Boys like dolls too
Surprising insights from the social sciences
(Wesley Bedrosian for The Boston Globe )
Gender stereotypes typically have girls favoring pink, boys favoring blue, girls favoring dolls, boys favoring cars, girls favoring rounded shapes, and boys favoring angular shapes. To see how early these preferences actually emerge, researchers at the University of Cambridge showed pairs of images to infants aged 12, 18, and 24 months. Although girls were indeed more interested in looking at dolls than cars at all ages, boys also preferred to look at dolls at 12 months. Boys only shifted to cars at the older ages. With respect to colors and shapes, there were no sex differences at these young ages. Both boys and girls preferred red and pink to bluish colors, and rounded shapes to angular shapes. So it looks like the whole some-toys-are-for-boys thing may be largely a learned phenomenon.
Jadva, V. et al., “Infants’ Preferences for Toys, Colors, and Shapes: Sex Differences and Similarities,” Archives of Sexual Behavior (December 2010).
The all-star coach effect As a general rule, managers are paid more than subordinates. However, many infamous examples of managerial incompetence have made people wary, or even downright cynical, about the value managers provide. A new analysis of NBA coaches sheds some light on the question. Looking at coaching performance during two seasons, the authors found that coaches with previous experience as players in the NBA won more games. This was especially true for coaches who were NBA all-stars. Specifically, an all-star coach had the effect of moving his team up six places, compared to a coach without any experience as an NBA player. The authors aren’t exactly sure though how much of this advantage derives from knowledge transfer, strategic wisdom, or the credibility of the coach’s leadership.
Goodall, A. et al., “Why Do Leaders Matter? A Study of Expert Knowledge in a Superstar Setting,” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization (forthcoming).
Daylight saving ate my brain If this study is correct, you should contact your representatives right away and ask them to repeal daylight saving time, or DST. While other studies have recently questioned the purported energy and safety benefits of daylight saving time, this new study takes it one step further: “Starkly expressed, DST appears to cause brain damage.” The authors analyzed SAT scores from high schools throughout Indiana, which, until a few years ago, had different time-zone standards in different parts of the state. They found that daylight saving time was associated with losing over 16 points on the SAT. This effect was especially pronounced for disadvantaged groups. Moreover, the projected economic value of these lower scores was estimated to be $69 billion, or over $200 per person, per year!
Gaski, J. & Sagarin, J., “Detrimental Effects of Daylight Saving Time on SAT Scores,” Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics (forthcoming).
Maybe the lobbying law doesn’t matter One of the most controversial political issues of 2010 was the Supreme Court’s five-to-four decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. That decision struck down limits on political advertising by corporations and prompted President Obama to rebuke the decision — with the Justices sitting right in front of him — during his State of the Union speech. One researcher looked at how the stock market reacted, on the theory that stock prices should’ve jumped after the decision was announced if investors believed that it would indeed help corporations. Regardless of how politically involved the corporation was, the effect on stock prices was zero. Investors seemed to expect that corporations would shy away from massive political intervention — for fear of controversy, or that it might not work anyway — and that the decision freed unions to spend, too.
Werner, T., “The Sound, the Fury, and the Nonevent: Business Power and Market Reactions to the Citizens United Decision,” American Politics Research (forthcoming).
Verbs can hurt you In the heat of the 2008 Democratic primary contest, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton argued back and forth about the importance of rhetoric, with Obama retorting in one speech, “Don’t tell me words don’t matter!” According to a new study, not only do words matter, but verb tense matters, too. People read about a fictitious senator who was up for reelection. When negative aspects of the candidate were described using the imperfective tense (e.g., “he was taking bribes”), the candidate was evaluated more negatively than if the perfective tense (e.g., “he took bribes”) was used. There was no comparable effect for descriptions of positive aspects of the candidate.
Fausey, C. & Matlock, T., “Can Grammar Win Elections?” Political Psychology (forthcoming).
Kevin Lewis is an Ideas columnist. He can be reached at kevin.lewis.ideas@gmail.com. 
