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Your (Virtual) Future Self Wants You To Save Up
NPR: A retirement crisis is looming. As people live longer, one study finds that half of all households are at risk of coming up short on retirement money. And while many working households may feel they simply don't have enough to spare for retirement, experts say some of the biggest barriers to saving up are psychological. Now, new research has found a way around that barrier: providing a virtual glimpse into the future that could help motivate young people to save more for retirement. "When you make a decision now about yourself in the future, that distant self almost feels like a stranger," says Hal Hershfield of New York University's Stern School of Business.
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What the poor can teach the rich
MSN: Wow. I thought taxes were a hot-button issue. But taxes are nothing, nothing, compared with how we feel about social and economic classes. My column "Why are the rich such jerks?" -- which summarized some recent research about the behavior of wealthier people compared with poorer people -- drew more than 600 comments on MSN Money and 1,700 shares on Facebook. Many people were so busy condemning the rich, the poor, each other or the research that they missed my point: that stereotypes about rich jerks could give some people an excuse not to take care of themselves financially. Who wants to be wealthy if the wealthy are all vile, greedy, evil creatures? Read the whole story: MSN
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Your Pet, Your Money, Your Call
The New York Times: Of course you can be an ethical pet owner even if you cannot or will not spend huge amounts of cash on exotic medical treatments for your dog or cat. To say otherwise would restrict the pleasures of animal companionship (and the often exaggerated health benefits of pets) to the rich. And in fact, when it comes to veterinary medicine, more is not always better. One of my colleagues recently spent nearly $8,000 on cancer treatments for her dog. Has she done anything wrong? No – it is her money, after all.
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Materialism makes people depressed
Times of India: People who place a high value on wealth, status, and stuff are more depressed and anxious and less sociable than those who do not, say researchers. They also indicated that materialism is not just a personal problem. It's also environmental. Read the whole story: Times of India
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Benefits of Bickering: Disunity and Ethics
I love reading accounts of the West Wing’s inner workings, because they are studies in the quirkiness of human psychology. Presidents and their trusted staffs always arrive in the White House with a unified message and team spirit, and they inevitably disintegrate into factions—ideological purists and pragmatists, seasoned vets and young Turks. It’s just as true of Obama’s West Wing today as it was of Nixon’s and FDR’s, and probably every presidency back to the founding. The common wisdom is that such factions are a bad thing, not just for the White House but for any complex organization. Internal bickering takes key leaders off message and saps energy and hurts job performance.
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Being in Power Does Not Always Magnify Personality
“If you want to test a man’s character, give him power,” said Abraham Lincoln. It’s a truism that power magnifies personality—but is it true? A new study says no. “Before, people thought that disposition is linked to will; it’s mainly internally driven,” says University College London psychologist Ana Guinote, who conducted the study with Mario Weick of the University of Kent and London doctoral student Alice Cai. “Our findings show that the environment crucially triggers dispositional or counter-dispositional behavior in powerful people.” The findings appear in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
