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Getting the point across: Scientists find managers who frequently make pointing gestures tend to be obeyed
Daily Mail: The secret of management may be a lot simpler than most business science courses might have you believe - just point your fingers a lot. Film directors such as Stephen Spielberg do a lot of seemingly meaningless pointing on set - but the gesture helps stamp authority on a chaotic film set. From a very early age, humans associate pointing with teaching and authority - and tend to believe and obey people who point. Psychologists believe we link the gesture to people with knowledge and authority. Simply gesticulating like this may suggest they have greater knowledge and should be obeyed, according to a team from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
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How does stress affect your decision-making?
CBC News: New research suggests people under stress are more likely to look on the positive side of things when making choices. Researchers studying the effects of stress on decision-making found that anxiety changes the way people weigh risks and rewards. Their results, released Tuesday, seem somewhat counter-intuitive, as stress is normally associated with negative experiences and outcomes. "It's a bit surprising that stress makes people focus on the way things could go right," said Mara Mather of the University of Southern California, who co-wrote the paper with Nichole R. Lighthall for the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science. Read the whole story: CBC News
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Unusual suspects: How to make witnesses more reliable
The Economist: To identify a suspect, police typically ask eyewitnesses to pick him out of a line-up of similar-looking folk. Alas, this method is often inaccurate. DNA testing has shown that witnesses often fail to detect the culprit or, worse, wrongfully accuse the innocent. Why should this be? Witnesses may feel under pressure to identify someone as the guilty party, even if they are not sure. Or they could be worried about making a mistake. A new study suggests that witnesses will make more accurate identifications if they do not have to be so precise.
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How Raising Prices Can Increase Your Sales
Forbes: It’s every business executive’s worst nightmare: you raise your prices, only to alienate your customers and decimate your bottom line. But what if the reverse were true? Social psychologist Robert Cialdini suggests that in some cases, businesses can actually increase their sales by raising prices.
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Teen Alcohol Use: The Damage And Where To Get Help
WUSA 9: Adolescents feel less sedated after consuming alcohol when compared to adults. So teens can drink more alcohol, because they are able to stay awake longer. When a young person drinks alcohol, his or her developing brain won't know how to react to protect itself from the rising level of alcohol toxicity. According to Johns Hopkins University, the youth's brain does not have the ability to prevent alcohol poisoning. "For adults, alcohol tends to have that sedative effect up to a point, which will keep adults from over-consuming [to] the point of alcohol poisoning, because the adult will pass out.
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Gross ads disgust consumers into action
USA Today: If you don't like stories that are totally gross, stop reading right now. Did you stop reading? Of course not. And it works the same way for advertisements, marketers are discovering. That, at least, according to a five-year study to be released Tuesday by Arizona State University's W.P. Carey School of Business. Again and again, the study found, advertisements that try to simply "scare" consumers into actions — such as buying protective sunscreens or avoiding dangerous drugs — are far less effective than ads that also "disgust" consumers into taking the action. The best way to elicit disgust: Display totally gross images. Read the whole story: USA Today
