Today's post continues our recent tradition of excellent guest blogging: James Telesford (the author of this particular guest post) is an advanced graduate student in the social-personality psychology program at UC-Berkeley. This is James' first post on the blog. Enjoy!
"Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward."
Potentially life altering events such as the dissolution of a long-term romantic relationship, the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, moving to a new city (or just across town, for that matter), or any other such experiences are major causes of stress. Recent research in social and personality psychology has demonstrated that we can adopt several strategies to help us decrease the negative emotions surrounding these events (Gross and Thompson, 2007). Among the most adaptive responses to stressors is cognitive reappraisal. In other words, one way to decrease the stress of a negative event is to think about it in a different way, in order to consciously change the event’s meaning, and thereby, lesson its emotional impact.
Does religion make us better people? Social science says, “Maybe!”
One of the more controversial topics that social psychology takes up is that of religion. While no social scientists would venture to address whether any religious belief is true or not, they do examine the effects that these beliefs have on attitudes and behavior. Decades of researchers (and before them, centuries of philosophers) have wondered whether religion makes people better, kinder, and more generous. On one side of the argument lie people who point out that religion is inherently about morals. All of the world’s leading religions emphasize a core set of values, outline moral codes, and teach virtues such as charity, forgiveness, and compassion. On the other side of the argument lie people who point to the negative effects of inter-faith strife over the history of time.
So, which is it? Does religion make us better or worse? The answer is complicated. Psychological research lends credence to both sides of the argument. However, I wish to highlight just one fascinating aspect of this research suggesting that religion may make us better people and why. Read More->
As many of us head home for the Christmas weekend, we can look forward to relaxation, time with family, good food and good presents. But many of us may also be anxiously anticipating terrible traffic, long travels, time with family, guilt-inducing meals, and awkward gift exchanges. I thought for this holiday edition of Friday Fun I'd compile a few tips from previous posts to help make your holidays a little brighter.
George H. W. Bush once made the following classic Freudian slip in a public speech: "For seven and a half years I've worked alongside President Reagan, and I'm proud to have been his partner. We've had triumphs. We've made some mistakes. We've had some sex -- setbacks." When the audience erupts in laughter, you can't help but feel a little bad for the guy, who appears to have a minor heart-attack if you watch his chest closely (see the video here).
Rather than revealing that Bush unconsciously wished to have intimate relations with Reagan, as a Freudian interpretation might suggest, this slip was more likely an example of a speech error called a deletion, which involves omitting a word or part of a word. In this case, "ba" was inadvertently omitted from "setbacks." Speech errors like this are common (though generally less embarrassing), and they are especially likely to occur when people are tired, nervous, or otherwise not at their peak level of cognitive functioning. Linguists argue that speech errors reflect the complex way that language is organized and produced, and are unlikely to reflect repressed desires or conflicts. But that doesn't mean that speech errors are always psychologically meaningless. Read More->
We all wait for the holidays! Whether it’s Eid Al-Adha, Christmas, New Year’s, these are seasons for relaxation with friends and family, a time where you can sleep as much as you want, eat and hang around with no care in the world. For many people regardless of career level, holiday season is a time when work is low on your list of priorities. Most people stop working, stop blogging and stop any work-related activities all together.
While not taking time off can do your career more harm than good, staying on top of your job and up-to-date during holidays can help you get ahead of competition and advance your career. With just a bit of minimal work, you can set yourself apart from the crowd and dedicate a small amount of your time-off to work. Akhtaboot is here with smart tips to help you go this extra mile and get ahead of others during the holidays.
Self Education
Dedicating an hour or two daily to educate yourself on things that are relevant to your business will always do you good. Perhaps it’s a new but relevant topic that you are not familiar with or maybe you came across a new piece of research that you haven’t had the time to read. Bring your laptop home, research on new creative ideas to bring back with you to work. Get a relevant book and devote some time to read whenever you’re free. There is actually a saying that states: “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young”, and another great person said, “Formal education will make you a living; self education will make you a fortune.”
Think Long Term
If you’re an employee handling the social media department of your company, the worst thing to do is to just stop answering people’s inquiries, stop posting news and events and stop blogging. Of course you don’t need to write as often but getting a few posts out there because chances are you’re going to be one of the few people out there who are still writing. You might also want to start planning conferences you want to attend. Usually we’re busy at work and don’t have the time to organize and keep things neat, so this is a good chance for you to keep on track. You may also organize key contacts and email them. Keep building the relationships with clients over the holidays, send out holiday cards. Make sure that when 2012 starts you are top of mind for everyone that knows who you are.
