Get back to the actual behavior in the science of behavior

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An interesting look at the replicability of the concept of ego depletion includes this bit toward the end about doing experiments:

If the replication showed us anything, Baumeister says, it’s that the field has gotten hung up on computer-based investigations. “In the olden days there was a craft to running an experiment. You worked with people, and got them into the right psychological state and then measured the consequences. There’s a wish now to have everything be automated so it can be done quickly and easily online.” These days, he continues, there’s less and less actual behavior in the science of behavior. “It’s just sitting at a computer and doing readings.”

Perhaps, just like with the reliance on smartphones in daily life, researchers are also becoming overly dependent on the Internet and computers to help them do the work. On one hand, it certainly speeds up the work, both in data collection and analysis. Speed is very important in academia where the stakes for publishing quickly and often continue to rise. On the other hand, the suggestion here is that we miss something by sitting at a computer too much and not actually analyzing behavior. We might take mental shortcuts, not ask the same kind and number of questions, and perform different analyses compared to direct observation and doing some work by hand.

This reminds me of a reading I had my social research students do last week. The reading involved the different types of notes one should take when doing fieldwork. When it came to doing the analysis, the researcher suggested nothing beat spreading out all the paper notes on the floor and immersing oneself in them. This doesn’t seem very efficient these days; whether one is searching for words in a text document or using qualitative data analysis software, putting paper all over the floor and wading through it seems time consuming and unnecessary. But, I do think the author was right: the physical practice of immersing oneself in data and observations is simply a unique experience that yields rich data.

Predicting resegregation in 35% of metro area neighborhoods

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A new study looks at the possibility of numerous metropolitan neighborhoods becoming less diverse in the coming decades:

Neighborhood integration is a great goal, but just because a place is currently home to more than one race doesn’t mean it will retain this diversity in the decades to come. A new study published in Sociological Science explores this potential future for New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Houston. It finds that 35 percent of all neighborhoods in these cities—around 3,800 total—are likely to resegregate in the next two decades…

Bader’s analysis predicts that, in the next two decades, many of the neighborhoods in the pale green (“steady black succession”), navy blue (“Latino enclaves”), royal blue (“early Latino growth, white decline”), teal (“early Latino growth, black decline”), sky blue (“recent Latino growth”), and pink (Asian growth) categories are the ones where a single racial group will become dominant over time. Here’s Bader on that process, again via the study website:

“We were disappointed to learn that many integrated neighborhoods were actually experiencing slow, but steady resegregation — a process that we call “gradual succession.” The process tended to concentrate Blacks into small areas of cities and inner-ring suburbs while scattering many Latinos and Asians into segregating neighborhoods throughout the metropolitan area.

Meanwhile, the fuchsia “quadrivial” neighborhoods, located in the suburbs like Aliso Viejo, California, and Naperville, Illinois, are likely to retain their diversity for some time. (Of course, as my colleague Amanda Kolson Hurley has noted, in general, diverse suburbs aren’t immune to the threat of resegregation.) Despite fair housing and civil rights legislations, housing discrimination is an ongoing problem with multigenerational effects—and one of the possible reasons behind the trends Bader has highlighted in the study. Another is the tendency of white Americans to self-segregate.

Given the complexity of race and ethnicity in the United States plus its regular manifestation in residential patterns, this makes sense. Just because certain locations were once diverse doesn’t mean they will remain so in the future. City neighborhoods provide plenty of examples of this, whether looking at places that have had waves of immigrant groups or other locations where blacks moved in and whites never returned. And that these patterns will be reproduced across suburban areas has already been happening for decades.

What seems to be new here is the possibility of predicting these changes. If a suburban community knew that demographic change was likely, would they do things differently? Or, how about a city neighborhood that had a particular character and identity? Now that there are scholars out there working on this, might the research itself have an effect on future population changes?

Demolition for a teardown, clothes in the closet and all

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Many neighbors don’t like teardowns and one residents highlight that the new property owners didn’t even empty the old home:

This house is two houses away from us. The lady who lived in this house passed away a few months ago. A builder bought the house for $660,000 and a mortgage was taken out for $1,178,000 on it. So what this means is it’s probably going to be sold for a minimum of $1.5 million dollars…

The builder didn’t even empty the closet.

