Situations outside the workplace can affect employees’ productivity, commitment, mindset, attitudes, and health.

Similarly, experiences at work can affect employees’ quality of life at work and outside of work.
Workplace Employee Assistance Programs, on-site medical centres, concierges, meals, and fitness centres are intended to address this bi-directional influence to improve employee retention and productivity.

When employees suppress their true feelings about work experiences, they engage in “surface acting” as they display appropriate, but unfelt facial expressions, verbal interactions, and body language.

Surface acting at work was associated with emotional exhaustion, work-to-family conflict, and insomnia outside of work for more than 70 volunteers in a high stress public service occupation, found Singapore Management University’s David T. Wagner, Christopher M. Barnes of University of Washington, and Brent A. Scott of Michigan State University.

“Emotional labor” was Arlie Hochshild’s earlier term for “surface acting” in customer service interactions when employees present prescribed verbalisations and emotions.

She contrasted “surface acting” with “deep acting” in which the person:

• Exhibits the emotion actually felt,
• Uses past emotional experiences to elicit real emotion and empathic connection with others, in a form of “organizational method acting.”

“Surface acting” at work can lead to occupational “burnout,” characterized by emotional exhaustion, detachment from others, and reduced workplace performance, noted University of California Berkeley’s Christina Maslach and Susan Jackson.

In contrast, high emotional labor with deep acting was associated with a greater sense of personal accomplishment in research by University of Regina’s Celeste Brotheridge and Alicia Grandey of Penn State.

Recipients of “surface acting” are usually accurately detect that it’s an inauthentic display, according to University of Tampere Veikko Surakka and Jari K Hietanen of University of Helsinki.

Similarly, “Facades of Conformity,” impression management, and
unwilling compliance are associated with generalized stress and reduced quality of life outside of work, according to Georgetown’s Patricia Hewlin, University of Lethbridge’s Karen H. Hunter, Andrew A. Luchak of University of Alberta, and Athabasca University’s Kay Devine.

These three experiences are defined as:

• Facades of Conformity (FOC), or behaviours enacted to appear that an employee embraces organisational values.
  
  These behaviours usually are associated with non-participative work environments, minority status, and high self-monitoring.

. Impression management, characterised by ingratiating behaviours in two-person relationships which can favourably influence career outcomes, according to Georgia Tech’s Robert C. Liden and Terence R. Mitchell of University of Washington.

• Compliance, or publicly stating changed beliefs in response to external pressures, without truly modifying personal convictions, according to Leon Festinger.

Most people at work encounter situations in which they choose to behave in “appropriate” ways that are inconsistent with their true feelings, and may experience similar stress spillover from “surface acting” at work.

-*How do you prevent “burnout” when workplace settings seem to require “surface acting”?


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©Kathryn Welds

Emotional contagion iinvolves replicating emotions displayed by others.
Contagion differs from compassion, which enables understanding another’s emotional experience without actually feeling it, noted Virginia Commonwealth University’s S. Douglas Pugh.

“Viral emotions” can be transmitted through social media platforms with no need to observe nonverbal cues, according to Facebook’s Adam D. I. Kramer, Jamie E. Guillory of University of California, San Francisco and Cornell University’s Jeffrey T. Hancock.
This suggests that social media can significantly affect the emotional tone in workplaces and the interpersonal relations that take place there.
In addition, the emotional tone evoked by social media posts can affect workplace productivity.

When positive emotional expressions were reduced in Facebook News Feeds, people produced fewer positive posts and more negative posts.
In contrast, when negative emotional expressions were reduced, people reduced negative posts, indicating that others’ emotional expressions influence bystanders’ emotions and behaviors.

People in performance situations are influenced by observing others’ emotions.   
When participants witnessed positive emotions in a decision task, they were more likely to cooperate and perform better in groups, found Wharton’s  Sigal Barsade.

Individuals who were more influenced by others’ emotions on R. William Doherty’s Emotional Contagion Scale also reported greater:

• Reactivity,
• Emotionality,
• Sensitivity to others,
• Social functioning,
• Self-esteem,
• Emotional empathy.

