1.3 Conducting Research in Social Psychology

Learning Objectives

  1. Explain why social psychologists rely on empirical methods to study social behavior.
  2. Provide examples of how social psychologists measure the variables they are interested in.
  3. Review the three types of research designs, and evaluate the strengths and limitations of each type.
  4. Consider the role of validity in research, and describe how research programs should be evaluated.

Social psychologists are not the only people interested in understanding and predicting social behavior or the only people who study it. Social behavior is also considered by religious leaders, philosophers, politicians, novelists, and others, and it is a common topic on TV shows. But the social psychological approach to understanding social behavior goes beyond the mere observation of human actions. Social psychologists believe that a true understanding of the causes of social behavior can only be obtained through a systematic scientific approach, and that is why they conduct scientific research. Social psychologists believe that the study of social behavior should be empirical—that is, based on the collection and systematic analysis of observable data.

The Importance of Scientific Research

Because social psychology concerns the relationships among people, and because we can frequently find answers to questions about human behavior by using our own common sense or intuition, many people think that it is not necessary to study it empirically (Lilienfeld, 2011). But although we do learn about people by observing others and therefore social psychology is in fact partly common sense, social psychology is not entirely common sense.

In case you are not convinced about this, perhaps you would be willing to test whether or not social psychology is just common sense by taking a short true-or-false quiz. If so, please have a look at Table 1.1 “Is Social Psychology Just Common Sense?” and respond with either “True” or “False.” Based on your past observations of people’s behavior, along with your own common sense, you will likely have answers to each of the questions on the quiz. But how sure are you? Would you be willing to bet that all, or even most, of your answers have been shown to be correct by scientific research? Would you be willing to accept your score on this quiz for your final grade in this class? If you are like most of the students in my classes, you will get at least some of these answers wrong. (To see the answers and a brief description of the scientific research supporting each of these topics, please go to the Chapter Summary at the end of this chapter.)

Table 1.1 Is Social Psychology Just Common Sense?

Answer each of the following questions, using your own initution, as either true or false.
Opposites attract.
An athlete who wins the bronze medal (third place) in an event is happier about his or her performance than the athlete who wins the silver medal (second place).
Subliminal advertising (i.e., persuasive messages that are displayed out of our awareness on TV or movie screens) is very effective in getting us to buy products.

One of the reasons we might think that social psychology is common sense is that once we learn about the outcome of a given event (e.g., when we read about the results of a research project), we frequently believe that we would have been able to predict the outcome ahead of time. For instance, if half of a class of students is told that research concerning attraction between people has demonstrated that “opposites attract,” and if the other half is told that research has demonstrated that “birds of a feather flock together,” most of the students in both groups will report believing that the outcome is true and that they would have predicted the outcome before they had heard about it. Of course, both of these contradictory outcomes cannot be true. The problem is that just reading a description of research findings leads us to think of the many cases that we know that support the findings and thus makes them seem believable. The tendency to think that we could have predicted something that we probably would not have been able to predict is called the hindsight bias.

Our common sense also leads us to believe that we know why we engage in the behaviors that we engage in, when in fact we may not. Social psychologist Daniel Wegner and his colleagues have conducted a variety of studies showing that we do not always understand the causes of our own actions. When we think about a behavior before we engage in it, we believe that the thinking guided our behavior, even when it did not (Morewedge, Gray, & Wegner, 2010). People also report that they contribute more to solving a problem when they are led to believe that they have been working harder on it, even though the effort did not increase their contribution to the outcome (Preston & Wegner, 2007). These findings, and many others like them, demonstrate that our beliefs about the causes of social events, and even of our own actions, do not always match the true causes of those events.

Social psychologists conduct research because it often uncovers results that could not have been predicted ahead of time. Putting our hunches to the test exposes our ideas to scrutiny. The scientific approach brings a lot of surprises, but it also helps us test our explanations about behavior in a rigorous manner. It is important for you to understand the research methods used in psychology so that you can evaluate the validity of the research that you read about here, in other courses, and in your everyday life.

Social psychologists publish their research in scientific journals, and your instructor may require you to read some of these research articles. The most important social psychology journals are listed in Table 1.2 “Social Psychology Journals”. If you are asked to do a literature search on research in social psychology, you should look for articles from these journals.

Table 1.2 Social Psychology Journals

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Social Psychology and Personality Science
Social Cognition
European Journal of Social Psychology
Social Psychology Quarterly
Basic and Applied Social Psychology
Journal of Applied Social Psychology
Note. The research articles in these journals are likely to be available in your college library. A fuller list can be found here: http://www.socialpsychology.org/journals.htm#social

We’ll discuss the empirical approach and review the findings of many research projects throughout this book, but for now let’s take a look at the basics of how scientists use research to draw overall conclusions about social behavior. Keep in mind as you read this book, however, that although social psychologists are pretty good at understanding the causes of behavior, our predictions are a long way from perfect. We are not able to control the minds or the behaviors of others or to predict exactly what they will do in any given situation. Human behavior is complicated because people are complicated and because the social situations that they find themselves in every day are also complex. It is this complexity—at least for me—that makes studying people so interesting and fun.

Measuring Affect, Behavior, and Cognition

One important aspect of using an empirical approach to understand social behavior is that the concepts of interest must be measured (Figure 1.4 “The Operational Definition”). If we are interested in learning how much Sarah likes Robert, then we need to have a measure of her liking for him. But how, exactly, should we measure the broad idea of “liking”? In scientific terms, the characteristics that we are trying to measure are known as conceptual variables, and the particular method that we use to measure a variable of interest is called an operational definition.

For anything that we might wish to measure, there are many different operational definitions, and which one we use depends on the goal of the research and the type of situation we are studying. To better understand this, let’s look at an example of how we might operationally define “Sarah likes Robert.”

Figure 1.4 The Operational Definition

The Operational Definition: Sarah Likes Robert. Either Sarah says,

An idea or conceptual variable (such as “how much Sarah likes Robert”) is turned into a measure through an operational definition.

One approach to measurement involves directly asking people about their perceptions using self-report measures. Self-report measures are measures in which individuals are asked to respond to questions posed by an interviewer or on a questionnaire. Generally, because any one question might be misunderstood or answered incorrectly, in order to provide a better measure, more than one question is asked and the responses to the questions are averaged together. For example, an operational definition of Sarah’s liking for Robert might involve asking her to complete the following measure:

  1. I enjoy being around Robert.

    Strongly disagree 1 2 3 4 5 6 Strongly agree

  2. I get along well with Robert.

    Strongly disagree 1 2 3 4 5 6 Strongly agree

  3. I like Robert.

    Strongly disagree 1 2 3 4 5 6 Strongly agree

The operational definition would be the average of her responses across the three questions. Because each question assesses the attitude differently, and yet each question should nevertheless measure Sarah’s attitude toward Robert in some way, the average of the three questions will generally be a better measure than would any one question on its own.

Although it is easy to ask many questions on self-report measures, these measures have a potential disadvantage. As we have seen, people’s insights into their own opinions and their own behaviors may not be perfect, and they might also not want to tell the truth—perhaps Sarah really likes Robert, but she is unwilling or unable to tell us so. Therefore, an alternative to self-report that can sometimes provide a more valid measure is to measure behavior itself. Behavioral measures are measures designed to directly assess what people do. Instead of asking Sara how much she likes Robert, we might instead measure her liking by assessing how much time she spends with Robert or by coding how much she smiles at him when she talks to him. Some examples of behavioral measures that have been used in social psychological research are shown in Table 1.3 “Examples of Operational Definitions of Conceptual Variables That Have Been Used in Social Psychological Research”.

Table 1.3 Examples of Operational Definitions of Conceptual Variables That Have Been Used in Social Psychological Research

Conceptual variable Operational definitions
Aggression • Number of presses of a button that administers shock to another student
• Number of seconds taken to honk the horn at the car ahead after a stoplight turns green
Interpersonal attraction • Number of times that a person looks at another person
• Number of millimeters of pupil dilation when one person looks at another
Altruism • Number of pieces of paper a person helps another pick up
• Number of hours of volunteering per week that a person engages in
Group decision-making skills • Number of groups able to correctly solve a group performance task
• Number of seconds in which a group correctly solves a problem
Prejudice • Number of negative words used in a creative story about another person
• Number of inches that a person places their chair away from another person

Social Neuroscience: Measuring Social Responses in the Brain

Still another approach to measuring our thoughts and feelings is to measure brain activity, and recent advances in brain science have created a wide variety of new techniques for doing so. One approach, known as electroencephalography (EEG), is a technique that records the electrical activity produced by the brain’s neurons through the use of electrodes that are placed around the research participant’s head. An electroencephalogram (EEG) can show if a person is asleep, awake, or anesthetized because the brain wave patterns are known to differ during each state. An EEG can also track the waves that are produced when a person is reading, writing, and speaking with others. A particular advantage of the technique is that the participant can move around while the recordings are being taken, which is useful when measuring brain activity in children who often have difficulty keeping still. Furthermore, by following electrical impulses across the surface of the brain, researchers can observe changes over very fast time periods.