On one hand, if the whole house is going, why not simply trash everything inside rather than spend the time sorting it all out? On the other hand, displaying such a picture highlights several features:

  1. It increases the tragedy factor many claim are inherent in teardowns. These aren’t just houses; these places where people have lived for decades and threatening the character (and social life) of the neighborhood is not a trivial matter.
  2. Americans have so much stuff through our consumption patterns that it simply doesn’t make sense to try to salvage any of these items. It often may not be worth it to even donate the items as it is too easy to throw it out and/or obtain more.

Now that I think about, there are numerous photographers and artists in recent decades who highlight ruins in big cities – like Detroit or New York City. Where is the major project that documents the sadness of teardowns? It may not quite have the noir allure of the city but there is long history of suburban critiques to draw upon: the mass produced raised ranch of the post-war era is even more desolate in the snow and shadow of the wrecking ball.

“Eager to Move to the City, but Stranded in the Suburbs”

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The New York Times recently profiled a number of suburbanites who would prefer to live in the big city but can’t because of high housing prices:

Like many others in her sociological cohort these days — men and women whose children are grown and who want to trade those unused rooms in Tudor- and Victorian-style houses, as well as the steep suburban property taxes, for the city’s excitement and convenience — Ms. Fomerand finds herself stranded in the suburbs.

These empty-nesters have reaped the benefits of the suburbs: They sent their children to excellent public schools and raised them in safety and comfort, in backyards, playrooms and cul-de-sacs. And their houses have increased nicely in value. Now they would like to find apartments with doormen and elevators so they don’t have to climb stairs, shovel snow and schlep packages. They want a place where they can “age in place,” as the phrase goes. But they are finding that in the past 15 years, prices for such apartments in Manhattan and Brooklyn have risen far more than the values of their suburban homes, so much that they may never make it back to living in the city they always thought they would return to. Instead, they end up staying in their houses, or downsizing to smaller suburban homes or apartments.

To be sure, this is a problem largely felt by the comfortable: New Yorkers who have had the luck and income to live where they choose, who have had the luxury of planning and expecting a certain lifestyle when they grow older. These people could live less expensively in other cities, but often their family, friends and work are here, and they don’t want to leave the area.

“This is one of the most commonly discussed issues,” said Mark A. Nadler, director of Westchester sales for Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices. “People will say, ‘Yes, I’m moving to the city,’ but unless they’re wealthy, they end up resigning themselves to staying in the suburbs.”

Two quick thoughts in reaction to this piece.

  1. Those profiled in this story generally want to move to Manhattan or Brooklyn. Why don’t they consider moving to other parts of New York City? Underlying this could be continued ideas about what areas of New York City are desirable, safe, and more white. It is not really whether they can move to the city at all; it is more about whether they can move to the trendy neighborhoods in which they would prefer to live.
  2. There is only brief mention of affordable housing in a piece that is largely about housing prices. At the same time, this is kind of an odd note to hit; New York City prices are too high because a number of older suburbanites cannot find affordable housing in the city. If you want to talk about housing prices and affordable housing, why not highlight the less wealthy in the region who could truly benefit from such a move to the city (as opposed to doing so as a lifestyle choice)? Too often, stories about affordable housing highlight empty-nesters and downsizers (often alongside young professionals) – probably the sorts of people cities would love to have – rather than consistently examining the lives of lower-class residents.

Housing flipping now above 2005 levels

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RealtyTrac finds that house flipping levels have increased in recent years:

The report by RealtyTrac found that home flipping in 12 active metropolitan areas last year was above a peak set in 2005, just two years before the U.S. mortgage market started to collapse, leading to a banking crisis and the Great Recession.

Profits generated by home flipping also hit a 10-year high, with home flippers netting an average $55,000 per sale before renovation and transaction costs. Profits topped $100,000 in expensive markets such as New York and Los Angeles…

There were also indications smaller investors were starting to pile in on the action. The number of home flippers rose to levels not seen since 2007, while the number of home flips per individual investor fell at the same time.

“When home flipping numbers go up, it is usually an indication that the housing market is in trouble,” said Matthew Gardner, chief economist at Windermere Real Estate, who was quoted in the report.

I blame HGTV. Seriously though, hasn’t there been a shift in the last decade or so to seeing house flipping as a more normal business that many people could get into? I hear radio ads regularly in the Chicago area for house flipping seminars where supposedly anyone can show up and learn the secrets. On one hand, you have professionals and firms that do this on a mass scale but you also have an increase in the number of flippers as people take on these projects to make some extra money or start a new business.

