-
Patients’ Health Motivates Workers To Wash Their Hands
Can changing a single word on a sign motivate doctors and nurses to wash their hands? Campaigns about hand-washing in hospitals usually try to scare doctors and nurses about personal illness, says Adam Grant, a psychological scientist at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. “Most safety messages are about personal consequences,” Grant says. “They tell you to wash your hands so you don’t get sick.” But his new study, which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that this is the wrong kind of warning. Hand-washing is an eternal problem for hospitals.
-
The Bully in the Baby?
While only a minority of toddlers are habitual bullies, this aggressive tendency appears to emerge right along with the motor skills that make it possible.
-
Jena McGregor On Leadership: Motivated by charity
The Washington Post: What would motivate you more: a bonus you could spend on yourself, or a bonus you had to spend on someone else? Most people, surely, would instinctively say the former. Why on Earth would I work smarter or better, or be more satisfied in my job, in exchange for something I had to turn around and give away? But a paper by researchers from Harvard Business School, the University of British Columbia and the University of Liege finds otherwise.
-
Wide-Headed CEOs Outperform Counterparts, Daily Telegraph Says
Bloomberg: Chief executive officers with wide heads perform better financially than those with long faces, the Daily Telegraph reported, citing a study in the journal Psychological Science. Men with wider faces tend to have higher testosterone levels, making them more aggressive, which explains the link between face shape and company performance, the Daily Telegraph said, citing the research by Elaine Wong from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and colleagues, who looked at CEO faces and financial performance of 55 Fortune 500 companies. Read the whole story: Bloomberg
-
Shape of CEO’s Face Linked to Company Performance
LiveScience: The shape of a CEO's face can predict his company's financial performance, according to a new study in which researchers analyzed photos of 55 male chief executive officers of Fortune 500 businesses. The crucial feature: Facial width. Corporate leaders with faces that were wide relative to their length — such as Herb Kelleher, the former CEO of Southwest Airlines — tended to lead better-performing companies than CEOs with narrower faces, such as Dick Fuld, the long-faced final CEO of Lehman Brothers, the study found. Read the whole story: LiveScience
-
Uncommon Knowledge
Boston Globe: Inequality makes us unhappy - well, some of us Although many people blame modern-day angst and cynicism on a materialistic, media-driven culture, a recent analysis of national survey data going back to 1972 finds that another possible explanation may be income inequality. In years with greater income inequality, Americans perceived their fellow citizens to be less fair and trustworthy and, as a result, were less happy. However, this reaction was only significant in poor people. Controlling for perceived fairness, trust, and income, affluent people were actually happier in years with greater income inequality. Read the whole story: Boston Globe
