Your Misery Has Company. Not Realizing It is Hurting You Even More.

The holidays can be really, really hard.    We struggle to find the right gifts, and to find the money in our budgets to pay for them.  All the preparation – decorating, shopping, wrapping, cooking, cleaning - takes time and effort, and it’s not as if you can put the rest of your life on hold to get it all done.

And then there are the guests.  Playing host to family and friends may be the most difficult part of all, particularly when there is so much pressure to make the experience a joyous one.  (And if you are the guest rather than the host, holiday travel is no picnic, either.)

It’s not at all unusual for people to feel more anxious, exhausted, frustrated, or depressed at this time of year than they typically do.  As if that’s not bad enough, many of us routinely add insult to injury by feeling guilty or ashamed that we aren’t bursting with happiness like we “should” be.  After all, isn’t this the season to be jolly?

And what’s more, we feel like we are alone in our unhappiness – as if everyone else is making merry while we are making misery.  This common misperception only adds to our pain.

So why don’t we notice that other people are struggling as we are?  New research suggests that the answer is fairly straightforward: People are, generally speaking, more private when it comes to their negative emotions.

As a society, we are taught (often implicitly) to be embarrassed by feelings like sadness and anxiety, which suggest vulnerability.  Consequently, we are more likely to try to keep them hidden – the net result being that others assume us to be happier than we really are, even when they know us well.

In addition, the researchers found that people routinely underestimate how often their peers are faced with the negative experiences they themselves endure.  In one study, undergraduates underestimated how frequently their fellow students were rejected by a romantic interest, received a low grade, or felt homesick for distant friends and families by 10-30%.

They also overestimated the frequency of others’ enjoyable experiences, like going out with friends or attending parties, by 10-20%!  So not only do we think other people are happier than we are, but we assume their lives are better, too.

Our ignorance has serious consequences.  Research shows that the more you underestimate the emotional pain of others, the more isolated and lonely you feel. You are also more likely to brood and ruminate on your bad experiences, and feel less satisfied with your life.  When our perceptions of other people’s lives are distorted, we may feel sorrier for ourselves than we really should, and ashamed of our anxiety and sadness when we really needn’t be.

They say that misery loves company, and there’s good reason for it.  There is comfort, and wisdom, in knowing that other people share our difficulties and understand our experiences.  If you can’t take all the headache and stress out of your holidays (and I’ve yet to meet the person who could), then you can at least do yourself a favor this year, and embrace the very real truth that you are not alone.

SUCCEED: How We Can Reach Our Goals (Hudson Street Press) is available wherever books are sold!   Follow me on Twitter @hghalvorson

The Top 10 Psychology Studies of 2010

The end of 2010 fast approaches, and I’m thrilled to have been asked by the editors of Psychology Today to write about the Top 10 psychology studies of the year.  I’ve focused on studies that I personally feel stand out, not only as examples of great science, but even more importantly, as examples of how the science of psychology can improve our lives.  Each study has a clear “take home” message, offering the reader an insight or a simple strategy they can use to reach their goals, strengthen their relationships, make better decisions, or become happier.   If you extract the wisdom from these ten studies and apply them in your own life, 2011 just might be a very good year.



1)  How to Break Bad Habits

If you are trying to stop smoking, swearing, or chewing your nails, you have probably tried the strategy of distracting yourself – taking your mind off whatever it is you are trying not to do – to break the habit.  You may also have realized by now that it doesn’t work.  Distraction is a great way to resist a passing temptation, but it turns out to be a terrible way to break a habit that has really taken hold.

That’s because habit-behaviors happen automatically – often, without our awareness.  So thinking about George Clooney isn’t going to stop me from biting my nails if I don’t realize I’m doing it in the first place.

What you need to do instead is focus on stopping the behavior before it starts (or, as psychologists tend to put it, you need to “inhibit” your bad behavior).  According to research by Jeffrey Quinn and his colleagues, the most effective strategy for breaking a bad habit is vigilant monitoring – focusing your attention on the unwanted behavior to make sure you don’t engage in it.  In other words, thinking to yourself “Don’t do it!” and watching out for slipups – the very opposite of distraction.   If you stick with it, the use of this strategy can inhibit the behavior completely over time, and you can be free of your bad habit for good.

J. Quinn, A. Pascoe, W. Wood, & D. Neal (2010) Can’t control yourself? Monitor those bad habits.   Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36, 499-511.

2) How to Make Everything Seem Easier

Most of us have grown accustomed to the idea that our moods, and even our judgments, can be influenced by unrelated experiences of sight and sound – we feel happier on sunny days, more relaxed when listening to certain kinds of music, and more likely to lose our tempers when it’s hot and humid.  But very few of us have even considered the possibility that our tactile experience – the sensations associated with the things we touch, might have this same power.

New research by Joshua Ackerman, Christopher Nocera, and John Bargh shows that the weight, texture, and hardness of the things we touch are, in fact, unconsciously factored into our decisions about things that have nothing to do with what we are touching.

For instance, we associate smoothness and roughness with ease and difficulty, respectively, as in expressions like “smooth sailing,” and “rough road ahead.” In one study, people who completed a puzzle with pieces that had been covered in sandpaper later described an interaction between two other individuals as more difficult and awkward than those whose puzzles had been smooth. (Tip:  Never try to buy a car or negotiate a raise while wearing a wool sweater.  Consider satin underpants instead.  Everything seems easy in satin underpants.)

J. Ackerman, C. Nocera, and J. Bargh (2010)  Incidental haptic sensations influence social judgments and decisions.  Science, 328, 1712- 1715.

3)  How To Manage Your Time Better

Good time management starts with figuring out what tasks you need to accomplish, and how long each will take.  The problem is, human beings are generally pretty lousy when it comes to estimating the time they will need to complete any task.  Psychologists refer to this as the planning fallacy, and it has the very real potential to screw up our plans and keep us from reaching our goals.

New research by Mario Weick and Ana Guinote shows that, somewhat ironically, people in positions of power are particularly poor planners.  That’s because feeling powerful tends to focus us on getting what we want, ignoring the potential obstacles that stand in our way.   The future plans of powerful people often involve “best-case scenarios,” which lead to far shorter time estimates than more realistic plans that take into account what might go wrong.

The good news is, you can learn to more accurately predict how long something will take and become a better planner, if you stop and consider potential obstacles, along with two other factors:  your own past experiences (i.e., how long did it take last time?), and all the steps or subcomponents that make up the task  (i.e., factoring in the time you’ll need for each part.)

M. Weick & A. Guinote (2010) How long will it take? Power biases time predictions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

4) How to Be Happier

Most of us tend to think that if we just had a bit more money we’d get more satisfaction out of life, but on the whole, this turns out not to be true.   So why doesn’t money make us happier?  New research by Jordi Quoidbach and colleagues suggests that the answer lies, at least in part, in how wealthier people lose touch with their ability to savor life’s pleasures.

Savoring is a way of increasing and prolonging our positive experiences.  Taking time to experience the subtle flavors in a piece of dark chocolate, imaging the fun you’ll have on an upcoming vacation (and leafing through your trip photos afterward), telling all your friends on Facebook about the hilarious movie you saw over the weekend – these are all acts of savoring, and they help us to squeeze every bit of joy out of the good things that happen to us.

Why, then, don’t wealthier people savor, if it feels so good?  It’s obviously not for a lack of things to savor.  The basic idea is that when you have the money to eat at fancy restaurants every night and buy designer clothes from chic boutiques, those experiences diminish the enjoyment you get out of the simpler, more everyday pleasures, like the smell of a steak sizzling on your backyard grill, or the bargain you got on the sweet little sundress from Target.

Create plans for how to inject more savoring into each day, and you will increase your happiness and well-being much more than (or even despite) your growing riches.  And if you’re riches aren’t actually growing, then savoring is still a great way to truly appreciate what you do have.

J. Quoidbach, E. Dunn, K. Petrides, & M. Mikolajczak (2010) Money giveth, money taketh away: The dual effect of wealth on happiness.  Psychological Science, 21, 759-763.



5) How to Have More Willpower

Do you have the willpower to get the job done, or have you found yourself giving in to temptations, distractions, and inaction when trying to reach your own goals?   If it’s the latter, you’re not alone.  But more importantly, you can do something about it.  New research by Mark Muraven shows that our capacity for self-control is surprisingly like a muscle that can be strengthened by regular exercise.

Do you have a sweet tooth?  Try giving up candy, even if weight-loss and cavity-prevention are not your goals.  Hate exerting yourself physically?  Go out and buy one of those handgrips you see the muscle men with at the gym – even if your goal is to pay your bills on time.  In one study, after two weeks of sweets-abstinence and handgripping, Muraven found that participants had significantly improved on a difficult concentration task that required lots of self-control.