Work hard, Play hard
It’s totally fine to give yourself a break! Don’t feel guilty about it; we all need a vacation every once in a while. Spend time with family and friends, celebrate the holiday with loved ones or work on a hobby that you rarely get the chance to devote time to. Sleep for long hours, eat healthy and go to the gym. Doing so will help you feel enthusiastic and energetic after you go back to work. Work hard, Play hard!
Going back to work after a holiday vacation is typically something we all dread. After all, you were just getting used to staying up really late reading or spending your days watching football. While it naturally may be a jolt to your system when you first get back to normal work schedule, trying to prepare for work before the end of your vacation can help reduce the discomfort. Go back to your regular sleep routine before the holiday ends, check your emails to get yourself organized before going back to work after a long holiday.
The Akhtaboot team wishes you and your beloved ones a healthy, happy and stress-free holidays!
We certainly have a wealth of anecdotes about what having power does to people: Power has led political figures like Herman Cain (allegedly) and John Edwards to engage in adultery, facilitated unethical financial practices on Wall Street, and contributed to some of the most overconfident moments in our nation's history. On the one hand, we could conclude from these examples that power leads people to immoral, unethical, and deviant behavior, and some research is suggestive of this possibility.
Of course, power can't always be bad for us, like it was for the American economy or Edwards' political career. Certainly, sometimes power can have a positive effect on our well-being, by allowing us the freedom to be ourselves.
Do you think this guy is: (a) playful (b) comforting (c) irritated (d) bored
Being able to "mind-read" is a unique and important human trait. Being high in emotional intelligence and empathy helps us smoothly navigate our social world and communicate effectively with other people. Not everyone, however, is an emotion-decoding master.
One of the tests that psychologists use to assess people's level of emotional recognition (also called empathy, emotion decoding, theory of mind, or "mind reading") is the "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" task. During this task, you do exactly what I had you do above - you look at 36 different pairs of eyes and for each you pick one emotion out of four possible choices (though they aren't all actually emotions, unless someone added "joking," "flirtatious," and "decisive" to the emotion dictionary). I thought I'd share this task with you today for a few reasons. Read More->
"I'm sorry" is infamous for its inadequacy. It often seems flippant, insincere, or incomplete, as in "I'm sorry you feel that way" or "I'm sorry, but...". Wayward public figures are notorious for inadequate apologies, especially those that involve a failure to own up to wrongdoing. Some argue that a full apology requires many elements, such as acceptance of responsibility, an expression of genuine remorse, an offer to make amends, and an excuse-free explanation. Heartfelt apologies can go a long way in dissolving hostility, encouraging forgiveness, and mending damaged relationships. But they are not always easy to come by. Read More->
What does it mean for your relationship when you find yourself stuck in a rut? A group of researchers decided to answer this question by examining how being bored now affects relationship satisfaction down the road.
Tsapelas and colleagues (2009) asked 123 married couples who had been married for seven years how often during the past month they had felt that their relationship was (or was getting into) a rut. They also asked them how satisfied they were with their relationships. Nine years later they came back and asked them again how satisfied they were. What do you think they found?
Results: Spouses who felt bored at year 7 were less satisfied at year 16. What is important is that boredom predicted being less satisfied down the road even when taking into account how satisfied people were at year 7. In other words, its not just that people who were bored were less satisfied to begin with, boredom actually led to further declines in satisfaction over the nine years. Okay, so boredom is bad. These findings aren’t gonna knock your socks off. But there were a few extra analyses they did that I thought were interesting.
This past weekend I was among the fortunate viewers of Twilight: Breaking Dawn (part I). Now, you might be asking yourself, "Michael, you aren't a teenage girl, why are you watching Twilight?" My answer: It's my duty to report on psychological phenomena that I see at the movies-- and this duty applies to movies featuring forbidden love between human and vampire teenagers! I do it all for you, readers of Psych Your Mind!
Most people like animals and have no desire to hurt them. An estimated 63% of American households own at least one pet, and many love their pets like children, doing everything possible to ensure their health and well-being. At the same time, however, at least 80% of Americans eat animals as a regular part of their diet. In recent research, Brock Bastian and colleagues refer to this as the "meat paradox," and they propose that people attempt to reconcile this paradox (and reduce the cognitive dissonance associated with it) by reassuring themselves that the animals they consume (unlike their pets) do not really have minds - that is, they cannot think, feel, and understand their fates, and therefore they do not really suffer.
It doesn’t take much looking around online to see colleges and their career centers are taking some heat right now. Just last week, marketing guru and thought-leader, Seth Godin, wrote this intense blog post about the ‘coming melt-down of higher education.’
