Overview: Psychology

"An attractive CEO makes a company a more attractive investment, ... According to a 2013 study from researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, CEOs with more attractive faces tended to have better stock market performance in their first days on the job and also after merger and acquisitions. ... those CEOs' companies' stocks performed…

For all in the #BxlsBbl whose 1st question is “What’s your Grade?”.

"fantasies dull the will to succeed: Imagining a positive outcome conveys the sense that you’re approaching your goals, which takes the edge off" - The Powerlessness of Positive Thinking : The New Yorker

Original linkTonight I'll be toddling along to Grilling Kippers, a UKIP-focused anti-Eurosceptic campaign from deep within the Brussels Bubble.

US authorities seem particularly vulnerable to confirmation bias. Anyone remember http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_B ? "FBI was already convinced they had their man, so they rationalized away the non-matching elements ... Mayfield being jailed without charge; his home and office burgled by the FBI; his client-attorney privilege violated; his lif…

Yet another list. My fave: "Geniuses produce a lot of crap before they get to the good stuff. " - 4 Things We Have Wrong About Creativity | Fast Company | Business + Innovation

There’s nothing more devastating than a rigorous debunk sprinkled liberally with acid. A model to keep in mind whenever setting the record straight: be entertaining.

"Instead of leading on this issue as the European country that is best prepared to do so, Britain undermines what it likes most about the EU—the single market—by challenging one of its cornerstones—free movement of EU citizens."

Easier said than done. It'd be a lot simpler if we could just Kill the Mediocre. "From startups to global enterprises I see two things. One, I've observed the voicing of ideas that immediately vanish into the ether of complacence, politics or blatant disregard. Two, I've witnessed the escape of morale where employees refuse to share ideas to im…

They're online? Seriously, someone made a study to discover: "non-anonymous social networks like Facebook... provide an ideal environment for the expression of the ‘hoped-for possible self,’ ... emphasizes realistic socially desirable identities an individual would like to establish...” It's a good article, though. Particularly like the point ab…

A good pro-EU article ends with: "How dare these foreigners impose on us clean beaches, food labelling, consumer protection, lead-free petrol, road safety, access to healthcare abroad, cheaper mobile phone charges and real chocolate? ... If we want to bathe in sewage, landfill our countryside, guzzle mechanically recovered meat, and pay through t…

"coming up with creative ideas on demand is only part of the answer. Just as crucial is how ideas link to action. ...we have developed an integrative process for idea generation based on approaches drawn education, consumer research, business model design and emergent strategy... The first three steps are designed to help managers understa…

Great longread. Some excerpts: 1) It's a serious problem: "these online offenses are enough to make a woman want to click away from Twitter, shut her laptop, and power down her phone. Sometimes, we do withdraw: Pew found that from 2000 to 2005, the percentage of Internet users who participate in online chats and discussion groups dropped from 28…

"One cultural tool for constructing Europe has been through official symbols aiming to emotionally strengthen citizens’ identification with basic values of the European project.... The fifth symbol is the euro, introduced in 2002. When trust in European institutions is shaking, so is the belief in those symbols and the identification of and with …

"Change of direction speaks volumes for change in German attitudes triggered by the euro crisis." ... Maybe some EU functionaries need to get out of their luxury offices now and then, and talk to the people. Then they'll be able to carry out policies which are rooted in practical life." - Key centre-Right German party adopts new hardline Eu…

Interesting survey of HuffPo, Techcrunch & other experiences with changing commenting systems and policies. - HuffPost policy banishes trolls — and drives away some frequent commenters | Poynter.

An alternative to Popular Science's approach: "Climate change articles trigger some of the most heated discussions on Ars Technica... a scientific matter with political ramifications, it's also the focus of astroturfers (fake grassroots movements), trolls, and the willfully scientifically illiterate. At Ars, we take trolling very seriously... we…

Quote of the day: "rekindling enthusiasm for Europe with new banking regulations... is like boosting libido by reading the instructions on a packet of condoms" - Can the European Center Hold? - NYTimes.com

Terrific article: "people are more likely to be moved by information that challenges their prejudices if they’re prevented from responding to it straightaway and it has time to sink in, to steep... On social media... the person you disagree with isn’t just misinformed but moronic, corrupt, evil. Complaints become rants. Rants become diatribes... …

Remind me to buy this guy's books: "There is no way by which events can be directly recorded in our brains; they are experienced and constructed in a highly subjective way, different in every individual, differently reinterpreted or reexperienced whenever recollected. . . . Frequently, our only truth is narrative truth, the stories we tell each…

An unfortunately accurate corrective to the recent "Facebook is dying" meme. 2013 truly was the year everyone just couldnt be arsed checking the facts: "A British academic studying social media found that young people use lots of new-fangled services, such as Instagram, because their parents are on Facebook. “What we’ve learned from working with …

Good post from @JamieJBartlett: "Social media wants to turn you into a narcissist. Tell everyone about yourself: you're important! Where are you? What are you eating? Who are you with? What films do you like? The world wants to know! Actually, the world doesn't want to know: it's a marketing ploy. The more you share about yourself, the more …

Today's online news environment is ideal for spreading bullshit. As someone like HuffPo's Washington bureau chief puts it: “If you throw something up without fact-checking it, and you’re the first one to put it up, and you get millions and millions of views, and later it’s proved false, you still got those views. That’s a problem. The incentive…

"What colors have you chosen for your marketing materials? What were your reasons for making that particular choice? Was it because you liked those particular colors, or did you have a particular marketing message in mind? While visual appeal is an important consideration, your color choices could be sending a specific message to the people who vi…

When designing a logo for your business, it's important to take into account the way people interpret color. It's the right time to ask, what kind of emotion do I want my brand to convey?

the company that invented Gore-Tex... “organised in small teams of 8-12 people.... three layers of management, the CEO, a handful of functional heads, and Associates … in a company of 8000!

"Since ancient times people have held the notion that there's something mysterious, unpredictable, and even divine about where good ideas come from. But according to David Burkus, assistant professor of management at Oral Roberts University, today researchers are studying the heck out of creativity and much of what we think we know about the topic…

"But even a fractious minority wields enough power to skew a reader's perception of a story, recent research suggests. In one study led by University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Dominique Brossard, 1,183 Americans read a fake blog post on nanotechnology and revealed in survey questions how they felt about the subject (are they wary of the benef…

" Popular Science has officially shut off its comment section, pointing to research showing that disagreeable comments hurt the reading experience. Or, at least, the reading comprehension. One study out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that mean comments under an article about nanotechnology "polarized readers," taking attention away f…

"and the idea was to get academic expertise and research into the broader public conversation."