Here’s How Your Name Affects Your Salary
a Eurekalert: Before employers have a chance to judge job applicants on their merits, they may have already judged them on the sound of their names. According to a study published in the latest issue of the Journal of Labor Economics, immigrants to Sweden earn more money after they change their foreign-sounding names. Study authors Mahmood Arai and Peter Skogman Thoursie (both of Stockholm University) found an earnings increase of 141 percent for a sample of African, Asian and Slavic…
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Does seeing the word “sale” make you less likely to comparison shop?
implement a simple two-shop search model in the laboratory with the aim to investigate if consumers behave differently in equivalent situations, where prices are displayed either as net prices or as gross prices with discounts. We compare treatments, where we either depict the known price of the first shop or the initially uncertain price of the second shop as a gross price with a discount, with treatments without discounts. We find that subjects search less in both treatments with…
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Do nice guys really finish last?
pular culture often describes being nice as a social disadvantage. However, research repeatedly finds that being agreeable is associated with a number of advantages. Literature noting the positive benefits of being agreeable is reviewed. The paper also addresses how agreeableness, one of the Big Five personality dimensions, is linked with higher-quality friendships, successful parenting, better academic and career performance, and health. The case is made that being agreeable is not equated to being easily influenced nor is it an artifact…
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Do security cameras make us act kinder?
is study addresses the effects of security cameras on prosocial behavior. Results from previous studies indicate that the presence of others can trigger helping behavior, arising from the need for approval of others. Extending these findings, the authors propose that security cameras can likewise trigger such approval-seeking behaviors by implying the presence of a watchful eye. Because people vary in the extent to which they strive for others' approval, it was expected that the effects of security cameras on prosocial…
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Would you know a psychopath if you saw one?
is study is the first to demonstrate that features of psychopathy can be reliably and validly detected by lay raters from “thin slices” (i.e., small samples) of behavior. Brief excerpts (5 s, 10 s, and 20 s) from interviews with 96 maximum-security inmates were presented in video or audio form or in both modalities combined. Forty raters used these excerpts to complete assessments of overall psychopathy and its Factor 1 and Factor 2 components, various personality disorders, violence proneness, and…
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Do procrastinators score higher in school than non-procrastinators?
: Evidence from online assignments in an intermediate microeconomics course suggests that nonprocrastinators (both early-starters and front-loaders) score higher than their dilly-dallying counterparts. Students who are busier in school tend to start their assignments earlier. Source: "'D' is for dilly-dally?" from Applied Economics Letters, Volume 15, Issue 14 November 2008 , pages 1085 - 1088 In some ways the final statement is more interesting than the main finding of the study: Students who are busier in school tend to start…
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How To Improve Any Presentation
actice in front of a large audience: Public speaking texts and instructors typically encourage students to practice speeches as a means of managing anxiety and enhancing performance. The effectiveness of various speech practice methods has received little attention. Participants completed the PRCA-24 and PRPSA-34, and indicated the number of times they used a variety of practice methods to prepare for a speech. Upon completing this questionnaire, participants delivered a videotaped speech. Students who practiced their speech before an audience received…
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Is it really hunger and tasty food driving you to eat?
is research examines the extent to which people accurately report some of the external influences on their food intake. Design: In two studies, specific factors (the presence and behavior of others) were manipulated in order to influence the amount of food that individuals consumed. Main Outcome Measures: The main outcomes of interest were participants' spontaneously generated explanations for their food intake (Study 1; n = 122), and their ratings of the importance of several potential determinants of food intake (Study…
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