Are Your Meetings Making People Dumb?

Posted on 2012/10/142012/10/17 by Jason Hensel

A person’s decision-making performance indoors can be negatively affected by moderately high concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO₂), according to a recent study from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

“The primary source of indoor CO₂ is humans,” wrote Julie Chao for the Berkeley Lab News Center. “While typical outdoor concentrations are around 380 ppm, indoor concentrations can go up to several thousand ppm. Higher indoor CO₂ concentrations relative to outdoors are due to low rates of ventilation, which are often driven by the need to reduce energy consumption. In the real world, CO₂concentrations in office buildings normally don’t exceed 1,000 ppm, except in meeting rooms, when groups of people gather for extended periods of time.”

Meetings, eh? I can already imagine the sensational headline I will write and use: “Are your meetings making people dumb?”

The researchers suggest that it’s too early, though, to make recommendations, as more tests have to be done, especially on a larger scale.

“Assuming it’s replicated, it has implications for the standards we set for minimum ventilation rates for buildings,” said Berkeley Lab scientist William Fisk, a co-author of the study, as reported by Chao. “People who are employers who want to get the most of their workforce would want to pay attention to this.”

Until then, let’s just have meetings outside when possible. Sound good?

(Image via Flickr: Patrick Lauke / Creative Commons)

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I’m Sorry, Your Name Is…?

Posted on 2012/06/202012/06/20 by Jason Hensel

I’ve taken improvisation lessons for more than two years now. While it has helped improve my listening skills, I still forget people’s names at times. And as someone who works in the meeting industry, forgetting names is often not a positive trait.

For the longest time, I thought it was my brain’s love of forgetfulness that it increasingly embraces every year. However, it’s not my mind’s mechanics that are at fault. It’s me. According to Richard Harris, a psychology professor at Kansas State University, your level of interest determines your brain’s ability to remember names.

“Some people, perhaps those who are more socially aware, are just more interested in people, more interested in relationships,” Harris said. “They would be more motivated to remember somebody’s name.”

Harris says that the more interest you show in a person, the more likely you’ll remember that person’s name. That’s common sense, but as with most common sense advice, it’s easily forgotten.

To help you remember names, try strategies such as mnemonic devices or saying the person’s name while you talk to the person. Or better yet, as Harris says, just show more interest in people.

(Image via Flickr: Emily Rose / Creative Commons)

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I Was Born This Way

Posted on 2012/04/11 by Jason Hensel

I have trouble being mean. It’s next to impossible to not be nice. Sure, I get in bad moods and can be snippy at times, but overall I’m a nice fellow, you know, finishing last in all. And I’m okay with that most of the time, especially now that I’ve learned I was born this way.

According to psychologists at the University at Buffalo (UB) and the University of California, Irvine, a reason some people are nice is because of their genes. The study “The Neurogenics of Niceness,” appearsthis month in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

The researchers studied the behavior of subjects who have versions of receptor genes for two hormones (oxytocin and vasopressin) that are associated with niceness and to find out if these chemicals nudge other forms of pro-social behavior in us.

Subjects were surveyed as to their attitudes toward civic duty, other people and the world in general, and about their charitable activities. Study subjects took part in an Internet survey with questions about civic duty, such as whether people have a duty to report a crime or pay taxes; how they feel about the world, such as whether people are basically good or whether the world is more good than bad; and about their own charitable activities, like giving blood, working for charity or going to PTA meetings.

Of those surveyed, 711 subjects provided a sample of saliva for DNA analysis, which showed what form they had of the oxytocin and vasopressin receptors.

“The study found that these genes combined with people’s perceptions of the world as a more or less threatening place to predict generosity,” said Michel Poulin, PhD, assistant professor of psychology at UB. “Specifically, study participants who found the world threatening were less likely to help others–unless they had versions of the receptor genes that are generally associated with niceness.”

These “nicer” versions of the genes, Poulin says, “allow you to overcome feelings of the world being threatening and help other people in spite of those fears.”

“So if one of your neighbors seems really generous, caring, civic-minded kind of person, while another seems more selfish, tight-fisted and not as interested in pitching in, their DNA may help explain why one of them is nicer than the other,” he said. “We aren’t saying we’ve found the niceness gene. But we have found a gene that makes a contribution. What I find so interesting is the fact that it only makes a contribution in the presence of certain feelings people have about the world around them.”

(Story materials provided by the University at Buffalo.)

