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There’s a case against diversity in the workplace—but the alternative is even scarier
Quartz: Companies promote diversity in the workplace as a moral imperative with “bottom line benefits.” But research on the value of diversity is mixed. Some studies have found diverse teams—meaning workgroups comprised of employees of different races, genders, and backgrounds—promote creativity, nurture critical thinking, and tend to make better, more thoughtful decisions because they consider a wider range of perspectives. Other studies indicate diverse teams fuel interpersonal conflicts, reduce cohesion, and slow the pace of learning. The trouble with past research is it assumes only diverse settings are capable of changing how people behave, form impressions, and make decisions.
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Social Feedback Loop Aids Language Development
Verbal interactions between parents and children create a social feedback loop important for language development, according to research forthcoming in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. That loop appears to be experienced less frequently and is diminished in strength in interactions with autistic children. “This loop likely has cascading impacts over the course of a child’s development,” says psychological scientist and study author Anne S. Warlaumont of the University of California, Merced.
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Be creative—like a criminal
The Boston Globe: If you need help thinking outside the box, you could do worse than to talk to some white-collar criminals. That’s one implication of a new study on the link between dishonesty and creativity. In several experiments, participants who were dishonest in reporting their performance on a task were also subsequently more creative. This was true even when controlling for initial creativity or when researchers made dishonest behavior hard to avoid. Because dishonesty is associated with breaking the rules, it enables more outside-the-box thinking; in fact, exposure to pictures of people breaking rules generated nearly the same effect. Read the whole story: The Boston Globe
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Gestures Help Children Grasp Math
Science magazine: Children who are taught to use gestures to solve math problems demonstrate a deeper understanding of concepts, but why? A group of psychologists thinks it’s because the physical actions help youths understand abstract ideas. A study published online in Psychological Science describes how researchers taught a group of third graders to form a V-point gesture with their fingers (as seen in the image) to signify adding the numbers up, followed by pointing a finger at the blank in the equation to represent inserting the outcome in its place. Read the whole story: Science magazine
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Not So Fast: Speed-Reading App Fails To Convince Experts
NBC: The company claims that by removing the need for your eyes to move during reading, the app can raise your reading speed from the average 250 words per minute to a blazing-fast 500 or more. But when we spoke to experts in the field, they were skeptical. "It's been around for a long, long time," said University of California San Diego psychology professor Keith Rayner in a phone interview. "I think there was even a paper in the '60s." The results, including those from Rayner's own research, were never promising. "The main finding was this," Rayner continued. "If you have people reading in this RSVP method, they can read sentences one at a time.
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Study Links Teacher ‘Grit’ with Effectiveness, Retention
Education Week: In recent years, we've heard a lot about gritty students. Now grit researchers are turning their attention to teachers.
