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Successful ‘Don Draper’ type salesmen don’t achieve best figures
The Telegraph: When people think of a stereotypical salesperson they're likely to conjure up someone who's extrovert, gregarious, and assertive - just like the dapper executive played by Jon Hamm. However, new research reveals that "ambiverts" - people who are neither introverted nor extroverted, but who fall somewhere in between - tend to be the most effective salespeople. Doctor Adam Grant, of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in the United States, was driven to explore the relationship between sales and personality traits after realising there was a significant gap in research on the topic.
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Move Over Extroverts, Here Come the Ambiverts
Forbes: One of the prevailing personality stereotypes we rarely question is that extremely extroverted people do best in sales. On the flip side, extremely introverted people may as well not even try to sell anything because it’s a foregone conclusion that they simply can’t. A new study published in the journal Psychological Science suggests that not only are these stereotypes wrong, but there’s an entirely different personality type that stands well above the others in sales prowess. The study was conducted by researcher Adam Grant of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, also author of the book Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success.
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Most Effective PTSD Therapies Are Not Being Widely Used, Researchers Find
Clinical research has identified certain psychological interventions that effectively ameliorate the symptoms of PTSD, although most people struggling with the disorder don’t receive those treatments, according to a scientific review.
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Would Angry Teens Chill Out If They Saw More Happy Faces?
NPR: All day long we're surrounded by faces. We see them on the subway sitting two by two, pass them on the sidewalk as we make our way to work, then nod to them in the elevator. But most of those faces don't tell us much about the emotional life of the person behind the face. "People don't just go around the world smiling or grimacing or frowning," says psychologist Marcus Munafo of the University of Bristol. "The majority of the facial expressions that you come into contact with — people walking past you in the street, for example — will be ambiguous to some extent." Read the whole story: NPR
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How Meditation Might Boost Your Test Scores
The New York Times: Mindfulness meditation, the ancient and flourishing practice that increases awareness of random thoughts and redirects attention to the present moment, has been used to manage stress, depression and even chronic pain. But can it improve test scores? Researchers in the department of psychological and brain sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who have been studying the relationship between mindfulness and mind-wandering, or the tendency to let our minds drift away on “task-unrelated thoughts,” as it is referred to in academic literature, sought to find out.
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Meditation May Make You Nicer
Smithsonian Magazine: Traditional Buddhists meditate in the pursuit of enlightenment. Non-religious practitioners may try it out in order to find a bit of calm or perhaps to treat anxiety or depression. But whatever their motivation, people who meditate, new research shows, act nicer than those who don’t. Researchers from Harvard University and Northeastern University recruited around three dozen participants interested in meditation. Half of the group was put on a wait list, while the other half was split into two groups. These two groups participated in meditation sessions that promote calm and focus in the mind.