Just by working your willpower muscle regularly, engaging in simple actions that require small amounts of self-control - like sitting up straight or making your bed each day – you can develop the self-control strength you’ll need to tackle all of your goals.

M. Muraven (2010) Building self-control strength: Practicing self-control leads to improved self-control performance.  Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 465-468.

6) How to Choose a Mate

What role does personality play in creating marital bliss? More specifically, is it your personality, your partner’s personality, or the similarity between the two that really matters when it comes to being happy in your marriage? A study of over 10,000 couples from three countries provides us with some answers.

Your own personality is in fact a powerful predictor of your marital satisfaction.  People who were more agreeable, conscientious, and emotionally stable reported being significantly happier with their spouse.  That spouse’s personality was also a reliable, though slightly less powerful, predictor of relationship satisfaction.  Keep these same traits – the “Big 3” for happiness in a marriage – in mind when you are seeking Mr. or Ms. Right.

Finally, there’s personality similarly - which, as it happens, doesn’t seem to matter at all. The extent to which married couples matched one another on the Big Five traits had no predictive power when it came to understanding why some couples are happy together and others not.   This is not to say that having similar goals or values isn’t important – just that having similar personalities doesn’t seem to be.

So if you are outgoing and your partner is shy, or if you are adventurous and your partner doesn’t really like to try new things, it doesn’t mean you can’t have a satisfying marriage.  Whether you are birds of a feather, or opposites that attracted, you are equally likely to live a long and happy life together.

Just try to be generally pleasant, responsible, and even-tempered, and find someone willing to do the same.

P. Dyrenforth, D. Kashy, M.B. Donnellan,  & R. Lucas  (2010) Predicting relationships and life satisfaction from personality in nationally representative samples from three countries: The relative importance of actor, partner, and similarity effects.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99, 690-702.

7) How to Feel More Powerful

In the animal kingdom, alphas signal their dominance through body movement and posture.  Human beings are no different.  The most powerful guy in the room is usually the one whose physical movements are most expansive – legs apart, leaning forward, arms spread wide while he gestures.  He’s the CEO who isn’t afraid to swing his feet up onto the conference room table, hands behind his head and elbows jutting outward, confident in his power to spread himself out however he damn well pleases.

The nervous, powerless person holds himself very differently – he makes himself physically as small as possible: shoulders hunched, feet together, hands in his lap or arms wrapped protectively across his chest.  He’s the guy in the corner who is hoping he won’t be called on, and often is barely noticed.

We adopt these poses unconsciously, and they are perceived (also unconsciously) by others as indictors of our status.  But a new set of studies by Dana Carney, Amy Cuddy, and Andy Yap reveals that the relationship between power and posing works in both directions.  In other words, holding powerful poses can actually make you more powerful.

In their studies, posing in “high power” positions not only created psychological and behavioral changes typically associated with powerful people, it created physiological changes characteristic of the powerful as well.   High power posers felt more powerful, were more willing to take risks, and experienced significant increases in testosterone along with decreases in cortisol (the body’s chemical response to stress.)

If you want more power – not just the appearance of power, but the genuine feeling of power – then spread your limbs wide, stand up straight, and lean into the conversation.   Carry yourself like the guy in charge, and in a matter of minutes your body will start to feel it, and you will start to believe it.

D. Carney, A. Cuddy, and A. Yap (2010) Power posing: Brief nonverbal displays affect neuroendocrine levels and risk tolerance.  Psychological Science, 21, 1363-1368.

8) How To Tell If He Loves You

“If he really loved me, then he would…”

Everyone who’s ever been in a relationship has had thoughts like this one.  If he loved me he would bring me flowers, or compliment me more often, or remember my birthday, or remember to take out the damn garbage.    We expect feelings of love to translate directly into loving behaviors, and often judge the quality and intensity of our partner’s feelings through their more tangible expressions.  When it comes to love, actions speak louder than words, right?

Well, not necessarily.  According to new research by psychologists Lara Kammrath and Johanna Peetz, romantic feelings like love, intimacy, and commitment reliably lead to some loving behaviors, but not others. In their studies, love predicted spontaneous, in-the-moment acts of kindness and generosity, like saying “I love you,” offering a back rub, or surprising your partner with a gourmet dinner – the kinds of loving actions that don’t require much in the way of forethought, planning, or memory.

On the other hand, love does a lousy job of predicting the kinds of “loving” behaviors that are harder to perform, often because they have to be maintained over longer periods of time (e.g., remembering to do household chores without being asked, being nice to one’s in-laws) or because there is a delay between the thought and the action (remembering to buy your wife a gift for her birthday next week, keeping a promise call home during your conference in Las Vegas.). When it comes to the harder stuff, it’s how conscientious you are, rather than how much in love you are, that really matters.

So if you’re trying to get a sense of how your partner really feels about you, the smaller, spontaneous acts of love that occur without much forethought are a much  better indicator of the depth of his love than whether or not he remembers your birthday or to take out the trash.

L. Kammrath & J. Peetz (2010) The limits of love: Predicting immediate vs. sustained caring behaviors in close relationships.  Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

9) How to Make It Easier to Cut Your Losses

Sometimes, we don’t know when to throw in the towel.   As a project unfolds, it becomes clear that things aren’t working out as planned, that it will cost too much or take too long, or that someone else will beat you to the punch.  But instead of moving on to new opportunities, we continue to devote our time, energy, and money to doomed projects (or even doomed relationships), digging a deeper hole rather than trying to climb our way out of it.

Why?  The most likely culprit is our overwhelming aversion to sunk costs - the resources that we’ve put into an endeavor that we can’t get back out. We worry far too much about what we’ll lose if we just move on, and not nearly enough about the costs of not moving on  - more wasted time and effort, and more missed opportunities.

But thanks to recent research by Daniel Molden and Chin Ming Hui, there is a simple way to be sure you are making the best decisions when your endeavor goes awry:  focus on what you have to gain, rather than what you have to lose.

Psychologists call this adopting a promotion focus. When Molden and Hui had participants think about their goals in terms of potential gains, they became more comfortable with accepting the losses they had to incur along the way.  When they adopted a prevention focus, on the other hand, and thought about their goals in terms of what they could lose if they didn’t succeed, they were much more sensitive to sunk costs.

If you make a deliberate effort to refocus yourself prior to making your decision, reflecting on what you have to gain by cutting your losses now, you’ll find it much easier to make the right choice.

D. Molden & C. Hui (2010) Promoting de-escalation of commitment: A regulatory focus perspective on sunk costs.  Psychological Science.

10)  How to Fight With Your Spouse

Having a satisfying, healthy relationship with your partner doesn’t mean never fighting – it means learning to fight well. But what is the best way for two people to cope with their anger, frustration, and hurt, without undermining their mutual happiness?

Thankfully, recent research by James McNulty and Michelle Russell provides the answer.  The best way to deal with conflict in a marriage, it turns out, depends on how serious or severe the problem is.  Did your spouse drink too much at the party last night, or is he drinking too much every night?  Did she splurge a little too much on clothes last month, or are her spending habits edging you closer and closer to bankruptcy?  Did he invite his mother to dinner without discussing it with you first, or did he invite his mother to live with you without discussing it first?  Little problems and big problems require very different approaches if you want to have a lasting, happy marriage.

When it comes to minor problems, direct fighting strategies – like placing blame on your spouse for their actions or expressing your anger – results in a loss of marital satisfaction over time.   Flying off the handle when he forgets to pick up the dry cleaning yet again, or when she spends a little too much money on a pricey pair of shoes, is going to take its toll on your happiness in the long run.  You really are better off letting the small stuff go.

In response to major problems, these same direct fighting strategies predict increased marital satisfaction!   Expressing your feelings, blaming your partner and demanding that they change their ways will lead to greater happiness when the conflict in question is something significant – something that if left unresolved could ultimately tear your relationship apart.  Issues involving addiction, financial stability, infidelity, child-rearing, and whether or not you live with your mother-in-law need to be addressed, even if it gets a little ugly.  Couples who battle it out over serious issues do a better job of tackling, and eventually resolving those issues, than those who swept big problems under the carpet.

J. McNulty & V.M. Russell (2010) When "negative" behaviors are positive: A contextual analysis of the long-term effects of problem-solving behaviors on changes in relationship satisfaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 587-604.

Make It Easier to Cut Your Losses

(From Fast Company)

Sometimes, we don’t know when to throw in the towel.   As a project unfolds, it becomes clear that things aren’t working out as planned, that it will cost too much or take too long, or that a rival company will beat you to the punch.  But instead of moving on to new opportunities, we all too often simply stay the course.

Company leaders continue to allocate manpower and money to projects long after it’s become clear that they are obviously failing, digging a deeper hole rather than trying to climb their way out of it (Remember how long it took to get rid of New Coke?)

