Social Science Space

Teacher observations are both costly and time intensive, but perhaps it’s time to invest in better teacher evaluation to get better student results. So argues Robert Pianta, who has personally helped develop some measures that might achieve such high hopes, in a an article in the journal PIBBS..

When does a modern young person become an ‘adult’? Age 13? 16? 18? 21? Legal definitions aside, young people in the developed world are feeling they’ve become independent operators much later in life than ever before.

Remember when Barbie made the stereotypical ‘Math is hard!’ comment? That sentiment is real, and unchecked it can be contagious. Luckily, however, math anxiety can be cured.

Putting down your phone is merely the first step in banishing distractions while you drive, according to research in the journal ‘Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences.’ In fact, asking Siri to do something at a remove is pretty darned dangerous, too.

Gendered language shapes how we think about the appropriate roles for men and women, especially when we are children and just beginning to form our understanding of the world. That might not sound like a problem, but it can reinforce stereotypes we are trying to tear down.

Mankind has long been looking for a magic solution to staving off mental decline as we age. One solution examined in the new issue of the journal ‘Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences’ may be just in front of our reading glasses.

How interventions are designed matter as much as what they do. In that vein, Harvard researchers Erin Frey and Todd Rogers have identified four pathways through which behavior change interventions can achieve long-term impact.

Stereotype threat occurs when an individual is afraid of confirming a negative stereotype about a group to which he or she belongs and, in a cruel irony, performs worse because of it. Research shows the phenomenon is real and can sabotage affirmative action.

The absolute difference between what someone else is getting compared to what you get matters less than how feel about any disparity, according to a review of ‘relative deprivation’ research in the journal ‘Policy Insights from the Brain and Behavioral Sciences.’

Brief educational interventions that draw on social psychology can have a big impact on seemingly intractable inequities in the classroom because students’ thoughts and feelings about school affect their experiences of it.

Call it the ‘paradox of equality’: Women are expected to lean in but it turns out there are barriers that are invisible until you smack your head on one. Who should be tasked with taking the tilt out of leaning in?

Every year, innocent people sit in prison cells, some of them even on death row. A surprising number are there because they confessed to crimes they did not commit. Psychologist Saul Kassin is looking into why.