Dodd, M. et al., “The Political Left Rolls with the Good and the Political Right Confronts the Bad: Connecting Physiology and Cognition to Preferences,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences (March 5, 2012).
How female role models erase gender gaps
In this country, we take it for granted that women should have equal educational opportunities to men, but, in some parts of the world, that notion is still remote. Do powerful female role models make a difference? To find out, researchers looked to India, which has been requiring randomly selected villages to elect female leaders. The researchers found that aspirations for girls’ futures increased, and girls caught up with boys in educational achievement, in female-led villages. Unfortunately, as the authors note, the gender gap doesn’t really begin to disappear until a woman’s second term in office. With little evidence that things changed otherwise for young adults or that policy shifted in favor of girls, the authors conclude that affirmative action made a difference by gradually creating role models.
Beaman, L. et al., “Female Leadership Raises Aspirations and Educational Attainment for Girls: A Policy Experiment in India,” Science (forthcoming).
Traders: only kind of reckless!
Judging by the volatility we’ve seen on Wall Street recently, you’d think that traders were born to be wild. However, a new study suggests that, especially in the case of veteran traders, they’re actually born to be moderate. Researchers took DNA samples from 60 traders in New York City in the summer of 2008. Those who had been traders the longest tended to have genes associated with intermediate levels of dopamine activity in the brain, which, in turn, is associated with a balanced risk-taking disposition. Veteran traders were also more reluctant to trade in volatile markets.
Sapra, S. et al., “A Combination of Dopamine Genes Predicts Success by Professional Wall Street Traders,” PLoS ONE (January 2012).
The scorched-earth theory of business founding