Not to mention, there are some sobering job search statistics students (and their tuition-paying parents) are only now coming to realize.
FACT: College & University Customers Aren’t Happy
Many schools are being heavily criticized for turning out students both in debt and unprepared to build their careers. Interestingly, a survey we conducted over the last year showed a clear disconnect between students and their campus career centers (FYI – Attend the webinar listed below to get access to the survey data). Moreover, I regularly hear from students who feel their college’s career center isn’t effective. I’ve even had one graduate tell me she will never, ever give any money to her alma mater, an Ivy League school, because she feels she over-paid for her degree. With this growing sentiment, colleges (and more importantly, their career center staff) will face increased resentment and criticism. To sum it up, the customers of the college and university system aren’t too happy – and they are forming an angry mob.
Uninformed = Misguided Blame
Unfortunately, to a certain degree, the blame is getting placed on the wrong party. Many people don’t realize campus career centers work on tight budgets and lean staffs. For some, hosting job fairs and charging employers to attend was their largest stream of income. Now, thanks to the recession, this source has weakened, resulting in a dramatic decrease in available funds for up-to-date tools and resources that could help their students. And, let’s not forget all those unemployed alumni who are now banging on their doors too. In short, campus career centers have more people to help, and less money to do it.
QUESTION: How do you fight back when:
• Your image is tarnished.
• Your clients are in desperate need of help.
• You don’t have the funds to fix it.
Like any business short on money and resources, I believe campus career centers can identify and leverage their unique currency to upgrade their offerings and stature. In fact, I predict the colleges and universities who see this as an opportunity will actually be able to take advantage of the situation.
Earlier this year, Daryl Bem, a Professor at Cornel University, published a paper on Psi phenomena (also known as psychic phenomena). Bem's Paper was published in the premier journal of social-personality psychology, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (JPSP). In the paper, Bem presents results from eight experiments where he finds evidence for precognition (conscious cognitive awareness of future events) and premonition (affective apprehension about future negative events). The results have shocked our field!
Akhtaboot – the career network is proud to announce that it has been included in the “Arabia Fast Growth 500” List, a project of AllWorld Network which highlights the ranking of the fastest growing companies in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, Turkey, and Pakistan. In the Levant, Jordan took first place with 27 fast growth company winners, followed by Lebanon with 14 winners, Palestine with two winners, and one winner from Syria. Overall, Jordan was fourth on the Arabia500, competing against the much larger economies of Turkey, Pakistan, UAE, and Saudi Arabia.
Yousef Shamoun, Co-founder and CEO of Akhtaboot said:
“Being selected as an Arabia Fast Growth 500 company is an honor as well as a true testament to the efforts of our team who have played an instrumental role in helping Akhtaboot achieve sustained growth year-over-year. With this announcement, we reaffirm Akhtaboot’s commitment to delivering the best online recruitment services to help link job seekers from across the MENA region with their dream jobs.”
Each entrepreneur on the Arabia500 ranking has grown an average of 40 percent annually between 2008 and 2010, created an average of 200 jobs per company, and is succeeding in industries from web technology to food, and construction to consulting. The Levant winners are in Istanbul for the 2nd Global Summit on Entrepreneurship, December 3-5.They will meet with Arabia500 winners from 11 other countries and will be recognized by Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan.
When we talk about time, we often use metaphors related to space. For example, "I'm looking forward to this weekend." Some people experience this connection more literally, feeling as though units of time have an almost physical reality, one with a definitive size, location, and sometimes even color. This tendency has been termed time-space synesthesia. In a 2006 study conducted by researchers at the University of Waterloo, participants were asked to draw their unique representations of the months of the year, pictured above.
BETHANY - A number of 2011 Bethany College graduates plan to return to the hallowed halls to earn their master's degrees. Others will jump right into the working world. Still others are simply undecided about their futures.
As they headed to the commencement ceremony Saturday, several graduates outlined their plans.
Marissa Perelstine of Pittsburgh said she hopes her degrees in communications and social work will open many doors for job possibilities.
"I may go into nursing or join the Navy or do social work. I'm not really sure what I want to do, but I'm happy to be graduating today," she said.
Ryan McFadden of Columbus, Ohio, said he will seek a master's degree and join "the real world." He received a bachelor's degree in elementary education Saturday and plans a career as a teacher.
Tyler Dillinger of McKeesport, Pa., said he also will work toward earning a master's degree and return to Bethany "to help coach baseball."
Michael Pegg of Uniontown, Pa., graduated Saturday with a degree in accounting.
"I want to get a job as a CPA (certified public accountant) and stay in the local area or around Pittsburgh," Pegg said.
