Your Weekend Hangover

Things have been pretty quite on TMB over the last few months as things have been pretty wild for me in that same time period. As many readers may know, I’m an Industrial/Organizational Psychology doctoral student and all that stands between me, a PhD, full time job, and student loan repayment is a dissertation. A dissertation is an expansive research study and mine is investigating how to predict the most successful leaders of innovation in organizations. Like most dissertations, mine has been a roller-coaster ride over the last few months and I have been primarily focused on making it work. Given this goal, it was hard to justify writing 5-10 pages a day in blog posts while having 150 dissertation pages hanging over my head. This is why we’ve seen less activity on the blog. However, I do endeavor to write more for TMB over the next several months because I’m a better practitioner when I’m reading and writing about what is going on in the business world and I sincerely enjoy it. With that in mind… here is a little something for your hangover.

Ask any Industrial/Organizational Psychologist what they do and they are likely to call themselves anything but that. For example, when I introduce myself, I typically say I’m a management consultant specializing in leader selection and development or that I’m studying organizational behavior. The reason I avoid using the title I/O Psychologist is the word “Psychology” primes an image of Sigmund Freud smoking a cigar and talking to someone on his couch. When I say I/O Psychologist people automatically think I council people on mental health issues in organizations. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Check this link to answer the question, What is Industrial/Organizational Psychology? It’s not like it sounds, but it is one of the hottest and fasting growing jobs on the market.

Israel’s car of the future, called The City Transformer, runs on a rechargeable battery and folds to fit into parking places just one meter in width.

The Economics of Online Dating: Giving a personality test to your date may not be a bad idea... Side note, does Tinder count as online dating?

The 6 things that happen when a coworker dies. Fortunately, this is something I haven’t experienced first hand, but it seems reasonable at a large informal company.  For a smaller company or a smaller work team, I would think the reaction would be a lot more personal and grief ridden.

Should men take Paternity Leave? According to new research, men who take time off to help care for a new child (paternity leave) will earn less money in their career. Men don’t experience as significant a loss as women do, but still one substantial enough to think twice about it. Sure they are giving up some money, but when fathers are involved in child care women enjoy more wealth, power, and authority in society and their kids develop worldviews that are more gender-balanced, are smarter, and better socially adjusted. One study even indicated that men who take paternity leave live longer than those who do not. Would you take paternity leave?

Rent the Runway, founded by two young women who met in business school, figured out a way to allow women to wear dresses well outside of their price range. Rent the Runway has become the Netflix of the fashion world and now rents and ships dresses to its 3 million members.

Zappos is going holacratic and getting rid of job titles, managers, bureaucracy, and hierarchy. Bold move, let’s see how it plays out for them.

This is a fascinating research study that will appeal to the scientist or degenerate gambler in you. The study investigated how circadian rhythms enhance athletic performance in the NFL by seeing if west coast teams play better on Monday Night Football since the late time (8:30et) is closer to the point in their circadian rhythm where athletic performance peaks. They found that West Coast teams win more often and by more points per game than East Coast teams and perform significantly better than is predicted by the Las Vegas odds (the point spread) on MNF. This apparent advantage enhances home-field advantage for west coast teams and essentially eliminates the beneficial effects of home-field advantage for east coast teams during MNF games. Next NFL season; take the west coast team on MNF.

Two Roads to Orgasm: Why you should take the high road. Hint: it involves more foreplay.

College Campus Beer Pricing: How leniency with ID checking affects store pricing. As you may expect, stores that are less strict with checking fake ID’s charge higher prices. I see two reasons for this: 1. Students with fake IDs don’t have another option given they are underage so they have to purchase from the lenient store at higher prices. 2. The store has to raise prices because their costs (potential for fines) are higher.

Speaking of alcohol, people tend to be drinking less, but are doing so more harmfully. Deaths from overuse of alcohol rose from 750,000 in 1990 to 2.5M in 2011, accounting for nearly 4% of all fatalities worldwide. Worldwide, 80% of Australian police work is alcohol and drug related, in Europe 65% of domestic violence and 40% of murders are linked to alcohol. Despite policymakers pushing for higher prices to curb drinking, Wal-Mart is now selling beer at cost in parts of Europe to lure in customers.

Four Reasons Smart People Make Dumb Dating Decisions: I’m guilty of all four.

If you’re better at dating than I am and ready to bring your significant other home to “Meet the Family”, don’t do it without reading this brief article about what the research in psychology has to say on the topic. No pressure.

The Cheerleader Effect: What Men Do to Impress. When women are around, men are more likely to jaywalk, wait until the last second to get onto a bus, take more risks playing blackjack, and make bad economic or financial decisions. I’m a good illustration of that last one. I once met with a financial planner and he asked what the best financial decision I made in the last year was. Without thinking I said, “Broke up with my girlfriend” and I was probably right. Research shows that in the presence of women, men become more generous in economic games by making contributions to public goods, volunteering more time for charity and tipping more. All these effects that women have on men are amplified as the female present gets more attractive.

My, what big (and sexy) eyes you have. Apparently, people who have bigger eyes are rated as more attractive.  

Why you should hire more pretty people: Well for starters, pretty people tend to be smarter. One study even showed that even when controlling for family background, race, and body side, attractive people have an additional 12.4 IQ points on average. That is a massive number when you consider the average IQ is 100 and the standard deviation is 15. This is one of the reasons they also tend to have more money.

The rich do not pay the most taxes. They pay ALL the taxes. According to a Congressional Budget Office report, the top 40% of wage earners in America pay 106% of the taxes and the bottom 40% pay -9%. Check Table 3 on Page 13 of the report to see for yourself. The bottom 40% pay negative taxes as a result of “refundable tax credits” that give money back to a tax payer greater than the amount they contributed in the form of social security or food stamps. Don’t feel bad for the rich though, they have saw their incomes rise 16% from 2009-2010 and the stock market was up 25% in 2013.   

Is your new years resolution to exercise more? If so, then start by having more sex! According to a recent study, sex was found to burn almost as many calories and was reportedly more enjoyable than jogging. 

How Justin Bieber Killed BlackBerry. Both are Canadian, have terrible judgment, and are prone to faux pas… it sounds like a match made in Halifax.

How about AmeriCanada? Every 20 years or so, the idea of merging America and Canada gets floated. A management professor at the university of Toronto just published a paper arguing that the two countries should become one. I’m against it, just for the pure fact Bieber would become American.