A woman wearing an EEG cap

This woman is wearing an EEG cap.

Although EEGs can provide information about the general patterns of electrical activity within the brain, and although they allow the researcher to see these changes quickly as they occur in real time, the electrodes must be placed on the surface of the skull, and each electrode measures brain waves from large areas of the brain. As a result, EEGs do not provide a very clear picture of the structure of the brain.

But techniques exist to provide more specific brain images. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a neuroimaging technique that uses a magnetic field to create images of brain structure and function. In research studies that use the fMRI, the research participant lies on a bed within a large cylindrical structure containing a very strong magnet. Nerve cells in the brain that are active use more oxygen, and the need for oxygen increases blood flow to the area. The fMRI detects the amount of blood flow in each brain region and thus is an indicator of which parts of the brain are active.

Very clear and detailed pictures of brain structures (see Figure 1.5 “Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)”) can be produced via fMRI. Often, the images take the form of cross-sectional “slices” that are obtained as the magnetic field is passed across the brain. The images of these slices are taken repeatedly and are superimposed on images of the brain structure itself to show how activity changes in different brain structures over time. Normally, the research participant is asked to engage in tasks while in the scanner, for instance, to make judgments about pictures of people, to solve problems, or to make decisions about appropriate behaviors. The fMRI images show which parts of the brain are associated with which types of tasks. Another advantage of the fMRI is that is it noninvasive. The research participant simply enters the machine and the scans begin.

Figure 1.5 Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)

an fMRI image and an MRI machine

The fMRI creates images of brain structure and activity. In this image, the red and yellow areas represent increased blood flow and thus increased activity.

Although the scanners themselves are expensive, the advantages of fMRIs are substantial, and scanners are now available in many university and hospital settings. The fMRI is now the most commonly used method of learning about brain structure, and it has been employed by social psychologists to study social cognition, attitudes, morality, emotions, responses to being rejected by others, and racial prejudice, to name just a few topics (Eisenberger, Lieberman, & Williams, 2003; Greene, Sommerville, Nystrom, Darley, & Cohen, 2001; Lieberman, Hariri, Jarcho, Eisenberger, & Bookheimer, 2005; Ochsner, Bunge, Gross, & Gabrieli, 2002; Richeson et al., 2003).

Observational Research

Once we have decided how to measure our variables, we can begin the process of research itself. As you can see in Table 1.4 “Three Major Research Designs Used by Social Psychologists”, there are three major approaches to conducting research that are used by social psychologists—the observational approach, the correlational approach, and the experimental approach. Each approach has some advantages and disadvantages.

Table 1.4 Three Major Research Designs Used by Social Psychologists

Research Design Goal Advantages Disadvantages
Observational To create a snapshot of the current state of affairs Provides a relatively complete picture of what is occurring at a given time. Allows the development of questions for further study. Does not assess relationships between variables.
Correlational To assess the relationships between two or more variables Allows the testing of expected relationships between variables and the making of predictions. Can assess these relationships in everyday life events. Cannot be used to draw inferences about the causal relationships between the variables.
Experimental To assess the causal impact of one or more experimental manipulations on a dependent variable Allows the drawing of conclusions about the causal relationships among variables. Cannot experimentally manipulate many important variables. May be expensive and take much time to conduct.

The most basic research design, observational research, is research that involves making observations of behavior and recording those observations in an objective manner. Although it is possible in some cases to use observational data to draw conclusions about the relationships between variables (e.g., by comparing the behaviors of older versus younger children on a playground), in many cases the observational approach is used only to get a picture of what is happening to a given set of people at a given time and how they are responding to the social situation. In these cases, the observational approach involves creating a type of “snapshot” of the current state of affairs.

One advantage of observational research is that in many cases it is the only possible approach to collecting data about the topic of interest. A researcher who is interested in studying the impact of a hurricane on the residents of New Orleans, the reactions of New Yorkers to a terrorist attack, or the activities of the members of a religious cult cannot create such situations in a laboratory but must be ready to make observations in a systematic way when such events occur on their own. Thus observational research allows the study of unique situations that could not be created by the researcher. Another advantage of observational research is that the people whose behavior is being measured are doing the things they do every day, and in some cases they may not even know that their behavior is being recorded.

One early observational study that made an important contribution to understanding human behavior was reported in a book by Leon Festinger and his colleagues (Festinger, Riecken, & Schachter, 1956). The book, called When Prophecy Fails, reported an observational study of the members of a “doomsday” cult. The cult members believed that they had received information, supposedly sent through “automatic writing” from a planet called “Clarion,” that the world was going to end. More specifically, the group members were convinced that the earth would be destroyed, as the result of a gigantic flood, sometime before dawn on December 21, 1954.

When Festinger learned about the cult, he thought that it would be an interesting way to study how individuals in groups communicate with each other to reinforce their extreme beliefs. He and his colleagues observed the members of the cult over a period of several months, beginning in July of the year in which the flood was expected. The researchers collected a variety of behavioral and self-report measures by observing the cult, recording the conversations among the group members, and conducting detailed interviews with them. Festinger and his colleagues also recorded the reactions of the cult members, beginning on December 21, when the world did not end as they had predicted. This observational research provided a wealth of information about the indoctrination patterns of cult members and their reactions to disconfirmed predictions. This research also helped Festinger develop his important theory of cognitive dissonance.

Despite their advantages, observational research designs also have some limitations. Most important, because the data that are collected in observational studies are only a description of the events that are occurring, they do not tell us anything about the relationship between different variables. However, it is exactly this question that correlational research and experimental research are designed to answer.

The Research Hypothesis

Because social psychologists are generally interested in looking at relationships among variables, they begin by stating their predictions in the form of a precise statement known as a research hypothesis. A research hypothesis is a statement about the relationship between the variables of interest and about the specific direction of that relationship. For instance, the research hypothesis “People who are more similar to each other will be more attracted to each other” predicts that there is a relationship between a variable called similarity and another variable called attraction. In the research hypothesis “The attitudes of cult members become more extreme when their beliefs are challenged,” the variables that are expected to be related are extremity of beliefs and the degree to which the cults’ beliefs are challenged.

Because the research hypothesis states both that there is a relationship between the variables and the direction of that relationship, it is said to be falsifiable. Being falsifiable means that the outcome of the research can demonstrate empirically either that there is support for the hypothesis (i.e., the relationship between the variables was correctly specified) or that there is actually no relationship between the variables or that the actual relationship is not in the direction that was predicted. Thus the research hypothesis that “people will be more attracted to others who are similar to them” is falsifiable because the research could show either that there was no relationship between similarity and attraction or that people we see as similar to us are seen as less attractive than those who are dissimilar.

Correlational Research

The goal of correlational research is to search for and test hypotheses about the relationships between two or more variables. In the simplest case, the correlation is between only two variables, such as that between similarity and liking, or between gender (male versus female) and helping.

In a correlational design, the research hypothesis is that there is an association (i.e., a correlation) between the variables that are being measured. For instance, many researchers have tested the research hypothesis that a positive correlation exists between the use of violent video games and the incidence of aggressive behavior, such that people who play violent video games more frequently would also display more aggressive behavior.

Playing violent video games may lead to aggressive behavior, but aggressive behavior may lead to playing violent video games

A statistic known as the Pearson correlation coefficient (symbolized by the letter r) is normally used to summarize the association, or correlation, between two variables. The correlation coefficient can range from −1 (indicating a very strong negative relationship between the variables) to +1 (indicating a very strong positive relationship between the variables). Research has found that there is a positive correlation between the use of violent video games and the incidence of aggressive behavior and that the size of the correlation is about r = .30 (Bushman & Huesmann, 2010).

One advantage of correlational research designs is that, like observational research (and in comparison with experimental research designs in which the researcher frequently creates relatively artificial situations in a laboratory setting), they are often used to study people doing the things that they do every day. And correlational research designs also have the advantage of allowing prediction. When two or more variables are correlated, we can use our knowledge of a person’s score on one of the variables to predict his or her likely score on another variable. Because high-school grade point averages are correlated with college grade point averages, if we know a person’s high-school grade point average, we can predict his or her likely college grade point average. Similarly, if we know how many violent video games a child plays, we can predict how aggressively he or she will behave. These predictions will not be perfect, but they will allow us to make a better guess than we would have been able to if we had not known the person’s score on the first variable ahead of time.

Despite their advantages, correlational designs have a very important limitation. This limitation is that they cannot be used to draw conclusions about the causal relationships among the variables that have been measured. An observed correlation between two variables does not necessarily indicate that either one of the variables caused the other. Although many studies have found a correlation between the number of violent video games that people play and the amount of aggressive behaviors they engage in, this does not mean that viewing the video games necessarily caused the aggression. Although one possibility is that playing violent games increases aggression,

Playing violent video games may lead to aggressive behavior

another possibility is that the causal direction is exactly opposite to what has been hypothesized. Perhaps increased aggressiveness causes more interest in, and thus increased viewing of, violent games. Although this causal relationship might not seem as logical to you, there is no way to rule out the possibility of such reverse causation on the basis of the observed correlation.

