Archive: Jan 2015

In statistics, a little star next to a coefficient generally means that the result is statistically significant at the p<.05 level. In English, this means that there is only a 1 in 20 chance that the finding just popped up by pure random chance. In sociology, that’s generally considered good enough to conclude that the finding is “real.”

If one investigates a lot of relationships, however, this way of deciding which ones to claim as real has an obvious pitfall.  If you look at 20 possible but false relationships, chances are that one of them will be statistically significant by chance alone. Do enough fishing in a dead lake, in other words, and you’ll inevitably pull up some garbage.

Thanks xkcd, for making this funny.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

One of the arguments against an increase in the minimum wage is that it will lead to higher unemployment.  One can make theoretical arguments for and against this proposition.  And, of course, the income gains from an increase in the minimum wage are likely to produce overall benefits for both low wage workers and the economy as a whole even if there is a rise in unemployment.

Economists have tried to estimate the employment effects of a rise in the minimum wage.  As a Vox article describes, two of them, Hristos Doucouliagos and T.D Stanley, looked at almost 1,500 estimates of the effects of minimum wage increases on employment and found that the estimates “clustered right around zero effect, but with more of those estimates showing a slight downward pressure on employment.”

They concluded, “with sixty-four studies containing approximately fifteen hundred estimates, we have reason to believe that if there is some adverse employment effect from minimum wage rises, it must be of a small and policy-irrelevant magnitude.”

Originally posted at Reports from the Economic Front.

Martin Hart-Landsberg is a professor of economics at Lewis and Clark College. You can follow him at Reports from the Economic Front.

Flashback Friday.

When it comes to forming an opinion on poverty, some Americans just can’t seem to understand why poor people can’t just stop being poor. One of the things that gets harped on is the idea that poor people spend money on frivolous things; somehow some people believe that, if the poor just gave up their cell phone and Nikes, they would pop up into the middle class.

What these people don’t realize is the extent to which being poor is living a life of self-denial.  To be poor is to be forced to deny oneself constantly. The poor must deny themselves most trappings of:

• an adult life (their own apartment, framed pictures on the walls, matching dishes);
• a comfortable life (a newish mattress, a comfy couch, good shoes that aren’t worn out);
• a convenient life (your own car, eating out);
• a self-directed life (a job you care for, leisure time, hobbies, money for babysitters);
• a life full of small pleasures (lattes, dessert, fresh cut flowers, hot baths, wine);
• a healthy life (fresh fruits and vegetables, health care, time for exercise);
• and so, so many more things that don’t fit into those categories (technological gadgets, organic food, travel, expensive clothes and accessories).

They have to actively deny themselves these things every day. And, since most poor people remain poor their whole lives, they must be prepared to deny themselves (and members of their families) these things, perhaps, for the rest of their lives.

So when someone sees someone (they think is) poor walking down the street with a brand new pair of Nikes, perhaps what they are seeing is someone who decided (whether out of a moment of weakness or not) to NOT deny themselves at least one thing; perhaps they are seeing someone who is trying to hold on to some feeling of normalcy; perhaps what they are seeing is a perfectly normal person who just wants what they want for once.

I was thinking about this today when I saw a postcard at Post Secret (which, to be fair, may or may not have been submitted by someone who struggles financially).  The postcard, featuring a PowerBall receipt, reads “It’s the only time I feel hopeful”:

For many poor people, hope and the absence of fear and worry are also luxuries they live without.

Originally posted in 2009.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Thank you all for a truly fantastic year!

We rounded it out with more than six and a half million page views.  We almost doubled our Facebook followers — from 35,000 last December to more than 68,000 today. We are honored to enjoy over 21,000 Twitter followers, 13,000 on Pinterest and 20,000 on our one-year-old Tumblr page.  Much gratitude to everyone for your enthusiasm and support!

Highlights:

Two of us published textbooks!

• Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions, coauthored by myself and Myra Marx Ferree. I started accounts for it on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest and you’re, of course, welcome to join.
• Frequent contributor Philip Cohen is also super proud to announce his new book, The Family: Diversity, Inequality, and Social Change.

What else!

• Our 7th birthday happened.
• We were Tumbld by Wil Wheaton! And that post — about how activists are motivated by logic, not emotion — was liked or tumbled over 50,000 times!
• A SocImages post got me interviewed at NPR.
• Sezin Koehler’s post on gender and nudity on HBO made TV Guide.
• We shared a 7-year-old girl’s letter to Lego about the lack of adventure to girls, sent to us by her parent, and it struck a nerve. It was covered by dozens of major news outlets.
• We recieved the 2014 award for Exemplary Online Learning Resources from the Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching.
• We made two new Pinterest pages: Pinkwashing Ridiculousness and Racist Antics at High Schools and Colleges (see them all here).

I’ve also signed contracts to write two more books, one on hookup culture and a Introduction to Sociology text. I’m excited to keep writing!

Best of 2014!

Over the last week I’ve highlighted my favorite and your most loved posts from 2014.  Here’s are the lists in case you missed it last week!

Reader’s Choice (plus # of likes/shares before we re-posted)

• When force is hardest to justify, victims of police homicide are most likely to be black (24,700+)
• #instagrammingafrica: The narcissism of global tourism (17,300+)
• Teachers offered personal loans to buy school supplies (15,000+)
• What do professors do all day? (11,400+)
• Doing gender with the face, featuring Erika Linder (6,900+)
• How to change the world one shrug at a time (5,900+)
• Snickers mocks the idea that men can respect women (5,400+)
• Concern for equality linked to logic, not emotion (5,100+)
• A little theory of homophobia (5,000+)
• In employers’ eyes, for-profit colleges are equivalent to high school (4,300+)
• How to lie with statistics: Stand Your Ground and gun deaths (4,200+)
• The sexual politics of veganism (2,700+)
• U.S. schools teach children that Native Americans are history (2,700+)

Most loved humor!

• Marx, Weber, and Durkheim on a tree falling in the forest… (5,000+)
• Girl pants: No pockets, no justice (2,800+)
• Muggle Studies and Defense Against the Dark Arts (1,600+)
• Statistically significant others (1,500+)
• Academic writing MadLib (1,300+)
• How professors argue (1,100+)
• Confirmation bias expert convinced everyone suffers from confirmation bias (1,100+)
• The best thesis defense is a good offense (1,000+)

Editor’s picks

• That’s fishy: From scent to suspicion and back
• “Trophy scarves”: Race, gender, and the woman as prop trope
• What sociologists can tell us about serial killing
• A reluctant defense of sunscreen for men
• Girl-on-girl action: A new visual landscape
• Cuteness-inspired aggression is actually a thing
• A proper entrance: Creole culture and the front door
• How the bird hat craze almost killed the dinosaurs… and inspired the Audubon Society
• Reading the camouflage: “You are now enemy combatants”
• The baby dolls of Mardi Gras

Happy New Year everyone!  Here’s to wonderful things in 2015!

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.