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Let’s Get Lunch! Group Meals Spur Cooperation
Getting people from diverse backgrounds to work together smoothly is one of the biggest challenges organizations face. One of the easiest ways to encourage employees to cooperate may be as easy as pie – or, maybe that sandwich place around the corner. Companies that invest in an inviting cafeteria or shared meal space may be getting a particularly good return on their investment, according to new research from Cornell University. To find out how group meals go on to influence team cooperation within organizations, psychological scientist Brian Wansink and colleagues designed their study around a group known for sharing meals on the job: firefighters.
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Study Busts Some Myths about Millennials
Science is revealing that the negative stereotypes about the generation born between 1980 and 2000 are inaccurate.
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Some Jobs May Help Prevent Cognitive Decline
Even years after retirement, a mentally stimulating career may be keeping people’s minds active and memories sharp. As people age, cognitive skills like memory and information processing speed tend to decline. But a large body of research suggests that this decline isn’t necessarily inevitable.
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The Creative Power of ‘Outsiders’
Cher’s 1998 hit single 'Believe' revolutionized the music industry by introducing the public to a new technology called Auto-Tune. With the push of a button, Auto-Tune allows music producers to correct a singer’s pitch to ensure that anyone can sing in seemingly perfect key. Although the technology has been widely adopted by the music industry – too widely adopted, some would argue – the invention of Auto-Tune didn’t come from a music industry insider, it was invented by a petroleum engineer. Before turning to music, Dr. Harold (Andy) Hildebrand was developing technology to help oil companies discover oil based on seismic signals from detonations on the ground.
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Don’t Delay! Impatient People are Also the Worst Procrastinators
Across a series of experiments, impatient people were more likely to put things off – even when it meant a financial penalty.
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Handling Money Appears to Sway Helpfulness
The cold touch of a nickel may be enough to keep people from helping each other, new research suggests. In a new set of experiments in Poland, a team of researchers found that priming children with money by having them sort coins into their different denominations, as opposed to sorting different colored buttons, influenced how they behaved afterward when tasked with helping experimenters gather crayons. The children who handled money helped the experimenters significantly less than the children who sorted buttons.