Aggressive behavior may lead to playing violent video games

Still another possible explanation for the observed correlation is that it has been produced by the presence of another variable that was not measured in the research. Common-causal variables (also known as third variables) are variables that are not part of the research hypothesis but that cause both the predictor and the outcome variable and thus produce the observed correlation between them (Figure 1.6 “Correlation and Causality”). It has been observed that students who sit in the front of a large class get better grades than those who sit in the back of the class. Although this could be because sitting in the front causes the student to take better notes or to understand the material better, the relationship could also be due to a common-causal variable, such as the interest or motivation of the students to do well in the class. Because a student’s interest in the class leads him or her to both get better grades and sit nearer to the teacher, seating position and class grade are correlated, even though neither one caused the other.

Figure 1.6 Correlation and Causality

Where we sit in the class may correlate with our course grade, however, interest in the class, intelligence, and motivation to get good grades could also influences that decision

The correlation between where we sit in a large class and our grade in the class is likely caused by the influence of one or more common-causal variables.

The possibility of common-causal variables must always be taken into account when considering correlational research designs. For instance, in a study that finds a correlation between playing violent video games and aggression, it is possible that a common-causal variable is producing the relationship. Some possibilities include the family background, diet, and hormone levels of the children. Any or all of these potential common-causal variables might be creating the observed correlation between playing violent video games and aggression. Higher levels of the male sex hormone testosterone, for instance, may cause children to both watch more violent TV and behave more aggressively.

I like to think of common-causal variables in correlational research designs as “mystery” variables, since their presence and identity is usually unknown to the researcher because they have not been measured. Because it is not possible to measure every variable that could possibly cause both variables, it is always possible that there is an unknown common-causal variable. For this reason, we are left with the basic limitation of correlational research: Correlation does not imply causation.

Experimental Research

The goal of much research in social psychology is to understand the causal relationships among variables, and for this we use experiments. Experimental research designs are research designs that include the manipulation of a given situation or experience for two or more groups of individuals who are initially created to be equivalent, followed by a measurement of the effect of that experience.

In an experimental research design, the variables of interest are called the independent variables and the dependent variables. The independent variable refers to the situation that is created by the experimenter through the experimental manipulations, and the dependent variable refers to the variable that is measured after the manipulations have occurred. In an experimental research design, the research hypothesis is that the manipulated independent variable (or variables) causes changes in the measured dependent variable (or variables). We can diagram the prediction like this, using an arrow that points in one direction to demonstrate the expected direction of causality:

viewing violence (independent variable) → aggressive behavior (dependent variable)

Consider an experiment conducted by Anderson and Dill (2000), which was designed to directly test the hypothesis that viewing violent video games would cause increased aggressive behavior. In this research, male and female undergraduates from Iowa State University were given a chance to play either a violent video game (Wolfenstein 3D) or a nonviolent video game (Myst). During the experimental session, the participants played the video game that they had been given for 15 minutes. Then, after the play, they participated in a competitive task with another student in which they had a chance to deliver blasts of white noise through the earphones of their opponent. The operational definition of the dependent variable (aggressive behavior) was the level and duration of noise delivered to the opponent. The design and the results of the experiment are shown in Figure 1.7 “An Experimental Research Design (After Anderson & Dill, 2000)”.

Figure 1.7 An Experimental Research Design (After Anderson & Dill, 2000)

Two advantages of the experimental research design are an assurance that the independent variable (also known as the experimental manipulation) occurs prior to the measured dependent variable and the creation of initial equivalence between the conditions of the experiment.

Two advantages of the experimental research design are (a) an assurance that the independent variable (also known as the experimental manipulation) occurs prior to the measured dependent variable and (b) the creation of initial equivalence between the conditions of the experiment (in this case, by using random assignment to conditions).

Experimental designs have two very nice features. For one, they guarantee that the independent variable occurs prior to measuring the dependent variable. This eliminates the possibility of reverse causation. Second, the experimental manipulation allows ruling out the possibility of common-causal variables that cause both the independent variable and the dependent variable. In experimental designs, the influence of common-causal variables is controlled, and thus eliminated, by creating equivalence among the participants in each of the experimental conditions before the manipulation occurs.

The most common method of creating equivalence among the experimental conditions is through random assignment to conditions, which involves determining separately for each participant which condition he or she will experience through a random process, such as drawing numbers out of an envelope or using a website such as http://randomizer.org. Anderson and Dill first randomly assigned about 100 participants to each of their two groups. Let’s call them Group A and Group B. Because they used random assignment to conditions, they could be confident that before the experimental manipulation occurred, the students in Group A were, on average, equivalent to the students in Group B on every possible variable, including variables that are likely to be related to aggression, such as family, peers, hormone levels, and diet—and, in fact, everything else.

Then, after they had created initial equivalence, Anderson and Dill created the experimental manipulation—they had the participants in Group A play the violent video game and the participants in Group B the nonviolent video game. Then they compared the dependent variable (the white noise blasts) between the two groups and found that the students who had viewed the violent video game gave significantly longer noise blasts than did the students who had played the nonviolent game. Because they had created initial equivalence between the groups, when the researchers observed differences in the duration of white noise blasts between the two groups after the experimental manipulation, they could draw the conclusion that it was the independent variable (and not some other variable) that caused these differences. The idea is that the only thing that was different between the students in the two groups was which video game they had played.

When we create a situation in which the groups of participants are expected to be equivalent before the experiment begins, when we manipulate the independent variable before we measure the dependent variable, and when we change only the nature of independent variables between the conditions, then we can be confident that it is the independent variable that caused the differences in the dependent variable. Such experiments are said to have high internal validity, where internal validity refers to the confidence with which we can draw conclusions about the causal relationship between the variables.

Despite the advantage of determining causation, experimental research designs do have limitations. One is that the experiments are usually conducted in laboratory situations rather than in the everyday lives of people. Therefore, we do not know whether results that we find in a laboratory setting will necessarily hold up in everyday life. To counter this, in some cases experiments are conducted in everyday settings—for instance, in schools or other organizations. Such field experiments are difficult to conduct because they require a means of creating random assignment to conditions, and this is frequently not possible in natural settings.

A second and perhaps more important limitation of experimental research designs is that some of the most interesting and important social variables cannot be experimentally manipulated. If we want to study the influence of the size of a mob on the destructiveness of its behavior, or to compare the personality characteristics of people who join suicide cults with those of people who do not join suicide cults, these relationships must be assessed using correlational designs because it is simply not possible to manipulate mob size or cult membership.

Factorial Research Designs

Social psychological experiments are frequently designed to simultaneously study the effects of more than one independent variable on a dependent variable. Factorial research designs are experimental designs that have two or more independent variables. By using a factorial design, the scientist can study the influence of each variable on the dependent variable (known as the main effects of the variables) as well as how the variables work together to influence the dependent variable (known as the interaction between the variables). Factorial designs sometimes demonstrate the person by situation interaction.

In one such study, Brian Meier and his colleagues (Meier, Robinson, & Wilkowski, 2006) tested the hypothesis that exposure to aggression-related words would increase aggressive responses toward others. Although they did not directly manipulate the social context, they used a technique common in social psychology in which they primed (i.e., activated) thoughts relating to social settings. In their research, half of their participants were randomly assigned to see words relating to aggression and the other half were assigned to view neutral words that did not relate to aggression. The participants in the study also completed a measure of individual differences in agreeableness—a personality variable that assesses the extent to which the person sees themselves as compassionate, cooperative, and high on other-concern.

Then the research participants completed a task in which they thought they were competing with another student. Participants were told that they should press the space bar on the computer as soon as they heard a tone over their headphones, and the person who pressed the button the fastest would be the winner of the trial. Before the first trial, participants set the intensity of a blast of white noise that would be delivered to the loser of the trial. The participants could choose an intensity ranging from 0 (no noise) to the most aggressive response (10, or 105 decibels). In essence, participants controlled a “weapon” that could be used to blast the opponent with aversive noise, and this setting became the dependent variable. At this point, the experiment ended.

Figure 1.8 A Person-Situation Interaction

In this experiment by Meier, Robinson, and Wilkowski (2006) the independent variables are type of priming (aggression or neutral) and participant agreeableness (high or low). The dependent variable is the white noise level selected (a measure of aggression). The participants who were low in agreeableness became significantly more aggressive after seeing aggressive words, but those high in agreeableness did not.

As you can see in Figure 1.8 “A Person-Situation Interaction”, there was a person by situation interaction. Priming with aggression-related words (the situational variable) increased the noise levels selected by participants who were low on agreeableness, but priming did not increase aggression (in fact, it decreased it a bit) for students who were high on agreeableness. In this study, the social situation was important in creating aggression, but it had different effects for different people.

