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Human psychology (with emphasis on the human)
Times of Higher Education: Psychological thinking, particularly of the cognitive ilk, used to take place only in philosophy or physiology departments. For centuries, psychology did not exist as a separate discipline. Then a more experimental cognitive approach was pioneered in the late 1870s by Wilhelm Wundt, the German “father of modern psychology”, and later in the Anglo-Saxon world by American behaviourist John B. Watson. The effect was to shift the discipline into the social and educational sciences.
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The business case for happiness in the workplace
The Globe and Mail: Forget spreadsheets, swot analysis and risk management; the latest topic on the business school agenda is happiness. Those academics who research the topic prefer to classify it a bit differently, however. “Meaning” is the term used by Lee Newman, dean of innovation and behaviour at IE Business School in Spain. At the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, Jane Dutton, professor of business administration and psychology, says it is about “human flourishing.” Christie Scollon at Singapore Management University describes it as “subjective well-being.” Read the whole story: The Globe and Mail
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You Are Less Beautiful Than You Think
Scientific American: Most people believe that they are above average, a statistical impossibility. The above average effects, as they are called, are common. For example, 93 percent of drivers rate themselves as better than the median driver. Of college professors, 94 percent say that they do above-average work. People are unrealistically optimistic about their own health risks compared with those of other people. For example, people think that they are less susceptible to the flu than others. Stock pickers think the stocks they buy are more likely to end up winners than those of the average investor.
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Do shoppers feel guilty about Bangladesh?
USA Today: The hottest date at the global retail real estate conference that starts Sunday in Las Vegas is Uniqlo. That's because Uniqlo is one of the three "big hitters" in retail right now, says Faith Hope Consolo, chairman of Douglas Elliman Real Estate's retail group, along with Sweden-based chain H&M and British brand Topshop. That has dozens of mall executives trying to get a meeting with the expanding Japan-based low-price clothing retailer, she says. ... Abby Armbruster, 25, says she would pay extra for fair trade clothing, but it's not a factor in her choices. "I'm sad to say that I don't pay attention to where my clothes are made," says Armbruster of Wooster, Ohio.
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Picking Up a Second Language Is Predicted by Ability to Learn Patterns
Some people seem to pick up a second language with relative ease, while others have a much more difficult time. Now, a new study suggests that learning to understand and read a second language may be driven, at least in part, by our ability to pick up on statistical regularities. The study is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Some research suggests that learning a second language draws on capacities that are language-specific, while other research suggests that it reflects a more general capacity for learning patterns.
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Uncommon Sense: Toward an RQ Test?
We all know people who are highly intelligent but not very smart. These people get good grades in school, ace a lot of tests, and often succeed professionally. But they nevertheless hold irrational beliefs and do a lot of foolish things. Such people almost certainly have high IQs, but IQ scores do not reflect their particular form of cognitive deficit. Indeed, these people seem to be unable to think and act rationally despite their high intelligence. University of Toronto psychological scientist Keith Stanovich has a name for this disability. He calls it “dysrationalia,” and he has spent the last several years trying to define the nature of this common deficit.
