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Middle name initials enhance evaluations of intellectual performance (2014)
- avvt4avaw 8y agoAuthors: Wijnand A. P. van Tilburg & Eric R. Igou
- crummy 8y agoWhen I read the names of the authors - "Wijnand A. P. van Tilburg Eric R. Igou" - I was immediately impressed.
- rch 8y agoAlthough they should have asked for input from an author with a hyphenated surname.
- Nokinside 8y agoPeople who criticize the study because it's based on students in one university don't understand that the study is also a meta level demonstration of the effect. They passed the peer review. I'm in awe. Other study from them: Igou, E. R., & Van Tilburg, W. A. P. (2015). Ahead of others in the authorship order: Names with middle initials appear earlier in author lists of academic articles in psychology. Frontiers in Psychology, 6. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00469 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00469/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.0046...
- WhompingWindows 8y agoThere's a simple confounding reason for this. The earlier authors are in the author list, the more likely they are to be actively contributing. If there's a sparse contributor who doesn't respond, who has many papers already, or who is not actively involved in the final read-throughs, they will likely be somewhere in the middle of the author list and may miss that their middle initial is not correct. In contrast, if you are a first author, you will make damned sure your exact precise name is there, as your impact factor and future success hinges on the total number of papers you have.
- ggg9990 8y ago“Wijnand A. P. van Tilburg” is a name that almost comes with a prefab backstory. Heir to a mysterious but large fortune, Danish royalty on his father’s side with minor French nobility on his mother’s, great-great-grandson of the most decorated officer of the Crimean War, one-half owner of a castle in Lichtenstein rumored to house up to three Vermeers unknown to the outside world, and of course the grisly fratricide in the family’s history which was the talk of society at the time but has now been papered over by the family’s philanthropic efforts in arts education in the wake of the tragedy.
- nickthemagicman 8y agoSo is it JUST the initials? Or would the actual middle name serve the same effect I wonder.
- tonyarkles 8y agoI'm half joking half serious with this: that might subconsciously cause people to associate you with serial killers. For whatever reason, serial killers are frequently referred to by their complete name.
- joshvm 8y agoStandout claim from the paper: > Moreover, people with initials carrying a positive meaning (e.g., H. U. G.) live longer compared with those with initials carrying a negative meaning (e.g., M. A. D.; Christenfeld, Phillips, & Glynn, 1999). (Emphasis the authors) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10576473 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10576473
- CamelCaseName 8y agoMy initials are N.A., where does that leave me?
- RegBarclay 8y agoDoesn't matter.
- kristianov 8y agoNot applicable.
- draugadrotten 8y agoSouth of the Canadian border
- make3 8y agoin the gaming community, the NA zone is pretty cancer
- always_good 8y agoSo are the gaming community's memes, especially outside the gaming community.
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- raverbashing 8y agoDoes it increase with more middle names? Like Charles P. A. George?
- Nasrudith 8y agoIt has me wondering immediately about specific possiblecounter examples. Would it have that "prestige" effect for more unusual names like say Moon U. Zappa. Obviously fake or unfortunate names probably wouldn't benefit like Isaac P. Daily.
- thedjinn 8y agoThat's great, now I need a middle name. Any good suggestions?
- AndrewOMartin 8y agoJust take an initial letter, as in Rembrandt Q Einstein, or Homer J Simpson. I use my middle initial (see my username) because there are plenty of Andrew Martins in these circles.
- nkozyra 8y agoBe honest: you're just hunting for a little more Irish cred.
- JdeBP 8y agoFor more Irish cred, one can of course include an apostrophe as well as the other means mentioned elsewhere in this discussion. Verilog is quite useful in this regard, because of the way that one writes hexadecimal constants. John 003'hdeadface Smith. Known as "six" to his friends.
- anonymfus 8y ago> or Homer J Simpson BTW relevant episode is called "Homer to the Max".
- ScottBurson 8y agoOr Harry S Truman [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman#Early_life_and_career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman#Early_life_and...
- madengr 8y agoUse a number, maybe something in hex.
- droidist2 8y agoSo a middle initial A through F but you pronounce it as a number?
- omegote 8y agoGood thing I have a first name, a middle name and two surnames. That makes me a prodigy.
- sshine 8y agoThat depends on how you contract your name in research papers.
- yoz-y 8y agoThey should add "in tests conducted exclusively on university students" in there.
- Spooky23 8y agoThe ultimate smartguy does first initial, middle name, especially when the middle name is obscure. You also avoid sounding like a serial killer in the wrong context. J. Ulyssses Smith is obviously much smarter than a run of the mill John Smith. John U. Smith sounds like a guy who is “quiet and keeps to himself”.