Deception in Social Psychology Experiments

You may have wondered whether the participants in the video game study and that we just discussed were told about the research hypothesis ahead of time. In fact, these experiments both used a cover storya false statement of what the research was really about. The students in the video game study were not told that the study was about the effects of violent video games on aggression, but rather that it was an investigation of how people learn and develop skills at motor tasks like video games and how these skills affect other tasks, such as competitive games. The participants in the task performance study were not told that the research was about task performance. In some experiments, the researcher also makes use of an experimental confederatea person who is actually part of the experimental team but who pretends to be another participant in the study. The confederate helps create the right “feel” of the study, making the cover story seem more real.

In many cases, it is not possible in social psychology experiments to tell the research participants about the real hypotheses in the study, and so cover stories or other types of deception may be used. You can imagine, for instance, that if a researcher wanted to study racial prejudice, he or she could not simply tell the participants that this was the topic of the research because people may not want to admit that they are prejudiced, even if they really are. Although the participants are always told—through the process of informed consent—as much as is possible about the study before the study begins, they may nevertheless sometimes be deceived to some extent. At the end of every research project, however, participants should always receive a complete debriefing in which all relevant information is given, including the real hypothesis, the nature of any deception used, and how the data are going to be used.

Interpreting Research

No matter how carefully it is conducted or what type of design is used, all research has limitations. Any given research project is conducted in only one setting and assesses only one or a few dependent variables. And any one study uses only one set of research participants. Social psychology research is sometimes criticized because it frequently uses college students from Western cultures as participants (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010). But relationships between variables are only really important if they can be expected to be found again when tested using other research designs, other operational definitions of the variables, other participants, and other experimenters, and in other times and settings.

External validity refers to the extent to which relationships can be expected to hold up when they are tested again in different ways and for different people. Science relies primarily upon replication—that is, the repeating of research—to study the external validity of research findings. Sometimes the original research is replicated exactly, but more often, replications involve using new operational definitions of the independent or dependent variables, or designs in which new conditions or variables are added to the original design. And to test whether a finding is limited to the particular participants used in a given research project, scientists may test the same hypotheses using people from different ages, backgrounds, or cultures. Replication allows scientists to test the external validity as well as the limitations of research findings.

In some cases, researchers may test their hypotheses, not by conducting their own study, but rather by looking at the results of many existing studies, using a meta-analysisa statistical procedure in which the results of existing studies are combined to determine what conclusions can be drawn on the basis of all the studies considered together. For instance, in one meta-analysis, Anderson and Bushman (2001) found that across all the studies they could locate that included both children and adults, college students and people who were not in college, and people from a variety of different cultures, there was a clear positive correlation (about r = .30) between playing violent video games and acting aggressively. The summary information gained through a meta-analysis allows researchers to draw even clearer conclusions about the external validity of a research finding.

Figure 1.9 Some Important Aspects of the Scientific Approach

Scientists generate research hypotheses, which are tested using an observational, correlational, or experimental research design. The variables of interest are measured using self-report or behavioral measures. Data is interpreted according to its validity (including internal validity and external validity). The results of many studies may be combined and summarized using meta-analysis.

It is important to realize that the understanding of social behavior that we gain by conducting research is a slow, gradual, and cumulative process. The research findings of one scientist or one experiment do not stand alone—no one study “proves” a theory or a research hypothesis. Rather, research is designed to build on, add to, and expand the existing research that has been conducted by other scientists. That is why whenever a scientist decides to conduct research, he or she first reads journal articles and book chapters describing existing research in the domain and then designs his or her research on the basis of the prior findings. The result of this cumulative process is that over time, research findings are used to create a systematic set of knowledge about social psychology (Figure 1.9 “Some Important Aspects of the Scientific Approach”).

Key Takeaways

  • Social psychologists study social behavior using an empirical approach. This allows them to discover results that could not have been reliably predicted ahead of time and that may violate our common sense and intuition.
  • The variables that form the research hypothesis, known as conceptual variables, are assessed using measured variables by using, for instance, self-report, behavioral, or neuroimaging measures.
  • Observational research is research that involves making observations of behavior and recording those observations in an objective manner. In some cases, it may be the only approach to studying behavior.
  • Correlational and experimental research designs are based on developing falsifiable research hypotheses.
  • Correlational research designs allow prediction but cannot be used to make statements about causality. Experimental research designs in which the independent variable is manipulated can be used to make statements about causality.
  • Social psychological experiments are frequently factorial research designs in which the effects of more than one independent variable on a dependent variable are studied.
  • All research has limitations, which is why scientists attempt to replicate their results using different measures, populations, and settings and to summarize those results using meta-analyses.

Exercises and Critical Thinking

1. Find journal articles that report observational, correlational, and experimental research designs. Specify the research design, the research hypothesis, and the conceptual and measured variables in each design.

Consider the following variables that might have contributed to teach of the following events. For each one, (a) propose a research hypothesis in which the variable serves as an independent variable and (b) propose a research hypothesis in which the variable serves as a dependent variable.

  • Helping
  • Aggression
  • Prejudice
  • Liking another person
  • Life satisfaction

Festinger, L., Riecken, H. W., & Schachter, S. (1956). When prophecy fails: A social and psychological study of a modern group that predicted the destruction of the world. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Lieberman, M. D., Hariri, A., Jarcho, J. M., Eisenberger, N. I., & Bookheimer, S. Y. (2005). An fMRI investigation of race-related amygdala activity in African-American and Caucasian-American individuals. Nature Neuroscience, 8(6), 720–722.

Lilienfeld, S. O. (2011, June 13). Public skepticism of psychology: Why many people perceive the study of human behavior as unscientific. American Psychologist. doi: 10.1037/a0023963

Meier, B. P., Robinson, M. D., & Wilkowski, B. M. (2006). Turning the other cheek: Agreeableness and the regulation of aggression-related crimes. Psychological Science, 17(2), 136–142.

Morewedge, C. K., Gray, K., & Wegner, D. M. (2010). Perish the forethought: Premeditation engenders misperceptions of personal control. In R. R. Hassin, K. N. Ochsner, & Y. Trope (Eds.), Self-control in society, mind, and brain (pp. 260–278). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Preston, J., & Wegner, D. M. (2007). The eureka error: Inadvertent plagiarism by misattributions of effort. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(4), 575–584.

Richeson, J. A., Baird, A. A., Gordon, H. L., Heatherton, T. F., Wyland, C. L., Trawalter, S., Richeson, J. A., Baird, A. A., Gordon, H. L., Heatherton, T. F., Wyland, C. L., Trawalter, S., et al.#8230.

Shelton, J. N. (2003). An fMRI investigation of the impact of interracial contact on executive function. Nature Neuroscience, 6(12), 1323–1328.


- Student Records
Programme & Unit Catalogues

SP30118: Power in society

Further information on notional study hours Notional Study Hours: 120
Further information on teaching periods Period:
Semester 1
Further information on unit assessment Assessment Summary: EX 100%
Further information on unit assessment Assessment Detail:
  • Examination (100%) (EX 100%)
Further information on supplementary assessment Supplementary Assessment:
SP30118 Supplementary assessment CW 100% (where allowed by programme regulations)
Further information on requisites Requisites:
Further information on descriptions Description: Aims:
This unit seeks to:
1. Introduce students to the sociological concept of power
2. Provide students with a fundamental understanding of key traditions and debates in the study of power
3. Enable students to identify and critically analyse power in key areas of social science interest for contemporary British and global society.

Learning Outcomes:
By the end of the unit, students should be able to:
1. Understand the complexity of the nature of power
2. Appreciate the significance of the study of power for understanding contemporary society
3. Identify and characterise key approaches to studying power in social science
4. Critically analyse the applications of particular theoretical approaches to studying power relationships involved in contemporary social issues.

Intellectual skills
* Knowledge of key ways in which theorists have attempted to understand 'society'
* Knowledge of the fundamental concepts of sociology
* Knowledge of the theoretical basis of sociological perspectives
* Knowledge of classical perspectives in sociology
* Knowledge of the relationship between sociology and other cognate disciplines
Transferable/Key Skills
* To think creatively and analytically;
* To communicate an argument;
* To evaluate others' arguments and research;
* To critically evaluate and assess research and evidence as well as a variety of other information;
* To gather information, data, research and literature from a number of different sources (i.e. library, web-based, archives etc.);
* To select appropriate and relevant information from a wide source and large body of knowledge;
* To synthesise information from a number of sources in order to gain a coherent understanding; Revision and Examination skills;
* Understanding of how to apply knowledge and concepts from across various social sciences disciplines;
* Study and learning skills (note-taking, avoiding plagiarism, using the library, gathering and using information, constructing a bibliography, referencing).

