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Restaurant menu psychology: tricks to make us order more
The Guardian: It's not always easy trying to read a menu while hungry like the wolf, woozy from aperitif and exchanging pleasantries with a dining partner. The eyes flit about like a pinball, pinging between set meal options, side dishes and today's specials. Do I want comforting treats or something healthy? What's cheap? Will I end up bitterly coveting my companion's dinner? Is it immoral to fuss over such petty, first-world dilemmas? Oh God, the waiter's coming over. ... Befuddling menu design doesn't help.
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Hail to the Narcissist: POTUS And Personality
The Huffington Post: Looking back on U.S. history, certain presidents clearly stand out as larger than life. Andrew Jackson, TR, LBJ -- these were flamboyant and domineering men, and also great leaders. Some might quibble about who among these had the biggest personality, but no one would put Calvin Coolidge or Millard Fillmore in their company. ... Historians and biographers have commented on the curious co-existence of excellence and malignance in individual presidents. But does this personality type -- this mix of brightness and darkness -- actually predict presidential greatness? A team of psychological scientists has been exploring this idea.
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When Deciding How to Bet, Less Detailed Information May Be Better
People are worse at predicting whether a sports team will win, lose, or tie when they bet on the final score than when they bet on the overall outcome, according to a new study published
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New Perspectives on the Psychology of Understanding
With the support of a 3.56 million dollar grant from the John Templeton Foundation, and with additional support from the Henry Luce Foundation, Fordham University, and the University of California-Berkeley, the Varieties of Understanding project will bring the combined efforts of some of the world's leading psychologists, philosophers, and theologians to bear on crucial questions about understanding. July 1, 2013: Official Start Date November 1, 2013: Letters of Intent due March 1, 2014: Invited full proposals due For more information visit www.varietiesofunderstanding.com/about.html
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Chris Argyris
Harvard University James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award Chris Argyris is one of the world’s most respected management thinkers. A behavioral scientist, he has devoted his career to understanding how organizations operate and how managers learn. Argyris’s early research focused on the impact of formal organizational structures, control systems, and management on individuals — and how those individuals respond and adapt to them. He was an early adopter of the ground-breaking T-group experiments in the 1960s. T-group training involves increasing trainees' skills in working with other people, and Argyris found that T-groups successfully melted the rigid, authoritarian behavior of many managers.
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A Good Meal: The Science of Savoring
There’s nothing I like more than sharing a good meal with friends and family. I like everything about it—the shopping for fresh ingredients, the chopping and cooking, and most of all, the mindful savoring and good conversation at the table. If I have time. Which I don’t many days, and I confess that on those days, dinner is often as not a salad or sandwich on my lap, as I watch NCIS reruns. I know this is a bad habit, but it’s just easier not to fuss. A lot of people are opting out of traditional meals in this way. Indeed, one study says that more than half of Americans’ meals are now eaten in a room with the TV on.
