Rude People Have Higher Credit Scores
ople who rate low on agreeableness have higher credit scores. From Science Daily: "With regards to personality and credit -- it makes sense that conscientiousness is related to good credit, but what was really interesting was that agreeableness was negatively related to your credit score," said Jeremy Bernerth, assistant professor in LSU's E. J. Ourso College of Business Rucks Department of Management. "That suggests easy-going individuals actually have worse credit scores than disagreeable and rude individuals. This suggests that agreeable…
1 min read
How confident should you be at work today?
derately overconfident. Being slightly delusional is a good thing here. You'll choose more challenging tasks and this study shows it's an advantageous attitude to have. But don't be extremely overconfident: People use information about their ability to choose tasks. If more challenging tasks provide more accurate information about ability, people who care about and who are risk averse over their perception of their own ability will choose tasks that are not sufficiently challenging. Overestimation of ability raises utility by deluding…
2 minutes
3 Ways Bubble Gum Can Dramatically Improve Your Life
Yes, gum can make you smarter: Recent reports suggest that enhancement of memory performance while chewing gum is a fairly robust phenomenon. The processes underlying the effect are not known, but may involve glucose delivery, context-dependent effects and arousal mechanisms amongst others.This brief commentary outlines the main findings from these studies and raises some issues regarding interpretation, methodology and future research directions. Source: "Chewing gum and cognitive performance: a case of a functional food with function but no food?" from Appetite 43 (2004)…
3 minutes
When It Comes To Salary, Thin Women Win
in women make more money. Weight has a positive effect on men's salary until they're obese: Cultivation theory suggests that society holds very different body standards for men versus women, and research indicates that the consequences of defying these social norms may not be linear. To test these notions in the employment context, we examined the relationship between weight and income and the degree to which the relationship varies by gender. For women, we theorized a negative weight–income relationship that…
1 min read
Can you judge leadership potential by looking at someone’s earlobes?
.our research shows that people with subtle asymmetries—for example, imbalances in ear or finger length—are often better “transformational” leaders, able to inspire followers to put self-interest aside for the good of the group. Furthermore, teams they lead outperform teams whose leaders have more-symmetrical bodies. And: Teams with asymmetrical leaders scored nearly 20% higher than others. Although the sorts of asymmetries we examined are barely perceptible, humans are unconsciously sensitive to them. We posit that people born with asymmetries tend to develop…
1 min read
Get A Good Haircut If You’re Ugly And Underpaid
s, especially if you're male. From Harvard Business Review: Good grooming generates a wage premium of 4% to 5% for young men and can partially offset the earnings disadvantage of not being physically attractive, say Philip K. Robins, Jenny F. Homer, and Michael T. French of the University of Miami. Good grooming affects women's wages too, but less so. Join over 151,000 readers. Get a free weekly update via email here. Related posts: 10 things you need to know about attraction An easy way for women…
1 min read
How can you learn to be more charismatic?
er at the excellent BPS Research Digest there's a great review of research on charisma. Is it something that can be learned? Yes: Managers who underwent training saw their charisma ratings significantly grow, relative to those who didn't. What are the techniques that make someone more charismatic? Framing through metaphor. Stories and anecdotes. Demonstrating moral conviction. Sharing the sentiments of the collective. Setting high expectations. Communicating confidence. Using rhetorical devices such as contrasts, lists, and rhetorical questions together with non-verbal tactics such as body gesture, facial expression,…
1 min read
What’s the best way to study?
e WSJ has an excellent piece summing up the latest research on the best way to study. Some highlights: Test yourself: Chiefly, testing yourself repeatedly before an exam teaches the brain to retrieve and apply knowledge from memory. The method is more effective than re-reading a textbook, says Jeffrey Karpicke, an assistant professor of psychological sciences at Purdue University. If you are facing a test on the digestive system, he says, practice explaining how it works from start to finish, rather…
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