Did you know that Daniel Oppenheimer won the Ig Nobel Prize 2006 in Literature for his paper "Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with using long words needlessly" which argues that simple writing makes authors appear more intelligent than complex writing.
Another interesting paper by Oppenheimer: Everything you ever wanted to know about discounting of cognitive states in heuristic judgement but were afraid to ask (2005)
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5 comments:
I did know that! I think the news was circulated through the department right after it happened. :-)
Yup, and at least one other Stanford psychologist has won it in the past. Phil Zimbardo, of course. :)
Wow really!
I knew the name sounded familiar and then I realized that he conducted the Stanford Prison experiment.
I believe they made a German movie based on his work that grossly exaggerated the results... Das Experiment.
I'm kind of confused as to what is exactly the qualifications for a Nobel prize these days. I mean anyone could tell you that using needlessly long words makes one sound unintelligible. I think we all deserve that then right? ;)
Phillip, Ig Nobel is different than the Nobel. Nobel laureates actually get together and find some research that makes them laugh and then they hand out the Ig Nobel. See for more details.
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