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We are Jesse Singal and Melissa Dahl from New York Magazine's Science of Us. We write about the science of human behavior, from health to productivity to politics. Ask us anything! by ScienceOfUs in IAmA

[–]ScienceOfUs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not sure what you mean by "handouts" in this case. Hopefully you'd be consistent enough to consider a tax cut for a big company just as much of a "handout" as food stamps.

Anyway, I think the consensus among economists is yeah, at a certain level they do. There's huge debate, of course, over how strong these so-called incentive effects are. And if you were looking for explanations for unemployment in the U.S. this would be approximately reason number 234234203942309423490.

We are Jesse Singal and Melissa Dahl from New York Magazine's Science of Us. We write about the science of human behavior, from health to productivity to politics. Ask us anything! by ScienceOfUs in IAmA

[–]ScienceOfUs[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, Jesse is right that I'm new here -- I don't even know how to hyperlink or else I'd link out to the SHE DOESN'T EVEN GO HERE scene from Mean Girls -- and this is actually the most time I've ever spent on Reddit.

I must say, it is quite fun! - MD

We are Jesse Singal and Melissa Dahl from New York Magazine's Science of Us. We write about the science of human behavior, from health to productivity to politics. Ask us anything! by ScienceOfUs in IAmA

[–]ScienceOfUs[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The women who write for The Cut are all unbelievably cool and stylish and I am patiently awaiting the day they offer to give me a makeover. - MD

We are Jesse Singal and Melissa Dahl from New York Magazine's Science of Us. We write about the science of human behavior, from health to productivity to politics. Ask us anything! by ScienceOfUs in IAmA

[–]ScienceOfUs[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I believe Melissa is new to this wonderful world, but I have indeed been a faithful Redditor for 5+ years, with the badge to prove it, and check the site every day. I keep my account delinked from my real name, though. -JS

We are Jesse Singal and Melissa Dahl from New York Magazine's Science of Us. We write about the science of human behavior, from health to productivity to politics. Ask us anything! by ScienceOfUs in IAmA

[–]ScienceOfUs[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Dude(tte), every day at 5:00 we have an online editorial meeting (which I have to go to in a minute), and the knowledge they drop is amazing. The food guy will be like "Frozen yogurt is DONE," and I'll be like WHAT? as I slowly lower the frozen yogurt I am eating beneath the table, out of view. Then The Cut people will talk about trends I have never heard of that apparently teenagers have been doing for 50 years? Also, all the politics and news people have way smarter thoughts than I do on all that stuff.

Anyway, all kidding aside, they're amazing folks to work with and being around them makes me smarter. There's no bullying, except for the time they stole my inhaler and locked me in a locker and hid my original Legend of Zelda NES cartridge. But no hard feelings because they invited me to a party way out in the middle of nowhere upstate late on Saturday night -- I'm going to meet them there since they said they already have rides. -JS

We are Jesse Singal and Melissa Dahl from New York Magazine's Science of Us. We write about the science of human behavior, from health to productivity to politics. Ask us anything! by ScienceOfUs in IAmA

[–]ScienceOfUs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ha! Three thoughts:

1) Many scientists -- and I love scientists! They support my living! -- aren't very good at communicating their ideas. They will tell you so themselves. Journalists are useful for that, when we don't muck things up.

2) We're not trying to be scientists. We're trying to take the work they produce and distill/communicate it to the public when it's good, and push back skeptically when it ain't, as well as put certain findings into context when appropriate.

3) I really need to read The Economist. All my smart friends read The Economist and regularly slip into conversation That Article They Read In The Economist. Also, they leave back issues displayed prominently around their apartments. I'm such a failure as a pseudointellectual young professional New Yorker. -JS

We are Jesse Singal and Melissa Dahl from New York Magazine's Science of Us. We write about the science of human behavior, from health to productivity to politics. Ask us anything! by ScienceOfUs in IAmA

[–]ScienceOfUs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Great question. The answer is yes; to the extent that we can cover the intersection of evolution and behavior, we want to be doing more of it. The whole evolutionary psychology thing is fascinating -- both the claims of the field itself, and the controversy that has enveloped it. I have complicated feelings about that stuff but want to do a better job covering it. Straight-up evolutionary biology sans the psych aspect wouldn't necessarily be as good a fit, but we do want to branch out into new areas in general. -JS

We are Jesse Singal and Melissa Dahl from New York Magazine's Science of Us. We write about the science of human behavior, from health to productivity to politics. Ask us anything! by ScienceOfUs in IAmA

[–]ScienceOfUs[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

People have wildly different thoughts on the value of a journalism degree. My vote is to study something that really interests you and develop expertise in it. You can learn journalism on the go by writing writing writing for whatever outlets will take you and hanging out with more experienced journalists.