In focusing on the issue of power, this unit builds on theories introduced by other units, including SP10043, SP10044, and SP20112. The unit has two parts. The first part introduces students to the study of power and outlines key theoretical traditions and debates related to the issue of power. The second part of the unit provides students with case studies of power relationships involved in key contemporary social issues.
The lecture programme is underpinned by several key questions: What is power? Can power be measured, and if so, how? How is power distributed in society? What are the implications of different patterns of power distribution for the functioning of society (including issues such as justice)?
Further information on programme availabilityProgramme availability:

SP30118 is Compulsory on the following programmes:

Department of Social & Policy Sciences
  • UHSP-AFB04 : BSc(Hons) Sociology (Year 3)
  • UHSP-AKB04 : BSc(Hons) Sociology with Year long work placement (Year 4)
  • UHSP-AFB10 : BSc(Hons) Sociology and Social Policy (Year 3)
  • UHSP-AKB10 : BSc(Hons) Sociology and Social Policy with Year long work placement (Year 4)

SP30118 is Optional on the following programmes:

Department of Psychology Department of Social & Policy Sciences
  • UHSP-AFB21 : BSc(Hons) International Development with Economics (Year 3)
  • UHSP-AFB16 : BSc(Hons) Social Policy (Year 3)
  • UHSP-AKB16 : BSc(Hons) Social Policy with Year long work placement (Year 4)
  • UHSP-AFB05 : BSc(Hons) Social Sciences (Year 3)
  • UHSP-AKB05 : BSc(Hons) Social Sciences with Year long work placement (Year 4)


Letters to the Editor

Letter: What is Sen. Chuck Grassley thinking?

Sen. Chuck Grassley made the most overt deep dive into politicizing the Supreme Court of the United States, when as chairman of the Judicial Committee, he took away the right of the president’s nominee (Judge Merrick Garland) to have hearings on his appointment to fill the vacancy created by a death.

Sen. Grassley on July 13 called on Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to apologize for her concerns about the future of the United States Supreme Court due to the current political environment. Why does Justice Ginsburg have lesser rights to speak out than Sen. Grassley? I thank Justice Ginsburg for speaking out.

We should call on Sen. Grassley to apologize to the Supreme Court and each of the Justices for inserting himself into work of the Supreme Court of the United States of America.

Next, he needs to apologize to the American public for diminishing the quantity and the quality of the work the Justices are doing with fewer justices.

Then he needs to apologize to Iowans for becoming so partisan that he puts his political party ahead of concerns for the well-being of the people is supposed to be serving.

Roger Schnittjer

Mount Vernon

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Chabaso Bakery Employment Application

Chabaso Bakery is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, age, sex, gender, disability, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Applicant Information

Have you ever applied to Chabaso Bakery? *

Have you ever worked at Chabaso Bakery? *
If hired, and you are under 18 years of age, can you furnish a work permit?
If hired, can you provide proof of identity and authorization to work in the United States? *
Do you now, or will you in the future, require sponsorship to work at Chabaso Bakery? *

Desired Employment

Employment Type? *
Are you willing to work overtime? *
Are you willing to travel?
What days are you unavailable to work? *
Shift Preferred? *

Education (starting with the most recent)

Did you graduate?
Did you graduate?

Skills and Qualifications

List any other special training, experience, skills, or qualifications relevant to the position for which you are applying.

Employment History (starting with the most recent)

Please give accurate and complete information. Start with your most recent employer, including self-employment, part-time work, and military employment. Account for your entire employment history including gaps in employment. All information must be included, even if you are attaching a resume.

May we contact your previous supervisor for a reference?
May we contact your previous supervisor for a reference?
May we contact your previous supervisor for a reference?

Professional References

Please list three professional references. A professional reference is a former manager or client you reported to and who can recommend your employment.
Reference 1
Reference 2
Reference 3

Disclaimer and Signature

STATEMENT (Please read this statement carefully before signing this application):

I understand that employment with Chabaso Bakery is at-will, meaning that I or Chabaso Bakery may terminate my employment at any time, or for any reason consistent with applicable state or federal law.

I authorize Chabaso Bakery to conduct a thorough background investigation of my work, personal history and verify all data given on this application and during interviews. I hereby release the Organization, and its representatives or agents, from any liability that might result from such an investigation. I authorize all individuals, schools, and firms named to provide any requested information and release them from all liability for providing the requested information.

I understand that Chabaso Bakery requires the successful completion of a drug and/or alcohol test as a condition of employment. If employed, I will be required to provide original documents which verify my identity and right to work in the United States. The document(s) provided will be used for the completion of Form I-9.

I understand this application will be active for a period of 90 days; after that time, if I wish to be considered for employment, I must submit a new application. I certify that all the statements in this completed application are true and understand that any falsification or willful omission shall be sufficient cause for dismissal or refusal to hire.
Applicant Signature *

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Attrazioni di Mendoza Visualizza tutto

Finca Decero

The area of Mendoza is well-known for wine, with production here having started as early as the 1500s. But it was not until the 1990s that Mendoza became world-renowned for its production, mainly of reds. The vineyard Finca Decero is a newcomer to the game, built with foreign (Swiss-American) funds, to plant and construct a sustainable, hand-made vineyard “from scratch,” (as the name de cero means). Decero makes mostly single vineyard wines, inspired by one of the founding family’s connection with Napa Valley in California.

Remolinos Vineyard, one of Decero’s most famous, is located in the highest reaches of Agrelo, in Mendoza, at 3500 feet. With the area’s warm days and cool nights, and small, naturally occurring circular gusts of wind provide perfect conditions for their wines, specifically Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon, though they also make blends with Petit Verdot and other varieties, much of it by hand, and all of it aged in fine-grained French oak barrels.

Tour e biglietti

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UC Personal Insight Questions

Summer school students need to write two essays answering the UC Personal Inquiry Questions. Each essay is limited to 350 words each. These can be used later when applying to college. Students may also choose to use the Common App Questions instead (650 word max).

Here are some helpful resources for writing your college Personal Statement:

Don’t procrastinate! The key is to revise, revise, revise…

NYTimes shares students’ college application essays

As you are working on your personal statements for next fall, consider the following college application essays, published by the New York Times.  Themes include students overcoming economic hardships, exploring notions of class, working and affluence. The key about these essays is that they all reveal young people emerging stronger because of their experiences.

For support writing your UC Application essays, click here.


Next 3 Android Versions Rumored to be 7.1, 7.1.1 and 7.1.2

When Google released Android 7.0 Nougat, they also announced there would be quarterly Maintenance Releases to keep the software polished as time goes on. evleak’s sources seem to believe that the next three Android versions for these MR updates will be 7.1 (which will include a new API), 7.1.1, and then 7.1.2.


Global Citizen is a community of people like you

Food & Hunger

Why You Can't Live on Chicken Nuggets Alone

World Vision/Jon Warren

What’s your favorite childhood snack? Maybe chilled slushy Otter Pops, or your mom’s warm chocolate chip cookies. For me it’s definitely dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets. I’d pretend the ketchup was lava chasing the dinos around the edge of the plate. Of course their doom was imminent – it was lunchtime!

Imagine if all you ate growing up was that favorite childhood snack. When you’re 5-years-old, that might seem ideal. Having enough icy Otter pops or dinosaur chicken nuggets to last a lifetime - what a dream. Even though I would have had enough food eating dinosaur chicken nuggets all the time, by no means would this be enough of the right nutritious food to properly develop my brain and body at such a young age.

When it comes to good nutrition, it’s about having both enough food and the right nutritious food. If my mom had let me eat dinosaur nuggets for breakfast, lunch and dinner, I wouldn’t have been taking in all the necessary nutrients and proteins needed to enable my growth, both physically and mentally, to reach its full potential. And when your body doesn’t reach its full potential, neither can you.

Quality Not Just Quantity

The first 1,000 days of a child’s life, from pregnancy to the child’s second birthday, are vital. Not having enough food for a healthy life is the case for many moms living in poverty. Without adequate nutrition in the first 1,000 days of life, children suffer lifelong physical, mental and developmental consequences.

Not only does the amount of food matter, but the variety of food is also important. Your body needs a variety of vitamins and minerals to carry out hundreds of necessary functions, and without enough of each vitamin, people become blind, develop bowed legs, and have weak bones and teeth. Kids can lose up to 10 IQ points simply from not eating the right food. This has lifelong ramifications on education and economic development.

Maybe your mom was right when she asked you to finish your broccoli before you left the table...

So yes, it’s important for people to have enough food, but if it’s not the right nutritious food that enables children to reach their full potential, then the poverty cycle will never be broken.

Photo9.jpgImage: World Vision/ Annila Harris

How to Respond

Malnutrition still claims the lives of nearly 3 million children under age 5 every year and undermines the potential of millions more. In this day in age, with so many resources at our fingertips, this is is simply unacceptable. It’s even more outrageous that these deaths are largely preventable. Despite these alarming numbers, and the horrific tragedies they describe, there is hope. Through proven interventions and better practices, it is realistic and affordable to make significant progress towards achieving this goal in the next decade!

We know a hungerfree world is possible when everyone has access to the right food for today, enough nutritious food for tomorrow and sustainable food resources for the future.