The costs to the company, in terms of both resources and lost opportunities, can be enormous.  For the leader who refuses to see reason, it can be career-ending.  We recognize this foolishness immediately in others, but that doesn’t stop us from making the same mistake ourselves.  Why?

There are several powerful and largely unconscious psychological forces at work here.   We may throw good money after bad because we haven’t come up with an alternative, or because we don’t want to admit to our colleagues, or ourselves, that we were wrong.   But the most likely culprit is our overwhelming aversion to sunk costs.

Sunk costs are the resources that you’ve put into an endeavor that you can’t get back out.   Once you’ve realized that you won’t succeed, it shouldn’t matter how much time and effort you’ve already spent on something.  A bad idea is a bad idea, no matter how much money you’ve already thrown at it.

The problem is that it doesn’t feel that way.  Putting in a lot only to end up with nothing to show for it is just too awful for most of us to seriously consider.  We worry far too much about what we’ll lose if we just move on, and not nearly enough about the costs of not moving on  - more wasted resources, and more missed opportunities.

Companies have developed ways of trying to deal with this problem, but they usually involve extensive external monitoring of decision-making that is both costly and labor-intensive.   But thanks to recent research by Northwestern University psychologists Daniel Molden and Chin Ming Hui, there is a far simpler and inexpensive way to be sure you are making the best decisions when a project goes awry:  focus on what you have to gain, rather than what you have to lose.

As I’ve written about before, psychologists call this adopting a promotion focus. When we think about our goals in terms of potential gains, we automatically (often without realizing it) become more comfortable with making mistakes and accepting the losses we may have to incur along the way.  When we adopt a prevention focus, on the other hand, and think about our goals in terms of what we could lose if we don’t succeed, we become much more sensitive to sunk costs.

For example, in one of their studies, Molden and Hui put participants into either a promotion or prevention mindset by having them spend five minutes writing about their “personal hopes and aspirations” (promotion) or “duties and obligations” (prevention).  They also included a control group with no manipulation of mindset.

Next, each participant was told to imagine that he or she was president of an aviation company that had committed $10 million to developing a “radar-blank” plane.  With the project near completion and $9 million already spent, a rival company announces the availability of their own radar-blank plane, which is both superior in performance and lower in cost.  The question put to participants was simple – do you invest the remaining $1 million and finish your company’s (inferior and more expensive) plane, or cut your losses and move on?

Molden and Hui found that participants who had been put in a prevention mindset  (focused on avoiding loss) stayed the course and invested the remaining $1 million roughly 80% of the time.  The control group, included to provide a sense of how people would respond without any changes to their mindset, was virtually identical to the prevention group.  This suggests that when a project is failing and sunk costs are high, most of us naturally become prevention-minded, and more likely to try to keep waging a losing battle.

The odds of making that mistake were significantly reduced by adopting a promotion mindset (focused on potential gain) – those participants invested the remaining $1 million less than 60% of the time.*

When we see our goals in terms of going for a win, rather than avoiding a failure, we are more likely to see a doomed project for what it is, and try to make the most of a bad situation.

It’s not difficult to achieve greater clarity if you make a deliberate effort to refocus yourself prior to making your decision.  Stop and reflect on what you have to gain by cutting your losses now – the opportunities for progress and innovation.  If you do, you’ll find it much easier to make the right choice.

*Why not a bigger drop? Good question.  Remember that promotion focus was manipulated very indirectly through a totally unrelated writing task.  If you adopt a promotion focus directly with respect to the decision itself, considering what you could gain by moving on from your failure, the effects should be even stronger.

Why Creative People Get Kept Out of the Driver's Seat

From my Fast Company blog:

Two candidates are being interviewed for a leadership position in your company.  Both have strong resumes, but while one seems to be bursting with new and daring ideas, the other comes across as decidedly less creative (though clearly still a smart cookie).  Who gets the job?  And who should?

The answer to the question of who gets the leadership job is usually the less creative candidate.  This fact may or may not surprise you – you may have seen it happen many times before.  You may have even been the creative candidate who got the shaft.  But what you’re probably wondering is, why?

After all, it’s quite clear who should be getting the job.   Creativity – the ability to generate new and innovative solutions to problems – is obviously an important attribute for any successful business leader.  Research shows that leaders who are more creative are in fact better able to effect positive change in their organizations, and are better at inspiring others to follow their lead.

And yet, according to recent research there is good reason to believe that the people with the most creativity aren’t making it to the top of business organizations, because of a process that occurs (on a completely unconscious level) in the mind of everyone who has ever evaluated an applicant for a leadership position.

The problem, put simply, is this: our idea of what a prototypical “creative person” is like is completely at odds with our idea of a prototypical  “effective leader.”

Creativity is associated with nonconformity, unorthodoxy, and unconventionality.  It conjures visions of the artist, the musician, the misunderstood poet.   In other words, not the sort of people you usually put in charge of large organizations. Effective leaders, it would seem, should provide order, rather than tossing it out the window.

Unconsciously, we assume that someone who is creative can’t be a good leader, and as a result, any evidence of creativity can diminish a candidate’s perceived leadership potential.

In one study conducted by organizational psychologists Jennifer Mueller, Jack Goncalo, and Dishan Kamdar, 55 employees rated the responses of nearly 300 of their (unidentified) coworkers to a problem-solving task for both creativity (the extent to which their ideas were novel and useful) and as evidence of leadership potential.  They found that creativity and leadership potential were strongly negatively correlated – the more creative the response, the less effective a leader the responder appeared.

In a second study, participants were told to generate an answer to the question “What could airlines do to obtain more revenue from passengers?” and give a 10-minute pitch to an evaluator.

Half the participants were asked to give creative answers (both novel and useful, e.g. “offer in-flight gambling with other passengers”), while the other half were told to give useful but non-novel answers (e.g., “charge for in-flight meals.”) The evaluators, unaware of the different instructions, rated participants who gave creative answers as having significantly less leadership ability.

Even though it is a quality that is much-admired, there is a very clear unconscious bias against creativity when it comes to deciding who gets to be in the driver’s seat.  Organizations may inadvertently place people in leadership positions who lack creativity and will only preserve the status quo, believing they are picking people with clear leadership potential.

The good news is, the bias can be wiped out – in fact, reversed - if evaluators have a charismatic leader (i.e., someone known for their uniqueness and individualism, like a Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, or Carly Fiorina) rather than an effective but non-charismatic leader in mind.   In the airline-revenue study, when evaluators were asked to list 5 qualities of a “charistmatic leader” prior to the idea pitch, the participants with creative solutions were instead perceived as having the most leadership potential.

Taking the time to remind yourself (or, if you are the applicant, remind your interviewer) that creativity is essential to effective leadership rather than at odds with it, is the key to making sure your company has the very best people behind the wheel.

Does He Love Me? I Want to Know. (And Here's How To Tell.)

“If he really loved me, then he would…”

Everyone who’s ever been in a relationship has had thoughts like this one.  If he loved me he would bring me flowers, or compliment me more often, or remember my birthday, or remember to take out the damn garbage.

We expect feelings of love to translate directly into loving behaviors, and often judge the quality and intensity of our partner’s feelings through their more tangible expressions.  When it comes to love, actions speak louder than words, right?

Well, not necessarily.  According to new research by psychologists Lara Kammrath and Johanna Peetz,  romantic feelings like love, intimacy, and commitment reliably lead to some loving behaviors, but not others.

Some gestures of love are spontaneous and of the moment – it occurs to you to do something nice for your partner, and you act on that thought immediately, or in the very near future.  Saying “I love you,” offering a back rub when your husband has had a particularly trying day, surprising your girlfriend with a gourmet dinner – these are examples of loving actions that don’t require much in the way of forethought, planning, or memory.

Other gestures have a much higher degree of what Kammrath and Peetz call “self-regulatory challenge.”  They are harder to perform, often because they have to be maintained over longer periods of time (e.g., remembering to do household chores without being asked, being nice to one’s in-laws) or because there is a delay between the thought and the action (remembering to buy your wife a gift for her birthday next week, keeping a promise call home during your conference in Las Vegas.).

In their studies, the researchers found that while feelings of love are quite good at predicting spontaneous, in-the-moment acts of kindness and generosity, they do a lousy job of predicting the more challenging, longer-term loving behaviors.

When it comes to pulling off the latter, they found that it’s how conscientious you are, rather than how much in love you are, that predicts success.

In one study, college undergraduates who were currently involved in committed relationships were given an online survey to fill out, that measured (among other things) their feelings of love, intimacy, and commitment.    After completing the survey, they were informed that as a reward for participating, they could come to a “candy lab” on campus and create a gift for their boyfriend or girlfriend, and enter that person’s name in a drawing to win a $50 gift card.