They also reported lower:

• Alienation,
• Self-assertiveness,
• Emotional stability.

People are more likely to be influenced by others’ emotions when they feel threatened, because this elicits increased affiliation with others, according to Stanley Schachter‘s emotional similarity hypothesis.

Likewise, when people believe that others are threatened, they are more likely to mimic others’ emotions, found Syracuse University’s Brooks B. Gump and James A. Kulik of University of California, San Diego.

Women reported greater contagion of both positive and negative emotions on the Emotional Contagion Scale in research by Doherty with University of Hawaii colleagues Lisa Orimoto, Elaine Hatfield, Janine Hebb, and Theodore M. Singelis of California State University-Chico.

People who are more likely to “catch” emotions from others are also more likely to actually feel emotions associated with facial expressions they display, reported Clark University’s James D. Laird, Tammy Alibozak, Dava Davainis, Katherine Deignan, Katherine Fontanella, Jennifer Hong, Brett Levy, and Christine Pacheco.
This suggests that those with greater susceptibility to emotional contagion are convincing to themselves and others.

Contrary to expectation, people with greater power notice and adopt emotions of people with less power, found University of Hawaii’s Christopher K. Hsee, Hatfield, and John G. Carlson with Claude Chemtob of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Participants assumed the role of “teacher” or “learner” to simulate role-based power differentials, then viewed a videotape of a fictitious participant discussing an emotional experience.
Volunteers then described their emotions as they watched the confederate describe a “happiest” and “saddest” life event.
People in higher power roles were more attuned to followers’ emotions than expected.

The service industry capitalizes on emotional contagion by training staff members to show positive emotions with the goal of increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.

However, customer satisfaction measures were more influenced by service quality than employees’ positive emotional displays, according to Bowling Green State’s Patricia B. Barger and Alicia A. Grandey of Pennsylvania State University.

Emotions can positively or negatively resonate through work organisations with measurable impact on employee attitude, morale, engagement, customer service, safety, and innovation.

-*How do you intentionally convey emotions to individuals and group members?
-*What strategies do you use to manage susceptibility to “emotional contagion”?

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©Kathryn Welds

Coaching is a collaborative process to facilitate coachees’ self-directed learning, personal growth, and goal attainment, according to University of Sydney’s Anthony Grant.

He integrated practices from solution-focused approaches and cognitive-behavioral interventions into Solution-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral (SF-CB) Coaching and a “Coach Yourself” program with Jane Greene.

Participants reported increased:

• Goal attainment,
• Quality of life,
• Mental health

on the Self-Reflection and Insight Scale, developed with Macquarie University colleagues John Franklin and Peter Langford.

Two types of empirical studies provide evidence about coaching’s efficacy:

• Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT), in which participants receive one of several interventions or no intervention.
  
  This is considered the more credible research approach.

. Quasi-Experimental Field Studies (QEFS), which use “time series analysis” but not random participants to measure outcomes.

Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) found several effects among executives who received 360-degree feedback and four coaching sessions over ten weeks:

. Lower stress, according to Grant and University of Sydney colleagues Linley Curtayne and Geraldine Burton,

• Greater goal attainment compared with an eight week educational mindfulness-based health coaching program, reported by University of Sydney’s Gordon B. Spence, Michael J. Cavanagh and Grant,

• Increased goal commitment, and environmental mastery, compared with peer coaching among adults in a Solution Focused/Cognitive Behavioral (SF/CB) life coaching program, according to research by Spence and Grant,
  

. Increased cognitive hardiness, mental health, and hope among female high school students in a 10 session solution-focused cognitive-behavioral (SF-CB) life coaching program, found University of Wollongong’s L.S. Green, Grant, and Josephine Rynsaardt,

• Increased goal striving, well-being, hope, with gains maintained up to 30 weeks, reported by Grant and Green with University of Wollongong colleague Lindsay G. Oades.

