What’s worse: losing your job or being afraid of losing your job?
..perceived job insecurity ranks as one of the most important factors in employees' well-being and can be even more harmful than actual job loss with subsequent unemployment." This paper analyzes the impact of job insecurity perceptions on individual well-being. In contrast to previous studies, we explicitly take into account perceptions about both the likelihood and the potential costs of job loss and demonstrate that most contributions to the literature suffer from simultaneity bias. When accounting for simultaneity, we find the…
1 min read
Is this why we can do fun stuff for hours but work stresses us out?
ve always wondered why if something is "fun" we can do it for hours, yet if it's "work" it stresses us out and leaves us exhausted when the distinction between the two is often arbitrary and idiosyncratic. (Doing your taxes is frustrating while solving puzzles is fun. How different are they really?) Certainly, interest in the task at hand is a big factor but this study touched on an interesting element as well: This study examined pilots' vigilance during an…
3 minutes
Another trick to dealing with depression:
key to alleviating depression is fostering a shift from self-worth goals to learning goals and from the beliefs underlying self-worth goals to the opposite beliefs." There is evidence that beliefs (cognitive vulnerabilities) and goals (to prove self-worth) contribute to depression but little consideration of how they work in tandem. Synthesizing research on beliefs and goals leads us to four propositions: (a) People with cognitive vulnerabilities often adopt self-worth goals (seeking to prove self-worth and to avoid proof of worthlessness).…
1 min read
How to quickly and easily add meaning to your life:
flect on the different ways your life could have gone. Believing that the way things did work out was "meant to be" and appreciating the benefits of that journey both can add a deeper feeling of meaning to your life. Four experiments explored whether 2 uniquely human characteristics—counterfactual thinking (imagining alternatives to the past) and the fundamental drive to create meaning in life—are causally related. Rather than implying a random quality to life, the authors hypothesized and found that counterfactual…
1 min read
Can you pay people to develop good habits?
oks like the answer might be yes: Can incentives be effective when trying to encourage the development of good habits? We investigate the effect of paying people a non-trivial amount of money to attend an exercise facility a number of times during a one-month period. In two separate studies, we find that doing so leads to a large and significant increase in the average post-intervention attendance level relative to the control group. This result is entirely driven by the impact…
1 min read
An easy way to lower your cholesterol that’s a lot of fun:
ss more: Affection exchange theory and previous research suggest that affectionate behavior has stress-ameliorating effects. On this basis, we hypothesized that increasing affectionate behavior would effect improvements in physical and psychological conditions known to be exacerbated by stress. This study tested this proposition by examining the effects of increased romantic kissing on blood lipids, perceived stress, depression, and relationship satisfaction. Fifty-two healthy adults who were in marital or cohabiting romantic relationships provided self-report data for psychological outcomes and blood samples…
1 min read
Do blondes have more fun?
can't be sure about fun, but female blondes do make more money: This study contributes to the economics literature that links physical characteristics to labour market outcomes, by investigating the influence of hair colour on women's own wages and also their spouse's wages. Using U.S. panel data, we find that blonde women receive large wage premiums. Source: "Physical appearance and wages: Do blondes have more fun" from Economics Letters Join over 320,000 readers. Get a free weekly update via email here.…
1 min read
Everybody hates commuting. Why do we do it?
nny, I'd been planning to do a bit on commuting for a while. Yesterday I saw Jonah Lehrer's excellent post on the subject and figured now might be a good time. As he and David Brooks both note, commuting dramatically and negatively affects happiness. I agree. Everyone hates commuting. Even sex offenders hate commuting. Married women have a pretty dramatic relationship with commuting -- it stops them from working: These points were confirmed when Black and his coauthors examined Census data…
3 minutes