Don’t miss this golden opportunity

On August 4, just as the world’s top athletes gather at the Olympics, world leaders are also gathering at the Nutrition for Growth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This is a golden opportunity for world leaders to make new and improved  commitment to creating a hunger-free world.

You can help by joining our #Nutrition4Gold Twitter campaign on Thunderclap!


How to Get a Patent in Texas

To get a patent in Texas, you must first go through the patent application process. The requirements for filing are the same as in other states.

What Is a Patent?

A patent is a property right that United States authorities grant to inventors and proprietors. A patent provides the proprietor permission to exclude anyone else from making, utilizing, promoting or importing a patented idea.

Different Types of Patents

There are design patents and utility patents. Design patents protect the look or appearance of an article of manufacture, whereas utility patents cover the idea or the thought behind the article. Utility patents may be directed towards strategies/processes or towards equipment. For instance, methodology claims in utility patents are likely to be used to guard chemical processes to create medication. Equipment claims would usually be used to guard the construction of a mechanical gadget.

Make Sure Your Invention Qualifies for Patent Protection

You can't get a patent simply on a thought. In your patent application, it is essential to present how your invention works, and your invention has to be new. This implies that it has to be totally different in some necessary way from all earlier innovations.

What Types of Technology Are Eligible for a Patent?

Patents can protect mechanical gadgets, strategies of performance (akin to manufacturing), software programs, and even residing organisms akin to vegetation or genetically modified organisms.

Do a Thorough Patent Search

To verify that your invention is new, it is advisable that you search all the related developments in your discipline.

Patent searches are time consuming but necessary. You can begin your analysis on the Web; however you might also need to go to a Patent and Trademark Depository Library, where you'll be able to search earlier patents and get assistance from a librarian. While you search, you may discover different innovations similar to yours.

In your application, it is best to present how your invention improves upon or is totally different from these earlier developments.

Prepare and File an Application With the USPTO

When you file with the USPTO, you'll be able to both file a full-blown regular patent application (RPA) or a provisional patent application (PPA). All that's required to file a provisional patent application is a payment ($65 for micro-entities, $130 for small entities, and $260 for big firms), an in-depth description of the invention, including tips on how to make and use it, and a drawing. Submitting a nonprovisional patent application begins the examination course on the USPTO that is needed for getting the precise patent.

Keep a Careful Record of Your Invention

Describe and diagram each side and each modification of the invention and the way you came up with the idea for it. Relying on the invention, you may additionally need to construct a prototype. Can you sell or market your invention before a patent is issued? As soon as a patent has been filed, there's often no reason not to proceed with advertising and sale of a product. By submitting an application, you may be considered "patent pending" usually for a number of years, so there's no reason to delay advertising and production.

What Is the Cost of Obtaining a Patent?

The simplest patent applications cost between $4,000.00 and $5,000.00 to draft, and complicated applications can cost more than $20,000.00. Nearly all applications are filed for between $10,000.00 and $15,000.

If you need help getting a patent in Texas, you can post your legal need (or post your job) on UpCounsel’s marketplace. UpCounsel accepts only the top 5 percent of lawyers to its site. Lawyers on UpCounsel come from law schools such as Harvard Law and Yale Law and average 14 years of legal experience, including work with or on behalf of companies like Stripe and Twilio.


Sometimes doors and hallways are just not big enough to move your furniture or other large objects. That is when hoisting service comes handy. Hoisting is a process of raising something by means of ropes and pulleys, in case of moving it also means that your furniture is moved through the windows.

In certain buildings hoisting service is not an option but rather a necessity to move things in and out. It is also a delicate process that requires skills, attention, team work and experience. Only professional and highly experienced moving company can elevate things through the windows.  Active Moving and is one of those companies. We performed many projects with hoisting service where we had to move furniture, pianos, big cabinets and other large stuff through the windows.

On photo below you can see how our crew members are getting sofa bed in the tight window on the 3rd floor of New York brownstone building.  In this job this was the only way to get furniture inside the apartment as hallways were too small.

Hoisting Job Using Windows  Hosting Moving Sofa Bed


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Accurate crown detection and delineation of dominant and subdominant trees is crucial for accurate inventorying of forests at the individual tree level. State-of-the-art tree detection and crown delineation methods have good performance mostly with dominant trees, whereas exibits a reduced accuracy when dealing with subdominant trees. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to accurately detect and delineate both dominant and subdominant tree crowns in conifer dominated multistoried forests using small footprint high density airborne LiDAR data.

The residual misregistration can be considered as a source of noise, referred as “Registration Noise (RN). The most critical components of this noise are related to spatially corresponding pixels that belong to different objects at the two dates (i.e., border region of objects or high frequency area in the images).

We aims at reducing the misalignment effects and thus at increasing the accuracy of multitemporal information extraction methods.

For decades, multispectral sensor images have been a stable and popular data source in Remote Sensing Change Detection (RS CD) application fields. This is mainly due to the availability of long time series databases and in the last decade to the free distribution of this information, at least for medium resolution sensors (e.g., MODIS, Landsat). With the development of sensor technology, the new generation satellite sensors have been capable to acquire images with higher spatial and spectral resolution and with pass of time, to offer a VHR time series database.

The Airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) is a popular active remote sensing technique that over-samples the remote study area using a highly directed laser beam, resulting in the generation of a very dense georeferenced elevation points called as the LiDAR point cloud. Unlike other visible remote sensing techniques, the data aquired using high sampling-density small-footprint muti-return LiDAR can record  a huge amount of  structural information about the forest vertical profile.


We're Not Just a hospital

Myths Debunked

Common Misconceptions

Myth Roundup

What Do You Believe?

We explore some of the most common and oldest misconceptions and urban legends about animals and pet care.

Indoor Pets

Myth: Heartworm prevention isn't necessary for indoor pets.

Cat Landing

Myth: Cats will instinctively land on their feet no matter what.

Dog Mouths

Myth: A dog's mouth is cleaner than that of his human counterpart.

Myth: Males dogs hump and females don't

Many dog owners think that female dogs aren't suppose to hump and that humping is a male behavior. The truth is that both female and male dogs hump regardless of whether or not they've been spayed or neutered. Humping is one way that dogs exercise dominance over each other. It is normal behavior for both males and females. It isn't always done with sexual intention and is just as likely to occur with other animals, as it is people or objects.

Fact or Fiction

Did You Know

thumb_01_60_60Wagging Tails

Fiction: Dogs wag their tails because they're happy.

It can also mean that he's feeling nervous, anxious, or aggressive. Consider everything before making assumptions. What is the rest of the body telling you?

thumb_01_60_60Banned Breeds

Fiction: Breeds on a banned list are aggressive and can't be trusted.

Some breeds are selected because of their power and size and are taught to cause harm. Some are neglected or abused and become aggressive out of fear. Any dog can be dangerous under the right circumstances.

thumb_01_60_60Dog Poo

Fact: Dog feces can make children go blind.

Roundworm eggs exist in non-wormed dog poop and will cause damage to a child's eyesight if touched or ingested. The eggs hatch into larvae which travel throughout the body, including the eyes.

thumb_01_60_60Healthier Purebreds

Fact: Mutts are healthier than purebreds.

Research shows that cross breeds live longer, healthier lives and are less susceptible to certain diseases and conditions than most purebreds.

Training Myths

Choke Chains

Myth: Choke chains will stop your dog from pulling on lead.

Training Age

Myth: Dogs need to be at least 6 months old to be trained.

Potty Training

Myth: Rub their nose in pee to train them.

Tug of War

Myth: It causes aggression in dogs.

How old is your dog, really?

Multiplying a dog's age by seven does not give you its human age. Check out how to calculate your dog's age or use a dog age calculator.

Some of the following cat myths have been around for quite some time. Read along as we challenge some of these common misconceptions and separate fact from fiction.

All Cats Hate Water

True or False

False - Most cats don’t like water but some seem to be alright with it. Some speculate that the water weighs them down, leaving them feeling cold and uncomfortable. This creates a sense of panic for them.

Cats Only Purr When They're Happy

True or False

False - A cat’s purr is caused by a message from the brain that make the muscles in the voice box twitch and separate. This produces the purring sound when a cat inhales and exhales. When a cat is frightened, sick, or happy, the signal is sent.

Cats See in the Dark

True or False

False - Cats and dogs both have a different eye anatomy and physiology than humans. They have thinner corneas, can open their irises wider, and have more rods behind the retina for magnifying light impulses. While it doesn’t allow them to see in total darkness, it does let them see low levels of light better than humans.

We opened our doors in 1967 and have since grown to become a full service veterinary hospital. Our goal is to provide support and share information aimed at extending and improving the lives of our pets.

2730 SW 87th Ave
Miami, FL 33165

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The Golden State Warriors Plan To Snub White House for D.C. Championship Celebration

Since President Ulysses S. Grant welcomed the Cincinnati Red Stockings in 1869, it has become an American tradition – a part of our history as a nation – for championship college and professional sports teams to visit the White House.

