This is a really disturbing and yet, so intuitively predictable article about what happens when you are a Black, Brown, and/or Female manager in your workplace. While past research has blamed the high achiever for acting as gatekeepers and keeping other minority members out of positions of leadership—today’s research has a more empathic explanation for why that gatekeeping happens. Essentially, these researchers say that successful minority managers “know it could spell disaster for their own careers” if they support diverse candidates for management positions. Regardless of how many male or White managers promote the candidates most similar to themselves, it

In voir dire and jury selection, seemingly small differences can help you make decisions that are good for your case facts. Recently, the Pew Research Center put out a survey showing that gun owners who are also NRA members have a “unique set of views and experiences”. Pew says something we love—and that we’ve said for decades—demographics don’t really help to choose a jury. “While the demographic profile of NRA members is similar to that of other gun owners, their political views, the way they use their firearms, and their attitudes about gun policy differ significantly from gun owners who

Perhaps we should lower our standards on what sources are good for an entire blog post as these combination posts seem to increasingly inhabit our blog. We simply run across a lot of things that we want you to know about but we don’t want to repeat what you can find elsewhere. So, sit back and click some links and see some of the stuff we thought too interesting to pass up! Cross-examining a psychiatrist or a psychologist (aka shrinks) Much has been written on the intricacies of cross-examining mental health professionals and a quick internet search will give you

I was in graduate school in the early 1980s when Carol Gilligan’s book (In a Different Voice) came out and we thought we were quite amusing when we always voiced the title in a high-pitched tone. Thirty-five years later, we have research telling us we really may pitch our voices differently when speaking to someone we perceive as having higher status. Today’s researchers wondered if how dominant or prestigious the person to whom one was speaking was perceived to be, would influence voice pitch in undergraduates. They planned a simulated interview task and wrote up brief descriptions of the photos

Here’s another post on a variety of things too good to bypass completely, that we didn’t want to use for entire posts. You will see, as before, these combination posts are educational and help you become a scintillating conversationalist. At least we think so. We’ve worked at lot in East Texas [and elsewhere] on patent cases so you might think the recent TC Heartland decision would make us mourn the end of an era [see the coverage at SCOTUS blog]. Instead, it’s a chance to return to my home state (Delaware) for IP cases more often than I do them

Here’s another combination post to make sure you stay informed about the many things we come across as we seek out interesting blog posts. And we will get to it, but no. Gelotophobia is not a fear of gelatin. Aha! Sudden insights or “epiphany learning” You’ve probably had those rare moments of insight when you are suddenly able to see a solution to a vexing problem. Scientists call them moments of epiphany and they only recently discovered a way to study them. As it happens, the way to study this sort of learning requires eye tracking and pupil dilation software.

Recently we saw the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia (1967) which ruled marriage across racial lines was legal throughout the US. In honor of this milestone, Pew Research Center has released a series of articles examining intermarriage in the US. We think it a good use of blog space to update you on the frequency of intermarriage in this country (which is rising—just like the US population is becoming increasingly racially diverse). Less than a year ago (September 2016) , we posted on those who find interracial marriage “icky” so here are some prevalence numbers

Seven years ago, we blogged about a disruptive persuasion strategy meant to catch the listener off guard and thus, elicit cooperation. Four years ago, we blogged about a negotiation strategy to help you more successfully negotiate prices (from salaries to farmer’s market produce). Now, in a new meta-analysis, the strategy is called the pique technique (which is very catchy). The pique technique is a persuasion strategy believed to work by raising the listener’s curiosity and thus disrupting the automatic “No” and encouraging you to engage with the asker. Most people ask, “What is it for?” to an unusual request like

You have likely heard many stories repeated about increased racial prejudice since the 2016 national elections in the US, but is there any evidence-based proof that alleged increase is real? According to a new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, yes—at  least when it comes to a willingness to say things aloud that have not been “okay” for a very long time. Vox has written a plain language explanation of this paper that you may want to look at to get a quick (and clear) synopsis. Essentially, the message is that when you see leaders behaving badly,

We’ve written a number of times about dangerous women here and our readers (as well as random internet visitors) seem to be fascinated by them. But there is disagreement among those that believe their personal experiences/exposure define reality and the actual facts. For example, we published a post on a prospective research study. The study questioned whether women were sentenced to more time in prison than men who were convicted of the same crimes. A legal blogger known for his moral outrage wrote about the post and asked why in the world we would use our blog to perpetuate a