Kammrath and Peetz varied whether the “candy lab” would be open on the very next day, or not until four days later.  They found that the intensity of a student’s feelings of love predicted whether or not he went the next day, but not whether he went four days later.

Only those students high in conscientiousness (i.e., who  “were always prepared,” “paid attention to details,” “followed a schedule,” and “got chores done right away”) showed up four days later to make the candy gift, regardless of the depths of their love.  I’m guessing they were the only ones who remembered to write it down.

In another study, people were asked to list seven easily doable loving behaviors they would do for their partner (e.g., give a compliment, send a loving text message), and were told to try to do them either all that same day, or to do one each day for a week.

Once again, being more deeply in love resulted in doing more of the loving acts on the same day, but not when they were spread out over a week.  (And once again, only conscientiousness seemed to matter when more planning and better memory were needed).

So if you’re trying to get a sense of how your partner really feels about you, the smaller, spontaneous acts of love that occur without much forethought are a much  better indicator of the depth of his love than whether or not he remembers your birthday or to take out the trash.

(When he reads that last sentence, my husband will no doubt rejoice that he is finally off the hook, and remind me that he’s been telling me this all along.)

If the birthdays and the trash-removal are important to you (as they are to me), then you might want to try lending them a hand through some gentle reminding.   Love may not help them to remember, but you certainly can.

Understanding the True Cost of Leaving People Out

My guest post on Smartblog on Workforce:

It happens all the time in the modern workplace:  Someone gets left out of the loop.

Often, it happens unintentionally.  A recipient gets left off an email, or your colleague is on vacation when a development occurs and you simply forget to tell him about it when he gets back.

But in many instances, we leave people out of the loop on purpose, strategically. We choose not to share information for political reasons, to consolidate power, for expedience, or just to avoid dealing with someone who can be kind of a pain in the ass.

I’m sure that every manager who has ever decided to intentionally leave a team member out of the loop has realized that this strategy comes with some risk.  You expect the excluded person to be, at the very least, a little annoyed.

You probably don’t understand, however, the magnitude of the risk you are actually taking, and the psychological damage inflicted by this simple act.   Getting “annoyed” doesn’t begin to describe it.

Human beings are acutely sensitive to social rejection and ostracism – it’s hard-wired into our system, having evolved as a result of our reliance on other humans for survival.  Psychologists call being out-of-the-loop partial ostracism, since you aren’t completely excluded from the group, but you feel that you aren’t completely included either.

Research shows that even partial ostracism is quickly detected, and that lacking information that others in your group seem to have undermines not one but four fundamental human needs:  the need for belonging and connection to others, self-esteem, the need for a sense of control and effectiveness, and the need for meaningful work.

A new set of studies shows that when people feel out-of-the-loop, they immediately (often unconsciously) interpret it as a subtle sign of rejection.  As a result, they report trusting and liking their bosses and colleagues less, feeling less loyalty to the company, and feeling less motivated to perform.

What it seems to boil down to is this:  being left out of the loop is perceived as a signal that one has low status or standing in the group.  People who lack information that their colleagues seem to have often feel that they have fallen out of favor, or that others have turned against them.  It is this loss of standing, according to researchers, that undermines our four fundamental needs as well as out trust, loyalty, and motivation.

Interestingly, this is true even when we believe that we have been left out of the loop unintentionally.  Why?  Well, even when someone accidentally leaves you out of the loop, you often suspect that they could have remembered if it was really important to them, if they really respected you.  In the end, even inadvertent exclusion feels like a sign of low status.

So, when you are deciding whether or not to leave someone out of the loop, think very seriously about the consequences of your actions.  The short-term gains will be far outweighed by the significant losses of trust, cooperation, loyalty, and motivation you create.  Is it worth it?

Also, when you find that you have accidentally left someone out of the loop, remember that it’s important for people to feel that their status is respected and acknowledged.  It’s worth it to go out of your way to repair the damage by letting them know how much they are valued.

For reference:

E. Jones and J. Kelly (2010) “Why am I out of the loop?” Attributions influence responses to information exclusion.  Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36, 1186-1201.

The Motivational Secret to Great Negotiating

From my Fast Company blog:

Negotiating well is a powerful skill, and it doesn’t come naturally to most people. That’s because a negotiation is an experience that is rife with conflicting motivations.  When two parties haggle over price, the buyer needs to somehow reconcile his desire to pay the lowest possible price, with the knowledge that if he bids too low, the negotiation may break down and the seller could walk away.

These concerns are equally present when it comes to negotiations over salary – managers want to keep costs down, without losing their best people to better paying jobs.  And employees want to get the highest possible salary, without overplaying their hand and getting canned, or simply humiliated, in the process.

The key to a good outcome in any negotiation is a strong opening bid, since that bid is the jumping off point, as well as the frame of reference, for the negotiation that follows.  You are never going to end up paying less than your initial offer when purchasing a car, or making a bigger salary than you asked for when starting your new job. But a strong opening bid takes a certain amount of gutsiness – you need to overcome all those perfectly rational concerns you may have about taking things too far, only to end up embarrassing yourself and failing completely.

So how can you embrace risk, particularly when risk-taking doesn’t come to you naturally?  The answer is simple:  when you think about an upcoming negotiation, focus only on what you have to gain, and banish all thoughts of what you might lose.

Psychologists call this adopting a promotion focus.  When we think about our goals in terms of potential gains, we automatically (often without realizing it) become more comfortable with risk, and less sensitive to concerns about what could go wrong.  When we adopt a prevention focus, on the other hand, and think about our goals in terms of what we could lose if we don’t succeed, we become much more conservative and risk-averse.

These different ways of looking at the same goal (e.g., to pay the lowest price, to get the biggest raise) have profound effects on the way we approach negotiation.

In one study, psychologist Adam Galinksy and his colleagues divided 54 MBA students into pairs, and asked them to take part in a mock negotiation involving the sale of a pharmaceutical plant.  One student was assigned the role of “seller” and the other “buyer,” and both were given detailed information about the circumstances of the sale, including the fact that the “bargaining zone” would range from $17-25 million dollars.

Galinsky then manipulated the goal focus of the buyers.  Before the negotiation began, half were told to take a couple of minutes and write down “the negotiation behaviors and outcomes you hope to achieve… think about how you could promote these behaviors and outcomes,” giving the buyers a promotion focus.  The other half were told to write down the behaviors and outcomes “you seek to avoid” and how they “could prevent” them, giving those buyers a prevention focus.

Each pair began their negotiation with an opening bid from the buyer.  Promotion-minded buyers opened with a bid an average of nearly $4 million dollars less than prevention-minded buyers.  They were willing to take the greater risk and bid aggressively low, and it paid off in a big way.  In the end, promotion buyers purchased the plant for an average of $21.24 million, while prevention buyers paid $24.07 million.

Why? It turns out that approaching a goal with a promotion mindset helps a negotiator to stay focused on their (ideal) price target.   A prevention mindset, however, leads to too much worrying about a negotiation failure or impasse, leaving the buyer more susceptible to less advantageous agreements.

This is one of those things that’s worth taking a moment to think about – two negotiators, each armed with identical information, facing similar opponents, and yet one overpays by nearly $4 million dollars.  The only difference was that one negotiator was thinking about all that he could gain, while the other focused too much on what he had to lose.

So when you are preparing for your next negotiation, take a few moments to list all the ways in which you will benefit if you are successful.   Repeat them to yourself just before the negotiation begins.  Most importantly, shut out any thoughts about what could go wrong – just refuse to give them your attention.  With practice, this thought-training will become easier, and eventually automatic.  Risk-taking, believe it or not, can become second nature to you, if you think about your goals in the right way.

3 Tips for Avoiding Weight Gain Over the Holidays

The holidays are a difficult time for those of us who both enjoy eating and worry about our waistlines.  Chances are good that if you overindulged a bit at Thanksgiving, you are now looking ahead to the month of December with a wary eye – only too aware of the minefield of cookie platters, holiday parties, family dinners, and gift baskets that you will have to somehow navigate.

You know from experience that you cannot get through these trying times on willpower alone.  So here are three very simple and proven-effective motivational strategies for ending up in your current pant size on January 1^st.

Tip 1:  Acknowledge That You Probably Can’t Have Just One. According to the laws of physics, bodies in motion tend to stay in motion, unless something acts to stop them.  Well, the same thing can be said about human behavior, too - including eating.

Your actions have a kind of inertia – once you start doing something, it often takes more self-control to stop than it does to just avoid doing it in the first place.  And it gets harder to stop the longer the behavior goes on.  So it’s easier to be abstinent if you stop at the first kiss, rather than letting things get hot and heavy.  And it’s a lot easier to pass on the potato chips entirely, rather than just eat one or two.

