Monday, October 25, 2010

Social psychology and alpha lawyers

The ABA Journal today blogged about a recently published social psychology experiment that found the apparent dominance / maturity of law firms' managing partners' faces (as rated by college students, the usual social science lab rats) correlated slightly (14%) with the managing partners' respective firms' profitability levels.

For a limited time you can download the study report here.

Even though I am a social scientist myself, I have a hard time interpreting this not-yet-replicated study as anything other than entertaining silliness. However, given that neither lawyers nor marketers are renowned for their statistical savvy (otherwise, they'd have become accountants and physicists), I'm a little worried about what some might do with this new-found information.

Below is an animated movie (created with my new favorite online toy, xtranormal) to illustrate the dangers of leaping into action after reading a headline that says, "Recent research finds that ...."

2 comments:

psychologist said...

Some believe that the only time you need to see a psychologist is when you are court ordered or you start to want to kill your self or others. But it is wrong, once you have already felt that there is something wrong with yourself, you should consult one.

jayne navarre said...

Anne,
You've out done yourself. This is hilarious. Sadly...

ShareThis