During the two years of research for his new book, How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character, Tough spent time at UChicago and in its surrounding neighborhoods.
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Childhood vaccines do not cause autism. President Obama was born in the United States. Global warming is confirmed by science. And yet, many people believe claims to the contrary.
In a study appearing in the current issue of Psychological Science in the Public Interest, researchers from the University of Michigan, University of Western Australia and University of Queensland examined factors that cause people to resist correcting misinformation.
Misinformation can originate from rumors but also fiction, government and politicians, and organizations, the researchers say. (more…)
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Freedom of the press is viewed by many as a cornerstone of democracy. But can it actually help improve people’s lives and make them happy? Researchers at the University of Missouri have found that citizens of countries with press freedom tend to be much happier than citizens of countries without free presses. Edson Tandoc, Jr., a doctoral student in the MU School of Journalism, says that press freedom directly predicts life satisfaction across the world.
“We already know that having reliable, objective news sources can benefit democracy, but in this study, we found that press freedom also benefits communities by helping improve the overall quality of life of citizens and, in the process, by also making them happier,” Tandoc said. “People enjoy having an element of choice about where they get their news. Citizens of countries without a free press are forced to rely on the government for information, when what people really want is diversity in content where they are free to get the information they want from the source of their choosing.” (more…)
As we all know the Internet is full of information, advice, media and commentary. It is often hard to sift through all the information that can be found on a subject to find what is important and factual. However, there are many good sources of information that can be trusted, with people putting their reputation on the line and regularly delivering high quality educational material.
You may have heard of TED.com, which is a collection of videos from excellent speakers across the world, all giving talks at the TED Foundation conferences. These talks are recorded, uploaded and freely available for anyone to stream or download to their PC. Many of the speakers are famous people and some are leaders in their field, however even with some of the most obscure topics there are often points raised that will benefit nearly everyone. The top three videos ordered by the amount of views are:
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— When faced with job loss, people who consider themselves poor may limit employment prospects by believing they have a smaller social network than they actually do, says a University of Michigan business professor.
“Social networks help explain people’s outcomes in the labor market by determining how people seek help,” said Ned Smith, assistant professor of strategy at the Michigan Ross School of Business. “Network contacts offer two primary resources for job search—information, which provides job seekers with knowledge about where to find employment, and influence, whereby network contacts affect people’s success in actually securing employment by swaying the hiring process.” (more…)
COLUMBUS, Ohio – On any given weekend, at least 10 percent of students at a single college could be hosting a party, and on average, party hosts who live off campus are drinking more and engaging in more alcohol-related problem behaviors than are the students attending their bashes, research suggests.
In contrast, hosts of parties held on campus tend to drink less than do the students attending their gatherings, according to the study. (more…)
While the majority of dating websites do a good job of managing the privacy of their users, a class research project at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Leeds School of Business found that 21 of 90 dating websites the class examined did not properly remove location data from pictures uploaded by their users.
As a result of people taking more photographs with cameras and cell phones containing Global Positioning System chips, some dating website profile pictures contain GPS coordinates showing where a picture was taken, said Associate Professor Kai Larsen, who taught the class on Privacy in the Age of Facebook. When such information is not removed by the dating website, commonly available tools can be used to detect the location of a person’s residence or other locations frequented by the user. (more…)
*Two studies by a UA business professor examine the hiring of CEOs, finding that new CEOs make better decisions when their self image is tied to the firm and that “strategic noise” can soften market response to a new hire.*
Two new papers co-authored by assistant professor of management Steven Boivie at the University of Arizona uncover novel facets of CEO and firm performance.
The first of the papers, out now in the Academy of Management Journal, finds a new remedy to the CEO agency problem. Instead of trying to design incentives and controls to keep corporate leaders acting in the best interest of the company, Boivie and his co-authors demonstrate that boards should try to hire leaders who strongly identify with the company itself. (more…)
