Two Psychologists Four Beers

Yoel and Alexa discuss a recent study that examines the facial features that people perceive as "smart," "dorky," "trustworthy," or a number of other traits. The study quickly captured a lot of attention, eliciting both fascination and anger. The cohosts turn to Twitter, and to Alexa's undergraduate students, to attempt to gain a deeper understanding of the criticisms and suspicions expressed about the work. In the process, they consider whether glasses make you look smart, and whether babies can be trusted.

Sponsored By:

• FindingFive: Link and promo code for users in the European Union Promo Code: FF-EU-2P4B
• FindingFive: FindingFive is a non-profit web platform where academic researchers can create and run online behavioral research studies in the cloud. Promo Code: FF-US-2P4B

Links:

• Two Psychologists F. on Untappd
• Deep models of superficial face judgments | PNAS
• Abeba Birhane on Twitter: ""trustworthy", "smart" & "privilege" are not things that can be read off faces. this is nothing but a form of machine aided phsygnomy that will be used for insidious purposes which will end up harming those that don't fit social and historical stereotypes" / Twitter
• Tim Maughan on Twitter: "fuck you and fuck your digital calliper skull measuring snake oil bullshit" / Twitter
• Yoel Inbar on Twitter: "I'd be very interested in the strong argument against this kind of research (ideally including readings). I see a lot of moral outrage in the replies/quote tweets but I would like to know more about why. As an outsider it seems sort of baffling." / Twitter
• joseph osmundson (all pronouns) on Twitter: "@yorl There are literally entire libraries on this, Jesus." / Twitter
• The Data Therapist on Twitter: "I like this question. Baffled by all the outrage around AI ethics? Would like to form your own opinion but not sure how to start thinking about it? Here’s my 3 minute tweetorial / lay of the land: #ethnlp #AIEthics #EthicalAI" / Twitter
• The ethical questions that haunt facial-recognition research
• Physiognomy’s New Clothes. by Blaise Agüera y Arcas, Margaret... | by Blaise Aguera y Arcas | Medium
• Black racial phenotypicality shapes social pain and support judgments
• I've Just Seen a Face - The Beatles (Cover) - YouTube

Yoel and Mickey discuss Identity Crisis, a new book about the 2016 US presidential election written by the political scientists John Sides, Michael Tesler, and Lynn Vavreck. But first, they talk about the recent controversy over Patreon's ban of a provocative internet personality and what, if any, implications this has for free speech.

Bonus: who is Mickey's favorite Sex and the City character?

Links:

• Michael Inzlicht on Twitter: Toilet paper roll — "My departmental rival, @gmacdonalduoft, had this made for our area secret Santa party last night. Now I'm struggling to decide whether I should make it my twitter profile pic.... https://t.co/HYrtwJ4hQu"
• Delirium Tremens
• Crowdfunding platform Patreon defends itself amid boycott - Business Insider
• Stars of ‘Intellectual Dark Web’ Scramble to Save Their Cash Cows
• How Kim Cattrall got a date with Pierre Trudeau
• Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America: John Sides, Michael Tesler, Lynn Vavreck: 9780691174198: Amazon.com: Books

In heated political debates, people are often accused of being hypocrites, lacking consistent foundational values. Today, Yoel and Alexa discuss a recent paper by David Pinsof, David Sears, and Martie Haselton, that challenges the commonsense notion that political belief systems stem from our core values. Instead, the authors propose that people form alliances with others, and develop political beliefs that serve to maintain those alliances. The cohosts discuss how these alliances might form, the various biases used to defend them, and whether values are truly absent from the process. They also tackle the deeper question of whether the alliance model means that neither side is right or wrong.

