Barking up the wrong tree

Absolutely:

In this study the author examined the dreams of American liberals and conservatives to highlight patterns that might correlate with their opposing political views. A total of 234 participants (134 self-described liberals and 100 self-described conservatives) completed a lengthy sleep and dream survey, and their answers revealed several notable patterns. People of both political persuasions shared a common substrate of basic human sleep and dream experience. Conservatives slept somewhat more soundly, with fewer remembered dreams. Liberals were more restless in their sleep and had a more active and varied dream life. In contrast to a previous study, liberals reported a somewhat greater proportion of bad dreams and nightmares. Consistent with earlier research, the dreams of conservatives were more mundane, whereas the dreams of liberals were more bizarre. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

Source: Sleep and Dream Patterns of Political Liberals and Conservatives. from Dreaming by Bulkeley, Kelly

I'm going to be posting more great research on dreams soon. Would love to hear your thoughts on dreams and their influence on your life. Post a comment.

If you want to learn more about the state of politics today, I recommend checking out this book.

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Sure can. Making a sound while you search doesn't actually work like sonar but it will help you find stuff:

Searching for an object within a cluttered, continuously changing environment can be a very time-consuming process. The authors show that a simple auditory pip drastically decreases search times for a synchronized visual object that is normally very difficult to find. This effect occurs even though the pip contains no information on the location or identity of the visual object. The experiments also show that the effect is not due to general alerting (because it does not occur with visual cues), nor is it due to top-down cuing of the visual change (because it still occurs when the pip is synchronized with distractors on the majority of trials). Instead, we propose that the temporal information of the auditory signal is integrated with the visual signal, generating a relatively salient emergent feature that automatically draws attention. Phenomenally, the synchronous pip makes the visual object pop out from its complex environment, providing a direct demonstration of spatially nonspecific sounds affecting competition in spatial visual processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved)

Source: Pip and pop: Nonspatial auditory signals improve spatial visual search. from Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance - by Van der Burg, Erik; Olivers, Christian N. L.; Bronkhorst, Adelbert W.; Theeuwes, Jan

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Organized crime:

Italy's mafia crime syndicates bucked the recession in 2009 to raise 'profits' by almost 8 percent with the financial crisis making companies and even the stock market even more vulnerable to cash-flush mobsters... It estimated that the impact on business equaled about 7 percent of Italy's economic output, enjoying healthy growth in a year when the Italian economy shrank by almost 5 percent.

And:

It estimated the mob's joint turnover last year at 135 billion euros, topped by trafficking in drugs, people, weapons and contraband worth just under 68 billion euros. Second came "business" interests like public contracts, gambling, forgeries and supplying illegal labor at 25 billion euros, then extortion and loan sharking at 25 billion euros.

Robbery and fraud represented just 1 billion euros of the total business and prostitution brought in 600 million, said SOS Impresa. The mob laid out 1.17 billion in wages and 2.75 billion on corrupting officials, invested 26 billion and laundered an estimated 19.5 billion, the researchers said.

 Total "profits" ran to an estimated 78 billion euros.

And:

The group portrayed an increasingly sophisticated business environment, with mobsters diversifying away from traditional areas like public contracts, property and construction.

Source: Reuters

If you want to learn more about the mafia, I recommend this book.

Have you ever had anybody whacked? Turned state's evidence and got relocated to Oklahoma? Post a comment.

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Making progress:

Ask leaders what they think makes employees enthusiastic about work, and they’ll tell you in no uncertain terms. In a recent survey we invited more than 600 managers from dozens of companies to rank the impact on employee motivation and emotions of five workplace factors commonly considered significant: recognition, incentives, interpersonal support, support for making progress, and clear goals. “Recognition for good work (either public or private)” came out number one.

Unfortunately, those managers are wrong.

Having just completed a multiyear study tracking the day-to-day activities, emotions, and motivation levels of hundreds of knowledge workers in a wide variety of settings, we now know what the top motivator of performance is—and, amazingly, it’s the factor those survey participants ranked dead last. It’s progress. On days when workers have the sense they’re making headway in their jobs, or when they receive support that helps them overcome obstacles, their emotions are most positive and their drive to succeed is at its peak. On days when they feel they are spinning their wheels or encountering roadblocks to meaningful accomplishment, their moods and motivation are lowest.

Source: Harvard Business Review

If you want a great true story about business, I recommend this book.

Have any thoughts on what motivates people? Post a comment.