Increased hope is crucial to pursue any goal, according to University of Kansas’s C.R. Snyder, Scott T. Michael of University of Washington, and Ohio State’s Jennifer Cheavens.

Individuals seeking change are more effective when they:

• Develop one or more ways to achieve a goals (“pathways”),
• Use these routes to reach the goal (“agency”).

Three additional elements contribute to goal achievement, suggested University of Rochester’s Edward L. Deci and Richard M. Ryan:

• Competence,
• Autonomy,
• Relatedness.

According to their Self-Determination Theory (SDT), these characteristics are associated with increased:

• Goal motivation,
• Enhanced performance,
• Persistence,
• Mental health.

The other category of research, Quasi-Experimental Field Studies (QEFS), reported that coaching for managers of a federal government:

• Increased expectations of self-efficacy and goal achievement, in research by Will J.G. Evers, Andre Brouwers and Welko Tomic of The Open University.
  

• Decreased anxiety and stress among UK finance organization participants, in findings by Kristina Gyllensten and Stephen Palmer of City University London.

These empirical studies validate coaching’s contribution to participants’ increased goal attainment and increased satisfaction, well-being, and hope.

-*How do you “coach yourself” and others toward increased goal attainment and performance?

-*What are the “active ingredients” of effective coaching practices?

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©Kathryn Welds

“Sunk-cost bias” is the tendency to continue unsuccessful actions after time and money have been invested.
Frequent examples include:

• Holding poorly-performing stock market investments,
• Staying in unsatisfying personal relationships,
• Continuing ineffective military engagements.

In these cases, people focus on past behaviors rather than current circumstances, leading to emotion-driven decision biases.

Brief meditation sessions can help decision makers consider factors beyond past “sunk costs,” reported Wharton’s Sigal Barsade, with Andrew C. Hafenbrack and Zoe Kinias of INSEAD.

Meditation practices can:

• Increase focus on the present moment,
• Shift attention away from past and future actions,
• Increase positive emotions.

The team asked volunteers to complete Mindful Attention Awareness Scale, developed by Virginia Commonwealth University’s Kirk Brown and Richard Ryan of University of Rochester.

They also measured participants’ ability to resist “sunk cost” bias using Adult Decision-Making Competence Inventory, developed by Leeds University’s Wändi Bruine de Bruin with Baruch Fischhoff of Carnegie Mellon and RAND Corporation’s Andrew M. Parker.

In a decision task, participants could take an action or to do nothing, as a measure of sunk-cost bias.
Taking action indicated resistance to the sunk-cost bias, whereas those who took no action were influenced by the sunk-cost bias.

Volunteers who listened to a 15-minute focused-breathing guided meditation were more likely to choose action, resisting sunk-cost bias, than those who had not heard the meditation instruction.

Barsade’s team noted that, “People who meditated focused less on the past and future, which led to them experiencing less negative emotion. That helped them reduce the sunk-cost bias.”

Mindful attention enabled negotiators to craft better deals by “claiming a larger share of the bargaining zone” in “fixed pie” negotiations, found Singapore Management University’s Jochen Reb, Jayanth Narayanan of National University of Singapore, and University of California, Hastings College of the Law’s Darshan Brach.

Effective negotiators also expressed greater satisfaction with the bargaining process and outcome. 

Mindful attention also leads to a lower negativity bias, the tendency to weigh pessimistic information more heavily than positive, reported Virginia Commonwealth University’s Laura G. Kiken and Natalie J. Shook of West Virginia University.

The team assessed negativity bias with BeanFest, a computer game developed by Shook, with Ohio State’s Russell Fazio and J. Richard Eiser of University of Sheffield.

Participants associated novel stimuli with positive or negative outcomes during attitude formation exercises.

Volunteers who listened to a mindfulness induction correctly classified positive and negative stimuli more equally, expressed greater optimism, and demonstrated less negativity bias than those in the control condition.

Mindful attention improves decision-making and enhances negotiation outcomes by reducing biases linked to negative emotions.

As a result, taking a brief mental break (“time-out”) during decision-making can improve choices and can reduce the possibility that “the wrong emotions cloud the decision-making process.”

