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A Multicultural Mindset Can Bolster Your Career Prospects
Many leading companies are taking a stand on diversity. They’re actively seeking new hires from different backgrounds and cultures, following the logic that new people can shake up the status quo with fresh insights and unknown perspectives. It’s not difficult to see why -- popular support for such initiatives is at an all-time high. Edward Jones, a leading financial advising firm, just commissioned a survey to see how more than 2,000 adults feel about multiculturalism in the workplace. More than 80% of minority respondents and 66% of people overall said it makes financial sense to hire a diverse group of individuals, and that doing so is likely to instill trust in clients.
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The Behavioral Psychology of Netflix’s Plan to Charge Higher Prices
The Atlantic: Netflix is crushing it. But now, the company untying cable's $60 billion stranglehold on American TV is apparently trying to accomplish something simple—something it hasn't done in more than two years in the U.S. It's trying to raise prices. Netflix costs $7.99 per month. Last year, it cost $7.99 per month. The year before that, it cost $7.99 per month. While cable and Internet costs has grown inexorably, the inflation-adjusted price of Netflix has actually fallen in the last three years. And its executive is starting to think three years is enough.
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For Athletes, There’s No Place Like Home
Research on sports and athletic competition suggests that there is scientific support for the idea of a “home field advantage.”
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Body’s Response to Disease Has a Smell
Discovery News: Humans may be able to smell sickness, or at least detect a distinct odor in the sweat of people with highly active immune systems who are responding to infection, a new study from Sweden suggests. In the study, eight healthy people were injected with either lipopolysaccharide, a bacterial toxin that produces a strong immune response, or with salt water (which wasn't expected to have any effect). Four hours later, the researchers collected the participants' T-shirts (in which they had been sweating), cut out the armpits and put this fabric into bottles.
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Me Versus the Scale
The New York Times: The scale and I have reached détente. That is: I leave it alone, and it affords me the same courtesy. I rarely step on it, and we’re both better off. I have earned the right of refusal. As someone who weighed herself almost daily between the ages of 10 and 25, who spent six years at fat camps and traveled around the Middle East with a scale buried in the pit of her backpack (I know, I know…), I’ve done my time. I won’t even weigh myself at the doctor’s office. Nothing good can come from the knowledge that I’m three pounds lighter, or two pounds heavier.
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Building Your Brand’s Warmth and Competence
The Entrepreneur: If you want more customers, you need to get warmer. It turns out customers stereotype companies the way they stereotype people. We want a combination of warmth and competence from our brands, just like we do from the people around us. Stereotyping exists in relationships, whether we like it or not. A review of the book, The Human Brand, on the website for the Association for Psychological Science, lays out how we are inclinded to view individuals, but also groups. ... So it is with companies or product brands.
