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When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

nytimes.com

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Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#141

Post by munchbunny »

tunesmith wrote: post #65
yawaramin wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a great point. No one should be able to argue with Dr Cuddy if she decides to make her living pushing this 'placebo-trigger' technique.

But doesn't pointing out a placebo effect also have power? I know the placebo effect still exists even if you're aware of it being placebo, but does it lessen? And what if it's accompanied by shaming? Meaning, say the power pose effect doesn't exist. But early on, it's exciting and new, and there's a placebo effect (which is fine!), but people also think it's real. But then studies get replicated, and there's well-kn…

I think you're moving into territory in human psychology that nobody really understands.

For the time being, the answer is probably "if it works for you, then keep doing it." If power posing before an important meeting is how you psyche yourself up to be unafraid and effective in the meeting, then why not keep doing it, even if it doesn't seem to work for everyone?

Knowing the replication problems, I won't suggest power posing as a general thing. Maybe I will tell someone to try a bunch of things including power posing, and tell them to keep the things that they think are working.

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#142

Post by nonbel »

geofft wrote: post #93
srtjstjsj wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> having the misfortune of the one-in-twenty chance of getting a really interesting false positive at p = 0.05 means you either have to double down on the study Or you could get a large sample size to bring the p down to 0.01 or whatever. You know, do science.

Well, the smaller your p , the higher your chance of false negatives, too; maybe there was an actual effect there that was worth more study, and you dismissed it. The problem is that a study that's significant at p = 0.05 but not p = 0.01 is worth something to science. It indicates something worth doing several more studies on, preferably by different teams from different institutes with non-overlapping confounding f…

>"Well, the smaller your p, the higher your chance of false negatives, too; maybe there was an actual effect there that was worth more study, and you dismissed it."

Also noticing this now... No, this is completely untrue. The p-value is not an error rate.

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#143

Post by intended »

Bartweiss wrote: post #62
danso wrote: post #9

Andrew Gelman (of NYU), who is featured in the story and is criticized by Cuddy as being unfair and trollish, wrote a response: http://andrewgelman.com/2017/10/18/beyond-power-pose-using-r... I thought that Gelman wasn't presented in the best of light, especially his awkward quotes about not wanting to engage in "interpersonal conflict". But he called the piece "excellent and fair to all sides" and was pretty graciou…

> I also can believe that she faces hostile criticism that isn't equally distributed among all the other researchers who used weak, but previously acceptable standards. I agree that this is true, but at a certain point it seems like a justified reaction to unequal importance. Other Gelman targets like the "himmicanes" paper generated a bit of media attention without any real consequence. Power poses, meanwhile, have…

I doubt its a double standard. This sounds like more of the usual, flame wars on forums and responses from blogs upend normal human behavior. Even in the article, one of the people who attacked Cuddy realize that they were the people who had told Cuddy to respond the way she did. He himself comments that he forgot about it and then wrote his article against her. he also adds "oh, that email exchange (before writing the article) I had was too polite." But he still respects her as a top notch psychologist.

Matter of fact I'd guess its comments like yours which are fueling the underlying issue. The usual issues with communicating emotion on the internet.

There should not be schisms on science, yet there are - camps on facts. This is a problem with far worse implications than replicability.

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#144

Post by intended »

srtjstjsj wrote: post #48
danso wrote: post #9

Andrew Gelman (of NYU), who is featured in the story and is criticized by Cuddy as being unfair and trollish, wrote a response: http://andrewgelman.com/2017/10/18/beyond-power-pose-using-r... I thought that Gelman wasn't presented in the best of light, especially his awkward quotes about not wanting to engage in "interpersonal conflict". But he called the piece "excellent and fair to all sides" and was pretty graciou…

Andrew Gelman is a rare breed -- he's brilliant, hard working, engages with the public, writes both technical and (semi-)pop articles, and isn't an asshole. And we works in a field -- mathematics -- where there is very little confusion as to whether a result is right or wrong. This makes lesser people working in dirtier subjects very uncomfortable: when he hits them they have nothing of substance to hit back with exc…

If you read the article, you'd identify him as a huge asshole.

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#145

Post by intended »

nkurz wrote: post #129
danso wrote: post #9

Andrew Gelman (of NYU), who is featured in the story and is criticized by Cuddy as being unfair and trollish, wrote a response: http://andrewgelman.com/2017/10/18/beyond-power-pose-using-r... I thought that Gelman wasn't presented in the best of light, especially his awkward quotes about not wanting to engage in "interpersonal conflict". But he called the piece "excellent and fair to all sides" and was pretty graciou…

But he called the piece "excellent and fair to all sides" and was pretty gracious in response to Cuddy's criticisms and how the NYT portrayed him. I honestly wasn't a huge fan of the article but re-reading it after a bit of sleep, and knowing that Gelman thought it was strong, I appreciated the issues it brought up. I love (genuinely, non-ironically) that you reconsidered the merits of the article after reading Gelma…

A lot of the issues aren't from academics in journals, as they are from facebook groups and other places where the internet hyper-cycle of polarization and mob formation occurs.

