Blue Hair is Brave? Competent?

Jacquelyn Schneider's recent [1] piece at War on The Rocks - Blue Hair in the Grey Zone - got me thinking. How does my research on the stereotype of soldiers and the principle of discrimination relate to recruitment difficulties and personnel shortages in the military? Let's speculate widely. In my studies, I asked people - U.S. residents …

Nuts and Bolts

In a couple of weeks, at SPSP in Atlanta, I will take part in a professional development session called Introduction to Open Science: The Nuts and Bolts of Getting Started. (8am, Saturday! Be there or be square.) Elizabeth Gilbert and Elizabeth Tenney put the session together, and Barbara Spellman, Calvin Lai, and Minah Jung are …

On Rollercoasters, Data Collection, and RRs

Before Christmas some time I was talking to Aurélien about Registered Reports. I was trying to articulate my ambivalent feelings about them - which seem entirely disconnected from my not-at-all-ambivalent thoughts about them. By which I mean: I believe, even "know", that RRs are An Excellent Idea, that in an ideal world I personally think …

Swings and Roundabouts

So as you all probably know by now, over the weekend there was this piece published in the Boston Globe, once again decrying the apparently poor tone of people calling for psychological science to clean up its act. Like everyone else, I’m going to suggest reading James Heather as a companion piece first. I'm also …

From Little Things…

I started this "series" of posts on the 12th of September, and now, roughly 12 posts on war later, I'm wrapping it up in time for Christmas. Thank you for reading! It's been a great exercise for me, and I've enjoyed the various interactions it has triggered. The aim was always to "write more about …

Commentary Proposal: Making Replication Mainstream

A couple of weeks ago I submitted a commentary proposal for Zwaan, Etz, Lucas, & Donnellan's  excellent BBS article: Making Replication Mainstream.  It wasn't about war (obviously), but I was on holidays last week and the proposal got rejected today, so... well, I don't have much else to say, but I'd love to hear what you think …

Holiday, Recommendation

I'm on half-holidays this week - my boyfriend is required(ish) to go to Miami for a continuing medical education conference, and I've tagged along. Since he's at lectures half the day, I'm also working half the day, but the rest of the time it's all palm trees and beaches and mangroves and alligators! At least, …

Other Versions of the Relationship between War and Moral Psychology

In an earlier post, I suggested that one way moral psychologists treat war, is as "just another context" within which our regular moral processes and preferences unfold. This treatment is rarely explicit, it just shows up as a random war-based scenario among a bunch of other scenarios, used to test a particular theory about moral …

The All Encompassing Figure

Remember that Big War Study I've mentioned a couple of times? No? Well never mind; I'm going to tell you about (one of the studies in) it now! In the first few studies, we'd given participants a war with a "just" side and an "unjust" side*, and asked them to make judgments about soldiers fighting …

All’s Fair?

Jonathan Phillips and Fiery Cushman recently published a paper in PNAS: Morality constrains the default representation of what is possible. The title of Jonathan's accompanying Aeon article is somewhat more evocative: 'But you can't do that!' Why immoral actions seem impossible.  This article (go read it now!) fits neatly in with (what I think of …