Author name: ken.brodabahm

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Remember “Pong?” For those of us of a certain age, it was probably the first video game we ever played, knocking that pixelated ball back and forth using a flat digital paddle. The game is interestingly the subject of a new social science study focusing on perception (Witt, Tenhundfeld & […]

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: We all know what good teaching looks like. We remember it from school, or perhaps even from our own time as teachers. Good teaching breaks things down and makes them simple, at least at the start. Good teaching uses concrete and vivid examples and illustrations. Good teaching engages and adapts

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm:   We live in a hierarchical society, and the courtroom replicates (some would say, entrenches) some of those hierarchies. The law is written in an opaque manner that only the educated can understand, the bar physically separates the attorneys and the players from everyone else, and the judge is literally

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: We don’t always have systematic reasons for believing what we believe. Often, it boils down to a feeling, a preference, or an implicit trust based on how we learned it. Motivation plays a big role. But there is one setting where that rationale is supposed to be systematic, logical, and

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: People have always believed things that aren’t true: the earth is flat, nonconforming women are witches, the moon landing was faked. Currently, we have our own set of false beliefs that have permeated some sectors of society. The difference, perhaps, is that there’s now the feeling that we’re in a

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Litigation and trial have a long history of being seen as a kind of logical and verbal combat. Movies and popular culture have contributed to this view that attorneys are going to war on behalf of their clients, and the only holds that are barred are those that are barred

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: It’s Christmas as I write this, so how about some seasonally appropriate social science. There is a study (Merckelbach & van de Venezuela, 2001), a little old at this point, but quite interesting in its implications. Participants came into a lab in order to listen to white noise over headphones.

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Next time you’re in a public place — an airport, a hotel lobby, a train, or a shopping mall — stop and take a moment to look around at the other people in the space. How many of them are staring down into their hand-held mobile phone? Most of them?