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You've gotta get emotional. Smiling can help. And if it's not a highly justified complaint, you'll look more credible by getting ANGRY:

Emotion displays do not only signal emotions but also have social signal value. A study was conducted to test the hypothesis that expressing anger when complaining may lead to positive outcomes for the complainant because anger signals goal obstruction and hence the presence of real harm. The results suggest that the social signal value of anger enhances the credibility of the complainant and hence leads to better compensation, but only when the complaint itself presents room for doubt. For highly justified complaints the additional expression of anger does not add information and is discounted. In contrast, showing an affiliative-smiling demeanor was found to enhance credibility for both types of complaints. Overall, the present research confirmed the important role of emotion expressions as social signals. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Source: "When scowling may be a good thing: The influence of anger expressions on credibility" European Journal of Social Psychology Volume 39 Issue 4, Pages 631 - 638

Ever since studying negotiating in school I've been fascinated with it. I've posted about the subject a few times in the past: Here are the seven most powerful persuasion techniques, how to use the good cop/bad cop technique, a great method for getting a deal on a car, the optimal starting price for negotiations and auctions, and how to easily make more money on eBay.

Getting to Yes can teach you to be a good negotiator while still being a nice person. If you're less Jedi and more Sith, check out Jim Camp.

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Nope:

Research suggests that the experiences recollected from the dreams of persons who are deaf or who have hearing loss reflect their personal background and circumstances. However, this literature also indicated that few studies have surveyed the occurrence of color and communication styles. Individual differences in the perception of color and affect were especially noted. These differences appeared dependent upon whether the impairment was congenital or acquired. In this study, 24 deaf persons and a person with hearing loss who use American Sign Language (ASL) were compared to a sample of hearing persons regarding colors and communication occurring in their dreams. Both groups were found to communicate in dreams as they do in life, deaf persons and person with hearing loss by signing, and hearing persons by speech. The deaf persons and a person with hearing loss experienced more color and more vividness, and the time of onset for a hearing impairment showed differences among persons with hearing loss. The findings also suggest that utilizing dreams as therapeutic material when treating persons with hearing loss and nonimpaired persons may have clinical utility. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved

Source: Color and Communication in the Dreams of Hearing and Deaf Persons. from Dreaming - by Gilliland, Jeffrey; Stone, Mark

I'm going to be posting more great research on dreams soon. Would love to hear your thoughts on dreams and their influence on your life. Post a comment.

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Research conducted by evolutionary psychologists and biologists shows that subtle individual differences in body morphology can be related to surprising and important differences in human behavior and reproductive success. The authors summarize recent work on these effects as they relate to fluctuating asymmetry, facial attractiveness, finger digit morphology, sexually dimorphic differences in body configuration, and head circumference. Examples include the discovery that women who have sex with bilaterally symmetrical men report more orgasms; men with attractive faces have higher quality sperm; the length of the index finger in relation to the ring finger is related to verbal fluency, spatial ability, and the risk of autism; women with an hourglass figure have more regular menstrual cycles and are more fertile; and the sound of a person's voice predicts his or her sexual behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved)

Source: Morphology and behavior: Phrenology revisited. from Review of General Psychology - by Gallup Jr., Gordon G.; Frederick, Michael J.; Pipitone, R. Nathan

For an amusing look at sex and evolutionary biology, I recommend this book.

How long is your index finger in relation to your ring finger? Ladies, is the guy you're with bilaterally symmetrical? Post a comment and let's discuss.

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Economists are fond of telling us that "people respond to incentives." It seems that's true even when we're passed out on the couch:

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Actually, it can:

In recent studies of heterosexual couples in their first few years of marriage, researchers learned that too much support is harder on a marriage than not enough. When it comes to marital satisfaction, both partners are happier if husbands receive the right type of support, and if wives ask for support when they need it.

The findings illustrate the need for couples to understand the various ways they can be supportive, and the importance of communicating what they need and when, said Erika Lawrence, associate professor of psychology in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

"The idea that simply being more supportive is better for your marriage is a myth," Lawrence said. "Often husbands and wives think, 'If my partner really knows me and loves me, he or she will know I'm upset and will know how to help me.' However, that's not the best way to approach your marriage. Your partner shouldn't have to be a mind reader. Couples will be happier if they learn how to say, 'This is how I'm feeling, and this is how you can help me.'"

In one study, Lawrence and colleagues discovered that receiving more support than desired is a greater risk factor for marital decline than not being there for a spouse...Results showed that too much informational support -- usually in the form of unwanted advice-giving -- is the most detrimental. In contrast, you can never go wrong providing esteem support, assuming it's genuine.

If you're interested in the science of how marriages work and how to make them better check out the work of John Gottman.

Have you had any experiences with too much or too little support? I'd be curious to hear your thoughts in the comments.

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Toy Story is one of my all-time favorite movies. Giving a lecture at Stanford, Ed Catmull provided a look inside Pixar, the company that cranks out blockbuster after blockbuster:

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