It's the subject of my latest column for Wired Magazine and you can read it here.

Hope you enjoy it,

Eric

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My first piece in Wired is now online

In fact, when considering females’ patterns of errors in the current study, one might say that they demonstrated a “males are always pigs” bias. Regardless of whether they were making judgments of males’ long or short-term preferences, they showed a strong tendency to overestimate the degree to which males desired the relatively sexual and promiscuous option (see Tables 3 and 4). Such a bias is consistent with the idea that women may be employing a simple heuristic suggesting that males “just want sex” – regardless of the temporal context. In other words, females tend to think that men predominantly care about sex for both short-term casual partners and for long-term partners. This bias may well be an adaptive strategy in the long run – women using such a decision-making rule may be more likely to actually end up with honest, committed, and long-term-seeking males (an outcome that would be very beneficial for women given the asymmetry in parental investment that typifies our species).

Source: "Accuracy and Oversexualization in Cross-Sex Mind-Reading: An Adaptationist Approach" from Evolutionary Psychology 2009. 7(2): 331-347

On an unrelated note, I'm headed to Tokyo in about 2 weeks. Might mention that more later. I purchased a few books for my trip but none that are really worth recommending here. One thing I will throw out there is that one of the most disturbing films I have ever seen is Japanese; Audition is not a movie to be taken lightly unless you are quite accustomed to the most graphic imagery out there. If that's your thing, open up the Netflix queue right now, by all means...

If you're looking for something sufficiently mind-bending and original but not so nightmare-inducing, check out the Korean film Oldboy. "15 years of imprisonment... 5 days of vengeance."

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The purpose of this experiment was to follow up on previous findings of a gain in opinion change produced by eating-while-reading (Razran, 1940; Janis, Kaye, and Kirschner, 1965) by testing predictions from a “conditioning” theory and from an alternative explanation in terms of greater receptivity to any communication endorsed by E, the donor of the food. A factorial design was used to determine the extent to which the opinion changes induced by two persuasive communications were influenced by (1) E's giving food contiguously with exposure to the communications vs. giving the food beforehand, and (2) E's positive vs. negative endorsement of the conclusions advocated by the communication. An analysis of variance of the opinion-change scores showed that neither variable had a significant main effect but there was a significant interaction effect: Positive endorsement of the communications by E was highly influential when he gave food contiguously with the communications but not when he gave food beforehand. The following “momentary compliance” hypothesis was inferred from the findings: The consumption of proferred food induces a momentary mood of compliance toward the donor that is strongest at the time the food is being consumed and that decreases in strength rapidly after the food has been consumed.

Source: "Why does eating while reading facilitate opinion change?—An experimental inquiry" from Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 1, Issue 2, May 1965, Pages 133-144

I first read about the 1940 study by Razran in Robert Cialdini's fantastic book, Influence. It's one of the books I most highly recommend, especially if you're interested in negotiation and persuasion.

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The present study is the first to compare the effects of alcohol versus placebo drinks in reducing feelings of sadness. Fifty participants were randomly assigned to two groups: (a) participants told that they would receive alcohol and actually received alcohol (AC group); and (b) participants told that they would receive alcohol but were provided with placebo drinks (PG group). Mood ratings were obtained upon arrival, after negative mood induction and again after consumption of alcohol or placebo drinks. Both groups reported corresponding increments in negative mood following negative mood induction, and decreases in negative mood following alcohol or placebo drink consumption. Both groups reported similar levels of subjective intoxication. It is concluded that the expectancy factor plays a key role in reducing negative mood regardless of actual beverage consumption.

Source: "Alcohol versus placebo drinks in reducing feelings of sadness: Pilot study" from Australian Psychologist, Volume 44, Issue 4 December 2009 , pages 248 - 252

Recently added to my reading list: Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition.

In this paper, I test a simple microeconomic theory of sexuality. I apply the theory to make predictions about the effect of AIDS on sexuality, since AIDS dramatically altered the cost of sexual activities. Using a nationally representative dataset on sexuality in the United States, I estimate the effect of AIDS on male and female homosexual behavior. To do so, I postulate that people who have a relative with AIDS, on average, have more knowledge, awareness, and fear of AIDS. Empirically, this variable is uncorrelated with a number of individual background characteristics. I present evidence that AIDS causes some men to shift from homosexual to heterosexual behavior, whereas AIDS causes some women to shift from heterosexual to homosexual behavior. Thus, sexual behavior may respond to incentives. I consider alternative hypotheses, including biological theories of sexual orientation and stigma-related survey bias, and argue that they are unlikely to explain the results.