Stopping before you start is an excellent strategy to keep your need for willpower to a minimum.  Consider cutting out all between-meal snacking over the holidays.  The fewer times you start eating each day, the less you’ll have to worry about stopping.

Tip 2:  Set VERY Specific Limits. Before you get anywhere near the cookie platter, the fruit cake, or the cheese plate, think about how much you can afford to eat without over-indulging.  Decide, in advance, exactly how much of any particular holiday treat you will allow yourself for dessert, or at the Christmas party.

The problem with most plans, including diet plans, is that they are not nearly specific enough.  We plan to “be good,” or “not eat too much,” but what does that mean, exactly?  When will I know if I’ve had too much?  When you are staring at a table overflowing with delicious snacks, you are not going to be a good judge of what “too much” is.

An effective plan is one that is made before you stare temptation in the face, and that allows no wiggle room.   Studies show that when people plan out exactly what they will do when temptation arises (e.g., I will have no more than 3 cookies and nothing else), are 2-3 times more likely to achieve their dietary goals.

Tip 3:  Savor.   Savoring is a way of increasing and prolonging our positive experiences.  Taking time to experience the subtle flavors in a piece of dark chocolate, the pungency of a full-flavored cheese, the buttery goodness of a Christmas cookie - these are all acts of savoring, and they help us to squeeze every bit of joy out of the good things that happen to us.

Avoid eating anything in one bite – you get all the calories, but only a fraction of the taste. Also, try not to eat while you are socializing.  When you are focused on conversation, odds are good that you will barely even register what you are putting in your mouth.

Eating slowly and mindfully, taking small bites instead of swallowing that bacon-wrapped scallop or stuffed mushroom whole, not only satisfies your hunger, but actually leaves you feeling happier.

And that, ideally, is what holiday feasting is all about.

Should Leaders Show Anger?

From my Fast Company blog, click here.

If It Doesn’t Kill You, It Will Make You Stronger… But There Are Limits.

Does that which does not kill us, really make us stronger?  On the surface, it doesn’t seem like it.  People who have experienced significant adverse events, like having to endure physical abuse, experiencing homelessness, or becoming the victims of a natural disaster, often suffer very painful long-term negative effects, particularly in terms of their mental health and well-being.

There has been little in the research on coping  (until very recently, that is) to suggest that these individuals are likely to end up more resilient after being put through the wringer – not much evidence that they are better able to handle future difficulties with greater strength and adaptability, and to rebound emotionally faster and more effectively.

For the record, being resilient in the face of difficulty is actually the norm, rather than the exception. Most people report that they have had to cope with some significant adversity in their lives, and the majority of them do not permanently suffer for it.  By and large, we recover faster and better from hardship than we expect to.  But there is a big difference between returning to “baseline” after a negative event (to being “your old self” again) and ending up somehow stronger for it.

And yet many of us have a sense that adversity does indeed foster resilience - that people who have been through a lot are actually tougher, and better able to handle the curveballs that life may throw at them.  Are we wrong?

New research suggests that we are right – but only when adversity strikes in moderation.

The researchers who conducted this study looked at data from a broad sample of nearly 2000 Americans.  (The average age was 49, but ranged from 18 to 101 years old.)  The participants filled out a measure of cumulative lifetime adversity, which asked them to indicate how often they had coped with serious difficulties or trauma, including major illness or injury, assault, loss of a loved one, serious financial difficulties, and natural disaster.

(Note: I am not saying, nor are the researchers arguing, that these difficulties are equal in severity, nor that every person who experiences them suffers to the same extent. It’s just not possible to take into account every person’s unique experience in a study of 2000 people.  The researchers’ strategy, instead, was to take a set of  negative experiences that we can all agree are terrible to endure, and look at how people who have had to deal with more of them differ from those who’ve dealt with fewer.  This seems like a reasonable approach, even if it’s not a perfect one.)

Not surprisingly, those who had experienced a lot of adversity had poorer outcomes, on average, than people who reported no history of adversity  - they were more depressed and anxious, were less satisfied with their lives, and were more likely to have physical or emotional problems that interfered with their ability to work and socialize.

The real surprise comes when you look at people with relatively low lifetime adversity (2-4 serious adverse events or traumas).  They reported having better outcomes than people who had zero lifetime adversity!  They were happier, more satisfied, and better able to cope with life’s daily ups and downs.

This actually makes a lot of sense.  When you are exposed to a limited number of significant stressors, you come to see a bad situation as more manageable, and you approach it with greater confidence that you will be able to get through it  (“If I can handle that, I can handle anything.”)

Without adversity, you don’t get a chance to hone your coping skills, and develop the “I can get through this” sense of efficacy that will serve you well when trouble comes along.  Too much adversity, on the other hand, is likely to overwhelm your psychological resources, leaving you feeling less capable of coping when things go wrong.

So, what wisdom can we extract from these findings – how can we benefit from them?  I think there are two points in particular worth remembering:

First, it is unwise to try to shelter someone from adversity completely.  It’s perfectly natural to try to protect our loves ones from bad experiences – particularly our children.  But if you never get to tackle big problems on your own, you’ll never develop the confidence and psychological resources you’ll need to succeed.  Ironically, when we shield a person from the harsh realities of life, we leave them even more vulnerable.

Second, if you’ve dealt with a lot of adversity in your life, don’t beat yourself up for not ending up tougher for it.  It’s not surprising that your experiences have left their mark on you, and that you have a harder time than other people do just getting through your day.  Be kind to yourself, and seek out the assistance that you truly deserve (from friends, counselors, support groups), to help you begin to heal.

Four Reasons Why Power Enhances Performance

From my Fast Company Blog:

The people with power in any organization are usually its top performers.  (Not always, I know, but that’s a topic for another post).  It’s natural to assume that the reason they’ve ended up with so much power is precisely because they are top performers.  But in many cases, it’s the other way around – power creates peak performance.

Studies show that powerful people, even when working alone, work differently than those with less power.  Often, their work is simply better.  This is true regardless of how long the person in question has been powerful – in fact, you can bring people into a room, assign one of them at random to be the “leader,” and immediately begin to see the difference.

Psychologists find that power leads to better performance, particularly on complex or difficult tasks that require effort and persistence, for four reasons:

1.     Leaders feel responsible to the group they are leading, and to its goals.  This is an added motivation that followers often lack.

2.     All eyes are on them.  Leaders feel more individually identified and therefore more accountable for their own work.  Because they expect to be noticed by others, they feel pressured to set a good example.

3.     Power stimulates the brain – specifically, what psychologists refer to as the brain’s executive function, which is instrumental when it comes to achieving goals.  When participants in the laboratory are given power over the outcomes of others, we find that they are better able to control their attention, plan future behavior, and take goal-directed actions, all hallmarks of superior executive function.

4.     Power keeps you going. A recent set of studies show that powerful people not only outperform the less powerful, but that they continue to be able to do so even when their energy and willpower has been seriously depleted.

Self-control is a limited resource – like a muscle in your body, it gets tired when you’ve given it a good workout.   Typically, when you’ve depleted your self-control by working on something really challenging, your performance on subsequent tasks suffers.  Powerful people, however, are slower to show signs of depletion – they can keep up their A-game longer, thanks in part to their strong motivation and heightened executive functioning.

It’s worth noting that powerful people don’t always outperform the less powerful. After all, leaders have a lot on their plates – they can’t possibly bring their best to everything.  This raises the question of delegation.  How do they (and should they) decide where to put their effort?

The short and unsurprising answer is that they generally withhold effort when the task in question is unworthy of a powerful person.  In other words, when it seems like the kind of thing an underling would do.  This attitude can and does affect performance. For example, in the studies I mentioned earlier, when the participants were given boring, repetitive tasks like filling out multiplication tables, those assigned to a leadership role performed worse than nonleaders, and complained that they didn’t think it was the sort of task a leader should have to do.

Arrogant as this may seem at times, you have to admit that this attitude makes some sense.  Powerful people approach tasks with greater energy and intensity, but their well of energy and intensity isn’t bottomless.  They need to be selective.

Unfortunately, they don’t always pull it off, which brings us to the serious weakness that comes with power.  Making decisions about what is and isn’t worthy of a leader’s limited resources actually requires resources – when you are overworked, tired, or otherwise depleted, you have a hard time appraising a situation correctly.

Overworked leaders often don’t realize that a particular task is really more appropriate for a subordinate to perform – they end up trying to bring their A-game to everything.  They make bad choices, burn out, and their performance suffers.

So if you are fortunate enough to be given a position of power, it’s quite possible that your best performances lie ahead of you.  Even your brain is primed to rise to the challenge.  But beware of the leader’s Achilles heel – if you are too burned out to make good decisions about what to delegate, you’ll end up squandering many of the performance advantages that your power has given you.