- achamayou 8y agoJ. Ulyssses Smith doesn’t “look” quite as smart as J. Ulysses Smith however...
- Spooky23 8y agoNice catch! Then again, spelling names wrong is trendy!
- jgh 8y agoUnless your middle name is "Lee", in which case stick with First Last because you're gonna sound like a "quiet guy who keeps to himself" any other way.
- bjourne 8y agoThe five studies they base their conclusions on were conducted on students at the University of Limerick, the University of Limerick, the University of Limerick, the University of Limerick and the University of Limerick. We conclude that middle name initials are a big deal around the University of Limerick campus.
- edoloughlin 8y agoSo, a slightly narrower scope than the usual psychology study.
- jermaustin1 8y agoThis actually seems more comprehensive than most. They tested multiple times! There is a pretty decent episode of Freakonomics Radio around how reproducible (or not) many psychological studies are. I know this is an issue for most studies, but Psychology seems to be in a league of their own with the "reproduction rate".
- ekianjo 8y ago> how reproducible (or not) many psychological studies are. Combine small effect size with a complete lack of understanding of statistics and you can be fairly sure that most psychological studies' conclusions are borderline junk level.
- misja111 8y agoCombine that with the usual publication bias and you can be sure that more than 50% of the studies are wrong. https://www.nature.com/news/over-half-of-psychology-studies-fail-reproducibility-test-1.18248 https://www.nature.com/news/over-half-of-psychology-studies-...
- superhuzza 8y agoIt has little to do with statistical understanding. All psych students are required to study stats, and review the study design before starting. It has everything to with a more systemic problem - publish or perish. Students and professors alike are basically forced to run new studies. Conducting psych studies takes a lot of money and time because you're dealing with people. And that money and time isn't always available - so your standards drop a lot so you can just graduate or keep researching.
- sshine 8y agoHow about people with non-breaking spaces in their name, how do they fare in life? Tech support: "Was that John Doe?" JD: "No, I said John Doe!"
- GFischer 8y agoIrish surnames with apostrophes are beloved by databases everywhere. Here in Uruguay there are countless examples of immigrants that had to change their first or last name due to them being hard to write for immigration officials. My grandparent went from Hermann to "German". We surprisingly kept the last name intact (most were botched on the translation to Spanish).
- Izkata 8y ago> Irish surnames with apostrophes are beloved by databases everywhere. One of my co-devs changed his name on the internal system like that, just so he'd break anything he was working on before a client did.
- monitron 8y agoMy grandfather, born with no middle name, was urged by his colleagues to fabricate one because he needed a middle initial for appearance's sake in his field. Everyone used their middle initial in communications. And besides, you couldn't have a monogram without three initials. His first name was Alexander, and being a modest man, he settled on a middle initial of "G," which he joked stood for "the Great." Apparently it worked for him. I'm not sure if it was a legal name change but he used it for the rest of his life.
- 0xffff2 8y agoIn the US, generally speaking, you are free to just start using a new name. I did the opposite, dropping my middle name wherever possible and it has only come up once. I even got my current passport issued without my middle name by accident. (I forgot to put my middle name on the application and it was never questioned.)
- wccrawford 8y agoMy mother has gone by her middle name for her entire life, with almost everything she signs up for completely omitting that her first name even exists. I kept expecting it to cause her problems, but it doesn't seem to have. Of course, dealing with the government means she has to use her first name sometimes, but that's it.
- Spooky23 8y agoYou can use any name you want. Anyone who knows me calls me by a nickname that isn't documented anywhere, for reasons too long and too boring to go into. It's worked out for me, as generally speaking, if someone calls looking for someone with my legal given name, it isn't someone whom I want to talk to!
- mrybczyn 8y agoBoth of my kids are called by a nickname derived from their middle names! Awesome way to distinguish fake association attacks.
- lerie82 8y agoWow, people are impressed by something that means nothing. What a waste of time and money.
- ChrisArchitect 8y agoso like Wile E. Coyote, Genius? Also can't ignore that this is on a domain wiley.com hahaha
- davidy123 8y agoI commonly use my middle initial, not to be pretentious, but because there are so many people who have the same first and last name as me. I expect within a smaller pool of names (a culturally distinct region), or in the global space, that's why most people use them.
- pseingatl 8y agoMiddle names (and initials) are ubiquitous in North America. Not so in the British Isles, OZ and NZ.
- noemit 8y agoAbout a year ago, I read this and added my initial to linkedin. You won't believe what happened next.
- cafard 8y agoAlfred E. Newman, my hero!