Éclat for the smartest girl in the room
Today: why you judge other people by their behaviour and yourself by your excuses, the little black dress that Vogue compared to a Ford, a bee that plays with balls for fun and the reason metal feels colder than wood — plus a French saying about sleeping on it, and the case of the note with the wrong date.
The Big Idea · Psychology
The Fundamental Attribution Error: You Judge Others by Their Character and Yourself by Your Situation
In 1967 the psychologists Edward Jones and Victor Harris asked students to read a short essay about Fidel Castro’s Cuba. Some were told the writer had freely chosen to praise Castro. Others were told the writer had been assigned that side by a debate coach, so the essay said nothing about what they really thought. You would expect the second group to shrug and say, “Well, they had no choice.” Instead, readers still guessed that the writer secretly agreed with the essay, even though they had just been told it was assigned. Psychologists call this the fundamental attribution error: we explain other people’s behaviour by who they are and our own behaviour by what was going on around us. When you are late, it was the bus; when your friend is late, she is “just disorganised.” The effect is strong but not universal, and it is weaker when we stop to think about the other person’s situation.
Jones & Harris, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology · 01.1967
Why it's cool Once you know about this bias, you can catch the unfair snap judgement before it forms, and give other people (and sometimes yourself) a more accurate story to live in.
Read moreThe Little Black Dress: How a Sketch Became a Uniform
In October 1926, American Vogue printed a sketch of a simple, calf-length black dress by Coco Chanel and called it “Chanel’s Ford.” The comparison was to the Model T, a famous car that was reliable, affordable and everywhere. Vogue predicted the dress would become “a sort of uniform for all women of taste.” Black had mostly meant mourning before then, so the clever part was changing what the colour meant: from sad to sleek, and from “look at me” to “look at how well this is made.” Historians point out that other designers were making similar dresses at the time, so Chanel did not invent it alone; she just got the best headline. The reason it still works is the same reason the Ford did: one reliable base, endlessly changed by what you add to it.
Smithsonian Magazine
Read moreHoney Barely Spoils, and It Has Three Defences
Honey is a very thick sugar solution with so little water that bacteria and moulds struggle to survive in it, because the sugar pulls water out of their cells. It is also acidic, because an enzyme from the bee turns some of the sugar into gluconic acid. And when honey is diluted, another enzyme, glucose oxidase, produces a little hydrogen peroxide, the same compound used in some disinfectants. Together these make honey a very hostile place for microbes, which is why sealed honey can stay good for years. Keep the lid on, though: honey that absorbs water can still ferment.
Tell someone Honey lasts so long because it dries out germs with sugar, burns them with acid and, when it is diluted, quietly makes a disinfectant.
Bumblebees Roll Balls for Fun
In 2022, researchers at Queen Mary University of London reported that buff-tailed bumblebees rolled small wooden balls around again and again, even when there was no food or other reward for doing it. One bee rolled a ball 117 times. The bees were not stressed, and the rolling did not help them feed or mate. In a second experiment they even preferred the chamber that had held balls before. The authors say this meets the standard behavioural criteria for play, and it is the first time such object play has been described in an insect.
Tell someone Scientists have documented a bee rolling a tiny ball 117 times for no reason except, apparently, that it was fun.
Metal Feels Colder Than Wood, but It Isn’t
Put your hand on a metal table leg and a wooden table top in the same room and the metal feels colder. Both are the same temperature as the room. The difference is that metal is a far better conductor of heat, so it pulls warmth out of your skin faster, and your nerves read that fast heat loss as “cold.” Wood is a poor conductor, so your skin stays closer to its own temperature and it feels neutral. Your hand is not a thermometer; it measures how quickly heat is leaving, not how hot something is.
Tell someone Metal feels colder than wood because it steals heat from your hand faster, not because it is actually colder.
la nuit porte conseil
lah NWEE port kon-SAY · proverb
Literally, “the night brings advice”: you will think more clearly about a hard decision after sleeping on it.
« Je ne réponds pas à ce message ce soir : la nuit porte conseil. »
I’m not replying to that message tonight: the night brings advice.
The French have been saying this for centuries, and science has some backing for it. In a famous 2004 study in Nature, people who slept after working on a number task were far more likely to spot a hidden shortcut than those who stayed awake. Use it politely when someone is pushing you for a quick answer; it sounds wise rather than evasive.
The Case of the Note With the Wrong Date
On Thursday morning, someone pinned a printed note to the science-fair board: “I swapped the labels on Table 4 as a joke. I’ll confess at the party on 3/10. Wear something colourful!” The end-of-term party is on 3 October. The caretaker unlocks the board at 8:10 and says it was empty then, and the note was found at 8:30. Cleo was on the museum coach, which left at 8:05 with her on it. Bram, who grew up in Leeds, arrived at 8:15, and Ada, who moved from Chicago last year, arrived at 8:20. Ada’s emails always say “color” and put the month first when she writes a date.
Who pinned the note?
Reveal the answer
Bram. The note says “3/10” for a party on 3 October, so it puts the day first, and it spells “colourful” the British way. That is not how Ada writes, and Cleo was on the coach before the board was unlocked, which leaves Bram.
The fundamental attribution error is when I am late because of traffic, and you are late because you have no respect for time. Science calls it a bias; my group chat calls it Tuesday.
A bumblebee rolled a ball 117 times for no reward. It is the only creature I know that has finished a gym session and still enjoyed it.
Honey never goes off, which makes it the only thing in my kitchen with a better shelf life than my New Year’s resolutions.
Name It to Tame It: Give Your Feeling a Precise Word
When you are nervous before a presentation or upset after an argument, the feeling can seem huge and shapeless. In a 2007 brain-scanning study at UCLA, Matthew Lieberman and colleagues showed people emotional faces and found that putting a name to the emotion reduced activity in the amygdala, a brain region involved in reacting to threats, while boosting activity in a part of the prefrontal cortex that helps manage it. The more precise the label, the more your thinking brain gets involved, so “anxious and worried I will go blank” works better than “bad.” It will not remove the feeling, but it can turn the volume down a few notches. It is a small, quiet move you can use in front of anyone without them noticing.
Try it today The next time you feel something strong, say or write one sentence: “I feel ___ because ___,” and try to find the most specific word you can (disappointed, not just “upset”).
Spotlight
Gladys West
Gladys West was hired as a mathematician at the US Naval Weapons Laboratory in 1956. From the 1970s she programmed an early computer to calculate an ultra-precise model of the Earth’s shape, which made GPS far more accurate. She was inducted into the US Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame in 2018 and finished her PhD at the age of 70. More →