If this is pushing us toward another burst housing bubble, is there any way to reign in the flippers? Could local governments institute more regulations that would slow this down?

Disapproval of a boyfriend who lives in a van/tiny house?

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One letter writer to Dear Prudence thinks that her boyfriend’s life in “a pretty impressive tiny house” may not be approved by her loved ones:

Q. Man with a van: I met a guy online, and we’re far enough along that I’ve told some family and friends, but they haven’t met him yet. Here’s the rub: He is currently living in a van, which he has turned into a pretty impressive tiny house. He’s doing it for thoughtful and responsible reasons. I think it’s cool, but I know people in my life are going to find it off-putting and judge him negatively. I want them to meet him first before I explain this. I also don’t want him to know I’m overthinking this and freak him out about meeting people in my life. Should I get it over with and tell them?

A: I think this is an unnecessary burden you are taking on yourself. Let him tell people. He can explain his thoughtful and responsible reasons better than anyone else. If your friends have questions or politely worded judgments for you afterward, you can handle them as they come, but don’t feel responsible for managing other people’s perceptions of your boyfriend’s living situation. What he does is unusual, and your friends might have questions, and that’s fine. If you come across as desperate to justify his choices, you’ll mostly just come across as desperate.

Prudence suggests the letter writer should take it easy and let the boyfriend explain things. But, this sort of sidesteps the possible issues:

  1. Is the van/tiny house not really that nice? Or, is it simply hard to tell from the outside how nice it is?
  2. Perhaps the family members and friends would see living in a van or vehicle as a negative consequence related to not having a good job or education. If so, is the issue really not the van but rather what it might signify?
  3. I wonder if some people simply wouldn’t react well to tiny houses. They may not understand how or why someone wants such a space. Perhaps they view such housing as transitory, not a long-term solution.

My guess is the issue is #2: living in your van is not a positive status symbol. But, since it is a tiny house, perhaps the couple can throw a party at the van/tiny house to introduce everyone…

The furor over traffic fatalities – in the early 1900s

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With talk about the first Google self-driving car crash, one writer reminds us of earlier discussions about cars and accidents:

There’s some precedent for all this, of course. It’s not as though the car as we know it today was thwarted by human deaths. The first recorded traffic fatality in the United States occurred in 1899, in New York City, when a man stepping off a trolley was struck by a taxi.

The three decades that followed were chaotic and deadly. Scholars and justices debated whether the automobile was, perhaps, inherently evil. By the 1920s, cars were causing so many deaths that people in cities like New York and Detroit began throwing parades in an attempt to underscore the need for traffic safety. Tow trucks would haul smashed, totaled vehicles along the course of the parade. From The Detroit News:

“Some wrecks featured mannequin drivers dressed as Satan and bloody corpses as passengers. Children crippled from accidents rode in the back of open cars waving to other children watching from sidewalks. Washington, D.C., and New York City held parades including 10,000 children dressed as ghosts, representing each a death that year. They were followed by grieving young mothers who wore white or gold stars to indicate they’d lost a child.”

Eventually, traffic laws and other safety features—stop lights, brightly painted lanes, speed limits—were standardized. And car-safety technology improved, too. Vehicles got shatterproof windshields, turn signals, parking brakes, and eventually seat belts and airbags. In 1970, about 60,000 people died each year on American roads. By 2013, the number of annual traffic fatalities had been cut almost in half.

I am usually amazed when I look back at historical and sociological work about the major changes in society due to and in response to the car. Even with all the safety implications – tens of thousands of deaths each year – Americans went all in for the car, changing our streets, residential patterns, leisure activities, homes, and numerous other areas.

There are also some similarities with the advent of railroad technology in the mid-1800s where it took some time to develop reliable safety devices. In Forging Industrial Policy, sociologist Frank Dobbin describes the multitude of safety issues in Britain where railroads were allowed a lot of latitude until too many people were dying.

One thing McMansions can do? Play host to Smash Bros. tournaments

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McMansions are often derided for their size but imagine them as a fun site for a weekend of Smash Bros.:

Some tournaments take place in massive convention centers. Some grand finals even go down in giant arenas. While these events can be truly impressive, they don’t have the spark of early tournaments that captured the imagination and hearts of Smash players. Friends crowded around TVs, laughing, jeering, and, while the competition was fierce, they were still having the time of their lives. This is the atmosphere players will find at McMansion 7, a tournament that’s like a vacation with live music and a whole lot of Smash.

