Marketing luxury products requires connecting with consumers’ often emotion-driven desires, aspirations, and/or fantasies. However, many consumers cannot put aside their ‘rational’ mindset, and as a result feel guilty when purchasing purely hedonistic products. How can luxury companies appeal to the pleasure-seeker in their consumers while reducing the guilt from such pleasure-seeking? The answer, according to […]
Subject: Psychology
Understanding Follower Attitudes Helps Decipher Leadership Success
What makes a good leader? The answer is often given in the context of the leader’s impact on followers — a natural response since the effectiveness of a leader is defined not by what he or she does, but by what he or she is capable of getting others to do. For this reason, theories […]
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Digital Natives and Multi-tasking Proficiency Are Harmful Myths
The digital native is a myth, according to an extensive review of the research by by Paul Kirschner of Open University of the Netherlands and Pedro de Bruyckere of Artevelde University in Ghent, Belgium. Writing in Teaching and Teacher Education journal, Kirschner and Bruyckere argue that multiple academic studies in multiple countries show repeatedly that […]
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Brain Drain: How Cell Phones Distract Customer Attention
Cell phones can be distracting when you’re trying to work. If the phone rings, you’ll stop what you’re doing to answer it. If you hear the ping of a new email, you’ll check the message. Academic research has confirmed that having and attending to a cell phone during the completion of a task reduces productivity. […]
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How ‘Power Recall’ Is an Effective Technique When Easy
Psychological tools are proving to be very effective in helping people in the workplace gain the right frame of mind in challenging situations. Imagine that you are about to enter a room where you will make a presentation in front of a powerful client. Appearing diffident or unsure would be the worst impression you could […]
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Integrating Social Identities Spurs Creativity and Innovation
Research has shown that creativity and innovation come from combining seemingly unrelated or irrelevant knowledge. You can create the context for combining unrelated knowledge by bringing together people with diverse backgrounds and knowledge. Thus, diversity (which might be based on race or gender but also on profession or function) is often sought in brainstorming teams. […]
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Crisis Communication: Emphasize the Positive
Some people are motivated by growth goals — goals that reflect aspirations and ambitions. In psychological terms, these people are promotion-oriented. In contrast, prevention-oriented people are motivated by goals that stress responsibility and safety. The word ‘prevention’ is used since their motivation is often framed by something they want to avoid. For example, prevention-oriented people […]
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Multi-tasking: Those Who Do It Poorly Do It More!
Most people multi-task because they think they can do it well — and that they will acquire the rewards of multi-tasking, such as saving time and being less bored with a single task. The truth, a new study shows, is quite the opposite. The people who multi-task the most are the people who derive the […]
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Integrate Your Multiple Social Identities
All of us belong to certain social groups in society. Our ‘social identities’ are based on these groups, which can involve gender, nationality, profession, heritage, political affiliation, hobby or family roles, to name a few. Thus, a person might identify herself as an Italian-American female lawyer, devoted wife and mother, committed Republican and runner. There […]
How The Right Mindset Turns Stress Into a Positive Force
How do you respond to stress? The common wisdom is that stress is debilitating — that is, if you are stressed, you are less effective and productive. However, a series of three studies conducted by a team of researchers led by Yale Ph.D. candidate Alia Crum (now a professor at Stanford) and including current Yale […]
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