What’s the secret to dealing with an insecure or belligerent boss?
ow gratitude. Via Science Daily: According to the study, "high-power participants whose competence was threatened denigrated their subordinates. Importantly, this pattern disappeared when the subordinate expressed gratitude. Among low-power participants, there were no main effects of competence and gratitude expression, nor was there an interaction between competence and gratitude expression." And: Fast, whose previous work has explored how power, feelings of competence and aggression are related, further explained: "When people have power they feel the need to meet demanding role…
1 min read
Do coffee and cigarettes make you smarter?
s. Via Brain Candy: Science, Paradoxes, Puzzles, Logic, and Illogic to Nourish Your Neurons: You already know that your morning cup(s) of coffee make(s) you a better person: more alert, more outgoing, increasingly optimistic, better looking, better smelling, nicer, etc. But did you know that coffee actually makes you smarter? It does, really. But only for a short period of time, and when you come down, you’re dumber than you were before taking that first sip (unless you drink more…
1 min read
How much does your relationship with your boss matter? Can it kill you?
a The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work: Studies have found that the strength of the bond between manager and employee is the prime predictor of both daily productivity and the length of time people stay at their jobs. Gallup, which has spent decades studying the practices of the world’s leading organizations, estimates that U.S. companies lose $360 billion each year due to lost productivity from employees who have poor relationships…
2 minutes
Raise My GPA: The Easiest Secret To Better Grades
ny students would love to know the answer to "How do I raise my GPA?" Studying hard is an obvious answer, but that can be difficult. An easy answer comes from behavioral research. Shawn Achor, who taught and conducted research at Harvard, has the answer: pick a smart roommate. Via The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work: One study of Dartmouth College students by economist Bruce Sacerdote illustrates how powerful this…
1 min read
Does success make us happy or does happiness make us successful?
ppiness makes us successful. Via The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work: These best and brightest willingly sacrificed happiness for success because, like so many of us, they had been taught that if you work hard you will be successful—and only then, once you are successful, will you be happy. They had been taught that happiness is the reward you get only when you become partner of an investment firm, win…
1 min read
What do we do with our leisure time: what truly makes us happy or what’s easy?
do what's easy. Via The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work: Studies have found that American teenagers are two and half times more likely to experience elevated enjoyment when engaged in a hobby than when watching TV, and three times more likely when playing a sport. And yet here’s the paradox: These same teenagers spend four times as many hours watching TV as they do engaging in sports or hobbies.…
1 min read
This Type Of College Freshmen End Up Making More Money 20 Years Later
e happier ones: Via The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work: ...how happy individuals were as college freshmen predicted how high their income was nineteen years later, regardless of their initial level of wealth. He's citing this study: This longitudinal study examines the influence of dispositional affect, defined as self-rated cheerfulness at college entry, on 3 job outcomes (current income, job satisfaction, and unemployment history) assessed about 19 yrs later. Analysis…
1 min read
Is deliberately screwing up the best way to learn?
ing guided into mistakes during training led to greater confidence and overall better learning than being taught to prevent errors. Via The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work: In one experiment where 90 people went through a software training program, half were taught to prevent errors from occurring, while the other half were guided into mistakes during training. And lo and behold, the group encouraged to make errors not only exhibited…
1 min read
