A common misconception about school is that it teaches us how to learn. However, in my opinion, school doesn’t teach us how to learn, it teaches us how to pass tests. We pull all-nighters, cramming information into our brains, to ensure we have facts memorized. Often, we forget what we “learned” as soon as the…
Have you heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect? The term derives from a 1999 article in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology which showed low performers tend to overestimate their abilities. It’s not that low performers think they are better performers than higher-skilled people (that’s the illusory superiority effect); it’s just people think they’re better…
During my career, I’ve run a variety of group exercises designed to identify ways we could improve group performance. Typically my teams can identify areas of improvement but believe the challenges are with other people, not themselves. They suffer from the bias blind spot. The bias blind spot is the cognitive bias of failing to…
During the holiday season, many of us go out to eat more often than normal. While it’s gratifying to catch up with friends and colleagues over a meal, choosing where to sit at a table can be complicated and stressful – especially when there are more than just a few people. I’ve studied the dynamics…
When you ask someone to do something, be sure to include the statement that they are free to choose to do it or not. Adding this phrase doubles the likelihood they will do it. A detailed analysis of more than 22K subjects in 42 separate psychology studies demonstrates this startling result. The simple act of…
Most sports fans know home teams have an advantage over visiting teams even though they have never seen any hard facts which prove it. While fans believe in the home field advantage, they hotly debate the reason for its existence. Over the years, I’ve heard a variety of explanations from not having to travel, to…
The abstract for ‘When Consumers and Brands Talk: Storytelling Theory and Research in Psychology and Marketing’ caught my eye: Storytelling is pervasive through life. Much information is stored, indexed, and retrieved in the form of stories. Although lectures tend to put people to sleep, stories move them to action. People relate to each other in…
In graduate school I conducted a psychology study on sports recall that showed participants could remember every Super Bowl/World Series/Final Four team over the previous 10 years. What’s more, with a little work, some of them could remember the score, the most valuable player, or even the date the game took place. While I was…
We glorify leadership and encourage everyone to be leaders. There are hundreds of books on leadership, a plethora of expensive leadership consultants, and even a pithy saying about being the lead dog in the sled. But we can’t all be leaders. After all, then there would be no one to follow the leaders. And without…