Whatever paths Saturday's graduates travel, Bethany President Scott D. Miller urged them to "continue to challenge their minds, to nourish the spirit and to dream big."
"Don't be satisfied by mediocre goals," Miller added.
Rain forced the 171st graduating class to accept its degrees inside the The Hummel Fieldhouse, but the weather did not dampen the enthusiasm of the graduates and their families.
Jonathan Wells O'Grady from Littleton, Colo., received plenty of shouts and applause from extended family members who attended Saturday's graduation. The family lineage, which includes Bethany graduates dating back to the 1800s - Absolem Wells as well early 20th century graduate Charles Shelley Wells, Class of 1902, also were the founders of Wellsburg, W.Va. Among the family graduates in attendance Saturday were Donald C. Wells, '43; Shelley Wells O'Grady, '81; Elizabeth Wells Stone, '75; and Alfred C. Wells, '87.
When you have to work hard on a task that requires a lot of concentration, do you find yourself losing concentration after a while? If you are studying for an exam, do you have a harder time resisting the delicious snacks sitting next to you on the table? All of these situations have one thing in common - they require willpower, also known as self control or self regulation in the psychology world.
For a long time, the commonly held belief among psychologists was that willpower is like a muscle - it gets fatigued after use, but over time it can become stronger. Also, the general consensus is that we have one common pool of willpower - so after spending a day studying instead of watching reality tv reruns, you just might find yourself unable to resist the temptation of that delicious chocolate cake. Operating under this assumption, scores of research studies showed that people get depleted after engaging in a task that requires willpower.
A quick digression: one famous task used in psychological research that examines interference and self control is called the Stroop Task. This task requires you to read a list of words out loud. In the classic version, the words are a list of colors, such as 'yellow,' 'red,' and 'blue' and you have to read them as quickly as you can. Sounds easy right? Not so fast. The words are all colored. Give it a quick try below: Read More->
We hope you had a great Thanksgiving yesterday, I know I ate more than my share of pumpkin pie and apple pie!
Today, we have another awesome guest post by a new guest blogger, Alex Kogan. Alex is a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Toronto, Mississauga and he agreed to write a post about a recent article he had published that has received a lot of media attention (see here, here, here and here for just a few examples).
Last week, my colleagues and I reported a seemingly startling finding: People who had two copies of G version of the oxytocin receptor gene were seen as more trustworthy, compassionate, and kind by complete strangers on the basis of only 20 seconds than people who had at least one copy of the A version of the gene. Oxytocin is a neuropeptide—a chemical messenger of sorts—in our brains that has been linked to empathy, sacrifice, and trust. Oxytocin has also been linked more recently to darker aspects of human nature as well, such as jealousy and boasting, suggesting that the role of oxytocin is much more general than simply a “love” messenger. The way oxytocin operates is through the usage of a specific receptor in the brain—and the oxytocin receptor gene, as the name would suggest, codes for this receptor. Our study built on roughly a dozen studies that have shown a similar effect in terms of how people view themselves. Media reports on our study triumphantly reported that the “empathy gene”, “cuddle gene”, or the “jerk gene” had been found. Science had unlocked the genetics behind kindness.
Take a moment to think carefully about the answers to these questions:
Do you prefer when others dislike you? Do you feel bad when you get positive feedback? Do successes make you anxious? Do you choose romantic partners that think poorly of you?
For many of you, these questions seem absurd, the answer a resounding no to all of them. Others, however, may be less sure. Why? Although common wisdom tells us that as humans we want, strive, and desperately need positive feedback from the social world, an intriguing psychological theory, backed by convincing experimental research, says that this is not always the case.
Self-verification theory, the brainchild of Bill Swann at the University of Texas, Austin, posits that despite the desire for social approval and praise people also have a deep-seated need to be seen in ways consistent with their self-views (see Swann, 1997 for review). This works well for individuals with positive self-views such as those with high self-esteem. These individuals like themselves, think that they are lovable, competent, and worthy and want others to see them favorably as well. Not surprising, right?
The theory gets more interesting, however, when considering individuals with negative self-views, such as those with low self-esteem or depressive symptoms. These individuals don't like themselves very much, and may consider themselves unlovable, incompetent or unworthy. Although you may be thinking that a person with such a negative self-image should be the most motivated to seek out positive feedback, self-verification theory argues to the contrary. It says that these individuals prefer that others see them just as unfavorably as they see themselves. What the heck?! Read More->
This is the second installment of an occasional series on Psych Your Mind examining the pursuit of happiness. Last time we considered the dark side of happiness. In this post, we consider an important question: Does money buy happiness?