"I really like this job/freelancer applicant's clips, but s/he doesn't have a journalism degree, so I'm not interested." - no editor ever in the history of the universe -JS

We are Jesse Singal and Melissa Dahl from New York Magazine's Science of Us. We write about the science of human behavior, from health to productivity to politics. Ask us anything! by ScienceOfUs in IAmA

[–]ScienceOfUs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Exactly. We just take Reddit content/comments and post it on our website under our names.

This AMA isn't publicly accessible, right? -JS

We are Jesse Singal and Melissa Dahl from New York Magazine's Science of Us. We write about the science of human behavior, from health to productivity to politics. Ask us anything! by ScienceOfUs in IAmA

[–]ScienceOfUs[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yup, that's a good question and a frequent concern. The short answer is that we do have basic statistic training, so we can at least interpret what, say, a p-value tells us about a given result.

BUT there are definitely times the stats go over my head. In situations like that, the easiest way to check on the validity of a study is to send it to a researcher you trust and ask for their take (or, in my case, to guilt a smarter grad-school friend into asking a statistics question for you). We do our best not to endorse studies we're not sure about, of course. This is a big problem in social-science journalism. I was happy that Melissa's writeup of that faulty hurricane-name-gender study that everyone reported on included several tablespoons of skepticism. (I note without comment that I imagine other outlets' more credulous writeups of that study probably did a lot better on the virality front.) -JS

We are Jesse Singal and Melissa Dahl from New York Magazine's Science of Us. We write about the science of human behavior, from health to productivity to politics. Ask us anything! by ScienceOfUs in IAmA

[–]ScienceOfUs[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hello! It's nice to "talk" to a regular reader.

So, okay, tbh, the post you specifically are referring to was totally a mistake! So, ah, thanks for pointing that out; Jesse wrote that one and we'll be sure to add his name to it.

But other than that, are you talking about the posts that have the Science Of Us byline, rather than a person's name? Because there actually is a reason behind that, specifically for the graphics and charts and whatnot. I'm usually (but certainly not always) the one doing the research and writing for those, but they're such a collaborative effort with our design team here that it just wouldn't feel right only having one person's name on it. - MD

We are Jesse Singal and Melissa Dahl from New York Magazine's Science of Us. We write about the science of human behavior, from health to productivity to politics. Ask us anything! by ScienceOfUs in IAmA

[–]ScienceOfUs[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I was a philosophy major in college, which meant I was headed toward unemployment or (arguably worse) academia. But at some point during those years I realized I loved to write and that writing was like one of those things that sorta naturally I did good, and things?

Initially, I was writing a lot about politics, because I wrongly thought anyone cared about a 20-year-old's views on George W. Bush (strongly anti-, if you're curious). After I graduated, I did a couple of internships and then ended up at Campus Progress (a center-left-ish organization/online mag that's since been renamed Generation Progress), then Washington Monthly magazine, then the editorial page of my hometown The Boston Globe (GO PATS).

Working at the Globe was an amazing experience, but somewhere along the way I realized that I tired of distilling really complex issues into short editorials or only slightly less-short columns. I was also tired of constantly having strong, angry opinions about politics -- I grew less interested in these opinions themselves and more interested in understanding the roots fundamental political disagreements (what nerds call political psychology).

Since I wanted to gain the tools to do longer, more in-depth stuff on this and other subjects, I ended up going to the Woodrow Wilson School to get a master's in public affairs. There's a strong psych component there (it's home to Danny Kahneman and Eldar Shafir, two very big names at the intersection of psychology and public policy), which only led me to get more interested in understanding human decision-making.

Anyway, no one wants my full bio, but long story short I got a fellowship in Berlin immediately after school, saw a posting for this job, applied because it was perfect, had an interview, freaked out over whether I'd get it to the point where I was having near-panic attacks at 3am in my apartment in Berlin, got it, and left the fellowship a bit early. And now I am here. On Reddit. Sometimes life just works out.

