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Leaders Who Can Laugh at Themselves Get a Thumbs Up
Humor in the workplace can foster a positive atmosphere that helps coworkers bond, but jokes in the office can also fall flat, hurt feelings, and can even lead to lawsuits. A new study finds that leaders who strike the right balance, laughing at themselves but not their colleagues or underlings, may be seen as more likable, trustworthy, and caring. Researchers Colette Hoption (Seattle University), Julian Barling (Queen’s University), and Nick Turner (University of Manitoba) hypothesized that, regardless of whether people actually thought a leader was funny, self-deprecating jokes would be seen as an expression of a leader’s values and concern for others.
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Consistent Distraction May Not Hinder Learning
Distraction may not always impair our ability to learn, according to new research in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The research shows that people who are distracted in a similar way when learning a motor task and when trying to recall it later show no impairment in their ability to learn the task. Many of the motor tasks we learn to carry out on a daily basis -- such as driving, playing sports or musical instruments, even walking again after injury -- don't happen in a vacuum, they're performed while other things are going on.
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Why Our Memory Fails Us
The New York Times: NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON, the astrophysicist and host of the TV series “Cosmos,” regularly speaks to audiences on topics ranging from cosmology to climate change to the appalling state of science literacy in America. One of his staple stories hinges on a line from President George W. Bush’s speech to Congress after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In a 2008 talk, for example, Dr. Tyson said that in order “to distinguish we from they” — meaning to divide Judeo-Christian Americans from fundamentalist Muslims — Mr. Bush uttered the words “Our God is the God who named the stars.” Dr.
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Family Meltdowns: When Everyone Is Arguing and No One Is Listening
The Wall Street Journal: It started with a blueberry scone. In their suite at a London hotel—with a view of the Kyoto Garden in Holland Park and the sound of harp music wafting up from the lobby—Heather Tobin’s two sisters both reached for the last scone on the breakfast tray at the very same moment. One sister grabbed it. The other tried to swipe it away. The two women, in their 20s at the time, bickered and then quickly moved on to insults: “Do you have jet lag, or is this your own usual selfish self?” one asked. “I’m glad I don’t have to live in the same house with you anymore,” the other shot back. Ms.
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Mothers and Lovers: From Parenting to Romance
The Huffington Post: Most of us would probably agree that our early childhood experiences influence who we become as adults. But this is actually a fairly provocative notion. And especially provocative is the idea that our upbringing -- the quality of the parenting we get -- has long-term implications for how we later interact with other adults, including our intimate partners. This is not an easy connection to study for a couple of reasons. It takes a lot of time and planning to study people from childhood into adulthood, and what's more, neither parenting quality nor the quality of romantic relationships is easily and objectively analyzed.
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BRAIN SCIENCE EXPLAINS THE MOST PRODUCTIVE WAYS TO PROCRASTINATE
Fast Company: Sit down to work on a specific task and you may find your mind veering off on a different track, spiraling down into the black hole of procrastination. "We all experience motivational breakdowns, like eating ice cream in front of the television while exercise and writing were originally on the menu," writes Piers Steel, psychologist and author of the book The Procrastination Equation in Psychology Today. "There are a couple of misfiring neural regions that are reliably responsible for your procrastination." Read the whole story: Fast Company
