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The Gregarious Salesman: Death of a Stereotype?
I had to buy a car recently, my first in many years, and I confess I couldn’t stop thinking about Jerry Lundegaard. Jerry Lundegaard is a Minneapolis car salesman, and the central character in the Coen brothers’ 1996 film classic, Fargo. He is fast-talking, weasely, dishonest. Played to great comic effect by William H. Macy, Lundegaard is a caricature of all that we expect and fear in those who are out to sell us something. Okay, so maybe some of this is my stereotyping of car salesmen, and perhaps I’m being unfair. But like a lot of stereotypes, mine has some basis in fact. Not the inept criminal part, but certainly the blustery, glad-handing, over-the-top enthusiasm.
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Flu psychology: Who risks what for whom?
My local pharmacy is offering flu shots. The sign grabbed my attention the other day, because it was a sweltering, muggy day, and it seemed way too early to think about winter flu bugs. But a little digging proved me wrong. The vaccine takes a couple weeks to click in, and seasonal flu bugs can arrive as early as October. So I did the arithmetic, and I’m lining up to get poked. I’ve gotten flu shots for years, though I’m not in any high-risk group. It just seems prudent to me. And the fact is, public health officials count on people who are at low or moderate risk to get inoculated anyway.
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Looking For Trouble (And Seeing It)
I’ve known a few troublemakers over the years. These were guys with huge chips on both shoulders, who would gladly pick a fight if you looked at them wrong. And looking at them wrong could really mean doing nothing provocative at all, because they saw signs of hostility and threat where others did not, especially in others’ faces. They were literally looking for trouble. Scientists and clinicians are interested in the dynamic interaction of perception and aggression. Looking for trouble, and seeing it, may be a deep cognitive bias—a negativity bias—that distorts normal emotional processing.
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Solving for X, among the neurons
I have a fence that needs scraping and painting, and I’m pretty sure I can do the whole job in six hours. My friend Jack, who is an experienced painter, wants me to hire him. He promises he can have a new coat of paint on the fence in four hours. I’m tempted, but I’m wondering, what if Jack and I work together? If he does the trim and other detail work, and I do the easy brushing, we should be able to wrap this job up by lunchtime, easy. But how long will it take, exactly? This is what, in algebra, we call a “word problem.” I always loved word problems when I was in school, because unlike a lot of math, they seemed connected to natural situations that actually occur in real life.
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Rethinking Bias in the Workplace
Howard Ross is a frequent flyer, and a few years back he conducted this simple experiment. He went through airport security one hundred times, and on half of those occasions he dressed in business attire. For the other half, he dressed casually—jeans and polo shirts. Because of a knee replacement, Ross must be scanned with a wand every time he goes through security, and he took advantage of this fact. He recorded exactly how long it took him to get though this personal screening on these one hundred occasions. He wanted to see if Howard Ross the businessman was being treated any differently than Howard Ross the casual traveler. The results were dramatic.
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Legacy in Mind: Why Bother Saving the Planet?
It’s supposed to hit 97 degrees this week in Washington, DC, my home town. My plan is to stay indoors and crank up the AC, for as long as the heat wave lasts. I know that the price tag for my comfort will show up in my next utility bill, but that’s a price I’m willing to pay. I also know that my choice has other, hidden costs—costs that will be paid by future generations, including my children and their children. Global warming is an undisputed scientific fact now, and there is little doubt that this ominous trend is related to human activity, including the burning of fossil fuels. I completely accept the science of climate warming, yet I don’t always do the right thing by my heirs.
