Category Archives: Neuroscience

The Marshmallow Test

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Beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Walter Mischel pioneered work illuminating the ability to delay gratification and to exert self-control in the face of strong situational pressures and emotionally “hot” temptations. His studies with preschoolers in the late 1960s, often referred to as “the marshmallow experiment“, examined the processes and mental mechanisms that enable a young child to forego immediate gratification and to wait instead for a larger desired but delayed reward. Continuing research with these original participants has examined how preschool delay of gratification ability links to development over the life course, and may predict a variety of important outcomes (e.g., SAT scores, social and cognitive competence, educational attainment, and drug use), and can have significant protective effects against a variety of potential vulnerabilities.[4] This work also opened a route to research on temporal discounting in decision-making, and most importantly… …

How To Stop Stewing in Your Own Juices

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Biochemically speaking, emotions have a shelf life of 90 seconds. They’re designed to be transitory. And yet, somehow when our feelings fall on the negative side (i.e. anger) we seem to get stuck in a loop that can be hard to escape. All too often, we blame these feelings on someone else, when in fact, the answer to breaking the cycle lies within. After 90 seconds, the initial flood of chemicals has completely dissipated. Dwelling on the situation that caused your feelings in the first place keeps powerful, chemicals flowing and you literally stew in your own juices. It takes a little practice, but rather than stewing, you can hit the ‘reset’ button. A Relentless Loop Road Rage offers a prime example of getting stuck in an angry loop. Remember the last person who cut you off? What ran through… …

Mindfulness Increases Your Chance of Promotion

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It appears as if social science and neuroscience are coming to the same conclusions about human behavior… at least in some instances. In a Ted Talk entitled Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are, Amy Cuddy speaks about how adjusting your posture for two minutes will change hormone levels, which will either make you more powerful or less powerful. It’s interesting, because the postures Cuddy highlights are clearly instinctive power or submissive moves. The hormones involved? Testosterone (the dominance hormone) and cortisol (the stress hormone). As people interact with one another, those hormone levels translate to body language. This has serious consequences personally and professionally. As a leader, one of the most important skills I taught my direct reports was how to interpret body language during interviews. Of course, the skill applied to all interpersonal interactions, but it was really… …

Cultivating Curiosity And Engagement

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This morning, I stumbled across statistics that show challenges with engagement, creativity, and well-being begin long before people enter the workforce. So, while Positive Business DC’s mission is to use science-backed research to help people improve their companies, culture, and the bottom line, let’s take a moment to see how we can improve the level of well-being with our kids. According to The Future Project, students lose interest in school at an alarming rate due to disengagement, lack of fulfillment, and lack of motivation. (Sounds familiar, right? Research tells us that people need autonomy, mastery and purpose in order for their jobs to be fulfilling. It should come as no surprise that students are motivated by the same needs and emotions as adults.) Disengagement •  80% of students ‘don’t see how school contributes to their learning and growth’ •  60%… …

Interesting Conversations on LinkedIn

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If you’re somewhere in the management chain and not yet a member of either the Leadership Think Tank or Harvard Business Review groups on LinkedIn, you’re missing out on some very interesting conversations that get to the core of well-being in the workplace… or perhaps lack thereof in many American companies. One of the questions being debated on LinkedIn this week is as follows: If your employee makes a mistake, do you accept responsibility? Fascinated by the discussion thread, I scrolled through all of the comments and got a good sense for what people had to say about responsibility, accountability, and throwing subordinates under the bus. While I didn’t do a tally, it struck me that a rather large percentage of the comments had a strong authoritarian flavor, many with advice on the process and education needed to avoid mistakes… …

Self-aware Companies Win… BIG

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The Gallup Organization has identified some interesting flaws in modern economic theory. Research indicates that false assumptions about human behavior have generated serious discrepancies between accepted theory and why people buy. The delta between the two makes a difference between companies who win and those who fail, or at best, accept mediocrity. Irrational Decisions… Us? Specifically, classical economic theory says that people look at a set of data (large or small) and make rational decisions. And yet, the Gallup research shows that approximately 70% of economic decision making boils down to emotions. That means only about 30% of the decisions we make line up with the classic economic model. Neruoscientific evidence supports Gallup’s findings. According to How We Decide,the rational brain maxes out at about 7 pieces of data. As a result, using the rational brain when making complex decisions… …

Attitude Drives Self-fulfilling Prophesies

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A recent article by Harvard Business Review gives advice about how to keep one’s preconceptions from skewing decisions. According to the article, six behaviors bias a person’s worldview. In particular, confirmation bias reaffirms snap judgments to create self-fulfilling prophesies. If you have a positive outlook on life, then you see endless possibilities and very likely exhibit the drive to achieve incredible accomplishments. You make up your mind and go for things that seem beyond the reach of other people. In contrast, the Eyeores of the world fence themselves in behind self-imposed limitations—and therefore severely limit their potential. They say you can’t teach old dogs new tricks. But, the science shows that we can actually improve our positivity factor by adjusting how we react to situations. Over time, you can train yourself to have a more positive emotional response when something… …

Why 70% of Employees Dream of Leaving Their Jobs

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Much of workplace unhappiness stems from a controlling, or authoritarian management style… the default setting for a significant number of today’s business “leaders.” These managers use their authority to gain compliance rather than treating employees in a manner they’d prefer. Continue reading →

Brainstorming Gets A Bum Rap

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Neuroscientific discovery shows that people share emotions. Even though we often view disagreement as a negative and do whatever we can to avoid confrontation, the ability to laugh at ourselves and have fun at work helps keep things on a positive track. You can creatively address uncomfortable situations without destroying relationships. Surprisingly, the direct approach often improves morale. Continue reading →

Positively Profitable– Be Happy, Work Better

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If you want to increase profits, you might want to check out the field of positive psychology. Continue reading →