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Job references often lie. Ask these questions to make them tell the truth
In the dance of hiring, few steps are more scripted than checking job references. Hiring managers usually call references to confirm their instincts or because HR requires they do so. More often than not, candidates list references who will sing their praises. What’s more, research suggests that candidates rarely select (and interviewers rarely request) references who will depict a multi-dimensional picture of their personal and professional skills. For hiring managers, it’s easy to wonder whether checking references is a total waste of time.
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Inspired to Believe: The Connection between Inspirational Experiences and Belief in God
Thomas Alva Edison famously opined that genius is “one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.” Though the inventor and businessman fell short of self-identifying as an atheist, he also asserted, in a 1910 New York Times Magazine interview, that “Nature did it all—not the gods of the religions.” New research suggests that Edison’s two statements above—and similar others he made—could be more intrinsically connected than it might seem at first sight: people who experience more inspiration in their lives tend to be stronger believers in God. Research had previously shown that individuals with more analytical cognitive styles are less likely to be believers.
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‘Find Your Passion’ Is Awful Advice
Carol Dweck, a psychology professor at Stanford University, remembers asking an undergraduate seminar recently, “How many of you are waiting to find your passion?” “Almost all of them raised their hand and got dreamy looks in their eyes,” she told me. They talked about it “like a tidal wave would sweep over them,” he said. Sploosh. Huzzah! It’s accounting! Would they have unlimited motivation for their passion? They nodded solemnly. “I hate to burst your balloon,” she said, “but it doesn’t usually happen that way.” --- In a paper that is forthcoming in Psychological Science, the authors delineate the difference between the two mind-sets.
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New Research From Psychological Science
Read about the latest research published in Psychological Science: Two Ways to Facial Expression Recognition? Motor and Visual Information Have Different Effects on Facial Expression Recognition Stephan de la Rosa, Laura Fademrecht, Heinrich H. Bülthoff, Martin A. Giese, and Cristóbal Curio People are usually good at using facial expressions to infer other people’s emotions. Motor-based theories propose that viewing a facial expression activates a sensorimotor response that causes the viewer to simulate the expression and thus recognize the associated emotion. These theories predict that sensorimotor and visual processes should lead to the same effects in facial expression recognition.
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Why Does Every Soccer Player Do This?
Goals in soccer games can be few and far between, which helps explain the delirious nature of most scoring celebrations. Some players yank off their jerseys or drop to their knees and glide across the turf in glee. They all often end up at the bottom of a pile of jubilant teammates. Then there are the players who are presented with a goal-scoring opportunity and, for whatever reason, fail. When this happens, they all do the same thing: raise their hands and place them on their heads — apparently the universal gesture to signify, How in the world did I miss that?
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Study Links Children’s Eye-Hand Coordination with Their Academic Performance
New findings signal an important relationship between children’s ability to physically interact with their environment and their cognitive development.