Two Things You Need (and One You Don’t) For A Happy Marriage

If you want to be happy in your marriage, what’s the most important ingredient?  Everybody (married or not) has a theory about what it takes to live happily ever after.  You can divide them, roughly speaking, into three different camps:

#1:  It’s about YOU.

Some people, the theory goes, are just destined to be unhappy in their relationships.  Perhaps they are too insensitive, too negative, or too emotionally unstable – whatever the case may be, and no matter who they end up with, they will never know real marital bliss because their own personalities will always get in the way.

#2:  It’s about YOUR PARTNER.

Others believe that being happy in your marriage is all about choosing the perfect Special Someone.  Before I got married, I heard this a lot.  “You need someone emotionally mature,” or “a guy who pays attention to the little things,” or “a husband you know you can always count on.”   According to this theory, whether or not you are satisfied in your relationship isn’t so much about you, as it is about what the other person brings to the table.

#3:  It’s about how SIMILAR you and your partner are.

Birds of a feather flock together, as the saying goes.  (Presumably, they are happy about this arrangement.) Some people will tell you that the key to marital happiness lies in the similarity between your personality and your partner’s.  Dating services promise to match you according to key “dimensions of compatibility,” arguing that people who are more alike should end up being happier together.  Judging by the popularity of these services, this theory has a broad intuitive appeal.

But who is right? Is it your personality, your partner’s personality, or the similarity between the two that really matters when it comes to having a happy marriage?  A recent landmark study provides us with some answers.

Psychologists Portia Dyrenforth, Deborah Kashy, Brent Donnellan, and Richard Lucas looked at over 10,000 couples from three countries (Australia, England, and Germany) who had been married on average about 23 years.  Each husband and wife had completed a version of the Big Five personality inventory, which measures the five traits thought by many psychologists to make up the core of a person’s

When You Benefit From Being Underestimated, and When You Pay For It

From my Fast Company Blog:

There have been times in my life when I felt that, because I’m female, I have been treated unfairly in the workplace – times when I was passed over for leadership positions, or less trusted with responsibilities that are traditionally given to men.   Then again, I’ve also felt at times that I’ve benefitted from low expectations - particularly when handling something women aren’t supposed to do well. (Like the time when diagnosing and repairing a simple computer glitch suddenly rendered me a “computer whiz” around the office.  Come on, people.)

If you are a member of a group that is stereotyped as less competent, then you are no doubt well aware that stereotypes do in fact influence how your coworkers and supervisors see you.  What you may not have realized is that their influence can work for or against you, depending on the type of evaluation you are receiving.

Psychologists who study the way human beings make judgments distinguish between using minimum standards (enough to make you suspect something is true) and confirmatory standards (enough to make you certain that something is true).

Imagine you are trying to figure out whether or not Steve is a dishonest guy.  Minimum standards of dishonesty would probably be met the first time you catch Steve in a lie – you would start to suspect that Steve can’t be trusted, but you wouldn’t be sure. After all, everybody lies from time to time.  To meet confirmatory standards, however, you’d probably have to catch Steve in a number of lies – enough to conclude that he is more than usually deceptive.

Stereotypes affect both our minimum and confirmatory standards for a given trait, but in opposite directions.  For example, part of the stereotype for women, particularly in the business world, is that they are less competent than men.  Studies show that because of this stereotype, minimum standards of competence for women are lower than they are for men. In other words, you are quicker to suspect that a woman is smart than you are to suspect that a man is.  That’s because when a woman does something “smart” it stands out more, since it is (unfortunately) more surprising.  When it comes to minimum standards of competence, women seem to benefit from being underestimated.

Unfortunately, the reverse is true when it comes to confirmatory standards, which are higher for women when it comes to competence.  So in order for someone to be certain that a woman is smart, she needs to provide more evidence of competence than a man would.  For a woman, you need to be consistently really smart to prove you aren’t actually stupid.

These differing standards have real world consequences.  In one study, female candidates for a job were more likely to be placed on a short list than males (evidence for the lower minimal standard of competence), but less likely than male candidates to actually be hired (evidence for the higher confirmatory standard of competence). In another study, White law school applicants with weak credentials were judged more positively than Black applicants with identical credentials (further evidence of the higher confirmatory standard for a stereotyped group).

So stereotyped people (women, minorities) will have an easier time than their White male counterparts when minimum standards are used to judge them, and a harder time when confirmatory standards are used.  But what determines which standards are used?

In a recent set of studies, researchers found that set of standards that get used is often determined by the formality of the evaluation.  A formal record or log  (like an end-of-the-year review) invokes the use of the confirmatory standard, while informal evaluation and personal note-taking  (like the kind of feedback your boss gives you at a weekly meeting) invokes the use of the minimum standard.

The researchers asked each participant in the studies to review information about a company trainee with a spotty performance record (i.e., he or she had lost a file on a client, missed an important deadline, and forgotten a scheduled appointment with a client, among other things).  The participants were asked to either “take informal notes” that would be for purely personal use, or to keep a “formal employment log” that would become a part of the employee’s permanent record.

They found that participants were more likely to record negative behaviors in their personal notes for White males than for women or Black males, but less likely to do so for White males in their formal notes.  In other words, judges noticed and recorded fewer negative behaviors for the groups stereotyped as incompetent (women and Blacks) when using minimal standards in the informal evaluation, but noticed and recorded more of the same behaviors when using the confirmatory standards of the formal evaluation.

At the end of both evaluations, participants were asked if the trainee should be kept on at the company or terminated.  Not surprisingly, White males were more likely to be recommended for termination when evaluated informally, and less likely to be fired when evaluated formally.

The participants in these studies weren’t overt racists or sexists – in fact, they weren’t even aware that they were evaluating employees differently because of their race or gender.  Like much of today’s workplace bias, its influence occurred at an unconscious level, perpetrated by otherwise decent and fair-minded people.  But even if its workings are intangible, the results of bias are anything but.  When different standards are unknowingly used, people end up being more likely to be hired or fired because of their gender or race, and that is unacceptable.

The good new is, unconscious bias loses much of its power once we recognize that it exists.  Once we become aware that we are apt to use different standards to evaluate people doing the same job, and once we understand when we are likely to be a little too lenient, or a little too critical, we can adjust accordingly.  Probe your own thinking for bias – ask yourself, would I come to the same conclusion about this employee’s behavior if she were a he, and if he were White?  Chances are you can make fair decisions, once you realize how and why you might make unfair ones.

My Author Video for SUCCEED from Hudson Street Press (Penguin)

What Makes You (and Me) Act Like a Jerk

Lessons from Good Boss, Bad Boss

I recently finished fellow PT blogger Robert Sutton’s excellent new book, Good Boss, Bad Boss.  In it, he describes not only what the best (and worst) bosses do, but why they do it, identifying the essential beliefs that form the foundation of effective (and ineffective) management.

It struck me again and again as I was reading that so much of the advice Sutton offers on how to be a good boss can also be applied to the universal challenges of being a good and happy person.   I think one of my favorite chapters, “Squelch Your Inner Bosshole,” is a perfect illustration of what I mean.

In it, Sutton points to the some of the forces that turn otherwise decent human beings into rotten bosses.  We would be wise to remember that these forces are often present in the lives of non-bosses as well – who among us hasn’t been a real jerk on occasion?  The good news is, if you can identify the triggers of your unpleasant behavior, and become aware of their influence on you, you too can effectively squelch your inner a**hole.

Here are some of the triggers of bad boss behavior Sutton highlights:

1.     “Power Poisoning.”

Sure, power sometimes corrupts.  But more often, it just turns us into jerks.  Studies show that when people are given power, they become less tuned in to other people’s feeling and needs, paying less attention to what others say and do.   With power, our language and behavior becomes more insulting and inappropriate, and we become more self-absorbed, focusing more on our own personal gain than what is best for the group.

It’s not just bosses who experience the nasty side effects of power.  Have you ever been in a relationship with someone who was just a bit too needy and insecure?  Were you surprised to find how cold, selfish, or downright cruel you became in response?  When friends or romantic partners give us all the power, when we find ourselves with too much “hand,” it can lead to pretty callous behavior.

2.     “Extreme Performance Pressure.”

Being under time pressure, or knowing that a lot is riding on what we’re doing, makes all of us less sensitive to the needs and feelings of others.   We’re so busy thinking about what could wrong, and worrying about our own performance, that it creates a kind of tunnel vision.    Feeling anxious makes you irritable – this is why you come home from work after a hard day and yell at your spouse, your kids, or your dog.

3.     “Sleep Deprivation, Heat, and Other Bodily Sources of Bad Moods.”

