Tag Archives: depression

Resilient Performance Enhanced by Warmth, Touch

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John Bargh

John Bargh

Idit Shalev

Idit Shalev

John Bargh of Yale and Idit Shalev now of Ben Gurion University found a bi-directional causal relationship between physical warmth and social warmth.

They used social affiliation as a proxy for social warmth; Loneliness and interpersonal rejection were examples of social coldness.

Results from their four studies concluded that feelings of social warmth or coldness can be induced by experiences of physical warmth or coldness, and vice versa.

In addition, Bargh and Shalev demonstrated that volunteers unconsciously self-regulated feelings of social warmth by applying physical warmth.

This type of self-regulation is a form of exerting control over the environment and managing feelings.
Self-management strategies reinforce people’s perception that they have some control over choices and environment.

Paul Zak

Paul Zak

Kerstin Uvnas-Moberg

Kerstin Uvnas-Moberg

Paul Zak and Kerstin Uvnas Moberg argue that touch can be another self-regulation strategy because it activates the vagus nerve and the release of oxytocin, resulting in increased feelings of interpersonal warmth, compassion, and collaboration.

Both of these self-management strategies – inducing warmth and engaging in touch – can increase task performance and reduce the likelihood that people will experience depression.

Carl Honore

Carl Honore

Martin Seligman

Martin Seligman

Canadian Journalist Carl Honore provided evidence in Martin Seligman’s important finding in studies of “learned helplessness,” that when people have a sense of control – whether real or a “positive illusion” – it can have a salutary effect on performance and mood.

-*How do you self-regulate performance and mood?

The Slow FixMartin Seligman-HelplessnessRelated Posts

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Beware of Seeking, Acting on Advice When Anxious, Sad

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Just as wise grandmothers advise, it’s best to avoid decisions when upset, anxious, or sad.

Maurice Schweitzer

Maurice Schweitzer

Maurice Schweitzer and Alison Wood Brooks of Wharton and Harvard Business School’s Francesca Gino validated Grandmother Wisdom in eight experiments that demonstrated anxiety’s impact on lowering self-confidence, impairing information processing, and impeding ability to distinguish advice from neutral advisors and those with a conflict of interest.

Alison Wood Brooks

Alison Wood Brooks

They found that people experiencing anxiety tend to seek advice and act on it, but they are less able to differentiate poor advice from valid recommendations, and these results are applicable to making decisions about crucial medical treatment, financial investments, or even guidance counseling.

Francesca Gino

Francesca Gino

The team evoked anxious feeling among volunteers by presenting potentially frightening film clips and music, and asked them to judge a person’s weight based on a photograph or number of coins in a jar or solve a complex math problem.

Participants were offered money for correct judgments, and the opportunity to receive advice from others when they were uncertain.
Those who heard the scary music or saw the alarming film clip rated themselves as less confident of their decision, and were more likely to ask others for advice.
These effects were not observed when volunteers were shown a film clip that could provoke anger.

Schweitzer, Brooks, and Gino concluded that people vary in their receptivity to advice based on:

  • Advisor’s characteristics, such as expertise, consistent with Cialdini’s observation

    Robert Cialdini

    Robert Cialdini

  • Perceived difficulty of the decision
  • Decision maker’s emotional state when receiving advice

The researchers advised decision-makers to:

  • Monitor their internal states for anxiety
  • Use feedback from multiple sources when making important decisions
  • Work toward developing increased self-confidence
  • Evoke calm state, often possible with systematic breathing or mindful attention and equanimity
Catherine Hartley

Catherine Hartley

Catherine Hartley, then of New York University and Elizabeth Phelps of New York University contributed to the neuroeconomic analysis of anxiety’s impact on decision- making when they reported that brain structures responsible for regulating fear and anxiety are also involved in economic decision-making under uncertain conditions.

Elizabeth Phelps

Elizabeth Phelps

Specifically, the amygdala is crucial in learning, experiencing, and regulating both fear and anxiety and it is also implicated in decision-making in situations of potential loss.
The prefrontal cortex is specialized in controlling fear and is also involved in decisions containing risk elements.

Hartley and Phelps suggest that techniques for altering fear and anxiety may also improve economic decisions-making.

Rajagopal Raganathan

Rajagopal Raganathan

Rajagopal Raghunathan, then of New York University and Michel Tuan Pham of Columbia University demonstrated the same connection between anxiety and making decisions about gambling and job selection.

Michel Tuan Pham

Michel Tuan Pham

They conducted three experiments and found that sad individuals select high risk / high-reward gambling and job options, whereas anxious individuals are biased in favor of low-risk / low-reward options.

Raghunathan and Pham posit that anxiety tends to motivate people to reduce uncertainty whereas sadness moves people to replace rewards.
They suggest suggesting two different decision biases related to mood states.

Raghunathan and Pham add to Schweitzer, Brooks, and Gino’s recommendations for mitigating decision bias:

  • “Monitor feelings”
  • Consider alternate options
  • Speculate on future moods and preferences if each option were selected: “What would I feel better about . . .?”

-*How do you mitigate the potential decision bias when anxious or sad?

