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A Brief Guide to Convincing Total Strangers to Do Your Bidding
New York Magazine: The worst has happened: Your phone has died. This would typically be only a minor nuisance, but, as it happens, today you need to make just one tiny but necessary phone call while you are out and about. Your options, it seems, are these: Either you don’t make the call, or you weird out a stranger by asking to borrow their phone. Most likely, you will go for the former, because the latter might actually kill you. And, anyway, who would ever agree to let you use their phone? More people than you think, probably, argues Cornell University organizational psychologist Vanessa K. Bohns. Read the whole story: New York Magazine
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Effective Apologies Include Six Elements
Whether you’re the company CEO or the summer intern, knowing how to say you’re sorry—and have people actually believe you—is an important business skill. If your subordinate is caught embezzling, or you’re the head of a company in the midst of a massive public safety scandal, simply saying “I’m sorry” probably isn’t going to cut it. New research from psychological scientists Roy Lewicki (The Ohio State University), Beth Polin (Eastern Kentucky University), and Robert Lount Jr. (The Ohio State University) confirms that not all apologies are equally effective.
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To Help Kids Thrive, Coach Their Parents
The New York Times: IN 1986, in a few of the poorest neighborhoods in Kingston, Jamaica, a team of researchers from the University of the West Indies embarked on an experiment that has done a great deal, over time, to change our thinking about how to help children succeed, especially those living in poverty. Its message: Help children by supporting and coaching their parents. The researchers divided the families of 129 infants and toddlers into groups. The first group received hourlong home visits once a week from a trained researcher who encouraged the parents to spend more time playing actively with their children: reading picture books, singing songs, playing peekaboo.
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The Science of Intuition: How to Measure ‘Hunches’ and ‘Gut Feelings’
Live Science: Whether you call it a "gut feeling," an "inner voice" or a "sixth sense," intuition can play a real part in people's decision making, a new study suggests. For the first time, researchers devised a technique to measure intuition. After using this method, they found evidence that people can use their intuition to make faster, more accurate and more confident decisions, according to the findings, published online in April in the journal Psychological Science.
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The Science Behind When and Why Children Learn to Lie
ABC: Most parents spend years trying to teach their children not to lie and that lying is bad, but virtually everyone learns to lie. To understand why this happens, experts have spent decades looking into the science of lying. Michael Lewis, a distinguished professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, says that in spite of what our parents told us, lying isn't always a bad thing and that there are important reasons almost everyone learns to lie. "Lying is a basic process that gets us into imagination and into play and into creativity," he explained. Read the whole story: ABC
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Moms’ Middle-School Blues
The Wall Street Journal: Mothers feel more anxious, dissatisfied and doubtful about their own parenting skills when their children are in middle school than at any other stage, new research shows. The turbulence that hits sixth- through eighth-graders often begins with the onset of puberty, bringing physical changes and mood swings. Also, many students transfer from close-knit elementary schools to larger middle schools. Childhood friends may be separated, classes are often tracked by ability and teachers are more demanding. Mothers often lose touch with other elementary-school parents who became friends. School officials often press them to back off and give students a longer leash.