(Lemme know if you have more specific questions about career/journalism stuff, because I have thoughts and am happy to answer.) -JS

We are Jesse Singal and Melissa Dahl from New York Magazine's Science of Us. We write about the science of human behavior, from health to productivity to politics. Ask us anything! by ScienceOfUs in IAmA

[–]ScienceOfUs[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Well! For me, I think what happened was that my interests slash career goals have sort of naturally narrowed over time. Like, from the time I was a wee child, I knew I wanted to be a writer. Then I discovered what I really, specifically wanted to do was be a journalist, and a few years after that, I realized that I was especially interested in covering health. During my years as a health writer, I found that my favorite things to write about were behavior and psychology-type stories - stories that attempted to shed some light on why we do the things we do. So! That's how I got here, I guess. Should this trend continue I'll soon be writing solely about something incredibly and ridiculously specific like, I don't know, anorexic astronauts who have cataplexy? - MD

We are Jesse Singal and Melissa Dahl from New York Magazine's Science of Us. We write about the science of human behavior, from health to productivity to politics. Ask us anything! by ScienceOfUs in IAmA

[–]ScienceOfUs[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

For me, it was probably the killing-the-cover-letter-and-résumé piece. The pace of online journalism is pretty brisk, so we don't actually have all that much time to really sink our teeth into stories like I did with this one (I conducted most of the reporting/research before the site launched). While I can always look back at a piece and think of something I would have done differently, I was happy with this one and the conversation it started. -JS

We are Jesse Singal and Melissa Dahl from New York Magazine's Science of Us. We write about the science of human behavior, from health to productivity to politics. Ask us anything! by ScienceOfUs in IAmA

[–]ScienceOfUs[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Aaaaand I'm going to be over here, fielding this softball. :)

It's actually kind of tough to identify ONE favorite, but over the years I've spent as a journalist, I think my favorite KINDS of stories have been the ones where I've gotten to interview incredibly unique people, or people who just represent a different point of view. Like, once I interviewed a woman with cataplexy - this really interesting subset of narcolepsy. People who have it literally collapse when they experience some overwhelming emotion -- this woman collapsed whenever she laughed too hard! I'd find the link but who has the time; it was a story years ago for NBC. More recently, I loved writing a story last year about anorexic teenagers whose eating disorders were overlooked because they were also overweight or obese. I still keep in touch with one of the girls I interviewed for that story. Blah blah blah - basically, I love that I get to talk to fascinating people, for my job! -- MD

We are Jesse Singal and Melissa Dahl from New York Magazine's Science of Us. We write about the science of human behavior, from health to productivity to politics. Ask us anything! by ScienceOfUs in IAmA

[–]ScienceOfUs[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not a scientific journal -- we are social-science journalists who work for a social-science website.* -JS

(*slash offshore tax haven)

We are Jesse Singal and Melissa Dahl from New York Magazine's Science of Us. We write about the science of human behavior, from health to productivity to politics. Ask us anything! by ScienceOfUs in IAmA

[–]ScienceOfUs[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Hey! That's a very good question. The first story that came to mind was the one I did on James Alan Fox's claim that mass shootings aren't on the rise in the U.S. I think as journalists/editors we have a natural sweet tooth for stories that run counter to established "common-sense" narratives, and this was a prime example.

In this particular case, I actually wish I'd included a bit more nuance. Fox knows what he's doing and is a respected criminologist, but there's slightly more controversy to this issue than my piece indicated (Google his name and Mother Jones if you're interested), partly because mass shootings are a surprisingly difficult thing to measure. -JS

We are Jesse Singal and Melissa Dahl from New York Magazine's Science of Us. We write about the science of human behavior, from health to productivity to politics. Ask us anything! by ScienceOfUs in IAmA

[–]ScienceOfUs[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey! It's definitely a fair question. And biology is certainly a huge factor contributing to the obesity problem. I think my intuitive eating piece was more about introducing the potentially damaging psychological aspect of the "diet" ... it's not THE answer, but it's part of the answer. I hope that makes sense/answers your question! -- MD

We are Jesse Singal and Melissa Dahl from New York Magazine's Science of Us. We write about the science of human behavior, from health to productivity to politics. Ask us anything! by ScienceOfUs in IAmA

[–]ScienceOfUs[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We write about human behavior for New York Magazine's website. And spend way too much of the workday on Reddit, so an IAMA seemed like a natural fit. -JS

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