-*How do you reduce bias in making decisions and crafting negotiation proposals?

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 ©Kathryn Welds

Goal motivation changes as people move closer to their target, according to Stanford’s Szu-chi Huang and Ying Zhang of University of Texas.
This finding confirms Heinz Heckhausen’s earlier studies of goal motivation.

In the first stages of effort toward a goal, multiple paths  makes the target seem attainable, noted Huang and Zhang.

This perception of “self-efficacy,” belief in ability to achieve a goal, provides motivation to continue goal striving, reported Stanford’s Albert Bandura.

When people are close to achieving a goal, a single goal path provides greater motivation.   
This observation is consistent with Clark Hull’s finding that motivation increases closer to the goal.

A single route to the finish reduces the “cognitive load” of considering different approaches, supporting Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper’s finding that “more choice is not always better.” 

Huang and Zhang also demonstrated the motivational impact of number of choices.
Volunteers with fewer choices were more likely to achieve the goal in a study of incentive to claim a reward.
“…relatively rigid structures can often simplify goal pursuit by removing the need to make choices,” explained Huang.

These stages of goal pursuit are characterised by different mindsets.
“Deliberative Mindset” describes considering effort toward a goal whereas “Implemental Mindset” characterises planning actions toward a goal, according to NYU’s Peter Gollwitzer, Heinz Heckhausen, and Birgit Steller of University of Heidelberg.

Motivation toward a goal is also determined by:

• Goal value,
• Expectancy of success, based on probability, difficulty, sufficiency, necessity,

reported Tel Aviv University’s Nira Liberman and Jens Förster of Jacobs University of Bremen and Universiteit van Amsterdam.

A practical application of these findings is that nonprofit organizations can increase fund-raising campaign participation and contributions by offering fewer and simpler contribution options when a fund-raising target is nearly met.

-*How do you maintain motivation when you are close to achieving a goal?

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©Kathryn Welds

Anxious negotiators make lower first offers, end negotiations earlier, and earn lower profits than calmer negotiation counterparts.

 Harvard’s Alison Wood Brooks and Maurice E. Schweitzer of University of Pennsylvania found that these negotiations patterns occurred due to participants’ “low self-efficacy” beliefs, meaning that they had low confidence in their negotiation skills.

Brooks and Schweitzer induced anxious feelings or neutral reactions during “shrinking-pie” negotiation tasks.
Negotiators who reported feeling anxious also said they expected to achieve lower profits, presented conservative offers, and responded cautiously to proposals by negotiation counterparts.

Negotiators who achieved better outcomes managed their emotions with strategies including:

• Strategic optimism, by calmly expecting positive outcomes, according to University of Miami’s Stacie Spencer and Julie Norem of Wellesley,
  
• Reattribution, by considering alternate interpretations of events.

Approaches with mixed results include:

“Self-handicapping”, defined as creating obstacles to explain poor outcomes and preserve self-esteem, according to University of Rochester’s Andrew Elliott and Marcy Church of St. Mary’s University,

Defensive pessimism, marked by high motivation toward achievement coupled with negative expectations for future challenges, leading to increased effort and preparation, according to Wellesley College’s Julie Norem and Edward Chang of University of Michigan.

Norem and Cantor concluded that defensive pessimists performed worse when they were told that that they could expect to perform well on anagram and puzzle tasks.

Defensive pessimism among university students was related to lower self-esteem, higher self-criticism, more pessimism, and frequent discounting of previous successful performances, according to Norem and Brown’s Jasmina Burdzovic Andreas.

However, they also found that self-esteem increased to almost the same levels as optimists during university years.
Pessimists’ precautionary countermeasures may have resulted in strong performance, which built credible self-esteem.

Defensive pessimism may be an effective approach to managing anxiety and performance motivation.

-*How do you manage anxiety in high-stakes negotiations?

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©Kathryn Welds

People can improve task performance in public speaking, mathematical problem solving, and karaoke singing, by reappraising anxiety as “excitement,” according to Harvard’s Alison Wood Brooks.

