Yourmorals.org | Data Science & Psychology

7May/13

Personality Types in Business: Conscientious CEOs & Open Technologists

Part of my job at Ranker is to talk to other companies about our data. While people often talk about how “big data” is revolutionizing everything, the reality of the data marketplace is that it still largely revolves around sales, marketing, and advertising. Huge infrastructures exist to make sure that the most optimal ad for [...]

Tagged as: big data, conscientiousness, marketing, openness to experience, technology Comments Off

4Apr/13

The Moral Foundations of Environmentalists

I was recently asked about the Moral Foundations scores of those who are more concerned about the environment and so I analyzed the 15,522 individuals who took the Moral Foundations Scale on YourMorals.org and also answered a question on the Schwartz Values Scale concerning how much of a guiding principle of their life it was [...]

Tagged as: environment, moral foundations, peter singer, universalism Comments Off

26Mar/13

Your Values Predict the Stories You Choose

Human beings are storytelling animals. There is no other species that spends large amounts of time watching the lives of others – fictitious or real – through the stories we read or watch. Stories do not just relate to the entertainment we consume, but are also central to the news we read or the companies [...]

Tagged as: coherence, hedonism, marketing, maslow, narratives, personality psychology, storytelling Comments Off

14Dec/12

How to Prevent Mental Illness: Help others with their stressful life events

I’ve been meaning to write this post for awhile, not just in response to the recent tragedy in Connecticut, but anytime I read an article about homelessness or people who are mentally disturbed. Many people wonder what we can do to address the mentally ill, whether it is to prevent them from engaging in violence [...]

Tagged as: homeless, how to prevent mental illness, medical model, mental illness Comments Off

24Nov/12

When is investment banking immoral? A review of Greg Smith’s book, Why I left Goldman Sachs.

On Thanksgiving evening, I started reading Greg Smith’s book, Why I left Goldman Sachs late in the afternoon. I finished it around midnight. It’s a relatively easy read with a relatively straightforward message: That Wall Street, as exemplified by Goldman Sachs’ evolution, has increasingly become a place where we send many of our brightest students [...]

Tagged as: goldman sachs, greg smith, investment bankers, new york times, wall street Comments Off

21Nov/12

On Mitt Romney and The X-Files

Those of you interested in political psychology and data science might enjoy my latest post on the Ranker Data Blog entitled Mitt Romney Should Have Advertised on the X-Files. In it, I explore correlations between liking Mitt Romney and liking various TV Shows on lists on Ranker.com, replicating analyses which the Obama campaign purportedly conducted [...]

Tagged as: data science, mitt romney, obama, political psychology, x files Comments Off

18Nov/12

The Gaza Conflict and Being Pro-Peace rather than Anti-War

One of my favorite Mother Theresa quotes is: “I was once asked why I don’t participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I’ll be there.”
The current conflict in Gaza between Hamas and Israel requires the thoughtful liberal to navigate a few [...]

Tagged as: anti war demonstrations, gaza, hamas, mother theresa, peace, political psychology, soldiers, war Comments Off

8Nov/12

Bill O’Reilly, Sarah Palin and Paul Krugman need to get out of Maslow’s Basement.

Losing an election is tough and I have immense empathy for those who have a heartfelt vision for their country that was not fulfilled on election day. Most people who care deeply about the election, Democrats and Republicans, do so out of a real desire for the country to do better and it’s unfortunate that [...]

Tagged as: bill o reilly, billionaires, bipartisanship, conservatives, election day, free stuff, liberals, maslow, obama, paul krugman, romney, sarah palin Comments Off

26Oct/12

Likely Voter Models Should Be Applied to Polls Probabilistically

One of the many great points I took from Nate Silver’s recent book, The Signal and the Noise, is that people are generally bad at dealing with uncertainty. We want the weather forecaster to tell us if it’s going to rain tomorrow, not that there is a 30% chance, even though that’s the right [...]

Tagged as: obama, registered voters, romney, uncertainty, voting records Comments Off

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