Answering the question "Does money buy you happiness?" is not an easy task, and researchers have been trying to answer it for at least 25 years (philosophers, I imagine, have been considering this question for even longer). Over the years, psychology research has amassed a great deal of evidence suggesting that money in-and-of-itself does not make you happy. There are of course, some caveats to this answer and we'll consider them in today's post.
At some point after first learning about the birds and the bees as a child (possibly after watching the opening credits of Look Who's Talking or thinking too hard about the implications of Back to the Future), it occurred to me that I could have easily been someone else. Had my parents not happened to meet when they did, and happened to conceive at the moment they did, with a specific pair of egg and sperm, I wouldn't be here. Apart from being a minor existential crisis, this realization made me feel incredibly lucky. Out of an infinite number of possible people, I was one of those who got a chance at life.
I recently came across a lovely (if statistically questionable) visual demonstration of one person's attempt to approximate the odds that each of us came into the world and exist as we are today. It incorporates probabilities ranging from our parents' first encounter to our unbroken line of ancestors to the emergence of the first single celled organism, concluding with the following analogy: The probably that we as unique individuals came to be is equivalent to "the probability of 2 million people getting together each to play a game of dice with trillion-sided die. They each roll the dice, and they all come up with the exact same number - for example, 550, 343, 279, 001. The odds that you exist at all are basically zero." Read More->
Akhtaboot - the career network is proud to announce the launch of PepsiCo Jordan’s Career Connect solution, “Powered by Akhtaboot”, which will provide PepsiCo Jordan with their own fully integrated and branded jobs section with the ability to post unlimited job postings and receive job applications directly onto their careers section on their own website.
As part of Akhtaboot’s relentless efforts in providing world-class recruitment services to its clients, PepsiCo Jordan will be able to make the most of their Career Connect solution with a single point of contact for all of their recruitment needs with a variety of CV filtration, and organization tools, making the hiring process simple, efficient and as cost-effective as ever.
Ms. Hawar Hijazi, Human Resources Manager at PepsiCo Jordan said:
“Our Human Resources team at PepsiCo - Jordan is truly delighted and impressed with Akhtaboot’s Career Connect service as it will help us find the right people to add to our existing human capital. The relationship we had with Akhtaboot as recruitment solutions provider over the past few years has proven to be both successful and fruitful in helping us reach our objectives as a leader in the food and beverage industry. We are definitely looking forward to a successful extension of our collaboration.”
With Career Connect, Akhtaboot goes beyond helping companies simply find the right candidates; it actually provides companies with a one-stop recruitment gateway that is specifically designed to cater to the employment needs of companies.
Akhtaboot – the career network has announced the launch of its own URL shortener Akht.bt that will be used for posts that link to official Akhtaboot pages, making the sharing process more convenient than ever with shorter and easier to remember links.
Mohamad Haj Hasan, COO and Co-founder of Akhtaboot said:
“URL Shorteners play an important role in social networking websites like Twitter and other micro blogging services. The Akhtaboot team can now create custom short URLs with excellent keywords for easier monitoring and control over the shortened links. We also think it's pretty cool to have our own customized short URL!”
Akhtaboot users and followers can now visit Akht.bt shortcuts with confidence that they will always end up at a page for Akhtaboot.
Which do you think is more predictive of success: innate ability or hard work? Do you think anyone can rise up to meet a challenge with enough effort, or are some people just more intelligent and able than others?
It seems like there should be a true answer to these questions, but according to Dr. Carol Dweck, the truth is all in your head. Dr. Dweck isn’t interested in what exactly intelligence is, she’s interested in what you think it is, and the long term impact of those beliefs.
Entity theorist. Some people believe that intelligence is an unchangeable, fixed trait. If you are an entity theorist, you think of intelligence as a “thing” that you can have a lot or a little of. Entity theorists would say that some people are just more intelligent than others.
Incremental theorist. Some people believe that intelligence is a malleable quality that can developed. If you are more of an incremental theorist, you think of intelligence more as a muscle that can get stronger with effort. Incremental theorists would say that anyone can achieve if they work hard at it.
Today's post comes from another great guest blogger. Olga Antonenko Young is a graduate student in the social-personality psychology program at UC-Berkeley. Enjoy!
A woman cleaning her bathroom decides to cut up an old American flag and use it as a rag to scrub the toilet. Is this morally wrong? Two adult siblings enjoy French kissing each other. Are they acting immorally? Your answers to these questions may depend on your definition of morality as well as unexpected factors including your culture, socio-economic status, and political orientation.
Most people agree that morality concerns itself with the welfare of others. The reason we deem an action immoral is that it, in some way, negatively impacts other individuals or society as a whole. However, exactly what kinds of actions fall into this category vary depending on the person you ask. Think about it for yourself. How do you define morality? What categories of actions count as immoral?
