C.V.

Month: February 2011

Would helmets make women’s lacrosse more dangerous?

Moral Hazards and Women’s Lacrosse This week, I team up Decision Science News for a joint post. — Enjoy The New York Times just ran a piece called “A Case Against Helmets in Lacrosse“. The hook of the article is that wearing helmets, which one would expect to make the game safer, could make the […]

The Humor Research Lab launches it’s own humor website.

One day in HuRL, the Humor Research Lab, we were talking about our favorite sites on the Cheezburger Network (my favorite is FailBook, in case you care). Among other reasons, we decided that as scientist who study humor, we should be able to build a successful humor website. The team brainstormed a bunch of ideas […]

Which is more violent? A) The Super Bowl or B) Super Bowl ads?

[An early post this week.] The Super Bowl featured numerous injuries, but not all of them occurred on the field. According to a recent paper, violence as a means of humor in advertising is on the rise. Two of the top five rated ads from Super Bowl XLV (2011) featured violence: #1 (tie) #5 The […]

Why aren’t The New Yorker’s cartoons funnier?

I recently returned from the Humor pre-conference at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. I got a chance to talk to Bob Mankoff, a cartoonist and the Cartoon Editor of The New Yorker.  I asked him: Why aren’t The New Yorker’s cartoons funnier? (sic) His answer is compelling. Yes, The New Yorker’s cartoons are […]