Anxiety and excitement have similar physiological arousal profiles, but different effects on performance.

Using silent self-talk messages (“I am excited”) or reading self-direction messages (“Get excited!”) increases alignment between physical arousal and situational appraisal.

“Excitement” is typically viewed as a positive, pleasant emotion that can improve performance, according to Harvard’s Jeremy Jamieson and colleagues.

In contrast, anxiety can drain working memory capacity, and reduce self-confidence, self-efficacy, and performance before or during a task, according to Michael W. Eysenck of University of London.

Efforts to transform anxiety into calmness can be ineffective due to the large shift from negative emotion to neutral or positive emotion and from physiological activation to lower arousal levels, noted Brooks.

Such efforts to calm physiological arousal during anxiety can result in a paradoxical increase in the suppressed emotion, reported Stefan Hofmann and colleagues of Boston University.
However, most people in Woods’ studies said they believed that this is the best way to handle anxiety.

Physiological similarities can confuse experiences of anxiety and excitement, demonstrated in studies by Columbia’s Stanley Schacter and Jerome Singer of SUNY.
Anxiety’s similarity to excitement can be used to relabel high “anxiety” as “excitement.”
This shift can mitigate anxiety’s negative impact on performance.

Brooks elicited anxiety among volunteers by telling them that their task was to present an impromptu, videotaped speech.

For some participants, she explained that it is “normal” to feel discomfort and asked them to “take a realistic perspective on this task by recognising that there is no reason to feel anxious” and “the situation does not present a threat to you…there are no negative consequences...”
She also instructed volunteers to say aloud randomly-assigned self-statements like “I am excited.”

People who stated “I am excited” before their speech were rated as more persuasive, more competent, more confident, and more persistent (spoke longer), than participants who said “I am calm.”

Brooks evaluated peoples’ reactions to another anxiety-provoking task, performing a karaoke song for an audience, and rated by voice recognition software for “singing accuracy” based on:

• Volume (quiet-loud),
• Pitch (distance from true pitch),
• Note duration (accuracy of breaks between notes).

This score determined participants’ payment for participating in the study.

Before performing, she asked participants to make a randomly-assigned self-statement:

• “I am anxious,”
• “I am excited,”
• “I am calm,”
• “I am angry.”
• “I am sad.”
• No statement.

Following their performance, volunteers rated their anxiety, excitement, and confidence in their singing ability.
People who said that they were “excited” had higher pulse rates than other groups, confirming that self-statements can affect physical experiences of emotion.

Volunteers who said “I am excited” had the highest scores for singing accuracy and also for confidence in singing ability.

In contrast, those who said, “I am anxious” had the lowest scores for singing accuracy, suggesting that anxiety is associated with lower performance.

Brooks elicited anxiety on “a very difficult IQ test…under time pressure” that would determine their payment for participation.
To evoke further anxiety, she concluded, “Good luck minimising your loss.”

Before the test, participants read a statement:

• “Try to remain calm” or
• “Try to get excited.”

Those instructed to “get excited” produced more correct answers than those who tried to “remain calm.”

Reappraising anxiety as “excitement” was related to improved performance in each task.

These reappraisals of physical experiences evoked an “opportunity mind-set” and a “stress-is-enhancing” mind-set, found University of Toronto’s Stéphane Côté and Christopher Miners.
These appraisals enabled superior performance across different anxiety-arousing situations.

In contrast, inauthentic emotional displays can be physically and psychologically demanding, and often reduce performance.

People have “…influence…over…emotions,” according to Woods.
She noted that “Saying ‘I am excited’ represents a simple…intervention…to prime an opportunity mind-set and improve performance…

Advising employees to say ‘I am excited’ before important performance tasks or simply encouraging them to ‘get excited’ may increase their confidence, improve performance, and boost beliefs in their ability to perform well in the future.”

 -*How effective have you found focusing on “excitement” instead of “calm” in managing anxiety?

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©Kathryn Welds

 Sigmund Freud described this experience as “transference,” redirecting feelings toward one person in the past onto a different individual in the present.