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This home in Pensacola Beach, Florida (according to the comments) is a modest home by McMansion standards. I can only imagine the kind of fun and mayhem that might occur in a larger and more opulent McMansion, say 8,000 square feet in a ritzy neighborhood. Still, a massive video game tournament may help fill out those great rooms, bonus rooms, and expansive spaces of the McMansion. But, what would the neighbors think about the kind of people who play video games, the noise, the cars, and the property values related to being near the video game heaven McMansion…

Researchers fact-checking their own ethnographic data

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Toward the end of a long profile of sociologist Matthew Desmond is an interesting section regarding ethnographic methods:

Desmond has done an especially good job spelling out precisely how he went about his research and verified his findings, says Klinenberg. At the start of Evicted, an author’s note states that most of the events in the book took place between May 2008 and December 2009. Except where it says otherwise in the notes, Desmond writes, all events that happened between those dates were observed firsthand. Every quotation was “captured by a digital recorder or copied from official documents,” he adds. He also hired a fact-checker who corroborated the book by combing public records, conducting some 30 interviews, and asking him to produce field notes that verified a randomly selected 10 percent of its pages.

Desmond has been equally fastidious about taking himself out of the text. Unlike many ethnographic studies, including Goffman’s, his avoids the first person. He wants readers to react directly to the people in Evicted. “Ethnography often provokes very strong feelings,” he says. “So I wanted the book to do that. But not about me.”

Ethnographers should be more skeptical about their data, Desmond believes. In his fieldwork, for example, he saw women getting evicted at higher rates than men. But when he crunched the data, analyzing hundreds of thousands of court records, it turned out that was only the case in predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods. Women in white neighborhoods were not evicted at higher rates than men. The field had told him a half-truth.

Still, beyond acknowledging that the reception of Goffman’s book shaped his fact-checking, he will say nothing about the controversy. Even an old journalism trick — letting a silence linger, in the hope that an interviewee will fill it — fails to wring a quote from him. “This is such a good technique,” he says after a few seconds, “where you just kind of let the person talk.” Then he sips his Diet Coke, waiting for the next question.

This gets at some basic questions about what ethnography is. Should it be participant observation with a reflexive and involved researcher? Letting the research subjects speak for themselves with minimal interpretation? Should it involve fact-checking and verifying data? Each of these could have their merit and sociologists pursue different approaches. Contrasting the last two, for example, how people describe their own circumstances and understanding could be very important even if what is reported is not necessarily true. On the other hand, more and more ethnographies involve reflexive commentary from the researcher on how their presence and personal characteristics influenced the data collection and inteprretation.

It sounds to me like Desmond is doing some mixed methods work: starting with ethnographic data that he directly observes but then using secondary analysis (in the example above, using official records) to better understand both the micro level that he observed as well as the broader patterns. This means more work for each study but also more comprehensive data.

Recovery best in wealthiest zip codes

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A new analysis looks at the recovery of the US economy by zip codes and finds that the wealthiest areas have rebounded the most:

The report found that for the bottom fifth of U.S. zip codes—which the researchers term “distressed”—the medium income only reaches 68 percent of the state-wide median and 27 percent of adults live in poverty. These communities saw employment decline by 6.7 percent during the recovery. Not the recession—the recovery. In the nation’s median and prosperous zip codes, the situation is much brighter. Employment in median zip codes rose by 2.3 percent, while in prosperous communities—the top fifth of U.S. zip codes—employment rose by an incredible 17.4 percent.

EIG’s analysis supports the notion that in the U.S. economic gains continue to be captured by those at the top. “The data outlines two different Americas from an economic standpoint,” said Steve Glickman, the co-founder and executive director of EIG. “The communities taking advantage of the knowledge economy are booming, but the areas where the industrial economy has traditionally held firmest have really suffered. These trends predate the Great Recession, but the recovery has continued to accelerate the fortunes of the most-prosperous areas and the downturn of the most distressed.”

Another piece of evidence to add to plenty of existing material: where people live has a large effect on their lives. And if the United States has persistent residential segregation – particularly by race but also by social class – then these differences by geography will continue to be pertinent.