ND 13 BC 9 (2nd Quarter) [25 minutes after game end!]
8:07pm ND 20 BC 16 (Final) [At least this madness is over]
8:38pm ND 6 BC 9 (2nd Quarter] [Or is it?]
8:46pm ND 13 BC 16 (3rd Quarter] [What is the point, at this point?]

This service is almost as good as the football team!