Links:

• Two Psychologists Four Beers on Untappd
• PsyArXiv Preprints | Strange Bedfellows: The Alliance Theory of Political Belief Systems
• R. Ring - "Hug" | Music Video - YouTube

Harkening back to episode 73, Alexa and Yoel discuss recent evidence of fraud documented in the Data Colada blog post "Clusterfake." The post is the first in a series of four, which will collectively detail evidence of fraud in four papers co-authored by Harvard Business School Professor Francesca Gino. First, the co-hosts dive into the details, with Alexa soberly (in both senses of the word) explaining the revelations of calcChain. They go on to discuss the potential impact of these findings for collaborators, some of whom have begun conducting audits of work co-authored with Gino. In addition, they speculate about ways to reduce fraud that could relieve some of the burden from those who currently do this time-consuming and often thankless work. Finally, they consider what this means for a field still struggling to build a more trustworthy foundation.

Links:

• Two Psychologists Four Beers on Untappd
• [109] Data Falsificada (Part 1): "Clusterfake" - Data Colada
• Sci-Hub | Signing at the beginning makes ethics salient and decreases dishonest self-reports in comparison to signing at the end. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(38), 15197–15200 | 10.1073/pnas.1209746109
• Two Psychologists Four Beers Episode 73: We Need to Talk About Fraud (with Joe Simmons)
• Juliana Schroeder on Twitter: "I am waiting to learn more about this case. It is extremely concerning. My coauthors and I are auditing our papers with Francesca, and identifying the raw data files. I think (hope) other co-authors are doing likewise. We will announce the results of the audit when they are ready" / Twitter
• Fleetwood Mac - Little Lies (Official Music Video) - YouTube

Yoel and Mickey have their first repeat guest as Liz Page-Gould joins them to talk vices. Weed, booze and porn are all on the table (well, not literally) as we take on some popular vices. Why do you get paranoid when you smoke? Was alcohol really the impetus for agriculture? Is watching porn bad for your relationship? Bonus: learn who's watched porn in the last week.

Special Guest: Elizabeth Page-Gould.

Links:

• Rouge River Brewery
• Adverse effects of cannabis - The Lancet — Cannabis is the most widely used illicit drug in many developed societies. Its health and psychological effects are not well understood and remain the subject of much debate, with opinions on its risks polarised along the lines of proponents' views on what its legal status should be. An unfortunate consequence of this polarisation of opinion has been the absence of any consensus on what health information the medical profession should give to patients who are users or potential users of cannabis.
• CANNABIS AND SCHIZOPHRENIA A Longitudinal Study of Swedish Conscripts - The Lancet — The association between level of cannabis consumption and development of schizophrenia during a 15-year follow-up was studied in a cohort of 45 570 Swedish conscripts.
• GWAS of lifetime cannabis use reveals new risk loci, genetic overlap with psychiatric traits, and a causal influence of schizophrenia | Nature Neuroscience
• Prevalence of Marijuana Use Disorders in the United States Between 2001-2002 and 2012-2013 | Adolescent Medicine | JAMA Psychiatry | JAMA Network — Laws and attitudes toward marijuana in the United States are becoming more permissive but little is known about whether the prevalence rates of marijuana use and marijuana use disorders have changed in the 21st century.
• Long-term effects of exposure to cannabis - ScienceDirect — The long-term use of cannabis, particularly at high intake levels, is associated with several adverse psychosocial features, including lower educational achievement and, in some instances, psychiatric illness. There is little evidence, however, that long-term cannabis use causes permanent cognitive impairment, nor is there is any clear cause and effect relationship to explain the psychosocial associations.
• Neuropsychological Performance in Long-term Cannabis Users | Adolescent Medicine | JAMA Psychiatry | JAMA Network — Although cannabis is the most widely used illicit drug in the United States, its long-term cognitive effects remain inadequately studied.
• How Alcohol and Caffeine Helped Create Civilization | HumanProgress — On the other hand, research suggests that alcohol may have helped create civilization itself. Alcohol consumption could have given early homo sapiens a survival edge. Before we could properly purify water or prepare food, the risk of ingesting hazardous microbes was so great that the antiseptic qualities of alcohol made it safer to consume than non-alcoholic alternatives — despite alcohol’s own risks.
• Trying Not to Try | Edward Slingerland — Trying Not to Try: Ancient China, Modern Science and the Power of Spontaneity
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