Sutton points out that a lack of sleep, or uncomfortable temperatures, can disrupt our ability to make good, rational decisions, because tiredness and heat make us irritable and impatient.  Poor nutrition and illness can also leave you feeling unusually jerky.

(Interestingly, do you know what doesn’t predict mood?  Day of the week – people aren’t actually reliably happier on Friday and more depressed on Monday.  So if you’re acting like a jerk on a Monday, find something else to blame.)

4.     “Nasty Role-Models” and “A**hole Infected Workplaces”

Throughout Good Boss, Bad Boss, Sutton emphasizes the enormous power of social influence.  We emulate the people around us, often unconsciously.  And as he writes, “emotions are remarkably contagious.”  Anxiety, cynicism, selfishness, and negativity rub off.  So if you are surrounded by cranky jerks, you just might begin to behave that way yourself without realizing it.

Sutton’s solution to the trigger problem is a good one  - make sure you have people in your life you can trust to tell you when you are acting like a jerk.  Give them explicit permission to do so, and make sure you really listen and react without defensiveness.

Then take a good hard look at how you’re acting and ask yourself if that’s really the person you want to be.    If not, start looking around for the trigger.  Is power going to your head?  Are you under too much pressure?  Are you hanging around too many jerks?

If you’re not happy with your own behavior, renew your commitment to noticing and respecting the needs and feelings of the other people in your life.  And if you need one, take a nap.

3 Reasons Why It Pays to Not Let Sexist Comments Slide

From my Fast Company blog:

Your colleague Jim calls you “honey,” makes cracks about women drivers, and suggests that you be the one to shop for the retirement gift for Bob because “women like that sort of thing.”    A lot of the sexism that women encounter in the workplace looks like this – comments that are not necessarily meant to cause insult or discomfort, uttered by otherwise decent enough male coworkers who you generally like.  But they are harmful nonetheless, because they perpetuate stereotypic views of women’s preferences and abilities.  If you found yourself in a situation like this, what would you do?

While we’d all like to believe that we would confront anyone who said something sexist (or otherwise bigoted) to us personally, the truth is that it rarely happens. For instance, in one study, 68% of women said that they would refuse to answer sexually harassing questions in a job interview, and 28% said they would openly confront the interviewer.  But when the interview actually happened, all of the women answered the offensive questions, and not one confronted the interviewer.

It’s no wonder so few are willing to confront sexism in the workplace (or anywhere else).  People usually want to avoid being seen as complainers, and assume that their objections will elicit very hostile reactions that will make their work environment even more tense and uncomfortable.  Why make it worse for myself? we think.  Just roll your eyes and try to ignore him.

Well, it turns out that there are three very good reasons why you should confront the perpetrator of a sexist comment.

1. It Won’t Be As Uncomfortable As You Think

Countless psychology studies show that people are surprisingly bad when it comes to predicting how an interaction with another person will go.  So it’s worth asking, how do men actually respond when they are confronted about sexism in this day and age?

The answer:  they are remarkably nice about it.

In a new study, conducted by Robyn Mallett and Dana Wagner at Loyola University Chicago, male participants were teamed with a female partner (who was actually a confederate in the experiment).  Their assignment was to read a set of moral or ethical dilemmas and discuss together how to deal with each situation, including one in which a nurse discovers that a hospital patient has been given tainted blood.

During their discussion, the female confederate confronted her male partner either for sexism (i.e., having assumed the nurse in the story was female, which every male participant did) or in a gender-neutral way (i.e., disagreeing with the male’s suggested solution to the dilemma).

As expected, men had much stronger reactions to being told that their remark was sexist than they did to mere disagreement.  But the reactions weren’t what you might expect.  The men accused of sexism smiled and laughed more, appeared more surprised, gestured more often and with greater energy, and were more likely to try to justify or apologize for their remark.   But they did not react with more hostility or anger – in fact, they reported liking the female partner in both conditions equally well, and were generally pleasant across the board.

It turns out that when it comes to offensive remarks, offenders are also susceptible to social pressure, just like the victims of sexism who are so reluctant to complain.

Men who make insensitive sexist comments usually want to avoid being seen as sexist jerks.  (Not always, but more often than not).  This tempers their response to confrontation, and as a result, they react less negatively or harshly than anyone might have imagined, including the men themselves.

2.  He Will Probably Be Nicer, and Like You More

Once confronted, perpetrators of offensive remarks are motivated to smooth the awkwardness of the situation.  In the study, men were significantly nicer to their female partner while discussing a second set of dilemmas after having been accused of sexism, than they were after merely being told they wrong.

The “sexists” were more agreeable, more likely to try to search for common ground with their partner – they even smiled at her more.  And because they had worked harder to make the relationship work, at the end of the study the men accused of sexism reported liking their partner more than those who weren’t accused of it.

3.  Being Confronted Makes You Less Sexist

Perhaps the best reason to confront sexism is that it is the single most effective tool we have if we want to get rid of it.

Hundreds of studies show that confronting bias (toward any group) actually improves intergroup perceptions and reduces future bias.   If no one points out to Jim that his remarks about women are offensive, it’s not likely he’s going to figure it out on his own.  And chances are, he doesn’t really want to offend you or anyone else.  Confronting him gives him a chance to see things from your point of view, and understand where his “innocent” comment went wrong.

Follow me on Twitter  @hghalvorson

Feeling Timid and Powerless? Maybe It's How You're Sitting.

In the animal kingdom, the alphas often convey their dominant status through posture.  They rise to their full height, stick out their chests and fan their tail feathers, all to take up as much space as possible and establish their powerful presence.  The weaker omegas, on the other hand, bow down low, tucking in their limbs and tails and signaling their submission.

Human beings are no different.  The most powerful guy in the room is usually the one whose physical movements are most expansive – legs apart, leaning forward, arms spread wide while he gestures.  He’s the CEO who isn’t afraid to swing his feet up onto the conference room table, hands behind his head and elbows jutting outward, confident in his power to spread himself out however he damn well pleases.

The nervous, powerless person holds himself very differently – he makes himself physically as small as possible: shoulders hunched, feet together, hands in his lap or arms wrapped protectively across his chest.  He’s the guy in the corner who is hoping he won’t be called on, and often is barely noticed.

Psychologists have known for some time that powerful and powerless individuals adopt these poses unconsciously, and that the poses themselves are in fact perceived (also unconsciously) by others as indictors of status.  Your posture, like it or not, tells people a lot about you.

But more recent research reveals a new, far more surprising relationship between power and posing – that their influence works in both directions.  In other words, holding powerful poses can actually make you more powerful.

Researchers Dana Carney, Amy Cuddy, and Andy Yap asked male and female participants to hold two poses, each for one minute.  The poses were either high power (the CEO feet-up-on-the-table pose with hands behind head; standing feet apart while leaning over a table, supported by one hand resting on the table) or low power (sitting with shoulders slumped forward and hands in lap; standing with feet together and arms folded tightly across chest.)

After holding the high power poses, participants not only reported that they felt significantly more “powerful” and “in charge”, but were also more willing to take a   risk when offered the chance to gamble their study earnings for double the money.

The high power posers also experienced significant increases in testosterone and decreases in cortisol (measured by saliva), a neuroendocrine profile that has been linked in past research to dominance, competitiveness, adaptive responding to challenges, disease resistance, and leadership ability.  So not only did high power posing create psychological and behavioral changes typically associated with powerful people, it created physiological changes characteristic of the powerful as well.

Low power posers, on the other hand, experienced significantly drops in testosterone and increases in cortisol – giving them the typical physiological profile of the nervous and risk-averse omega, and leaving them feeling less powerful and less willing to take a chance on a big win.

So, take a look at how you are sitting right now.  Take a moment to think about what you are typically doing with your body when you are at your desk, in a meeting, or simply socializing.  What message is your body language – your posture, your stance, your gesturing – sending to everyone in the room?  And more importantly, what message is it sending to your own brain?  If you sit all curled up in a ball, or stand with your arms wrapped around your chest like battle armor, you are going to end up feeling less powerful and less confident because your brain will assume that that’s what you are.

It’s up to you to make sure your brain is getting the right message.  If you want more power – not just the appearance of power, but the genuine feeling of power – then spread your limbs wide, stand up straight, and lean into the conversation.   Carry yourself like the guy in charge, and in a matter of minutes your body will start to feel it, and you will start to believe it.

Follow me on Twitter  @hghalvorson

Is Your Willpower Running Low? Only If You Believe It Is.

A great deal of recent research (some of which I’ve written about in this blog) suggests that our capacity for self-control is much like a muscle.  Its strength varies from person to person, and also from moment to moment, depending on how recently and how hard it’s had to work.  (Think about how your legs can feel like jelly after a long run, and you get the idea.)

