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Power doesn’t corrupt. It just exposes who leaders really are.
Another day, another leader seems to fall from a seat of power. The #MeToo movement has shown us devastating evidence of how male superiors have abused their power over female subordinates. The Catholic Church has offered demoralizing revelations of how priests have abused their power over nuns and children. When leaders cross the line, we often blame power. As Lord Acton famously expressed it, “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” But it’s not entirely true. Last year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, I wanted to understand the impact of power on people.
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TVs in bedrooms may harm children’s physical and mental health
New Canadian research has found that growing up with a TV in the bedroom may have a negative effect on children's physical and mental health in their teenage years. Carried out by researchers at the Université de Montréal's School of Psychoeducation and the INRS-IAF, a research institute affiliated with the Université du Québec à Montréal, the study looked at data gathered from 1,859 Quebec children born between the spring of 1997 and the spring of 1998. "The early years are a critical period in a child's development," said study author Linda Pagani, who will be discussing the study on Thursday at the International Convention of Psychological Science in Paris.
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New Research From Psychological Science
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Could Your Mindset Affect How Well A Treatment Works?
Anxiety about side effects can keep people from starting or sticking to drug regimens or medical procedures. A group of researchers at Stanford wanted to find out if a simple mindset shift could help patients tolerate an uncomfortable treatment. They learned that when physicians make the effort to reframe potentially unpleasant symptoms in a positive light, it helped patients stay calm and persevere. The researchers studied this approach with a group of families who, in a desperate search for relief from food allergies, signed their children up for a study testing the investigational treatment known as oral immunotherapy.
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Why Forgetfulness Might Actually Help You
Many people worry that forgetting names, facts or tasks on their to-do list is a sign of aging or mental decline. A growing body of research offers a more welcome excuse: Forgetting stuff can actually be a byproduct of rigorous thinking, smooth decision-making or heightened creativity. Forgetting can help us block out useless or outdated information and keep us from fixating on a single set of ideas or thoughts. And contrary to the notion that forgetfulness reflects a withering of brain cells, scientists say it can actually be driven by the growth of new neurons in the hippocampus, a brain region linked to memory. This doesn’t excuse major memory mishaps.
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Want to Close the Pay Gap? Pay Transparency Will Help
Here’s what we know about salary transparency: Workers are more motivated when salaries are transparent. They work harder, they’re more productive, and they’re better at collaborating with colleagues. Across the board, pay transparency seems to be a good thing. Transparency isn’t just about business bottom line, however. Researchers say transparency is important because keeping salaries secret reinforces discrimination. “From a worker’s perspective, without accurate information about peer compensation, they may not know when they’re being underpaid,” said Emiliano Huet-Vaughn, an economist at U.C.L.A. who ran a study in 2013 that found workers are more productive when salary is transparent.
