Psych Papers

The Shopping Cart Study investigates how toddlers develop awareness of their own bodies. Developed by Chris Moore and colleagues in 2007, the task examine when a sense of self develops in babies. At what age do children begin to understand how their bodies interact with the world?

The shopping cart task involves tying a small rug onto the back of a toy shopping cart, right by the back wheels. If you tried to push the cart, you’d be standing on the rug which would make it impossible to push the cart. In order to push the cart, you have to realize that your body standing on the rug is what’s impeding your ability to push the cart forward. In other words, you have to have enough of a sense of self to understand how your body interacts with the world.

14-15 month olds will stand on the rug and try to push the cart and have no idea why it doesn’t move forward. They get frustrated and will try strange tactics like trying to climb into the cart.

16 month olds understand that the rug plays a part in what’s blocking them from pushing the cart, but think it’s something to do with the mat, and not themselves.

18 month olds will typically try to push the cart once, and then quickly realize that they themselves are the obstacle to moving the cart. This suggests he’s aware of himself and his body.

Check out the video version of this episode on YouTube.

We analyzed Rotten Tomatoes Movie Ratings and discuss our findings. The scraped dataset has data on 1.1 million reviews from 17.7k movies from 1914–2020.

Here’s a sample of our findings:

• Documentaries were the highest rated movie genres, followed by “Art House & International, Drama”. Horror genres were ranked lowest.
• “Action & Adventure, Drama” and “Comedy” movies were the only genres that audiences liked more than critics.
• G-rated movies had the highest median ratings. As maturity ratings increased (PG, PG-13, R) movie ratings generally decreased.
• Older movies (1920-1960) were rated higher than more recent movies (1990-2010).

Here are some of our takeaways and suspicions:

• People have different expectations for different movie genres and these influence ratings: Documentaries and art house films might be evaluated based on their informative and artistic qualities, respectively, while genres like horror may be judged more on entertainment value and elicited emotional reactions (I also suspect documentaries attract viewers who are already interested in the subject matter).
• Action (eg, 300, Fast & Furious) and comedy (eg, Scary Movie, American Pie) movies are generally considered “lower-brow” and prioritize excitement, humor, and escapism. This immediate gratification may be more appealing to audiences compared to critics.
• Audiences and critics evaluate movies differently. Audiences evaluate movies based on entertainment value, while critics judge more on artistic merit.

Check out the video version of this episode on YouTube.

What is the nature of love? How does love develop between an infant and a caregiver? Psych PhD Chris Cole and cohost Joseph Tajaran discuss Harlow’s Monkey Experiment (1958). Harlow tested monkeys on cloth and wire mothers to examine what are the precise ingredients needed for a loving infant-caregiver bond to form. And what is thei r relative importance?
Follow-Up Research: Which species of monkey is most likely to do hard drugs? Most likely to be a flat-earther? We paid over 300 people to answer these questions. Yes, we know this follow-up research was a bit... different. Sometimes it’s hard for Chris to come up with research topics, but we end up with something way more fun :)
Chris is an idiot and when he created the research presentation, he mixed up the labels for rhesus macaque and baboons. So anytime you hear him say rhesus macaque, he should've actually been saying baboon, and vice versa. The survey respondents only rated the monkeys based on photos so it doesn't affect data quality. Chris will be punished by his wire daddy accordingly.

Check out the video version of this episode on YouTube.

In what situations do humans conform to the group? When will we change our attitudes and behaviors merely to fit in? We go over the "Asch Conformity Test." Conducted in 1951, it explored whether people will conform to an obviously incorrect response when the group is an agreement of the obviously incorrect response.
Follow-Up Research: We facilitated follow-up research that explored how conformity differs between personality types (e.g., dog vs cat people; coffee vs tea lovers; early birds vs night owls).
Check out the video version of this episode on YouTube.

How do people know when they're full? It might be more complicated than simply listening to your body. Visual cues, such as seeing the number of bowls of soup you've eaten, may contribute to this phenomenon. We review the "Bottomless Soup Bowl" study (Wansink et al., 2005).
Follow-Up Research: What does the sound of a flute taste like? We surveyed people on what they thought the sounds of different instruments would taste like and present the results of our research.
It should be noted that much of the research conducted by Brian Wansink has either been retracted or called into question. This specific study has not been retracted but the results have been questioned. This doesn’t necessarily mean the effect isn’t real, rather we need more research to draw firmer conclusions. For a similar study with similar results, check out Episodic Memory and Appetite Regulation in Humans (Brunstrom et al., 2012).
Interested in seeing our faces and some visuals referenced in this episode? Check out the video version on YouTube.