Source: "THE ECONOMICS OF SEXUALITY: THE EFFECT OF HIV/AIDS ON SEXUAL BEHAVIOR, DESIRE, AND IDENTITY IN THE UNITED STATES" from Andrew M. Francis, University of Chicago

This is another study I found in Tim Harford's very interesting book The Logic of Life.

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Using recently collected Major League Baseball free agent data, this study identifies a contract value premium for nonpitchers who attended college. Simultaneous equations and the more traditional earnings regressions are used to report results which support the implications of the human capital model and the schooling-earnings theory. The results also suggest that the labour market for baseball players may not be purely talent driven and that choosing college may slow down a player's accession to the majors.

Source: "The economic return to college attendance for major league baseball players" from Applied Economics Letters, Volume 14, Issue 13 October 2007 , pages 981 - 985

If you're looking for some good books about sports check out Moneyball and Game of Shadows. Here's a great book about a sports junkie. For great sports gambling stories, I recommend this book.

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No:

This article explores the dilemma of choosing talent using NBA data from 1987 to 2003. We find there is much uncertainty in selecting talent. If superstars are found, they are usually identified early. However, more false positives exist than correct decisions with high draft picks. Our results suggest the dilemma of choosing talent is not so much a winner's curse but more like a purchase of a lottery ticket. Most times you lose, but, if you are going to win, you must buy a ticket.

Source: "The dilemma of choosing talent: Michael Jordans are hard to find" from Applied Economics, Volume 41, Issue 25 November 2009 , pages 3193 - 3198

For more on the science of superstars, check out Outliers or Creativity.

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When is the best month of the year to buy NFL tickets?

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You should follow me on Twitter here. You can also subscribe to the blog's feed or follow on Facebook. If you want to help support the blog, please do your Amazon shopping via this link. Here are the site's most popular posts of all time.

This article uses Academy Award nominations for acting to explore how artistic achievement is situated within a collaborative context. Assessment of individual effort is particularly difficult in film because quality is not transparent, but the project-based nature of the field allows us to observe individuals in multiple collaborative contexts. We address these issues with analyses of the top-10 credited roles from films released in theaters between 1936 and 2005. Controlling for an actor’s personal history and the basic traits of a film, we explore two predictions. First, we find that status, as measured by asymmetric centrality in the network of screen credits, is an efficient measure of star power and mediates the relationship between experience and formal artistic consecration. Second, we find that actors are most likely to be consecrated when working with elite collaborators. We conclude by arguing that selection into privileged work teams provides cumulative advantage.

Source: "I’d Like to Thank the Academy, Team Spillovers, and Network Centrality" from American Sociological Review, vol. 75, no. 1, 31-51

For more on the insanity of Hollywood I recommend this book and this book.

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You should follow me on Twitter here. You can also subscribe to the blog's feed or follow on Facebook. If you want to help support the blog, please do your Amazon shopping via this link. Here are the site's most popular posts of all time.

During the NCAA basketball tournaments from 2002 to 2005, men's games produced 27% more upsets than women's games. To test whether these unpredictable results were due to gender differences, we conduct logit analysis to explain upsets by gender and other potentially significant variables, including differences in competing teams': (i) RPI scores, (ii) percentage of freshmen, (iii) percentage of seniors, (iv) top scorer's total points and, (v) top three scorers' total points. These analyses suggest that gender plays a significant role in explaining predictability.

Source: "Are women more predictable than men?" from Applied Economics, Volume 42, Issue 5 February 2010 , pages 641 - 645

If you're looking for some good books about sports check out Moneyball and Game of Shadows. Here's a great book about a sports junkie. For great sports gambling stories, I recommend this book.

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Here are a lot of things you didn't know about sports

Why do pitchers hit batters in baseball?

Does how far away an "away game" is affect how a sports team performs?

How would Babe Ruth fare in baseball today?

Are baseball umpires racist?

Does the system described in "Moneyball" still give teams an edge today?

What would happen if economists were NFL and MLB coaches?

This article investigates the box office performance of films defined as being 'African American', with respect to their cast and content material, against those which are not. Using a large sample of films released in the North American market from 1997 to 2007, the analysis shows that, in general, African American films earn higher revenues yet are typically produced on lower budgets. Regression results of revenues show that this difference is highly statistically significant. Further, the profit functions are also statistically different, leading to the conclusion that, ceteris paribus, African American films perform better at the box office.

Source: "Do 'African American' films perform better or worse at the box office? An empirical analysis of motion picture revenues and profits" from Applied Economics Letters

Interestingly, race doesn't affect teamwork on the court in the NBA but it does influence MLB umpires.

I did a deeper dive on the subject of discrimination here.

I'm curious to read this book: Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession. It's by Studs Terkel, author of the classic, Working.

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