More on gamer stereotypes
By way of follow-up on my post from Wednesday, here are some interesting tidbits from a recent LA Times article (via):
- Women spend more time playing online role-playing games than men.
- Women “play more intensely” than men and “are happier playing.”
- Women play “less aggressively” than men, especially when gaming with a male romantic partner.
- Women prefer in general to play games with others, while men prefer to play alone.
Reporter Alex Pham sums it up in a nutshell, saying
Why does this matter? In part, because developers have puzzled for years to figure out ways to get women to buy and play more games. Figuring out what motivates them to play is a key step.
I think this study sounds right in line with what commenters Chris Guin and Emily K were saying on Wednesday’s post. Gaming on the Wii, “dancing” to DDR, games with complex and inclusive storylines… all these things attract more people to video games one one level simply because they increase the diversity of available games, and thus the probability that there’s a game out there someone will find interesting. But it seems that the particular aspects of group gameplay or more engaging storylines are especially appealing to women, in the aggregate.
Oh, and happy new year, everyone!
Tragedy at ASU
A most tragic and unfortunate wake-up call to anyone involved in university education, particularly graduate studies:
A male graduate student committed suicide in front of a professor at around 11:40 a.m. Monday [October 26] in the College of Design South building on the [Arizona State University] Tempe campus.
David Solnick, a 59-year-old student in the graphic design program, was talking with Associate Professor Mookesh Patel inside Patel’s office when the student pulled out a handgun and shot himself, ASU Police spokesman Cmdr. Jim Hardina said.
I don’t know anything else about the story other than what’s covered in the link above, but the whole situation is certainly something worth pondering. Graduate school is a real pressure cooker pretty much everywhere, and while suicide is obviously not a healthy response, I can’t honestly say it’s an entirely surprising one to me. Can anything be done about it? I don’t have the answers, but for a thought-provoking discussion about the balance between the kind of struggle that’s a genuine challenge to learn from and the kind of struggle that makes you feel hopeless, go check out this post by Isis the Scientist as well as the comments that follow.
Our thoughts and sympathies are with the family and friends of Mr. Solnick as well as Professor Patel.
Turning to psychics
Today Richard Wiseman pointed out the flurry of recent news stories about psychics getting more business as we face difficult economic times. He covered similar material in his book, Quirkology, basically explaining that “superstitious behaviour gives people an illusion of control over their lives, and proves especially appealing in the face of high uncertainty.” Nevertheless, he asks: “why have our brains evolved to turn away from rationality just when we need it most?”
It seems to me that Wiseman has already answered his own question. People are calmed by the idea that there is some order even in seeming chaos. Perhaps his question was specifically about evolution — that is, how could superstition be a trait that’s selected for?
In that case, I think the answer lies in the calming, rather than in the superstition. Of course a psychic can’t give you any real insight into navigating financial markets. Complex mathematical models govern traders’ decisions about when to buy and when to sell. Logical thinking, not pseudoscience, is clearly what’s needed to develop those. Logical thinking was also necessary for primitive humans to develop a mammoth hunting strategy, to evade predatory animals, to survive cold winters… or to triumph in any number of situations in which they would probably have felt helpless or overpowered. The other thing necessary in all these situations — and, I’d argue, in playing the stock market — is a lack of panic. You can draw up all the logical plans you like, but they won’t do you any good if when you try to carry them out, you’re so afraid for your survival that you forget all about them or take additional actions that sabotage them. Things like carrying lucky trinkets, or performing special rituals, or receiving the affirmations of a spiritual leader (or psychic) offer reassurance that a higher power governs all that seems beyond your control, so you can take a deep breath and get back to your plans.
Of course, in understanding this situation it’s important to remember that to the vast majority of people, the stock market is little more than random chaos. Even the people who work as investment bankers are just one person in a sea of trading firms that, in the aggregate, have some moderate amount of control over the markets. Wiseman assumes that rationality is what we need most. As a general rule, I’d be inclined to agree with him. It’s obviously the ideal. However, I think in this case, what people need is the ability to make rational decisions, and sometimes people cling irrationally to a couple superstitions in order to be calm enough to act rationally the rest of the time.
Calling out contradictions
Yesterday I was skipping around on the radio when I came to a Christian station broadcasting a story. Read slowly, deliberately, and with almost comical voices for the different characters, it was the tale of a young girl who had seen a TV preacher explaining why next Saturday was the day of Christ’s Second Coming. He had an equation (?) and a book all about it, and that convinced her, so much so that she began putting up posters all around her town. Her parents, good Christians of course, saw this as crazy behavior, but they weren’t sure how to talk to her about it. After all, if they told her that Jesus wouldn’t be returning on Saturday, she’d start to question whether he’d ever return at all! They didn’t know how to get her to stop acting crazy without shaking her faith.
The real issue seemed so blatant I couldn’t believe they were just sweeping it under the rug. What are the actual reasons for believing in the deity of Jesus, and for believing in the apocalypse accompanied by his return? Why is a televangelist’s take on this not seen as credible, but a local church minister’s is? How can you challenge one irrational belief without applying the same sort of scrutiny to your other beliefs? That’s exactly what the parents were worried about — that the “good” skepticism they wanted to teach her would turn into “bad” skepticism (i.e., distrusting things she was supposed to believe blind).
