Fighting Fake News, Working Mothers, and More – Boston News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from Boston business schools this week.
Lazy Thinking, Not Political Bias, Drives Fake News – MIT Sloan Newsroom
MIT Sloan Associate Professor David Rand and the University of Regina’s Gordon Pennycook recently published a new study that illuminates what actually perpetuates fake news—a “lack of analytical thinking.”
Professor Rand writes, “Our study suggests that falling for fake news is a symptom of cognitive laziness rather than motivated reasoning or self-deception. That is, contrary to popular belief, it is not the case that people are thinking too much about the wrong things. Rather, a little thinking might go a long way to fix the problem of fake news.”
In a study that surveyed “3,446 participants to rate the accuracy of headlines from actual news stories from Facebook,” the duo found that “people who engage in more analytic thinking, as measured by the Cognitive Reflection Test, are better at discerning true from false—regardless of identified motivations or political biases.”
You can read more about the research here.
What’s Your Carbon Footprint? You Probably Have No Idea. – D’Amore-McKim Blog
In a recently published study, D’Amore-McKim Professor Amir Grinstein surveyed 1,000 people to “guess the amount of CO2 emitted from burning one gallon of gasoline and the amount of calories in one gallon of whole milk.”
The goal was to “examine people’s knowledge of their own carbon footprint and how they can better educate themselves about the real impact they have on the environment.”
Grinstein believes that in order to change the public’s understanding of its own carbon footprints, they must have a “better understanding of how CO2 emissions play a role in everyday life allows people to decide if they’re willing to step up and change.”
Check out the full article here.
Kids of Working Moms Grow Into Happy Adults – Working Knowledge
New research from Harvard Business School Professor Kathleen McGinn found that, despite the narrative, working mothers often lead to happier and more successful children.
McGinn, the Cahners-Rabb Professor of Business Administration, says, “People still have this belief that when moms are employed, it’s somehow detrimental to their children. So our finding that maternal employment doesn’t affect kids’ happiness in adulthood is really important.”
The preliminary results of McGinn’s work were originally published three years ago, specifically regarding the career success of daughters of working mothers, in contrast to stay-at-home mothers.. When the story reached The New York Times, however, there was some obvious blow-back. McGinn recalls:
“Many decried the research as another installment of the ‘mommy wars.’ But the most common response was from mothers who suffered guilt, self-doubt, and disapproval from others. They found our preliminary results to be welcome news.”
However, McGinn’s research, which was conducted alongside Mayra Ruiz Castro of Kingston University in the UK, and Elizabeth Long Lingo of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, found that the careers of sons of working mothers were not generally effected. Rather, their attitudes were different in contrast to stay-at-home-mothers.
“Sons are influenced in other ways when their moms work. The sons of employed mothers hold significantly more egalitarian gender attitudes—even more so than the daughters of stay-at-home moms, a finding that surprised McGinn because it shows that the influence of maternal employment may even outweigh well-documented sex differences when it comes to shaping people’s mindsets about appropriate roles for men and women.”
You can read more of the ground-breaking research here.
MIT Sloan Student Travel Goes Carbon Conscious with Jetset Offset Program
Over spring break, 100 MIT Sloan students will travel the world to study while immersing themselves in different cultures. It’s a wonderful opportunity with one problem. There’s a pretty significant carbon impact—300 metric tons of carbon dioxide to be exact. But now, a new Jetset Offset pilot program could help lessen that negative impact.
When we fly, we can’t choose the energy efficiency of our plane, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t travel. Instead, it means we should try to lessen our impact on the environment by purchasing carbon offsets, and that’s exactly what the Jetset Offset program does.
In its first year, the pilot program will purchase carbon offsets for four study tours over spring break 2018—three MBA groups and one Master of Finance group. The carbon offsets will take the form of projects that help with carbon emissions. Such projects include reforestation or building renewable energy sources.
According to Yakov Berenshteyn, a ‘19 Leaders for Global Operations Fellow and the creator of the Jetset Offset program, while the impact might not be immediate, it’s a step in the right direction. “This is raising awareness of, and starting to account for, our environmental impacts from student travel,” he said.
The idea for Jetset Offset came about after Berenshteyn realized how many air miles students and staff were logging. In January, for the two-week Leaders for Global Operations Domestic Plant Trek, MIT logged more than 400,000 miles. Berenshteyn couldn’t help but think that there needed to be a counterbalance to all the burned jet fuel. After talking to MIT Sloan Professor John Sterman, he realized that applying carbon offsets and carbon-neutral practices was the best way to make a difference. Duke University had already implemented such a program.
So, for the January trip, the Leaders for Global Operations program purchased 67 metric tons of offsets through Gold Standard, which will go toward reforestation efforts in Panama. For future MIT Sloan trips, the MIT Sloan Student Life Office will pick up the tab.
“Yakov’s idea is exactly the kind of student initiative we love to support,” MIT Sloan associate director of student life Katie Ferrari said. “He is practicing principled, innovative leadership with an eye toward improving the world.”
To read the full news release, visit the MIT Sloan Newsroom.
This article has been edited and republished with permissions from our sister site, Clear Admit.
Lazaridis MBA Students Learn Sustainable Practices from Unilever Expert
MBA students at the Wilfrid Laurier University Toronto recently had the opportunity to hear from Catherine McVitty, Specialist in Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability at Unilever, on creating sustainable business practices.