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#146

Post by intended »

asdf2341 wrote: post #79
rukuu001 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do strongly believe that Cuddy was overly punished for being a woman, and being prominent in the field. Theres a pattern of successful women receiving extreme levels of hate (Kathy Sierra et al). I'm not aware of this happening to guys.

I'm in an adjacent academic field and know some of the principals in the story. Based on private conversations with mutual friends, the reason Cuddy received so much heat is that she continues to profit off the mistaken findings and refuses to disavow them, despite overwhelming evidence. She embodies everything wrong with the popular discussion of science. The only analogue I can think of is Brian Wansink, whose scan…

I'd disagree with your position - After looking at the larger body of the article, your finding is not replicated.

> She mentioned, at a psychology conference where she was presenting her work, that a study had recently been conducted on power posing. “They found no hormonal effects,” she said before taking a breath. “That study is done very well, and I trust those results.” Although 11 new papers have recently been published that do not show the downstream effects of power posing on behaviors, Cuddy is still fighting for power posing. The research, she says, still shows its effect on feelings of power: At the conference, she presented a comprehensive meta-analysis, a version of which, she says, she will soon publish, with a strong P-curve supporting that, and she also presented a P-curve suggesting that power posing had a robust effect on self-evaluations, emotions and moods.

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#147

Post by nkurz »

intended wrote: post #144
srtjstjsj wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Andrew Gelman is a rare breed -- he's brilliant, hard working, engages with the public, writes both technical and (semi-)pop articles, and isn't an asshole. And we works in a field -- mathematics -- where there is very little confusion as to whether a result is right or wrong. This makes lesser people working in dirtier subjects very uncomfortable: when he hits them they have nothing of substance to hit back with exc…

If you read the article, you'd identify him as a huge asshole.

Could you be more specific about which details give you this impression, and what you mean by it? I haven't interacted with Gelman personally, but having read both the NYT article and his response to it (as well as reading his blog and regularly his papers occasionally) I see him as someone who cares about "the truth" more than social niceties, but not as someone who gets any joy out of causing harm to others (which would be my definition of a "huge asshole").

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#148

Post by Balgair »

shoyer wrote: post #108
Balgair wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, so, 'Capital S' Science[0] has moved on from publish-or-perish to funding-or-famine. Most researchers are in 'famine' and their spouse is financing their lifestyle of crazy hours and stress (love is strange, for sure). Some are in 'funding' and they generally get all the cash from grant agencies. Where I am, each square foot of your research is ~$420/month for rent, including your office. Then you start buying la…

> each square foot of your research is ~$420/month for rent I think you missed a decimal point or two here -- $42,000/month for a 100 square foot office can't be right :).

Unfortunately, it is, in at least as far as a few different PIs all confirmed this number independently.

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#149

Post by Balgair »

xy55 wrote: post #110
shoyer wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> each square foot of your research is ~$420/month for rent I think you missed a decimal point or two here -- $42,000/month for a 100 square foot office can't be right :).

gp also misnamed Brian Wansink as Andrew Wansink

Yes, my apologies

Re: When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy

#150

Post by Balgair »

Obi_Juan_Kenobi wrote: post #122
Balgair wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, so, 'Capital S' Science[0] has moved on from publish-or-perish to funding-or-famine. Most researchers are in 'famine' and their spouse is financing their lifestyle of crazy hours and stress (love is strange, for sure). Some are in 'funding' and they generally get all the cash from grant agencies. Where I am, each square foot of your research is ~$420/month for rent, including your office. Then you start buying la…

I think this is just as misinformed as someone who thinks there's no problem. In my experience, about a third or half of the 'real' scientists I've met are firmly in "Big S" science. It's really not that different. People that complain about this a lot are often jealous, in my experience. The failures are certainly high-profile, though. As for reproducibility, it's all case by case. We've (real? scientists) been havi…

> ... the same discussions about data quality forever.

You misunderstand, perhaps. I mean that the data itself is fraudulent, let alone the interpretations or the controls on the experiment. Many PIs have been making up the data, essentially. Pulled from thin air with a little rand() thrown on top. Now the flood gates to this behavior are open and 'accepted', at least by the people that cut the checks.

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