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’Power Posing’ Co-author: ‘I Do Not Believe That ‘Power Pose’ Effects Are Real’
New York Magazine: It would be hard to come up with a recent psychological idea that has stormed the mainstream more quickly and effectively than “power posing” — the idea that if you adopt assertive, “powerful” poses it can have various positive psychological and physiological effects that may help you during negotiations, public speaking, and other high-pressure situations. The idea comes from a 2010 paper published in Psychological Science co-authored by Dana Carney and Andy Yap, then of Columbia University, and Amy Cuddy of Harvard.
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Asking for directions
The Boston Globe: If stereotypes are to be believed, women are poor navigators, while men won’t ask for directions. But maybe that’s not the right perspective. Students at the University of California, Santa Barbara, were given “two timed pencil-and-paper tests of perspective-taking ability: the object-perspective/spatial-orientation test and the standardized road-map test of direction sense.” Read the whole story: The Boston Globe
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The Difference Between Rationality and Intelligence
The New York Times: ARE you intelligent — or rational? The question may sound redundant, but in recent years researchers have demonstrated just how distinct those two cognitive attributes actually are. It all started in the early 1970s, when the psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky conducted an influential series of experiments showing that all of us, even highly intelligent people, are prone to irrationality. Across a wide range of scenarios, the experiments revealed, people tend to make decisions based on intuition rather than reason.
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Are Some Kids More Likely to Become Narcissists?
Scientific American Mind: Some individuals are indeed more susceptible to developing a narcissistic personality. Narcissism is characterized by self-centeredness (“It's all about me!”), grandiosity (“I'm better than you!”) and vanity (“Look at me!”). It involves multifaceted psychological traits, motives and needs that influence how a person thinks, feels and behaves. Given this complexity, developing this form of extreme self-love is not as simple as inheriting a particular gene or experiencing a specific event. Instead becoming a narcissist likely involves an intricate mix of genetic and psychological or environmental factors. Read the whole story: Scientific American Mind
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A psychologist says a small tweak to the questions you ask your boss can make them think better of you
Business Insider: You can drive yourself crazy trying to figure out how to get your boss to like you. Maybe you'll stay at the office all night so you can submit a project early tomorrow, or maybe you'll bone up on the history of their favorite sports team so you have something to casually chat about. Alternatively, you could stay sane and change a single word in your interactions with them. Instead of asking for their opinion on your ideas, ask for their advice.
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Do People Need Small Talk to Be Happy?
The Atlantic: Security guard, truck driver, salesperson—year after year, these jobs appear on lists of the unhappiest careers. Although many factors can make a job dismal—unusual hours, low pay, no chance for advancement—these three gigs stand out for another reason: They’re characterized either by a lack of conversation or by obligatory but meaningless small talk. Psychologists have long said that connecting with others is central to well-being, but just how much conversation we require is under investigation. In one study, researchers eavesdropped on undergraduates for four days, then cataloged each overheard conversation as either “small talk” (“What do you have there? Popcorn?
