I am delighted to announce the publications of my statistics and data analysis book, From Questions to Knowledge: Data Analysis for Psychology and Behavioural Science Using R . This book represents a combination of: a statistics course; an introduction to coding in R; and a guide to good practice (as I see it) for study design Continue reading "From Questions to Knowledge"
This little essay is a commentary on the recent paper by my colleagues Nicolas Baumard and Jean-Baptiste André, The ecological approach to culture . [Homo sapiens] is as much a rule-following animal as a purpose-seeking one (Hayek, 1973, p. 11) ‘Culture’ is more than dollar bills on the sidewalk that you can pick up if you Continue reading "Creatures of habit(us): A commentary on Baumard and André…
Two things we know of are really bad for your health: poverty, and loneliness, aka social isolation. These two predictors come out of epidemiological study after epidemiological study, outcome variable after outcome variable. Other than not smoking, the two main things you can do to improve your health are to have plenty of money and Continue reading "Why do loneliness and poverty go together?"
In October 2024, I had the great honour of travelling to Hamilton to give the Margo Wilson Memorial Lecture. It was fifteen years since Margo’s death. Preparing the lecture gave me the opportunity to reread and reflect on some of the classic work that Margo did with Martin Daly. I have always thought that Continue reading "Margo Wilson, and how to do evolutionary human science"
Ask an evolutionary psychologist to explain the evolutionary psychology way of thinking to you. I am fairly confident they will give you the following example. Humans evolved in environments where sugary, energy dense foods were scarce. Thus, they evolved a strong motivation to consume these foods when available, and, importantly, no stop mechanism; they never Continue reading "Sweet nothings"
This blog is mainly about (social) science, but my interest in and concern about poverty and inequality makes it a bit about politics too. And this is just a brief post to explain the UK Labour Party s landslide election win on 4th July 2024; what it is, and importantly is not. On the progressive side Continue reading "The UK 2024 General Election result is not quite what it seems"
UK readers may be wondering why Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has called a snap General Election to be held on July4th 2024, when the law did not require him to do so for another six months, and his governing party was trailing in the opinion polls. I can now reveal the answer. Act Now!, our Continue reading "Act Now!"
A guest blog in which Gillian Pepper states the obvious .. Some time ago now, I was chatting with Daniel over lunch. I told him that Richard Brown and I were continuing to find evidence in support of a theoretical model that Daniel published over a decade ago. Daniel surprised me with his response. He declared Continue reading "The double dividend of safety"
Lately, I ve been coming across a lot of proposed study designs that were like mansions. There I was, appreciating the well proportioned main research questions and the generosity of the outcome measures, when a little door got opened up in the panelling, and it became evident there were whole wings beyond the part where I Continue reading "Your study should not be like a mansion"
Readers may be aware of the Changing Cost of Living study, which we carried out in this team from Autumn 2022 to Autumn 2023. I wrote an earlier post here explaining what the study was and why we did it. The study is now complete and the first paper is available here as a Continue reading "The Changing Cost of Living study, part two: The dynamics of poverty, anxiety and depression"