You most likely thought of actions that hurt other people or seem unjust. So, then, what’s wrong with French kissing your sister? Read More->
This was originally posted back in May. We thought some of our newer readers might be interested in this topic! Enjoy!
For months now a good friend has been trying to convince me to run a half marathon with him. Each time the conversation comes up I casually change the subject, check my phone for new messages, or look him in the face and say “heck no.” Why am I resistant to such a healthful, fun, and challenging event?
I have two reasons. First, I am by no means in shape. I get winded after five minutes at a light jog. The thought that my sorry body could take me 13 miles is unfathomable and probably unrealistic (at least at the moment). Second, and perhaps more importantly, I have no willpower when it comes to exercise. No matter how many times I begin a regular routine of pilates, or yoga, or tennis, within a few weeks I have fallen off the wagon. While I think a half marathon is a little much given my current fitness level, I have promised this friend that I will start going on regular runs with him as he trains for the event. This time, however, I am making the goal to stick with it. But the question is…HOW?
To get started, I can form a goal intention, which is simply labeling my goal, or putting it into words. In this case my goal intention is “I want to run regularly each week.” Every day I can remind myself of my goal intention with the hopes that those reminders will be enough to get me to the track. Will my goal intention help me? Will it overcome that issue I have with willpower and exercise? Unfortunately I don’t think so. Each day I can easily put off my goal and claim I'll do my running the next day, or the day after that.
Instead, I am going to use an implementation intention to achieve my goal of regular running. Implementation intentions are a strategy psychologists have developed for goal pursuit (e.g. Gollwitzer, 1993). They have been shown to deliver results! Implementation intentions specify the where, when, and in what way a person should implement their goal. They do this by linking a very specific cue or situation to a very specific response. For example, my implementation intention is “When the clock hits five on Mondays and Thursdays, I will change into my exercise gear and go for my run.”
This weekend college football fans were treated to one of the most highly anticipated football games in the recent history of the sport: #1 LSU vs. #2 Alabama in a battle of the unbeaten juggernauts of college football. As expected, the game was a physical, defense-first battle. A true representation of what has become a southern tradition.
A social psychologist by training, I tend to think about this new southern tradition in the context of some of my other stereotypes of the south. For instance, southern hospitality comes to mind. This makes me wonder:
How does such a hospitable place also earn a reputation for smash-mouth football?
"There are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data, so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects." -- Rick Perry, Governor of Texas
Last week a colleague of mine pointed out this wonderful little video from the Daily Show. In it, the Daily Show's "chief science correspondent" Aasif Mandvi asks some pretty hilarious and revealing questions about the scientific method. This piece is amazing and I definitely recommend taking the 6 minutes or so to watch it. At one point, Mandvi speaks to a Republican strategist, Noelle Nikpour, who seems to be skeptical of science (that is a bit of an understatement). In the interview, Ms. Nikpour says "Scientists are scamming the American people for their own financial gain." Hilarity aside, that one person, let alone hundreds or thousands, would believe this about science is a disturbing thought. Particularly since Ms. Nikpour's opinions are likely to influence more people than any single scientist's research ever would. Admittedly, recent events in social psychology have not been a good defense against this opinion (see here and here). Nonetheless, today I'd like to discuss why this opinion is inaccurate.
Akhtaboot - the career network recently launched Akhtaboot SmartJob Recommendations feature, which entails sending a weekly SmartJob Recommendations email to job seekers consisting of more relevant jobs, based on the communities they are interested in, countries they prefer to work in and the experience highlighted in their profiles.
In yet another step towards providing world-class recruitment services to its clients, Akhtaboot SmartJob Recommendations feature aims to help recruiters target more relevant candidates to their vacancies with focus on the country of residence of job seekers.
Yousef Shamoun, CEO and Co-founder of Akhtaboot said:
“As part of Akhtaboot’s constant efforts to help companies achieve the biggest return on their recruitment efforts, Akhtaboot SmartJob Recommendations feature provides an added benefit for companies through promoting jobs that truly suit the qualifications of job seekers who have specific information listed in their Akhtaboot profiles.”
In essence, this new targeting feature makes Akhtaboot job postings even more relevant to the audience, thus, reflecting the industry shift toward more relevance in advertising.