Just as our muscle strength is inherently limited, so too are our reserves of willpower.  Thus, self-control is often at its weakest immediately after we’ve had to use it – an effect demonstrated in dozens of published studies, and obvious to anyone who has every succumbed to the urge to drink, smoke, or eat a whole pint of ice cream at the end of very stressful day.

But what if you happened to be someone who believed that engaging in difficult tasks was energizing, rather than depleting?  What if you were convinced that using your willpower activates resources, rather than drains them?  What would happen?

You’d be right!  Thanks to a new set of studies by Veronika Job, Carol Dweck, and Gregory Walton, it’s become clear that people’s beliefs about the nature of self-control determine whether or not it is depleted by use.

The researchers distinguished between people who believed that willpower is a limited resource or a non-limited resource, and found that only those who believed in the limited-resource theory had less self-control (i.e., made lots of mistakes) after working on something very difficult.

How can this be? Both groups were equally exhausted by difficult task, so you might think they would be equally mistake-prone.  But it turns out that our theories about self-control determine how exhaustion affects us.

When people who hold the limited-resource view experience something as exhausting, they have less self-control and are more prone to errors because they see exhaustion as a sign to reduce effort, in order to rest and eventually replenish their self-control reserves.  In contrast, those with the non-limited resource view continue to put in effort despite their exhaustion, and make fewer errors because of it.

These beliefs, not surprisingly, predict how people handle the more stressful and demanding periods in their lives.  For instance, the researchers found that during the more stressful , exam-filled weeks in the academic semester, belief in the limited-resource theory of self-control predicted greater consumption of unhealthy junk foods, procrastination, and less effective study habits among college students.  Those who believed in limitless willpower, on the other hand, held up under stress just fine.

So, is self-control limited, or isn’t it?  The answer has become a lot less clear, and frankly, I’m no longer sure it matters.  What does matter is whether or not you believe that it’s limited.    And since you have some choice when it comes to your beliefs, I recommend going with the limitless willpower view.  Maybe in the end, all it takes to put down that pint of ice cream at the end of the day is believing that you actually can.

Many Heads Can Be Better Than One - Especially If They Belong to Women

From my Fast Company Blog:

In the modern workplace, almost all work of real consequence is carried about by small teams.   But even when very smart, very talented people are assigned to work together on a project, it’s clear that the resulting team can be a complete disaster.   Sometimes it seems like teamwork can turn otherwise competent people into childish morons.  Would we be better off relying less on teams, and more on individuals going at it alone?

Not necessarily.  Teams can be smarter and more effective than the individuals who make up the team – the whole can indeed be bigger and better than just the sum of its parts, but only under the right circumstances.

A new study conducted by researchers at MIT, Carnegie Mellon, and Union College shows that the collective intelligence of a small group working together uniquely predicts their performance across a wide variety of tasks.  In the study, nearly 700 people were placed in groups of 2 to 5, and their ability to solve problems as a team was found to strongly predict their subsequent success on tasks as diverse as visual puzzles, games, negotiations, and logical analysis.

The average intelligence of members (measured individually, rather than as a group) did not predict team performance at all, and that’s really important. In other words, simply having a couple of really smart people in the group didn’t necessarily make the group itself any smarter.

It turns out that the collective intelligence of the team will only meet or exceed its individual potential if the right kind of internal dynamics are in place.  The researchers found that what is needed for a group to be “smart” is effective coordination and communication, and that this is most likely to be the present in groups with members who were more socially sensitive.

When groups contained people who were particularly skilled when it comes to perceiving and responding to others’ emotions, they demonstrated greater collective intelligence, and superior performance again and again.  Not surprisingly, groups where one person dominated in conversation and decision-making were collectively less intelligent, and less effective.

So, how can you ensure that your team will be socially sensitive?  The answer is simple: Add more women.  Teams in the study that contained more women were significantly more socially sensitive, and consequently more intelligent, than the male-dominated teams.

If you don’t have the power to change the gender makeup of your teams, fear not.  Their collective intelligence can still develop and improve – through better, more sensitive means of working together, or better collaboration tools.  Create opportunities for team members to express their feelings, and for others to respond to them.   Encourage face-time whenever possible (emotions are difficult to read on the phone, and nearly impossible over email).  Cultivating a work environment  where team members experiences are acknowledged and understood will create teams that are smarter, happier, and far more successful.

Follow me on Twitter @hghalvorson

The Cure for Loneliness

The world grows ever smaller, more connected, more crowded, and ironically, increasingly lonely for many of us.  This is a problem with a whole host of unhappy consequences, not just for the individuals who experience it, but for society as a whole.

It’s important to point out before I go any further that loneliness is not the same thing as being a private person, or a “loner,” because some of us actually both need and enjoy a lot of time to ourselves.  Loneliness, instead, refers to the difference between the amount of social contact and intimacy you have and the amount you want.  It’s about feeling isolated, like an outcast.

(That said, the opposite of loneliness isn’t popularity either – you can have dozens of “friends” and still feel lonely.  True intimacy and feelings of relatedness are much more about the quality of your relationships than the quantity.)

Persistent loneliness is not only emotionally painful, but can be more damaging to our physical and mental health than many psychiatric illnesses.  For instance, lonely people sleep poorly, experience severe depression and anxiety, have reduced immune and cardiovascular functioning, and exhibit sings of early cognitive decline that grow more severe over time.

Not surprisingly, psychologists have created dozens of interventions designed to try to tackle this epidemic of loneliness.  The approaches taken are varied, but can be broken up, roughly speaking, into four different categories.

There are interventions aimed at:

Improving social skills. Some researchers argue that loneliness is primarily the result of lacking of the interpersonal skills required to create and maintain relationships.  Typically, these interventions involve teaching people how to be less socially awkward – to engage in conversation, speak on the phone, give and take compliments, grow comfortable with periods of silence, and communicate in positive ways non-verbally.

Enhancing social support.  Many lonely people are victims of changing circumstances. These approaches offer professional help and counseling for the bereaved, elderly people who have been relocated, and children of divorce.

Increasing opportunities for social interaction. With this approach, the logic is simple:  If people are lonely, give them opportunities to meet other people.  This type of intervention, therefore, focuses on creating such opportunities through organized group activities.

Changing maladaptive thinking.  This approach might seem surprising, and its rationale less obvious than the other approaches.  But recent research reveals that over time, chronic loneliness makes us increasingly sensitive to, and on the lookout for, rejection and hostility.  In ambiguous social situations, lonely people immediately think the worst.  For instance, if coworker Bob seems more quiet and distant than usual lately, a lonely person is likely to assume that he’s done something to offend Bob, or that Bob is intentionally giving him the cold shoulder.

Lonely people pay more attention to negative social information (like disagreement or criticism). They remember more of the negative things that happened during an encounter with another person, and fewer positive things.

All this leads, as you might imagine, to more negative expectations about future interactions with others – lonely people don’t expect things to go well for them, and consequently, they often don’t.

Interventions aimed at changing this self-fulfilling pattern of thinking begin by teaching people to identify negative thoughts when they occur.  Whenever they feel anxious about a social encounter, find themselves focusing on everything that went wrong, or wondering if they’ve made a bad impression, a red flag is raised.

Next, they learn to treat these negative thoughts as testable hypotheses rather than fact.  They consider other possibilities – maybe everything will go smoothly, maybe it wasn’t all bad, perhaps everyone liked me after all.  They practice trying to see things from the perspective of others, and interpret their actions more benignly.

Take the case of Bob the Distant Coworker.  With thought retraining, lonely people learn to ask themselves questions like “Am I sure Bob doesn’t like me?  Could there be other, more likely reasons for his quiet, reserved behavior at work?  Could he simply be preoccupied with some problem?  I know sometimes I get quiet and distracted when something is bothering me.  Maybe Bob’s behavior has nothing to do with me!”

Once the negative thoughts are banished, lonely people can approach new relationships with a positive, optimistic outlook, see the best in others, and learn to feel more confident about themselves.

With four approaches to curing loneliness, the obvious question is:  What works?  Thanks to a recent meta-analysis of 50 different loneliness interventions, the answer is clear.  Interventions aimed at changing maladaptive thinking patterns were, on average, four times more effective than other interventions in reducing loneliness.  (In fact, the other three approaches weren’t particularly effective at all.)

It turns out that fundamentally, long-term loneliness isn’t about being awkward, or the victim of circumstance, or lacking opportunities to meet people.  Each can be the reason for relatively short-term loneliness – anyone who has ever moved to a new town or a new school and had to start building a network of friends from scratch certainly knows what it’s like to be lonely.   But this kind of loneliness needn’t last long, and new relationships usually are formed… unless you’ve fallen into a way of thinking that keeps relationships from forming.

More than anything else, the cure for persistent loneliness lies in breaking the negative cycle of thinking that created it in the first place.

Follow me on Twitter @hghalvorson