Now, the Golden State Warriors have allowed their petty political bias to break more than a century’s worth of American tradition as the franchise announced on Thursday that the team will still travel to the nation’s capitol to celebrate their 2017 NBA Championship, but will be visiting a D.C. school rather than the White House.

Oddly, after months of talking about the visit, and their disdain for the President, in the media, the team will not allow the media to be present when they visit the school.

It has been common knowledge since last September that the team wouldn’t be visiting the White House after President Donald Trump publicly disinvited the team in response to near constant attacks by Golden State guard Stephen Curry.

According to ESPN, after the President revoked the team’s invitation to the White House, the Warriors’ far-left head coach Steve Kerr allowed the players to decide that the team would visit a local school instead.

“It’s their championship. They got disinvited to the White House, so it’s up to them what they wanted to do. So they made their plans,” Kerr told ESPN. “I want the players to have a good day and to do something positive and to enjoy what they’re doing.”

In announcing the team’s plans, Golden State forward Draymond Green attempted to divert the story from politics, despite months and months of his teammates making the story entirely about politics and their own divisiveness.

“At the end of the day, it’s about us celebrating a championship, so there’s no point in getting into the political stuff and all that,” forward Draymond Green told ESPN. “It’s about something we did great. Why make it about [politics]?”

Join the conversation!


Virginia VEX States Awards Nominations

Volunteer and Mentor of the year nomination form for the VEX Robotics Competition and VEX IQ Challenge. Please email with any questions.

The Volunteer of the Year Award is presented to an event volunteer who demonstrates a commitment and devotion to
their community, putting in many hours of hard work with persistence and passion to help make events happen.

The Mentor of the Year award is given to a mentor or teacher who has helped students achieve goals that were seemingly out of reach. This individual is a role model, a leader and an extraordinary mentor who helps show students new ways to expand their knowledge and solve problems in the worlds of STEM. The recipient of this award will be nominated by the students on their team with a written submission detailing how the mentor inspires, motivates and educates students in a positive, enthusiastic and challenging atmosphere.

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Startup Founder Kevin Rose

Kevin Rose

Generally speaking, Kevin Rose would consider himself a technologist. Since he has been working in technology for all his life. He moved out to the Valley in 2000, when dropped out of college and came to the Bay Area to start working at a couple of startups. In 2004 he launched Digg, and in 2006 he started doing some angel investing. He also launched a couple of other startups, sold a few, and a few have failed. Overall, Rose likes to build things, and as he said during our meeting “I probably should start over and say I’m just a builder”.

This passion for building also evoked an entrepreneurial mindset. He reminisces, “I couldn’t afford the Nike Air shoes that would show the ‘air’ on the side. It said Nike Air but I wondered ‘why don’t they just show the air pocket’. So I cut open one of my shoes with a hacksaw to make sure it had the air inside it, and it did. My dad wasn’t happy with that, but I told him it was because I wanted to install springs in it so I could slam dunk like Michael Jordan. So I put springs into my shoes, and then tried to hot glue it back together. But all that glue fell out, it didn’t really stick that well. But that was when I started experimenting with stuff.” Another anecdote Rose shares is how he learned to type via a racing car game that he was playing. And then he started to do some basic programming and editing games.

We met Rose, in his role as venture partner at True Ventures and founder of his soon-to-launch meditation app Oak, at the Next Web 2017.

What inspired you to become an entrepreneur?
My parents would try things; my mom had a couple of different businesses that she would do. And my dad had a couple of different businesses that he created. They were very small kind of like family run businesses, but just seeing that you could do that sounded so cool to me. Also, I like the idea that you don’t have to go work for someone. You can just think of something and go do it. So, why wouldn’t I just go create a business and try my own ideas? To me, that that was the better path. Especially once I’d had a couple of jobs. I was like ‘why am I working for someone else if I could just go build what I want to build?’. So I think that that helped out a lot, but also I learned to understand failure.

Failure means that you tried the hardest thing, which is amazing. The best things are often the hardest to do emotionally, and as a person. Whether that means working on your marriage rather than getting a divorce or admitting you’re not good at something and taking additional schooling years after you get to finish school: these hard things are the best. You’re at your strongest when you’re trying these hard things. So I think that failure means that you tried something really difficult. It’s actually a really cool thing because not many people do that. Most people are just happy to go and work for someone else and take the very easy path.

I meet so many founders in this line of work, especially in the investment side. And if you see a young founder and they talk about something that didn’t work out it’s often met with like a kind of odd glance at the ground like ‘oh you know’ like they’re ashamed of it. And I’ll be like, ‘that’s awesome, life’s a learning’.

Can you remember what the biggest barriers to entry entrepreneurship were for you?
A lot of barriers that I hear about from people is that they are working a full time job already, have kids, and therefore can’t break away and find time to do something like that.

People will often cite time as being an issue. And I think that it’s really [dependent] on how you frame what time is and what it means to you and how you use your time. I also still continue to build stuff on the side. And the reason I’m able to do that is because I don’t watch television. We forget that we can take back an extra four hours every night if we just don’t watch television. Every decision in life is just a series of tradeoffs.

When you say yes to something, you’re also saying no to something else. I tend to say no to things that aren’t helping me achieve my goals when I have something I want to build. One way to start is to write down all the things you do throughout the day, throughout the week. If you’re telling yourself you have no time, take this weeklong log of life and then you’ll quickly see trends emerge about things that are really not so important. Those you can cut out to go and build.

A second thing is that people say ‘I don’t have any money to do it’ and ‘I don’t know how to raise venture capital’. The good news is, that it is so inexpensive to launch, especially software. Everybody can learn how to code and to host and launch a project these days. There are tools out there that can help you setting up things. So the cost thing is kind of taken out of the equation. I once met a very creative founder that couldn’t afford and didn’t want to raise venture funding and so. He worked out a deal with a co-founder that they just did an equity split and he didn’t have to pay the engineer. There’s ways to even do it with very very few dollars.

So, I think that if someone says they’re having a barrier, it’s typically a mental one. It’s not really a physical one. Make a checks and balance of your everyday life and see where you can miss out on something, and things you should invest in. The investment doesn’t have to be in building your startup right away. It has to be in the education required to understand the sector that you want to build in. Understand a wide variety of different topics at a high level but enough to where you won’t be fooled or make the wrong decisions.

What does success look like to you personally?
I consider something a success when it’s launched. The day that it’s launched: that is a very concrete point. That’s the only successful day, because what you build with your vision is now public and out in the world. That’s as good as it gets, because you took your idea and that either works for a thousand people or a hundred people, or 10 million people or whatever it may be. You can hope and say ‘I hope my idea resonates with a large group of people’, and if it does that’s like icing on the cake. If it eventually becomes a wild success in terms of usage, that’s something different.

Success is getting the idea out there because you actually did it. You got that thing that you’ve been working so hard away on, for so many months, that is now a reality and I think that that’s success right there. Part of the joy of launching something is daring to put it out there, and that’s a difficult thing to many people. A lot of people have a hard time getting wrapped up in their head about what other people think of their idea. But you have to understand that you can never read other people’s minds. You can get your idea in front of people in early stages, so they can gauge what’s working and what’s not to help you refine the product. But ultimately… You shouldn’t worry about launching it. As long as you put all of your effort into: Understanding everything you could possibly understand and refine things to the point where you’re ready for a version 1.0 then you’re good to get it out there. You should take pride in that’s the best you could possibly do. Because that’s really what we should be proud of: the fact that your idea was created.

“What’s funny is that I would not go back and tell my younger self anything, because I think that I wouldn’t be where I am today if I hadn’t made those mistakes.”

What does a productive day for you look like?
A productive day is one that combines a good amount of effort and a healthy amount of distraction. My most productive time is during my first cup of coffee. So I tend to focus a lot of the heavy lifting in the very first part of the day. Then I try to get some physical activity to kind of break up the day. And then I use the last part of the day for reflection and also setting up for the next day. And there can be some work in there as well.

But I’d rather do a better-focused effort, where I’m not letting my brain become fragmented and distracted. Startups often say you have in a limited amount of time to work in each day, meaning that it’s just like their time and work is never ending. The problem with that is that it’s easy to check a website for few minutes, or some tweets from a friend, or a funny YouTube video. That’s easy to do when there’s no set hours. But if you set a structure, you say ‘I only have this many hours to actually work and I can do that stuff later and that’s fine because it’s part of my structure — but right now I’m in work mode and I find that I can get a lot more done that way’. [13.6]

Work-life balance is so important. You’re not going to find true happiness in your work. I mean, that’s just a part of life. And if you neglect your relationships or friendships… There are these studies based on centenarians, like the people who live over 100 years old, the common kind of backbone and fabric is the amount of social connections that they have. Real deep intimate social connections with other human beings. That rings true for me like that. That certainly gives you gives you an outlet to talk about you know what’s going on in your life, and your emotional health. It can’t just be all about work all the time. Balance is key.