This week, kids around the nation are scarfing down bucket loads of Halloween candy, and the rest of us are likely sneaking in some extra treats for ourselves as well. So how is all this sugar consumption affecting us? On the one hand, it may be poisoning us, but on the bright side, new research suggests that eating sweets can actually make you not only seem more sweet, but also lead you to behave in more caring ways. Read More->
As the children take to the streets tonight in search of a trick-or-treat, you might be wondering the best way to protect your house from some heavy candy-looting. In 1976, Ed Diener and his colleagues asked a similar question, though they were more interested in the conditions that prompted trick-or-treaters to overindulge and take more than they should. Halloween is a holiday which encourages people to dress up in costumes and roam the streets in large groups - the perfect recipe for deindividuation. Deindividuation occurs when people’s own sense of individuality is diminished and can result in antisocial behaviors. Diener used Halloween as an opportunity to research how anonymity, group size, and feelings of responsibility influence people’s willingness to steal extra candy and money.
The scene: Imagine that you come up to a house with a table, on one side is a bowl full of individually wrapped bite-sized candy bars, about 2 feet away on the other side is a bowl full of pennies and nickels. Nearby is a decorative backdrop with a peep hole that camouflages an unobtrusive observer. When you arrive at the door, a woman you have never met greets you.
Under the patronage of Jordan's Ministry of Labor, H.E. Dr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, Chairman and CEO of Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Organization inaugurated the second Akhtaboot TAG-Knowledge job fair, the biggest career event for the year 2011 in Jordan.
For the 2nd year in a row, Akhtaboot - the career network and the Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Knowledge Center (TAG-Knowledge), join forces to organize their ever popular job fair, which was held on the 26th and 27th of October at TAG-Knowledge headquarters, Queen Rania Street.
The opening ceremony witnessed the participation of officials from the Ministry of Labor, representatives of the participating companies along with many concerned entities and individuals. The job fair also attracted more than 10,000 aspiring professionals and fresh graduates of different industries and career interests.
Mr. Yousef Shamoun, Akhtaboot Co-founder and CEO said:
“We are truly happy to renew our partnership with TAG-Knowledge as our cooperation has proven to be a key factor in the success of our 2010 job fair. Akhtaboot and TAG-Knowledge job fair 2011 is a continuation of last year’s success and a true fulfillment to the mission of the Akhtaboot Cares Initiative in tackling the unemployment problem and helping match the right person to the right career opportunity.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Tareq Hammad, TAG-Knowledge Executive Director said:
"H.E. Dr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh is extremely satisfied with the outcome of this year's event and we are proud to partner with Akhtaboot again in organizing this job fair and we will work on making it an annual event.”
The 2-day event also provided career related workshops targeting job seekers on CV and interview skills in addition to other career-related topics. The event was sponsored by Bank of Jordan (Platinum Sponsor), Umniah (Gold Sponsor), Pepsi Jordan and Bell Amman (Silver Sponsors), The Online Project and Addustour Newspaper (Media Sponsors).
About Akhtaboot Cares Initiative
The Akhtaboot Cares Initiative (ACI) is a comprehensive CSR program that was developed through partnerships with a number of second parties and educational institutions in the Middle East and GCC region. Through the ACI Akhtaboot maintains an ongoing presence in the region’s educational institutions and career-related events by developing and executing specific training programs that are tailor-made to educate graduates-to-be and job seekers on how to approach the job market and to smoothen their transition into the professional world. About TAG-Knowledge
TAG-Knowledge is the latest initiative by Mr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh to perform its corporate social responsibility towards the Jordanian and Arab communities, and to be a hub for promoting intellect and knowledge, developing Arab youth and human resources, and qualifying the largest number of local professionals by providing them with competitive skills through exposure to knowledge and developments in the international community under the direct supervision of TAG-Org experts and Umniah's exclusive sponsorship.
Today we would like to present you with the another (terrific) guest blogger. Joseph Williams is a graduate student in the cognitive psychology program at UC-Berkeley. Enjoy!
You’re about to read a 200-word science passage on sea otters so that you can successfully answer questions about it in a week’s time. What strategies would you use to study it? Which of these options would you choose? (a) reading it four times, (b) drawing out a concept map of all the key ideas, or (c) reading it, trying to recall it, reading it one more time, and trying to recall it one more time.
If you smugly chose the alluring quadruple study option or took a gamble on the newfangled concept map, it’s likely that a week from now your memory would be letting you down. A recent paper in Science by Karpicke & Blunt at Purdue University reports an experiment along these lines. Testing oneself or engaging in retrieval practice had the greatest benefit for being able to remember facts from the passage and for drawing inferences that required putting these facts together. But it seems so counterintuitive that testing yourself on information could be better than thoroughly studying material or building elaborate diagrams. Surely students would all be on the honor roll if only they put in that much effort! Read More->
As the Class of 2011 graduates from college and joins the ranks of millions of other Americans desperate for work, there are several things to keep in mind for these latest members of the Austerity Generation.