Related posts:
Memorable Business Stories: Ideas and Numbers
Business Influence as “Enchantment”

Costs of Workplace Incivility

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The Cost of Bad BehaviorChristine Pearson of Thunderbird School of Global Management and Christine Porath of Georgetown University assessed the cost impact of workplace incivility in The Cost of Bad Behavior: How Incivility Is Damaging Your Business and What To Do About It.

They estimated that a single incident of incivility in the workplace can result in quantifiable operational costs:

  • Intentional decrease in work effort due to disengagement (48% affected employees)

    Christine Porath

    Christine Porath

  • Intentional decrease time at work to reduce contact with perpetrator (47%)
  • Lost work time due to worrying about the incident (80%)
  • Lost work productivity due to avoiding the perpetrator (63%)
  • Reduced commitment to the organization after the incident (78%)
  • Attrition (12% change jobs).

Danita Johnson Hughes added other quantifiable organizational symptoms:

Danita Johnson Hughes

Danita Johnson Hughes

  • Increased consumer complaints
  • Cultural and communications barriers
  • Lack of confidence in leadership
  • Inability to adapt effectively to change
  • Lack of individual accountability
Christine Pearson

Christine Pearson

Lynne Andersson, then of St. Joseph’s University and Christine Pearson, then of University of North Carolina, generalized that workplace incivility behaviors are typically “rude and discourteous, displaying a lack of regard for others.”
Johns Hopkins professor P.M. Forni’s The Baltimore Workplace Civility Study, uncovered specific behaviors deemed “uncivil”, acceptable, and violent.

P.M. Forni

P.M. Forni

Respondents agreed that unacceptable, “uncivil” behaviors include:

  • Taking a co-worker’s food from the office refrigerator without asking (93%)
  • Refusing to collaborate on a team project (90%)
  • Shifting blame for an error to a co-worker (88%)
  • Reading another’s mail (88%)
  • Neglecting to say please, thank you (88%).

Fewer respondents evaluated the following items as “acceptable workplace behavior”:

  • Taking the last cup of coffee without making a new pot (20%)
  • Not returning telephone calls and/or e-mails (17%)
  • Ignoring a co-worker (12%).

Respondents classified the following unacceptable behaviors as “violent”:

  • Pushing a co-worker during an argument (85%).
  • Yelling at a co-worker (59%).
  • Firing a subordinate during a disagreement (41%).
  • Criticizing a subordinate in public (34%).
  • Using foul language in the workplace (28%).
Gary Namie

Gary Namie

Gary Namie’s Campaign Against Workplace Bullying research report broadened the definition of unacceptable “violent” behavior to include workplace bullying, “the deliberate repeated, hurtful verbal mistreatment of a person (target) by a cruel perpetrator (bully).

His survey of more than 1300 respondents found that:

  • More than one-third of respondents observed bullying in the previous two years
  • More than 80% of perpetrators were workplace supervisors
  • Women bullied as frequently as men (50% of perpetrators)
  • Women were targets of bullying 75% of the time.
    Perpetrators were women 84% of time, and men 69% of time
  • Few bullies were punished, transferred, or terminated (7%)

Like Pearson & Porath as well as Hughes, Namie identified quantifiable costs of health-related symptoms experienced by bullying targets:

  • Depression (41%)
  • Sleep loss, anxiety, inability to concentrate (80%), which reduced work productivity
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among 31% of women and 21% of men
  • Frequent rumination about past bullying, leading to inattention, poor concentration, and reduced productivity (79%).

Choosing CivilityForni’s book Choosing Civility: The Twenty-Five Rules of Considerate Conduct, provides specific recommendations to observe civility in the workplace and beyond.
These guidelines build on Danita Johnson Hughes’ call for:

  • Respect
  • Restraint
  • Refinement

Though guidelines may seem obvious and unnecessary, Forni cites the widespread prevalence of workplace incivility as evidence that these reminders are needed:

  • Think the best
  • Pay attention, listen
  • Be agreeable, inclusive
  • Speak kindly, don’t speak ill, avoid complaints
  • Acknowledge others, accept and give praise
  • Respect others’ opinions, time, space, indirect refusals
  • Rediscover silence, avoid personal questions, be selective in asking for favors
  • Apologize earnestly and thoughtfully
  • Assert yourself, make criticism constructive
  • Care for your guests, be a considerate guest
  • Respect others by attending to grooming, health, environment, and being gentle to animals
  • Accept responsibility and blame, if deserved.

Ninety-six percent of Forni’s respondents in The Baltimore Workplace Civility Study recommended a difficult-to-implement organizational intervention: “Keep stress and fatigue at manageable levels.”

They recommended practical organizational policies almost as frequently as the aspirational goal of stress containment:

  • Instituting a grievance process to investigate and address complaints of incivility (95%).
  • Selecting prospective employees with effective interpersonal skills in (91%).
  • Clear, written policy on interpersonal conduct (90%).
  • Adopting flexibility in scheduling, assignments, and work-life issues (90%).

-*How do you handle workplace incivility when you observe or experience it?

Related Post:
White Men can Lead in Improving Workplace Culture

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