Just as we see changing demographics in America related to ethnicity (link to post on Asian and Hispanic Americans)—the American landscape with regard to religion and religious affiliation has also changed. But we still tend to think about religion in America as a matter of clumping together Catholics and Protestants and making broad generalizations about those two groups. Here are two recent surveys to remind you we just can’t do that anymore. When it comes to attitudes, values, and beliefs—Protestants are pretty diverse Gallup (another one of our favorites) published a report in September of 2017 saying that Protestants believe

We pay close attention to the changing demographics here in the US in general and particularly in the venues that involve our client cases. We want to keep abreast of how the country as a whole is shifting but need to be aware of the demographics of each area in which we are working. We check venire demographics each time (even if it is an area we’ve worked in recently) to ensure our recruit for pretrial research matches the demographics of the area–and thus, a selection that resembles the group of citizens likely to be appear for jury duty. We

This is the second part of our Top 10 posts of 2017 (see the first here). Today, we present the Top 5 posts you visited most often in 2017. Post No. 5: Do you know what “vocal fry” is? We didn’t either As part of an ongoing effort to keep you informed and “up” on pop culture–we brought you this one. Now that you know what it is, it’s like an ear worm and you simply cannot stop hearing it [and here’s a tip–it’s everywhere]. Post No. 4: What will be most persuasive in your forensic expert’s testimony? Perhaps not

It’s always interesting to go back and see what our readers found most noteworthy during the year. In the Top 10 (presented today and on Thursday) you will see some serious posts based on research findings with application to your work. You will also see not so serious posts that have attracted your attention. Enjoy! Post No. 10: Steady eye contact can make it hard to think!  We like to reference pop culture when it’s relevant (and even when it’s not sometimes) to help you take in the lesson in the research highlighted. This one references the TV show Friends

  We know you will be shocked by this but we are featuring two articles with opposite perspectives on Millennials as managers. One article offers support to the Millennial new to managing those who are (in some cases) the age of their parents. The second says Millennial managers cause “negative emotions” in the workplace (spurred on by the anger of their older subordinates). It’s like the two positions we often hear on the internet—either a positive perspective advocating education and support for Millennials or a negative perspective that we don’t think really makes sense (and that is certainly not consistent

Time for an update on who lies, why they lie, and how you can spot them. We’ve written a lot about deception in the past but there’s always more to say (believe it or not). We’re going to cover several articles in this post and discuss each of them briefly so you can explore the items in greater depth if they strike a chord of interest. 60% of us lie in everyday conversation  When we think of liars, we often think of “them”. But new research out of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst says it is more common than

Today’s highlighted research looks at ways to communicate with people who ignore evidence that contradicts their beliefs and values. This tendency is called “dogmatism” and essentially reflects one’s (un)willingness to revise their beliefs when presented with new evidence. And some people simply will not revise their beliefs no matter what the evidence! We’ve all seen it—the self-appointed expert who knows they are right while others are so very wrong. In fact, we’ve seen it so often in pretrial research that we wrote a post on a way to dethrone that self-appointed expert. This is a very interesting study that may

We’d really rather call this the “34 reasons you should get up and talk face-to-face rather than emailing or texting effect” but that’s probably why we’re not academics. It’s become habitual to email or text even when it is faster and perhaps easier to walk across the hall, over to another cubicle, or even take a quick ride up the elevator to speak to a colleague in person. But once you read the results of this study you may start moving around—especially when you really want someone you do not know to do something for you. Today’s study is from

It is once again time for one of those combination posts that give you scintillating information you know you want to know. Think of these as fun factoids—that you can also use in casual conversation to amaze and educate your friends (or just make them look at you oddly). The new ‘Educated single women over 40 are more likely to be killed by a terrorist than to get married’ belief  If you are female and were reading Newsweek back in the 1980s, you may remember their early June 1986 cover illustrating this post. And you certainly remember the hubbub raised

We’ve written about CRISPR (aka human gene editing) before, and wanted to share this new survey with you. When last we blogged, it was to cover the Pew survey on fears about gene editing (and the potential for creation of a super-human). As you can imagine, there was some ambivalence over whether this was a good thing, as well as concerns about the creation of a society where genetically enhanced people ruled those who were not genetically enhanced. Here’s what we wrote a year ago: . You may be surprised at how ambivalent the public is about using these new