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The Surprising Problem of Too Much Talent
Scientific American: Whether you're the owner of the Dallas Cowboys or captain of the playground dodge ball team, the goal in picking players is the same: Get the top talent. Hearts have been broken, allegiances tested, and budgets busted as teams contend for the best athletes. The motivation for recruiting peak performers is obvious — exceptional players are the key to team success — and this belief is shared not only by coaches and sports fans, but also by corporations, investors, and even whole industries. Everyone wants a team of stars.
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You Can Recover From a Snippy Email, But Prepare to Grovel
The Wall Street Journal: Stephanie Freeman recently wrote an email to a friend to say she missed her and thought of her often. The two women had previously made lunch plans, but they hadn’t followed through. Ms. Freeman added that she’d still love to get together. The reply? “You always say you are thinking of me but never do anything about it,” her friend wrote. “You are all talk and no action.” Ms. Freeman, 45, got angry. “How dare she put all the responsibility of this relationship on me?” she recalls thinking. She fired off a reply telling her friend to be grateful that she thought of her in a positive way and reminding the friend that she was capable of taking action, too.
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How to Gladden a Wealthy Mind
The New York Times: Striking it rich is the American dream, a magnetic myth that has drawn millions to this nation. And yet, a countervailing message has always percolated through the culture: Money can’t buy happiness. From Jay Gatsby and Charles Foster Kane to Tony Soprano and Walter White, the woefully wealthy are among the seminal figures of literature, film and television. A thriving industry of gossipy, star-studded magazines and websites combines these two ideas, extolling the lifestyles of the rich and famous while exposing the sadness of celebrity. All of which raises the question: Is the golden road paved with misery?
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In Interrogations, Teenagers Are Too Young to Know Better
The New York Times: Even when police interrogators left the room, cameras kept recording the teenage suspects. Some paced. Several curled up and slept. One sobbed loudly, hitting his head against the wall, berating himself. Two boys, left alone together, discussed their offense, joking. What none did, however, was exercise his constitutional rights. It was not clear whether the youths even understood them. Therefore none had a lawyer at his side. None left, though all were free to do so, and none remained silent. Some 37 percent made full confessions, and 31 percent made incriminating statements. ...
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The Struggles of a Psychologist Studying Self-Control
The New Yorker: Walter Mischel had a terrible time quitting smoking. He had started young, and, even as his acumen and self-knowledge grew, he just couldn’t stop. His habit continued through his years as a graduate student, at Ohio State, and into the beginning of his teaching career, as a psychologist at Harvard and then at Stanford, in the nineteen-fifties and sixties. “I was a three-packs-a-day smoker, supplemented by a pipe,” Mischel told me recently. “And, when the pipe ran out, it was supplemented by a cigar.” After the first Surgeon General’s report on the dangers of tobacco came out, in 1964, Mischel realized that his smoking could very well kill him.
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Planning to Do Good Tomorrow Gives Us Permission to Be Bad Today
Pacific Standard: A recent study provided still more evidence of the very human tendency to engage in “moral licensing.” It found people who reported doing a good deed in the morning—and thereby solidified their self-image as admirably virtuous—were more likely to engage in unethical behavior later that day. While this largely unconscious dynamic is hardly something to be proud of, newly published research suggests it is amazingly easy to set into motion.