It got me thinking about… well, not exactly hypocrisy, because I feel like that word should be reserved for intentional cases. I suppose I should say contradictions. We all (perhaps to differing extents) compartmentalize various controversies and rationalize beliefs we’re predisposed to, rather than making judgments from first principles. It’s very easy for this to lead to a situation in which you hold very different opinions simultaneously. The more rational you are, the more likely you are to catch these instances when they do occur, and the quicker you resolve the inconsistency. However, understanding the importance of rational thinking doesn’t mean that you never hold contradictory beliefs.
This is more than just the doctor who smokes, or the obese gym teacher. There’s the “creation scientist” who, after being presented with carefully constructed scientific theories that have withstood rigorous testing, demands proof beyond any shadow of a doubt (clearly misunderstanding the concept of science), but who would never think of turning such a critical lens on the religious beliefs that form their large set of assumptions. There’s the pro-life advocate who wants abortion to be illegal because it is murder, but who would never consider assigning sentences of the same magnitude as what murderers get. There are liberals who think of the Constitution as a set of fundamental principles, which justifies giving absolute protection to expression and religion even if that’s not how the Founding Fathers would have interpreted it — but prefer to look to 18th-century laws to justify gun control in the face of the 2nd Amendment. Alternatively, you have conservatives who would oppose the “fundamental principles” interpretation in general, deferring to the attitudes of the Founders to define Constitutional protections — except in cases about gun control where they’re happy to embrace it.
I’m not saying you can’t believe in making abortion illegal while also supporting low sentences for it. What I’m saying is that, if that’s your position, you have to have reasonably subtle logic to back it up. A good way to examine whether your opinion on a topic is rational is to look at the underlying principles and assumptions, and see if you agree with the implications of those assumptions — in all cases, not just in the limited context of the original situation.
I also think this is good to keep in mind during discussions with others. Say you present some scientific evidence to a creationist, and they respond with criticism of the study methods. It’s not worth your time to defend the study; take their point about scientific rigor and run with it. If they really believe in the scientific method, they can’t make a reasonable claim that creationism is science. Rather than just trying to refute every statement they make as though the conversation were some horrible game of Whack-a-Mole, it can be helpful to agree with them while they’re making the portion of their arguments that are better suited to your side.
This way of thinking — about basic principles that reach beyond isolated opinions — seems especially helpful in political debates. Among most intelligent people, the controversy over, say, school vouchers isn’t really about school vouchers. It’s about underlying ways of thinking about political issues, with opposing views on vouchers being obvious conclusions based on different philosophical starting points. Testing and debating those underlying beliefs is more productive (and much more interesting) than trying to deal with the specific policy issue in question.
Update: I found the radio show I mentioned at the start of this post. It’s called Adventures in Odyssey, and you can read a plot summary of the episode here.
When “stupid” is good
Female Science Professor wrote a great post today, prompted by an essay in Journal of Cell Science, about how stupid can be a good feeling. I found it really spot-on and insightful. “What are you talking about, Z?” I can hear you saying with outrage. “This blog is about being intelligent and using your brain! How can you agree with the idea that stupid is good?”
I don’t think it’s good to be stupid, so hold your horses. The problem is, it’s easy to feel stupid when you’re really not. Somehow, the popular conception of a smart person is someone who knows lots of things. That has an element of truth to it, but true intelligence is a lot more than being able to recall trivia. It’s important for scientists — and I dare say people in general — to get comfortable saying “I don’t understand this at all,” really confronting their lack of knowledge rather than staying in a safer place where all the answers are memorized or easy. Acknowledging your ignorance is really the smartest thing to do. If you never find yourself asking questions you don’t already know the answers to, you’ll never find out anything new. That seems pretty obvious in an abstract sense (it’s a big part of why Socrates is revered as a great thinker), but if you’re used to sailing through your classes and being the smartest kid in the room, the feeling of not getting it right away can be pretty jarring.
In order to do well in science, or in math, or in analytical aspects of any pursuit, it’s important to learn to appreciate a feeling of cluelessness, because it’s out of those moments that major learning really happens. That’s why, whenever I tutor or teach, I make an extra effort to help my students realize that they’re not the only ones who’ve had a hard time understanding the material. I like to say things like, “I thought this was really confusing the first time I heard about it, but I found it useful to…” or “That last part was pretty tricky, do you want me to go through it again?” That feeling when you’re struggling to understand can really turn people off to science, especially when they wonder how anyone could make a whole career out of studying stuff that’s not yet in a textbook (or a solution manual). That’s why students really need to hear that everyone makes mistakes, gets confused, or spends days blankly staring at a problem with no idea where to begin. Those experiences don’t mean you’re unsuited for science — they only become an issue if you respond by panicking and giving up.
I was surprised that FSP and some of the commenters on her blog were worried about sending that essay on to some friends/students/colleagues they knew who were feeling discouraged. They anticipate those people will read it as, “Yes, you’re stupid” rather than, “See? Everyone feels this way, and it’s a good thing.” I’ve doubted whether I was cut out for physics on plenty of occasions, and I’m sure if even at the worst of those times I was given an article called “The importance of stupidity in scientific research” I would find it uplifting rather than upsetting. Maybe it just needs to be framed with the right introduction and given at an opportune time. I do think it could do a world of good.