Category: Election


  • Illusory Truth Effect

    Repeated statements receive higher truth ratings than new statements, a phenomenon called the illusory truth effect… Repetition makes statements easier to process (i.e., fluent) relative to new statements, leading people to the (sometimes) false conclusion that they are more truthful… Indeed, illusory truth effects arise even without prior exposure—people rate statements presented in high-contrast (i.e., easy-to-read) fonts…

  • Bullshit Curation

    Saw something that looked clickbait-y and for once glad I clicked on it because I learned a new term I want to scream from the mountaintops: bullshit curation. Clickbait sounds almost respectable. One of my favorite recent terms I learned from Jon Stewart was “Bullshit Mountain.” It refers to the Orwellian spin of stories from political…

  • Saw a probably clickbait title “Mishaps overshadow message at the Republican National Convention.” It got me thinking that this is probably another case of media attention hyperbole. The media fixation story I recall was several years ago about child kidnappings. Every week it made national headlines about a child who disappeared or was taken by…

  • Memic Straw Men

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    Well, calling the current political, social, or even game discourses debates is probably too generous. That implies discussion which means an attempt at listening to the other if only to hear their point of view enough to counter it. At this point, much of what I see are the use of memes to perpetuate Straw…

  • Automation is here. When I was in college, for most of my time there, I thought Industrial-Organizational Psychology was my career path. It was not until my last semester when I started working as a student for IT that it all changed. Little did I know that people efficiency was dying. Automation, aka the efficiency…

  • In reading the 2016 update, I learned that apparently The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies was already on my wishlist / to-read list. The 2016 update was an interesting read and reveals I really do need to read this book this year. Reading The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding…

  • Loud and Proud

    I realize I live in the great echo chamber. Most people I know live in the United States. Therefore, the political talk I hear is of the US. Because of friends in England, I hear some of the politics there. Other countries election issues come from news sources like the BBC or NPR. The ever…

  • A few years ago a direction challenged friend asked me to go looking at houses with her.  She had a knack for getting lost in neighborhoods. My job was to provide a second opinion and help her get unlost. Only a couple times did I need to suggest to her how to get out of…

  • A post a few days ago was on immigration and marriage rights intersecting into trust and how our group affiliations, aka tribes, impact are perceptions of these groups. Today is on ideology and trust. Back in January I posted The Enemy’s POV. I found this Ezra Klein article UNPOPULAR MANDATE: Why do politicians reverse their positions? interesting, especially…