John Bullard » Psychology http://johnbullard.net Loose Thinking, Tight Analysis Tue, 12 Jan 2010 14:32:46 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Price of Prejudice http://johnbullard.net/2009/02/03/price-of-prejudice/ http://johnbullard.net/2009/02/03/price-of-prejudice/#comments Tue, 03 Feb 2009 22:14:45 +0000 John http://johnbullard.net/?p=91 America is much more “politically correct” and merit-based than it used to be. Or is it?

Not surprisingly, [subjects] reported that weight was the least important factor in their choice. However, their actual decisions revealed that no other attribute counted more heavily. In fact, they were willing to sacrifice quite a bit to have a thin team-mate. They would trade 11 IQ points—about 50% of the range of IQs available—for a colleague who was suitably slender.

Maybe PC is a veneer, or an attempted quick-fix for deep rooted cultural biases…

When it came to salary, location and holiday, the students’ decisions matched their stated preferences. However, the boss’s sex turned out to be far more important than they said it was (this was true whether a student was male or female). In effect, they were willing to pay a 22% tax on their starting salary to have a male boss.

Economist: Price of Prejudice


]]> http://johnbullard.net/2009/02/03/price-of-prejudice/feed/ 0 The Uncanny Valley http://johnbullard.net/2008/12/22/the-uncanny-valley/ http://johnbullard.net/2008/12/22/the-uncanny-valley/#comments Tue, 23 Dec 2008 05:41:30 +0000 John http://johnbullard.net/?p=75 Coding Horror has a great piece on human expectations, ‘the Uncanny Valley’, and how it all relates (in a big way) to UX design. Inspired by a Slate piece on Why Realistic Characters Look So Creepy. I think there’s a lot of takeaway value in this, especially for web apps.

Coding Horror: Avoiding the Uncanny Valley of User Interface

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