Category: Causative Agents

Correlation and causality can seem deceptively similar. But recognizing their differences can be the make or break between wasting efforts on low-value features and creating a product that your customers can’t stop raving about. In this piece we are going to focus on correlation and causation as it relates specifically to building digital products and understanding user behavior. Product managers,...

Corrected press releases led to more accurate news, without any dip in quantity of coverage; via Adams et al, 2019[1] By Jesse Singal[2] There are many reasons why media outlets report scientifically misleading information. But one key site at which this sort of misunderstanding takes root is in the press releases that universities issue when one of their researchers has published...

In 2018, psychology PhD student William McAuliffe co-published a paper[1] in the prestigious journal Nature Human Behavior. The study’s conclusion — that people become less generous over time when they make decisions in an environment where they don’t know or interact with other people — was fairly nuanced. But the university’s press department, perhaps in an attempt to make the...

Achen, C. H. (2005). Let’s put garbage-can regressions and garbage-can probits where they belong. Conflict Management and Peace Science, 22, 327–339. Google Scholar[1] | SAGE Journals | ISI[2][3] Angrist, J. D., Pischke, J. S. (2010). The credibility revolution in empirical economics: How better research design is taking the con out of econometrics. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 24(2), 3–30. Google...