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How Cracking the Right Joke Benefits Salary Negotiations
Making a joke about an implausibly high salary at the beginning of a negotiation actually led to higher average salary offers.
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Anxious about the election? Here’s some perspective.
The Washington Post: It’s hard to recall another time as uncertain as this. Americans are worried that they are vulnerable to terrorist attacks , that they won’t have enough money to retire or pay medical bills , that jobs are becoming less secure and that the next generation will be worse off financially than their parents . And they are downright frightened by the election. About the only thing partisans agree on is that a victory for the other side would be a catastrophe. There has been talk of insurrection, national collapse, even nuclear war.
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The Problems with Poor Ballot Design
Scientific American: Tensions are mounting as we hurtle towards Election Day this Tuesday, yet with all the focus on who’s voting and where, most of us have put little thought into another essential part of the election process: the voting ballot itself. There are significant issues with the mechanics of voting, including the design of ballots and instructions for using them. Philip Kortum is a psychology professor at Rice University who studies how people interact with voting systems in real-world settings.
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Social Science Says: Go Vote!
NPR: Millions of Americans will cast a vote for the next president of the United States on Nov. 8 — Election Day — and for countless other offices and propositions. In case you need the extra encouragement, here are three (more) reasons to vote, courtesy of the social sciences: 1. Voting is rational. (Maybe.) In fact, there are heated debates over whether it's rational to vote. On the one hand, voting is effortful: There is time and energy involved. And on the other hand, the odds that your individual vote will make a difference to the outcome of an election are miniscule.
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Some Cognitive Skills Are Easier to Train Later
Older adolescents and adults can learn certain thinking skills, including non-verbal reasoning, more effectively than younger people.
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Is Your Steering Wheel in Safe Hands?
Changes to the way drivers’ position their hands on the steering wheel may be a useful proxy for detecting perceptions of risk and cognitive demand.
