On current evidence exercise is clearly the best method for increasing useful everyday cognitive functioning.
This is the conclusion of a piece over on PsyBlog, Which Cognitive Enhancers Really Work: Brain Training, Drugs, Vitamins, Meditation or Exercise?
Ultimately, there is little conclusive scientific evidence to support the oft-claimed beneficial effects of brain training, drugs, vitamins or meditation on cognition.
Of course, that doesn’t mean they’re not worth doing.
What I take out of this is that exercise needs to be part of your daily routine.
Those aren’t the reasons we like to think of ourselves as donating, but experimental research on charity tends to support the notion that donating and thinking occupy separate realms. Jonathan Baron, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, asked a group of participants which charity they’d rather give to: one that achieved its goals so efficiently that it could spend 20 percent of its money on advertising, or one that required more money to do the same amount of good, and thus spent less on promotion. Though the first charity was technically more efficient, people tended to favor the latter: What mattered to them was seeing more of their own money at work, Baron concluded, rather than the amount of good it did.
(via curiositycounts)
Source: bostonglobe.com
This is part of a much larger infographic, which is well worth checking out if you want a beginner’s guide to the psychology of selling in visual form.
Of course, if you like this and you want to delve a little deeper, a great start is Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini. It’s deservedly a classic and a staple of MBA courses the world over.
Faced with a choice between a ‘competent jerk’ and a ‘lovable fool’ as a work partner, people usually opt for likeability over ability
This was the finding of a research study documented in an article from 2005 in the Harvard Business Review called Competent Jerks, Lovable Fools, and the Formation of Social Networks (PDF).
A fascinating insight six years ago that is only more relevant today as companies’ interest in social media broadens to investigating social business.
What’s crucial is that companies invest suitably in employees in key positions who possess the emotional intelligence to get the most out of both the lovable fool and the competent jerk.
What about you - faced with the same choice, would you choose a competent jerk or a lovable fool as your work partner?
