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Economic Inequality Is Linked To Biased Self-Perception
Pretty much everybody thinks they’re better than average. But in some cultures, people are more self-aggrandizing than in others. Until now, national differences in “self-enhancement” have been chalked up to an East-West individualism-versus-collectivism divide. In the West, where people value independence, personal success, and uniqueness, psychologists have said, self-inflation is more rampant. In the East, where interdependence, harmony, and belonging are valued, modesty prevails. Now an analysis of data gathered from 1,625 people in 15 culturally diverse countries finds a stronger predictor of self-enhancement: economic inequality.
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Web Surfing Helps at Work, Study Says
The Wall Street Journal: Don't feel guilty about browsing the Internet at work—turns out it may actually improve your performance. According to a new study, Web browsing can actually refresh tired workers and enhance their productivity, compared to other activities such as making personal calls, texts or emails, let alone working straight through with no rest at all. The study, "Impact of Cyberloafing on Psychological Engagement," by Don J.Q. Chen and Vivien K.G Lim of the National University of Singapore, was presented last week in San Antonio, Texas, at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management, an association of management scholars. The researchers conducted two studies.
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Don’t take ‘engaged’ employees for granted
Financial Post: Engaged employees — those who approach their work with energy, dedication, and focus — are more productive and more willing to go the extra mile for their employers. Moreover, engaged workers take the initiative to change their work environments to stay engaged. So what do we know about the inner workings of employee engagement, and what can employers do to enhance it to improve job performance? Much of the early research on this issue was done by the Gallup organization, and used by consulting companies such as Hewitt Associates to assist leaders in developing practices to assess and increase engagement. The most recent research conducted by Arnold B.
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Hypnosis as health care quietly gains ground
MSNBC: In 1987, Marilyn Bellezzo was diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a disorder that was, for her, debilitating. "I was housebound," Bellezzo said. She spent hours curled up on the bathroom floor, suffering from abdominal pain and diarrhea. "I had to raise my children through the bathroom door," said the now 59-year-old resident of Glen Ellyn, Ill. Over the next 12 years, Bellezzo tried medications and diets, to no avail. Then as a last resort, she started listening to audio tapes designed to treat IBS through hypnosis. They made a difference. Now, she says her symptoms are virtually gone.
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Spoilers freshen up stories
ScienceNews: People who read the last page of a mystery novel first may be on to something. Giving away plot surprises generally makes readers like stories better, say psychology graduate student Jonathan Leavitt and psychologist Nicholas Christenfeld, both of the University of California, San Diego. Volunteers especially enjoyed classic short stories, including mysteries and tales with ironic twists, after seeing spoiler paragraphs that revealed how the yarns ended, Leavitt and Christenfeld report in a paper published online August 12 in Psychological Science.
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Inside the Mind of a Creationist
Huffington Post: Texas governor and presidential candidate Rick Perry is ambivalent about the "theory" of evolution. He says it's just one theory that's out there, on equal footing with creationism. He's proud of the fact that, in Texas, children are taught both, so they can choose for themselves. There's a serious problem with this approach to education, however. It has to do with humans' very limited ability to weigh probabilities rationally. Calculating likelihoods and odds is tough cognitive work, and we only do it when we must. Years of research on human thinking has shown this.
