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Younger Leaders Seen as More Innovative, Older Leaders More Reliable
You’re more likely to see gray hair among the CEOs of the top 500 American companies (where the average age is about 53) than you are among Silicon Valley’s tech entrepreneurs, many of whom started billion dollar companies fresh out of college or even high school. New research suggests there may be a reason for the age disparities between leaders in different fields: A team of psychological scientists led by Brian R. Spisak of VU University Amsterdam provides evidence that people have unconscious biases based on age when it comes to choosing a leader.
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One Scary Boss Can Spook the Whole Office
Coping with an abusive boss can have major impacts on employee well-being, and research has even shown that a bad boss can make people sick, leading to increased rates of heart attack, high blood pressure, anxiety, and chronic stress among employees. But a scary boss doesn’t just impact his or her immediate subordinates – new research from a team of psychological scientists led by Mary Bardes Mawritz of Drexel University shows that an abusive boss’s bad behavior can trickle down throughout the entire office.
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Memory Research Offers Clues to Preventing Human Error
An experiment shows that a specific type of memory aid can lower error rates in air traffic control.
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Better Teamwork Comes From Facing Challenges
From basketball to brain surgery, people can accomplish more working together as a team than they ever could by themselves. As Aristotle famously put it, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” In an article recently published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, psychological scientist Jamie C. Gorman of Texas Tech University outlined new research that is improving our understanding of the cognitive and environmental factors that allow people to work together effectively in teams. Previous studies have shown that shared knowledge between individuals enhances coordination within a team. These improvements in coordination, in turn, boost the team’s performance.
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How Your “Better Half” May Impact Your Success at Work
Wedding vows often cover “for richer or poorer,” but new research finds that your spouse’s personality may actually improve your chances of getting a raise or a promotion at work. Several studies have found a link between workers’ personality traits and their success on the job, but psychological scientists Brittany C. Solomon and Joshua J. Jackson of Washington University wondered whether our spouses’ personality traits might also have an influence on our success at work. “Your husband, wife, or sweetheart probably doesn’t come to work with you every day,” says Solomon in an interview with Fortune Magazine.
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Depressed Employees May Benefit From Coming in to Work
Depression can have a dramatic impact on a person’s ability to work. According to statistics from the CDC, approximately 27% of people with depression reported serious difficulties in work and home life and 80% of people reported some level of functional impairment because of their depression. Workers suffering from depression will miss an estimated 200 million workdays each year at a cost to employers of $17 to $44 billion.
