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Another’s wasted investment is as disturbing as one’s own
THAT human beings often continue to pour money into bad projects because they have already invested in them and cannot bring themselves to lose that investment is well known. Indeed the sunk-cost fallacy, as this phenomenon is called, is frequently cited as an example of people failing to behave in the “rational” way that classical economics suggests they should. Though the exact psychological underpinning of the sunk-cost fallacy is debated, it might reasonably be expected to apply only when the person displaying it also made the original investment. However a study published recently in Psychological Science by Christopher Olivola of Carnegie Melon University suggests this is not true.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: The Political Self: How Identity Aligns Preferences With Epistemic Needs Christopher M. Federico and Pierce D. Ekstrom Previous research has suggested that people motivated to quickly get answers and make decisions (i.e., those with high need for closure) tend to affiliate with the political right. However, people who prefer to keep their options open (i.e., those with low need for closure) tend to affiliate with the political left. But how does the extent to which one's political preferences are central to one's self-concept affect these findings? The authors analyzed data from a U.S.
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Employees Actively Snub Bosses Who Discourage Work-Life Balance
The respondents rated how well they thought the boss handled a situation then rated the extent they would avoid him in the office or fail to invite him to after-work gatherings.
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Social Pursuits Linked With Increased Life Satisfaction
Data from a study of German adults showed that people who adopted socially-focused strategies reported increased life satisfaction one year later.
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Countries with Less Gender Equity Have More Women in STEM–Huh?
A recent study points out a so-called “gender-equality paradox”: there are more women in STEM in countries with lower gender equality. Why do women make up 40 percent of engineering majors in Jordan, but only 34 percent in Sweden and 19 percent in the U.S.? The researchers suggest that women are just less interested in STEM, and when liberal Western countries let them choose freely, they freely choose different fields. We disagree. It’s no surprise that women are less “interested” in fields where they will be paid less money for work that will be less valued, and where men are skeptical that these gender biases even exist.
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Catalyst: Helping mothers through friendship
In the U.S., most mothers work full time before coming home to take care of family and household chores. So, who is taking care of mom? Experts say friends are the best remedy for a healthy mom.