The current recipient of feelings may have different characteristics, motivations, and behaviours than the original person, but something about the present individual triggers earlier feelings and actions.

NYU’s Susan Andersen and Alana Baum demonstrated transference in lab studies when they asked volunteers to describe important people in their lives for whom they had positive feelings or negative feelings.
They also described other people’s significant others.

Later, Anderson and Baum described a person seated in the adjacent room, using either emotionally-positive or emotionally-negative descriptions of someone from the volunteer’s life or someone else’s life.

Participants more accurately recalled the stranger’s description when it resembled their own significant other.
Recall was enhanced because the significant other’s description was memorable, suggesting transference.

Transference can lead to biased perceptions and inferences because a trigger memory may be more “accessible” and distinctive, according to Anderson’s collaborators Steve W. Cole and Noah Glassman.

Transference is an outgrowth of attachment to others in the past, according to Queens College’s Claudia Chloe Brumbaugh and R. Chris Fraley of University of Illinois.

Participants in their study read profiles of two potential dating partners:  One description resembled a romantic partner from the person’s past, and another description matched a different participant’s former partner.

Volunteers reported feeling more comfortable and more anxious toward potential dating partners described as similar to previous significant others.

Brumbaugh and Fraley noted that participants “applied attachment representations of past partners” to any potential future partner, and when the new partner’s description resembled an important past partner.

Princeton’s Susan Fiske described this transfer of affective responses to a new individual as schema-triggered affect.
Andersen used this framework and a socio-cognitive explanation in a paper with Berkeley’s Serena Chen.

People modify views of themselves and others in transference situations, reported Katrina Hinkley and Andersen.
Volunteers in their research demonstrated biased recall about a new person when the person resembled of a previous significant other.
During a re-test, participants’ recall of the new person’s attributes included elements of themselves when they were with the former significant person.

Transference occurs even when a target person possesses an attribute incompatible with the significant other’s characteristics, found University of Illinois’s Michael W. Kraus with Berkeley’s Chen, Victoria A. Lee, andLaura D. Straus.

Participants demonstrated transference in biased memories and judgments about a person they perceived as similar to a former significant other.

The research team elicited positive impressions even when the target was from a different ethnic group.
This suggests that stigma and discrimination may be reduced by evoking positive transference from past experiences to present actors.

Baum and Anderson observed that participants’ current mood was more positive when the target of their transference resembled their significant other and occupied a similar role to the original person.

Transference in the workplace can be problematic when employees react to one another as they responded to others from the past, introducing unconscious emotional elements to work situations.

-*How do you manage transference reactions in work and social situations?

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©Kathryn Welds

Individuals were rated as more attractive when they were observed in a group rather than alone, reported University of California, San Diego’s Drew Walker and Edward Vul.

Individuals are generally perceived as similar but not identical to the average group face.
This group average is seen as more attractive than group members’ individual faces, thanks to a perceptual bias called the ”cheerleader effect.”

People who are judged attractive are also ascribed positive characteristics including good health, good genes, intelligence, and success as a result of attribution bias.

There is consensus across cultures and genders on ratings of physical attractiveness, found University of Louisville’s Michael R. Cunningham, Anita P. Barbee and Perri B. Druen, who collaborated with Alan R. Roberts of Indiana University and Chung Yuan Christian University’s Cheng-Huan Wu.

Features rated as most attractive for women include: 

• High cheekbones and forehead,
• Fuller lips,
• Large, clear eyes,
• Shorter jaw,
• Narrower chin,
• Waist-to-hips ratio of 7:10,
• Body Mass Index (BMI) of 20.85.

Women’s weight was not as significantly related to attractiveness as the elements above.

Preferred characteristics for men were:

• Large jaw and brow,
• Prominent cheekbones,
• Broad chin,
• Waist-to-hips ratio of 9:10,
• About 12 percent body fat.
  
  

  Smooth skin, shiny hair, and facial symmetry were rated as attractive for both women and men.

