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Ethan Mollick

@emollick

24 Sep

Psychology experiments need to be able to get people to react emotionally very quickly. How do they do it? Movie clips! These are the scientifically vetted clips historically used to elicit emotion.

For fear 😱 the choice is pretty obvious. 1/4

For anger 😡, either the police abuse scene from Cry Freedom (the clip isn’t online) or else this scene from The Bodyguard 2/4

For sadness 😭 this scene from The Champ even beats the death of Bambi’s mother. 3/4

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Ethan Mollick

@emollick

22 Sep

How some sociologists think games might have stopped a Marxist revolution: a thread.

When people are bored at work, they play games. There is graffiti in the Pyramids suggesting that work was done on teams with names like "Drunkards of Menkaure," competing for extra beer. 1/n

In the grind of early 20th century factories, sociologists working undercover found games everywhere. See this passage from the famous "Banana Time" (the paper is a great read, since it is clear that the other workers were mocking Roy, who didn't get it) 2 faculty.knox.edu/fmcandre/roy-b…

Another undercover sociologist, Burawoy (working at the same factory as Roy, many years later), noticed something interesting: though games were seen as a time waster and act of rebellion by workers, they were often secretly tolerated by bosses. Why? 3/n

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Ethan Mollick

@emollick

22 Sep

Previous studies suggested that teaching kids chess improved a whole lot of outcomes, from math skills to logic to academic achievement.... except that almost all of these studies were small. A large randomized trial with 4,000 students finds no advantages to learning chess 1/2

The findings are interesting in itself (I don't have to feel guilty about not teaching my kids chess!), but it also has a bigger point: small samples sizes (and the file drawer problem where null results aren't published) result in accidental bias. 2/2 muse-jhu-edu.proxy.library.upenn.edu/article/706374…

https://twitter.com/degenrolf/status/1217291523768901632?s=21

Also, playing an instrument also has no effect on cognitive development (though music is nice for its own sake!)

https://twitter.com/degenrolf/status/1217291523768901632?s=21

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Ethan Mollick

@emollick

14 Sep

Tesla gets a lot of credit today, but this paper shows Edison mastered the psychology of new technology. To get people to use scary electricity he made it feel the same as the gas they knew. Gas lights gave off light equal to a 12 watt 💡 so Edison limited his 💡 to 13 watts. 1/5

As another example, lampshades weren't needed for an electric light. They were originally used to keep gas lamps from sputtering. Edison used them as a skeuomorph (a design throwback to an earlier use) by putting them on electric lights. Not required, but comforting to have. 2/5

He also developed the electric meter as a way of charging (because gas was metered) and insisted on burying electric wires (because gas was underground).

The fascinating thing was the trade-off: it made the technology more expensive and less powerful, but more acceptable. 3/5

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Ethan Mollick

@emollick

5 Sep

Toxoplasma (a 🐈 parasite) alters the behavior of infected rats to make them take more risks. It might do the same for founders: students with toxoplasma are 180% more likely start ventures & infected founders have 8% higher revenue on average, but are also more likely to quit.

Here’s a link to the paper. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rs…

Also, to be clear, you don’t want to get toxoplasmosis, especially during pregnancy or if you are immune compromised, though it is very common: 60M people in the US are already infected. cdc.gov/parasites/toxo…

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Ethan Mollick

@emollick

3 Sep

Let’s talk the science of demos!

Research has shown demos give "cognitive legitimacy:" making a product plausible & inevitable. This paper on Shark Tank shows the more prepared (coherent, fact-based, narrative) the pitch, the more legitimate it seems & the more $ it raises! 1/4

https://twitter.com/emollick/status/1108543772739227649

Good entrepreneurs (as well as scam artists 👇) use demos and prototypes as part of an overall push for legitimacy. They are an important symbol of success for companies 2/4

https://twitter.com/emollick/status/1108543772739227649

Demos work in established companies, with caveats. If you are trying to pitch a novel idea to your boss, they will think you more creative & persuasive if you do a simple (crude) demo. If the idea isn’t novel, showing prototypes makes your boss think you are LESS creative. 3/4

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