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Why we shun creativity in the work place
The Globe and Mail: You come up with a great new idea at work, or at home. Or a political leader actually tries something “new and different” when faced with a previously intractable problem. But then, rather than grateful acceptance, or even a fair hearing, the idea is squashed, ridiculed, or otherwise ignored. Sound familiar? It should. As anyone who has ever suggested a creative solution knows, people often avoid the uncomfortable uncertainty of novel solutions regardless of potential benefit.
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Relationship with mom is crucial for boys
Courier-Journal: A boy’s relationship with his mother changes as he grows up, and the way it changes can affect his behavior when he’s a teen, a new study says. It included 265 mother-son pairs from low-income families in Pittsburgh who were followed from when the son was 5 years old through adolescence. The researchers assessed the level of conflict and warmth between the mothers and sons and other aspects of their lives, including the son’s temperament and behavior, the mother’s relationship with her romantic partner, and the quality of the mother’s parenting.
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9/11 Psychology: Just How Resilient Were We?
TIME: 9/11 was devastating in terms of lives lost — nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attacks — but it was not physically destructive (with the obvious exception of Ground Zero) on the same massive scale. Since most of New York City remained structurally intact, an intense focus was placed on the psychological needs of its residents (and, to a lesser extent, on residents of Washington, D.C.) One month after 9/11, the National Institute for Mental Health gathered together a group of international experts to figure out how to best help a traumatized population, but as a new report in American Psychologist explains, there was no clear model of what to expect and how to proceed.
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Do Fat CEO Faces Equal Fat Profits?
Time: We generally don’t include the shape of a business exec’s face in our investing advice. But according to a new study, maybe we should. In the November issue of the journal Psychological Science, a new study suggests that CEOs with wider faces achieve much greater financial performance than CEOs with thinner mugs. Before you make your own face, there’s some legitimate science behind it. For the last few years, a number of studies have been published showing that greater facial width-to-height ratio (WHR) is associated with more aggressive behavior in men. Hockey players with wider faces spend more time in the penalty box. And men with higher facial width often feel more powerful.
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The connected car: New services pit convenience against safety
Consumer Reports: With the increased popularity of smart phones and social networks, automakers are tapping these connected technologies in vehicles to allow drivers to update Facebook, send a Tweet, check stocks, surf the Web, and more. However, will the need to stay connected affect driver safety? Our latest investigative report provides insight into this trend. In our October report “Connected Cars: A New Risk,” we look at the some of the technologies automakers are offering in their vehicles, address the potential for driver distraction, and speak to a wide range of industry insiders and safety advocates.
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Sick Body, Vigilant Mind
We know that in keeping the body physically healthy, the mind both conscious and unconscious is a principle actor. Indeed, research has shown that the biological, or physiological, immune system that fights pathogens once they’ve entered the body can be kick-started by the “behavioral immune system,” with which we notice, feel repulsed by, and act to avoid people who might make us sick. Now a study in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science, offers intriguing new evidence of the connection moving in the other direction: from physiological to psychological immune reactions.
