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Cognitive Bias May Underlie Both Physical and Financial Health Behaviors
Poor physical health and poor financial health may be driven by the same underlying psychological factors, according to research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Researcher Lamar Pierce, associate professor of strategy at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, and doctoral candidate Timothy Gubler found that an employee’s decision to contribute to a 401(k) retirement plan predicted whether he or she would act to correct poor physical health indicators that were revealed during an employer-sponsored health examination.
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It Might Be ‘Pre-Crastination’ That’s Hurting Your Productivity
Inc.: It would seem counter intuitive that the habit of attacking projects and to-do lists without a moment's hesitation is anything but ulta-productive. Yet some researchers think that sometimes doing the opposite of procrastinating--or pre-crastinating--could cost you time and energy, too. Psychologists from Pennsylvania State University recently conducted a series of experiments, which subtly gave participants the option of physically exerting themselves for either a long amount of time, or a shorter amount of time. Read the whole story here: Inc.
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Why We Laugh
The Atlantic: Laughter is universal, but we know very little about the reasons we do it. Dr. Robert Provine has been studying the social and neurological roots of laughter for 20 years, and has come to surprising conclusions about how we operate as human beings. To learn more about Dr. Provine's research at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Watch the whole story: The Atlantic
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Espousing Equality, but Embracing a Hierarchy
The New York Times: People never say they want to grow up to be a middle manager, and some company founders aspire never to hire one. In 2002, Google decided to eliminate managers from its engineering operations. “We were of the attitude, ‘Who needs managers? They never add any value,’ ” Craig Silverstein, the company’s first employee after its co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, told me recently. Mr. Silverstein, who later served as Google’s technology director, said this refrain “mirrored the common stereotype at the time, of managers just adding levels of bureaucracy.” Read the whole story: The New York Times
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Bosses Spend More Personal Time on Social Media Than Subordinates
Walk by any employee’s work station on a given day and you may see that person quickly closing a Facebook or Twitter page from his or her computer desktop. No one wants to get caught tweeting or posting Instagram pictures when they’re supposed to be working. But studies indicate that four out of five employees now use social media for personal use during working hours. A Norwegian study, however, shows that managers and executives, while critical of employees’ social media use at work, spend more time using social media during office hours than do their subordinates.
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Drug Use Linked with Brain Differences in Teens
LiveScience: Teens who have used drugs even just once in their lives have brain characteristics that are different from those who have never used drugs, a new study finds. In the study, the researchers scanned the brains of 71 Mexican-American 16-year-olds, and asked the teens whether they had ever used drugs, including cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana and other drugs. The researchers looked at whether the brain activity of certain regions was in sync (a measure known as "functional connectivity"), which suggests that the regions are talking to one another. Read the whole story: LiveScience