The term, which implies a severe reduction in the standards of living affecting a generation of people, was last widely used during the Great Depression. The often bare and meager existence many young Americans suffered under during the 1930s shaped them and the "stability-at-all-costs" society they would later build in the 1950s.
While the situation currently is nowhere near as dire as it was in the 1930s, the collapse of the job sector, home foreclosures and creeping inflation of basic necessities are throwing many in their 20s for a loop. Promised freedom, prosperity and security as children by Presidents Ronald Reagan, George Bush Senior and Bill Clinton, many of us have now grown jaded and cynical as young adults when these false promises unraveled under Presidents George Bush Junior and Barack Obama.
The post-9/11 easy credit bubble fueled our fantasies of a bigger home, a newer car and a stable middle-class career, while simultaneously popping them as the scheme came undone in 2008.
We have stability now, but in the guise of the same nonimproving numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics in unemployment and inflation we have had for over a year now. With several more bubbles – college tuition, government bonds and even the American dollar itself – to come down the pike, the time to wait for change has passed us. To borrow a phrase from Mahatma Gandhi, "we must be the change we wish to see in the world."
Many current and former West Virginia University students are adapting to the changing situation instead of letting it change them. Chris Liddle was formerly one of the Class of 2011 at WVU, but in a situation becoming more and more common, has had to delay graduation and transfer back home to a local college because of financial difficulties.
Like most teenagers in suburbia I took a driver’s education class shortly after I earned my learner’s permit. Though I picked up critical driving tips, and got plenty of practice in the driver’s seat, one of the most interesting facts I learned concerned car insurance and the color red. According to my teacher, drivers with red cars had to pay higher insurance rates. Apparently this was due to the fact that people in red cars were more likely to speed. I’ve since learned that the relationship between red and speeding is actually a pervasive urban legend. Nevertheless, it piqued my interest in the association between color and behavior. Though red might not be associated with speeding, it has been found to relate to a variety of psychological processes and outcomes in both humans and non-human primates including dominance, competitive sports outcomes, achievement, and sexual attraction.
Nursing school students encounter unexpected difficulty in finding work after graduation.
Armine Khudanyan left college in 2009 ready for a career in nursing. But despite hearing for years about a nursing shortage, what she and her fellow Cal State Los Angeles nursing graduates found was a bunch of closed doors.
"In my graduating class there were 10 of us," said Khudanyan, 30, a native of Armenia who lives in Glendale. "Right out of school only three of us were able to get jobs. A lot of hospitals were not hiring, especially new grads."
Through a Verdugo Workforce Investment Board program funded by federal stimulus money, Khudanyan landed a job she loves in the emergency room at Glendale Memorial Hospital and Health Center.
The workforce board pays half the costs for hospitals to train new nurses, said Don Nakamoto, labor market specialist for the agency. The board has spent roughly $250,000 to subsidize the salaries of about 40 nurses during their 12- to 16-week training periods at Glendale Memorial, Glendale Adventist Medical Center, Providence St. Joseph Medical Center and Verdugo Hills Hospital.
Kristin Anderson, senior health care recruiter at Glendale Memorial, said the hospital has added 10 nurses to its nursing corps of about 400 through the program.
In recent years, hospitals have been hard-pressed to pay training expenses, and many have turned to temps or launched national and even international nurse recruiting efforts, Nakamoto said.
"The public perception is that there is a nursing shortage and anyone who comes out of school has multiple job offers," Nakamoto said. But a few years ago, "bottlenecks started developing. It was happening throughout the country."
Paul Celuch, vice president of human resources at Verdugo Hills Hospital, said the high cost of training nurses have contributed to the bottleneck.
Decisions by many experienced nurses to extend their working careers because of the recession's impact on retirement accounts or their spouses' jobs has also kept the job market tight, he added.
Mike Dacumos, 25, said he was surprised at what h
appened after he earned his nursing degree last year.
The reign of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi came to an end last week at the hands of a combination of rebel and UN forces. Qaddafi-- at least according to the American news media and some of his own people--was widely considered a tyrannical ruler who stifled free expression and democracy during his 40 years of rule. Whenever I think of men like Qaddafi, the social psychologist in me can't help but think that the situation has created the tyrant we now know-- that there is something about power that changes people, and transforms them into ruthless and oppressive individuals.
This explanation fits our narrative about power nicely, but it actually doesn't hold up well to empirical investigation. In today's blog I discuss three myths about power. We come to believe these myths based on anecdotal evidence, even though they don't seem to hold up to empirical investigation.