Which one thing would you love to tell your younger self?
What’s funny is that I would not go back and tell my younger self anything, because I think that I wouldn’t be where I am today if I hadn’t made those mistakes. If a starting entrepreneur had a question about what’s the one thing they should do right, I would say that one thing — that a lot of entrepreneurs overlook — is the hiring process.

Some people seem to think of it as a chore, they don’t put enough time and effort into really fully vetting candidates and making sure that they fit the culture, have the right skill sets, or have the kind of depth of knowledge that the company needs. Then they hire the wrong person. I think that you have to really spend a lot of time and effort on that hiring process. Google is notorious for having a very challenging process: Our hiring process was very lengthy and cumbersome and it took a lot of time. But the good news is that if you got through and you got hired you were given the keys to the castle from day one. So you could make big sweeping decisions that would impact tens of millions of people on your first day. People were trusted. And I think that’s one of the keys to their success. The hiring process is certainly something I don’t think enough entrepreneurs put effort into.

Is that also what would you highly recommend aspiring entrepreneurs to do?
Absolutely. Also, I would I’d recommend they read ‘Work rules!’, done by Laszlo Bock who was the head of H.R. at Google for many many years. He’s the one that helped create a lot of these different processes, did a lot of the science behind it to validate it. Part of the hiring process has to include a culture piece, so that you know that one day you will get these new employees in on what you’re trying to achieve. And so I tend to include that as a big chunk of the overall process when talking to candidates.

What has been your biggest failure?
I’m failing at a lot of things. The better way to put it, is that it’s something I’m currently learning. Because I really don’t think of it as failing. I think of it as something that I still need to learn. I would say that this there’s a whole slew of different things.

One of the things that I’m trying to wrap my head around these days is going even deeper on understanding all of the data; how to make sense of data. I think understanding how to really use data to impact and change products is something that we did a lot of Google, and it certainly is kind of this evolving industry. So I’m trying to get better at figuring out how to properly instrument applications so that I can get at the right data to understand these problems. So I’m building a meditation app right now. And one of the things that I want to do is eventually use some of this machine learning to help build dynamic meditations based on some of that data. And this is a world that I just don’t really understand. So right now all I’m doing is making these revisions based on what I do understand, which is how to go out and collect survey data, how to use the emergent trends out of that sort of data, to make tweaks to our scripts and things like that. Eventually, once we get to enough users in scale, I’d like to do that in a more automated fashion. So that’s something I’m still trying to learn.

Another interesting thing is, that when you start [a startup] these days I don’t think you necessarily need to raise venture capital. And so, I’m trying to figure out kind of what impact that has on traditional VCs. Also, there’s this trend around ICO’s, initial coin offerings, that are people using spun up versions of cryptocurrency as a way to crowdfund their kind of platforms. So trying to figure out what ways and how that might impact venture capital, and how that can also be used to fund and fuel projects is interesting. Right now, I self-fund on my little side projects, but I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to do that based on smooth angel investments and stuff that I’ve done. But it’s certainly something to pay attention to.

I think one of the things I’m still trying to work on, as I tend to avoid conflict a lot, is trying to get better at that in a very peaceful way. It’s something I’m failing at. I think that the issue is when you have the right people in place, everything works perfectly. You don’t need to micromanage people. What’s difficult for me is when you don’t have the right person in place. How do you address that and confront that and manage through that? It’s certainly something I think that is unique to every individual because everyone is different. And to be able to sit down and have those tough conversations and to coach people through things like that is still like a challenge.

“What I didn’t realize is that I wouldn’t have realized those were even issues unless I had failed. That was how I grew as an individual.”

So, what has then been your biggest learning?
I would say it’s been in the way that I reframe that thinking from failure to learning. After Digg failed, I was really upset about that whole process and thinking about what I should have done differently, or if I could go back in time I would’ve done X, Y and Z, and we should have implemented this feature, we should not hire that person and … What I didn’t realize is that I wouldn’t have realized those were even issues unless I had failed. That was how I grew as an individual. Later I realized that it was not really a failure.

Once I heard that being described as being thrown into the ocean. You’re tying to grab on to stuff and try to swim, and you’re trying your hardest to, but you go in ten different directions. The reality is that you shouldn’t be trying to do that at all and you should really just stop. Look around, and take a deep breath, and maybe you tend to like it. All these products that we build, everything that we do, they’re all waves and cycles. Almost every startup we talked about here, in 10 years that will be gone. Almost every single one. Only a couple will still be around. Once you understand that, you start trying to grasp these things and you don’t look at it as something you need to hold on to.

When you can float then you can relax and do your most creative work. I feel that creativity comes from being relaxed. Not when you’re freaking out about your company failing. And so that’s been my greatest learning: how to reframe all this so that I can look at the launch as my most exciting moment, and that’s the pinnacle for me. It’s not getting millions of users that are going to come and go, because that’s out of my control.

How long did it take you to reach that state?
Since 2004 till about a year ago. Really. I mean you just have to. You get a little bit older and become comfortable in your own skin to where you are. You don’t take it personally anymore. You cannot direct the future.

What makes you worry?
I don’t like turbulence and flights. I’m not a big fan of that. That’s definitely one thing. When you start to feel the turbulence on flights. I worry a lot about my investments. Like Uber. It’s one of the deals we did at Google Ventures, ninety nine percent of my net worth is tied up to it. So I worry about that. I hate to see such a great idea lose its way. I hope that there’s some compassion that comes to that company for the drivers and for the people using the service.

I mean there’s a lot of little things that they’re not really tied to tech though. You know like standard stuff like health and family, and there’s a really bad homeless problem in San Francisco that nobody can figure out. It’s really tough. Some people say that there’s too many social services, which is attracting more homeless people from other cities. But there’s all these different points of view and no one can figure it out. And there’s limited space here, so it’s not like you can just go and build these massive shelters. That’s one of the things that we’ve got to figure out.

Mental health is also a huge one. So I’m excited about that and that I have see more entrepreneurs like Dave Morin, and some other folks, that are tackling mental health. I think that that’s going to be a huge push of them and also opening up about mental health. It’s had such a bad stigma associated with it, but in reality we know that entrepreneurs are probably some of the people that need the most mental health. Because they are very creative people. And I would say generally in creative fields we see a lot of mental health issues. I don’t know why, but it seems that creative people have, whether it be comedians or musicians, tendencies for depression and just mental issues in general.

Who is your favourite super hero?
Philip Rosedale, he created Second Life. What I like about him, his ideas are just so crazy, they’re just nuts, but fun to listen to. You’re like ‘wow, what if that would work” and every idea that comes out of his mouth is brilliant. He spits out so much creativity. In term of creative mind, I really like his mind. I get the most enjoyment of like big bold ideas that nobody has thought of and that are just like the ‘what if’ scenario’s. My brain has a lot of fun with those ideas.

What’s your favourite emoji?
It has to be the thinking guy… 🤔

Challenges expressed are in no way meant to solicit commercial acquisition.

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Social Construct

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Political Manufactured Conflict: How Freedom and Liberty Run in Direct Conflict with American Interest

Although obscured in normal conversation there’s a more than subtle difference between “liberty” and “freedom.”

The problem of our time is that freedom and liberty run in direct conflict.


Stefano's Kitchen

Restaurants, Italian Hapjeong-dong
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Stefano's Kitchen

Stefano’s Kitchen is a restaurant famous for its tasty carbonara pasta in the Hongdae vicinity. They stick to authentic Italian recipes using fresh egg yolks. Leery of the smell of raw eggs? You can lose that thought: the egg yolks add flavor to the dish with an aromatic and clean taste. Despite being famous for carbonara, the chef’s favorite menu items are ortolana and verdure. What's that, you ask? Ortolana is a pasta blended with plenty of vegetables including zucchini, pumpkin, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, and grilled eggplants mixed in penne noodles. Verdure is a pizza with a handful of vegetables and mushrooms that have been marinated and grilled. By the way, we happen to hear that while it's not on the menu, if you're craving a calzone or risotto, simply ask the good-looking chef on the other side of the teak wood finished open kitchen. In nice weather, the terrace is available for outdoor dining during spring, early summer and fall.

Venue name: Stefano's Kitchen
Address: 32 Dongmak-ro 5-gil 3F
Opening hours: Daily 11:30am–10:30pm; Break 3–5:30pm. No break on Sat–Sun.
Transport: Hapjeong Station (Line 6), exit 6, Sangsu Station (Line 6), exit 1
Price: 15,000–20,000 won

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Digital Media Insider Podcast 14: Doug Wyatt
Subject:   Fantastic Interview!
Date:   2007-07-25 15:37:19
From:   Eganicus
Thank you for posting the interview with Doug Wyatt, where does he find the time?
The CD is an insightful commentary on one of the most remarkable human beings of our time. The worlds leading expert on MIDI and digital audio, recording to analog tape with acoustic instruments is fascinating.... The results speak for themselves.

Thank you for improving the quality of the internet today....