(Image via Flickr: Jason Liebig / Creative Commons)

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The Dark Side of the Mobile Phone

Posted on 2012/02/27 by Jason Hensel

For every good aspect of mobile phones, there’s a dark side attributed to them. Most prominently, it’s been the debate about if they’re contributing to brain cancer. There’s been no decision on that one yet. However, there are two new studies about other dark sides to mobile phone use that you may find interesting.

The first is a study from researchers at University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business that shows mobile phones make users less socially minded.

The researchers found that after a short period of cellphone use the subjects were less inclined to volunteer for a community service activity when asked, compared to the control-group counterparts. The cell phone users were also less persistent in solving word problems–even though they knew their answers would translate to a monetary donation to charity.

College students, men and women in their early 20s, took part in the study. The researchers say, though, that they expect similar findings in people in other age groups due to the ubiquitous nature of mobile phones.

The authors cited previous research in explaining a root cause of their findings: “The cellphone directly evokes feelings of connectivity to others, thereby fulfilling the basic human need to belong.” This results in reducing one’s desire to connect with others or to engage in empathic and prosocial behavior.

In a second study, it appears that mobile phones also contribute negatively on users’ linguistic abilities. According to research from the University of Calgary, people who text more are less accepting of new words.

The study, conducted by Joan Lee for her master’s thesis in linguistics, revealed … those who read more traditional print media such as books, magazines, and newspapers were more accepting of the same words.

Lee says that we assume that text messaging encourages unconstrained language. However, this is not true.

“The people who accepted more words did so because they were better able to interpret the meaning of the word, or tolerate the word, even if they didn’t recognize the word. Students who reported texting more rejected more words instead of acknowledging them as possible words.”

People who read traditional print media expose themselves to variety and creativity in language, Lee says. These traits aren’t normally found in colloquial text messaging among young people.

“In contrast, texting is associated with rigid linguistic constraints which caused students to reject many of the words in the study,” says Lee. “This was surprising because there are many unusual spellings or ‘textisms’ such as ‘LOL’ in text messaging language.”

Lee suggests that frequency plays a large part in the acceptance of words by people who text a lot.

“Textisms represent real words which are commonly known among people who text,” she says. “Many of the words presented in the study are not commonly known and were not acceptable to the participants in the study who texted more or read less traditional print media.”

It’s beginning to look like if people really want to be anti-social and dumb, they should choose to use their mobile phones more.

(Photo via Flickr: Anders Adermark / Creative Commons)

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Embarrassed People are More Trustworthy

Posted on 2011/09/30 by Jason Hensel

You may be embarrassed by being embarrassed, but that’s not a bad thing. In fact, it makes you more trustworthy.

“Embarrassment is one emotional signature of a person to whom you can entrust valuable resources,” said University of California Berkeley social psychologist Robb Willer, a coauthor of a study published in this month’s online issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. “It’s part of the social glue that fosters trust and cooperation in everyday life.”

The researchers conducted a few experiments to get to their findings.

In the first experiment, they videotaped 60 college students recounting embarrassing moments such as public flatulence or making incorrect assumptions based on appearances. Typical sources of embarrassment included mistaking an overweight woman for being pregnant or a disheveled person for being a panhandler. Research assistants coded each video testimonial based on the level of embarrassment the subjects showed.

The college students also participated in the “Dictator Game,” which economics researchers use to measure altruism. For example, each was given 10 raffle tickets and asked to keep a share of the tickets and give the remainder to a partner. Results showed that those who showed greater levels of embarrassment tended to give away more of their raffle tickets, indicating greater generosity.

Researchers also surveyed 38 Americans whom they recruited through Craigslist. They asked survey participants how often they feel embarrassed. They were also gauged for their general cooperativeness and generosity through such exercises as the aforementioned dictator game.

In another experiment, participants watched a trained actor being told he received a perfect score on a test. The actor responded with either embarrassment or pride. They then played games with the actor that measured their trust in him based on whether he had shown pride or embarrassment.

The results consistently showed that embarrassment signals people’s tendency to be pro-social.

“You want to affiliate with them more,” said Matthew Feinberg, a doctoral student in psychology at UC Berkeley and lead author of the paper. “You feel comfortable trusting them. Moderate levels of embarrassment are signs of virtue. Our data suggests embarrassment is a good thing, not something you should fight.”

How easily do you get embarrassed?

(Story materials provided by the University of California Berkeley.)
(Photo credit: Sarah Rebecca / Creative Commons)

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