Psychological Science at Work
The indispensable research blog on the science of the modern workplace, covering everything from leadership and management to the behavioral, social, and cognitive dynamics behind performance and achievement. 
The Opt-Out Option
Getting employees to sign up for the company health plan, the 401(k), and other benefits can often be as daunting as getting a cat to fetch a stick. Researchers have learned that options and services too often falter because they’re designed to depend on people taking some kind of action. Studies show that relying on inaction yields better results.
Some experiments with organ donation serve as a model. In the United States, 85 percent of Americans say they approve of organ donation, but only 28 percent give their consent to be donors by signing a donor card. The difference means that far more Americans die awaiting transplants. But psychologists Eric J. Johnson, a professor at Columbia University Business School, and Daniel Goldstein, formerly at Yahoo and now a principal researcher at Microsoft Research, found in a 2003 study…
Tags: Industrial/Organizational Psychology | No Comments »
High Earnings Can Hamper Happiness
When legendary economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that by 2030, most people would have to work only 15 hours a week to make a comfortable living, he never factored in the behavioral phenomenon of mindless accumulation. More than 80 years since Keynes made his famous prediction, people are working to exhaustion. What’s more, they work about the same amount regardless of their salaries and wages, suggesting that highly paid people are actually overearning—often at the cost of their own happiness.
In a series of experiments, a team of behavioral researchers led by social psychologist Christopher Hsee, Booth School of Management at the University of Chicago, have identified factors that lead to overearning.
They speculate that overearning may be a holdover from the days when people sought to accumulate resources not for the sake of happiness, but for sheer survival. The concept of…
Tags: Behavioral Economics, Happiness, Mental Health, Motivation, Psychological Science, Well-Being | No Comments »
The Presumptuous Power Holder
Louis XIV, the vain French king who held the longest reign in European history, epitomized absolute monarchy. But his blind pursuit of power—highlighted by the four wars he waged —left the French people demoralized and the treasury bankrupt. The self-proclaimed Sun King fully expected others to sacrifice and suffer to satisfy his own ambitions.
Psychological scientists Jennifer Overbeck and Vitaliya Droutman point to Louis XIV as an extreme example of power holders who pursue their goals without considering or understanding the desires of the people they represent.
Overbeck, associate professor of management at the University of Utah, and Droutman of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, focused on such behavior in a series of studies on self-anchoring—using one’s own traits and attitudes as a reference point when judging the mindsets of others. They report their findings in Psychological Science, a…
Tags: Emotions, Organizational Behavior, Psychological Science, Social Interaction | No Comments »
Get Off the Work Treadmill
Teresa Amabile, a professor at Harvard Business School, likens today’s work environment to running on a treadmill. People race to keep up with meetings, emails, and deadlines, while making no real progress – especially on creative tasks.
Instead, it often would be better to do less, says Amabile, an APS Fellow. The single most important thing managers can do to enhance workplace creativity is “protecting at least 30 to 60 minutes each day for yourself and your people that’s devoted to quiet reflection,” she tells the Harvard Gazette.
Amabile has spent the last 35 years researching life inside organizations and how it influences employees and their performance. Amabile says the ever-accelerating treadmill in the workplace lessens creativity.
“In the short term, people become less engaged in their work if their creativity isn’t supported,” she says. “They will also be less productive because…
Tags: creativity, Happiness, Mental Health, Motivation, Stress, Well-Being, work | No Comments »
Science Reveals the Benefits of an Aging Workforce
The over-65 set is not only increasing in numbers (by 2030 the percentage of people age 65 and older is expected to increase from almost 13 percent to almost 20 percent, according to data from the Stanford Center on Longevity). They are also healthier and more active than in previous generations. That means many of them will be working longer than a generation ago. Does their increasing presence in the workplace predict an increase or decrease in ageism?
Psychological researchers are stepping up research on bias against older adults as part of an effort to break stereotypes on aging and curb age discrimination.
In the workforce, older employees are viewed as having many more negative traits than positive ones, as a meta-analysis in 2011 in Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences demonstrates. The analysis included field and laboratory…
Tags: Aging, Bias, Employment Discrimination, Performance | No Comments »
