Katherine Milkman and her research are the focus of our latest Freakonomics Radio episode, “When Willpower Isn’t Enough.”
March 11, 2015
-Freakonomics Radio
Progressives like to believe they're enlightened, but they're no less vulnerable to their implicit biases. This article provides a look at just some of the ways our internalized biases add up to devastating consequences for lives, communities and society and covers research on bias in the Academy by Katherine Milkman, Modupe Akinola and Dolly Chugh.
March 4, 2015
-Salon
A massive analysis of hospital data by Hengchen Dai, Katherine Milkman, David Hoffman and Bradley Staats finds doctors and nurses are not following guidelines on washing their hands before and after they come into contact with patients.
March 2, 2015
-National Public Radio
If you’re like a lot of Americans, one of your New Year’s resolutions is to work out more. Economists have been searching for solutions to get into the gym more often and Katherine Milkman's research on temptation bundling suggests one such solution.
January 10, 2015
-The New York Times
It’s nearly the new year -- a time for resolving to eat less, exercise more, work harder, give more, get your financial situation in order, make a long-delayed life change. Why do we make such resolutions? Valuable evidence in this regard comes from Hengchen Dai, Katherine L. Milkman and Jason Riis of the Wharton School, who investigated what they call “the fresh start effect.”
December 30, 2014
-Bloomberg View
These days, unpacking the secrets to viral success has been the mission of researchers, media organizations and businesses alike. Stories that evoke intense emotions tend to drive popularity, according to a 2011 study by University of Pennsylvania professors.
December 17, 2014
-Forbes
According to a study conducted by Katherine L. Milkman of Wharton, Modupe Akinola of Columbia, and Dolly Chugh of NYU in July 2014, there is a high level of racial bias against Asians and Indians based on people's names specifically.
December 9, 2014
-The Huffington Post
Thanks to the digital revolution, chief executives now live in glass houses. Katherine Milkman’s research on what stories make the New York Times’ most emailed list shows stories that evoke anger or anxiety are more likely to make the “most e-mailed” list. Stories about evil CEOs make perfect click-bait.
October 11, 2014
- The Economist
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Breaking a bad habit and replacing it with a new, healthier one isn't easy. One possible strategy for building new and better habits is “temptation bundling,” a strategy articulated and tested in a recent academic paper by Katherine Milkman.
September 28, 2014
- Philadelphia Inquirer
Jeff Bezos’s famous rule that teams shouldn’t be larger than what two pizzas can feed is supported by considerable academic research, including work by Katherine Milkman and co-authors on showing that we have the tendency to increasingly underestimate task completion time as team size grows.
September 25, 2014
- Business Insider
An article about the prevalence of sexual harassment in the sciences references Katherine Milkman’s research on bias against women and minorities in the Academy.
August 11, 2014
- The New York Times
At one time or another, most of us have struggled to do the things we know we should. Whether it’s in our personal lives or at work, we fall short of a goal, not because it’s unattainable but because we fail to exert the effort required. Katherine Milkman is determined to help us do better next time.
August 8, 2014
- Strategy + Business
Viral content is highly coveted, but getting your videos to go viral is no easy feat. Using empirical research, Katherine Milkman and her co-author, Jonah Berger, found that more upbeat content is more likely to be widely shared.
August 7, 2014
- Forbes
A new paper in Management Science argues that marking fresh starts via birthdays, holidays, or other noteworthy events is indeed an effective way to promote aspirational behavior like exercising more or eating healthier—and its findings suggest we may be able to contrive effective "fresh starts" out of thin air.
June 27, 2014
- Science of Us, New York Magazine
Researchers Jack Soll and John Payne of Duke University and Katherine Milkman of the University of Pennsylvania released their chapter called “A User's Guide to Debiasing” from the next edition of the Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Judgment and Decision Making. It’s a treasure trove of useful tweaks that can help lead you down the right path.
June 19, 2014
- Science of Us, New York Magazine
Social sharing is powerful enough to topple dictatorships and profitable enough to merit multibillion-dollar investments. But scientists are only beginning to explore the psychological motivations that turn a link into “click bait” and propel a piece of content to Internet fame.
May 19, 2014
- The New York Times
Jonah Berger and Katherine Milkman found that “positive content is more viral than negative content, but the relationship between emotion and social transmission is more complex than valence alone. Virality is partially driven by physiological arousal. Content that evokes high-arousal positive (awe) or negative (anger or anxiety) emotions is more viral.”
April 29, 2014
- Forbes
Academic research shows that the bias against women and minorities is much more insidious than we thought, and it’s found in places where we least expect to find it: on the pathway to academia.
April 28, 2014
- The Washington Post
A study found—overwhelmingly—that professors of all groups were more likely to respond to white men than women and black, Hispanic, Indian or Chinese students. Academics at private universities and in subjects that pay more on average were the most unresponsive.
April 25, 2014
- Nature
The study argues that the bias present in how faculty members respond to simple inquiries raises all kinds of questions about other forms of bias and whether academe is as welcoming to future graduate students as most academic leaders would say.
April 24, 2014
- Inside Higher Ed