Individuals’ physical attractiveness focuses observers’ attention, and enables assessments of personality traits based on brief interactions, according to University of British Columbia’s Genevieve Lorenzo and Jeremy Biesanz with Lauren Human of University of California, San Francisco.

Observers more accurately identified personality traits of physically attractive people.
These ratings were more similar to attractive people’s self-reported personality traits.

Volunteers showed a positive bias toward attractive people and accurately identified the relative ordering of attractive participants’ Big Five personality traits (extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness to experience, and emotional stability, also called “neuroticism”).

Raters also accurately evaluated CEOs’ competence, dominance, likeability, maturity, and trustworthiness by viewing photographs of the executives’ faces in a study by University of Toronto’s Nicholas Rule and Nalini Ambady, then of Tufts.

Thirty volunteers assessed CEOs’ “leadership success” based on appearance alone, and these rating were significantly related to profitability of the organizations the CEOs led.

CEOs and non-executives compete in an unconscious “corporate beauty contest,” asserted John Graham, Campbell Harvey and Manju Puri of Duke.
Executives who were viewed as attractive are assigned positive attributions, according to these researchers.

Photos of more than 100 white male chief executive officers of large and small companies were paired with with photos of non-executives with similar facial features, hairstyles and clothing.

Nearly 2,000 participants assessed photos and rated CEOs as competent and attractive more frequently than non-executives.
However, volunteers were less likely to rate CEOs as likeable and trustworthy.

Those rated as “competent” earned more money, but in this study, CEO appearance wasn’t associated with company profitability.

Specific facial structures, not just attributed personality traits, were associated with superior business results, according to University of Wisconsin’s Elaine Wong and Michael P. Haselhuhn working with Margaret E. Ormiston of London Business School.

Firms that achieved superior financial results tended to have male CEOs with wider faces relative to facial height, particularly among organizations with “cognitively simple leadership teams.”

Evolutionary biology suggests that specific facial structures may be perceived as associated with trustworthy leadership skills, leading to attributions of competence, and inspiring loyalty to follow.

-*What positive bias do you observe toward attractive individuals in the workplace? 

-*How do you harness the positive bias toward attractive individuals?

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©Kathryn Welds

Contrary to this expectation, most people agree to a subsequent request, possibly to reduce discomfort of rejecting others’ overtures for help.

In a study, participants estimated they would need to ask 10 people to get three people who would agree to lend their mobile phones for brief calls.

In fact, volunteers asked substantially fewer people for this favour, an average of six people.
The team concluded that most people hold a pessimistic bias about the likelihood that others will provide assistance.

In another study, volunteers requested two favours from people they did not know: 

1. Complete a brief survey,
2. Take a letter to a nearby post office.

Help seekers predicted that people who refused the first request to complete the survey would be less likely to take the letter to the post office.

In contrast, more people agreed to the second request than to the first request.
Requesters tended to “anchor” on the first refusal, and hesitated to make a second request.
This finding suggests that requesters have a greater chance of agreement after initial refusal, so it’s advisable to persist.

The researchers concluded that help-seekers and potential helpers analysed requests according to different criteria.

Help-seekers typically considered the magnitude of the “ask,” whereas potential helpers considered the inconvenience costs of saying “yes” compared with the interpersonal and self-image costs of saying “no.”

This underestimation bias may be reduced by:

• Comparing actual degree of personal influence compared to perceived influence,
• Considering the means of influence, including incentives, suggestions, reinforcements, punishments,
• Invoking organizational culture. 

These findings suggest the benefit of asking for what you want and that you have more influence over others than you expect.

-*How do you assess your likelihood of getting what you want when you ask?

-*How likely are others to influence you by evoking social discomfort to increase your compliance?

RELATED POSTS:

• “Everything is Negotiable”: Prepare, Ask, Revise, Ask Again
• Women Don’t Ask for Raises or Promotions as Often as Men
• Women’s Likeability–Competence Dilemma: Overcoming the Backlash Effect
• Power Tactics for Better Negotiation

©Kathryn Welds