He is possibly Vaughn Bell's favorite psychologist. Bell links to this blog post:
For example, Lester D. has discovered that:
Mormons view the afterlife as less pleasant than Jews.
On average, there is no difference in the height from which men and women jump to their deaths.
Wives of coast guards and no more likely than wives of firemen to be depressed following a family move, but are more likely to be taking antidepressants.
There is no relation between religiosity and death anxiety in Kuwait.
Both anxiety about computers and internet skills affect how likely you are to buy a textbook online.
Among organ donors, homicide victims were more likely to have blood types O and B. Suicides showed no differences.
Macintosh users have significantly greater anxiety about computers than PC users.
Here is the explanation:
When searching for psychology research, I inevitably come across a study by ‘Lester D’, who is apparently a psychologist in an obscure college in New Jersey who seems to be interested in everything.
Mostly, the things you’ve never thought of, and probably never even thought of thinking of, and perhaps don’t even have the capacity to conceptualise.
To be fair, he has a clear interest in suicide research and does a great deal of important work in this, and other areas, but what consistently amazes me are the diverse topics he investigates.
“Ph.D. (Cambridge U.)”: say no more.
Kyle, I think it’s more likely that O’s choose to be organ donors at a higher rate since they’re aware of how useful their blood is.
Mormons view the afterlife as less pleasant than they view jews to be? Or mormons view the afterlife as less pleasant than jews view the afterlife?
“…a psychologist in an obscure college in New Jersey…”
This from the website of that obscure college:
In October 2003, U.S. News and World Report, one of the best-known rankings of colleges and universities, listed The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey among the top five national public liberal arts colleges in the country. It was the second time in four years Stockton made the top five.
Most likely, “obscure” != “mediocre”
In October 2003, U.S. News and World Report, one of the best-known rankings of colleges and universities, listed The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey among the top five national public liberal arts colleges in the country. It was the second time in four years Stockton made the top five.
I wonder how they gamed the system for that. We’re talking about a school with a 61% acceptance rate compared with 10-15% for a real top 5 liberal arts college and average 2-part SAT scores in the 1100 range.
How many public liberal arts colleges can you name? There aren’t many more than five in the whole country. In any case, Harvard/Yale/etc. aren’t ‘real liberal arts colleges’, they’re comprehensive research universities.
“a big part of Apple’s message has been ease of use and simplicity. Whether you agree or not, that surely has an effect on nervous buyers.”
Yeah, I suppose if you’re a little nervous about your computer skills, Apple’s plug-and-play, which usually works, is more comfortable than dealing with Microsoft’s many tabs under Device Manager, accessed via Control Panel.
When I was being assessed for a heart transplant, I was told “With your height and blood group, you’re most unlikely to get a heart.” When I returned to the ward I looked around; all the other chaps were shortarses. I am blood group O.
As a Mormon, I question their findings about the afterlife. Mormons believe humans can become gods in the afterlife so I’d be very interested to hear what the Jews believe about the afterlife.
No, I really dislike David Lester’s style of publishing. Anybody can go into the General Social Survey or World Values Survey and pick out 5 mildly interesting correlations like this a day. The difference is that Lester tries to publish them all in irritating mini-papers. If his papers are going to be about as substantive as the average Inductivist post, then he should blog instead of publish.
why not?http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/7981792/Quango-opposes-crackdown-on-Mickey-Mouse-degrees.html
How many public schools in the liberal arts can you name them? Not much more than five in the country. In any case, Harvard / Yale / etc are not real liberal arts colleges, which are the research universities in general.
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