Why postmortems fail

Most high-profile disasters are followed by demands for an investigation into what went wrong. Even before they start, calls for finding the missed warning signs and an explanation for why people did not “connect the dots” will be common. Unfortunately, however, the same combination of political pressures and the failure to adopt good social science methods that contributed to the initial failure usually lead to postmortems that are badly flawed. The high stakes mean that powerful actors will have strong incentives to see that certain conclusions are—and are not—drawn. Most postmortems also are marred by strong psychological biases, especially the assumption that incorrect inferences must have been the product of wrong ways of thinking, premature cognitive closure, the naive use of hindsight, and the neglect of the comparative method. Given this experience, I predict that the forthcoming inquiries into the January 6, 2021, storming of the US Capitol and the abrupt end to the Afghan government will stumble in many ways.

Failure Leads Protest Movements to Support More Radical Tactics

Most social movements will encounter setbacks in their pursuit of sociopolitical change. However, little is known about how movements are affected after protestors fail to achieve their aims. What are the effects of failure on subsequent engagement in various conventional and radical actions? Does failure promote divergent reactions among protestors and/or dissatisfaction with democracy? A meta-analysis of nine experiments ( N = 1,663) assessed the effects of one-off failure on protestors’ reactions, subsequent tactical choices, and support for democracy; and iterative stochastic simulations modeled the effects of failure over multiple protests over time. Results indicated that initial failure gives rise to divergent, somewhat contradictory responses among protestors and that these responses are further influenced by the repeated failure (vs. success) over time. Further, the simulations identified “tipping points” in these responses that promote radicalization and undermine support for democracy.

Assessment on the Progressive Collapse Resistance of a Long-Span Curved Spatial Grid Structure With Main Trusses

The present work is aimed at studying the progressive collapse resistance of the terminal building of Zhongchuan Airport in Lanzhou, China, which is a long-span curved spatial grid structure with main trusses. Firstly, the finite element model was built using MSC.Marc software. The alternate load path method (AP method) was used to simulate the initial failure of component. An improved method of zoned concept judgment and sensitivity analysis was proposed to determine the key components. Then, the initial failure components were removed individually on the course of analyzing. The responses of remaining structure were calculated using nonlinear dynamic analysis method. According to the results, the structure has a strong ability of resisting progressive collapse, though the structural responses are significant when removing the concrete filled steel tubular column directly supporting the roof at cantilever end. The maximum vertical displacement reaches 10 m. Moreover, the proposed method can avoid omitting the key components having significant influence on structural progressive collapse resistance. In addition, the influences brought by the cross-sectional sizes of chord and web members were investigated through conducting parametric analysis. The research can provide references for the structural optimization and safety control of similar long-span spatial structures.

Favorable Evaluations of Black and White Women’s Workplace Anger During the Era of #MeToo

Researchers investigating gender and anger have consistently found that White women, but not White men, are evaluated unfavorably when experiencing anger in the workplace. Our project originally aimed to extend findings on White women’s, Black women’s, and White men’s workplace anger by examining whether evaluations are exacerbated or buffered by invalidating or affirming comments from others. In stark contrast to previous research on gender stereotyping and anger evaluations, however, results across four studies (N = 1,095) showed that both Black and White women portrayed as experiencing anger in the workplace were evaluated more favorably than White men doing so. After Study 1’s initial failure to conceptually replicate, we investigated whether perceivers’ evaluations of women’s workplace anger could have been affected by the contemporaneous cultural event of #MeToo. Supporting this possibility, we found evaluations were moderated by news engagement and beliefs that workplace opportunities are gendered. Additionally, we found invalidating comments rarely affected evaluations of a protagonist yet affirming comments tended to favorably affect evaluations. Overall, findings suggest the need for psychologists to consider the temporary, or perhaps lasting, effects of cultural events on research outcomes.