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Successful ‘Don Draper’ type salesmen don’t achieve best figures
The Telegraph: When people think of a stereotypical salesperson they're likely to conjure up someone who's extrovert, gregarious, and assertive - just like the dapper executive played by Jon Hamm. However, new research reveals that "ambiverts" - people who are neither introverted nor extroverted, but who fall somewhere in between - tend to be the most effective salespeople. Doctor Adam Grant, of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in the United States, was driven to explore the relationship between sales and personality traits after realising there was a significant gap in research on the topic.
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The White House Budget: Does It Distort The Science of Choice?
President Obama’s budget proposal released this week has turned the arcane term “chained CPI” into a controversial buzz phrase. This new calculation for the Consumer Price Index (CPI) assumes that as prices rise, consumers will simply turn to lower-cost alternatives, thus softening the impact of the price hikes. For example, if the cost of Red Delicious apples rises, people will just buy Gala instead, the theory holds. But does behavioral science support this measure?
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Move Over Extroverts, Here Come the Ambiverts
Forbes: One of the prevailing personality stereotypes we rarely question is that extremely extroverted people do best in sales. On the flip side, extremely introverted people may as well not even try to sell anything because it’s a foregone conclusion that they simply can’t. A new study published in the journal Psychological Science suggests that not only are these stereotypes wrong, but there’s an entirely different personality type that stands well above the others in sales prowess. The study was conducted by researcher Adam Grant of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, also author of the book Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success.
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Most Effective PTSD Therapies Are Not Being Widely Used, Researchers Find
Clinical research has identified certain psychological interventions that effectively ameliorate the symptoms of PTSD, although most people struggling with the disorder don’t receive those treatments, according to a scientific review.
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Would Angry Teens Chill Out If They Saw More Happy Faces?
NPR: All day long we're surrounded by faces. We see them on the subway sitting two by two, pass them on the sidewalk as we make our way to work, then nod to them in the elevator. But most of those faces don't tell us much about the emotional life of the person behind the face. "People don't just go around the world smiling or grimacing or frowning," says psychologist Marcus Munafo of the University of Bristol. "The majority of the facial expressions that you come into contact with — people walking past you in the street, for example — will be ambiguous to some extent." Read the whole story: NPR
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How Meditation Might Boost Your Test Scores
The New York Times: Mindfulness meditation, the ancient and flourishing practice that increases awareness of random thoughts and redirects attention to the present moment, has been used to manage stress, depression and even chronic pain. But can it improve test scores? Researchers in the department of psychological and brain sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who have been studying the relationship between mindfulness and mind-wandering, or the tendency to let our minds drift away on “task-unrelated thoughts,” as it is referred to in academic literature, sought to find out.
