As Congress heads toward debating whether to renew the No Child Left Behind Act, its members might do well to consider the biology of boredom, frazzle and the brain’s sweet spot for performance. The interplay between being daydreamy, feeling stressed, and effective performance was first codified by Robert Yerkes and John Dodson in 1908, in… Read more »
Yearly Archives:: 2006
Apologies
Mel Gibson’s anti-semitic tirade while being arrested for drunken driving and comedian Michael Richard’s un-Kramerly racist rant after being heckled by a black man drew the predictable condemnations. But when it comes to the damage from insults these highly publicized single episodes pale next to the private, day-to-day variety. Insults are more than emotional irritations,… Read more »
Secret Santa
He was known as “Secret Santa,” a mysterious white-haired man wearing a red shirt and cap who would hand a stranger in need a wad of cash and make a speedy get-away. He suddenly appeared to dispense his largesse in cities across the country around holiday season, not to be seen again. Secret Santa started… Read more »
Cluing in the Critics
Since emotional intelligence (EI) came into prominence as a concept – starting with the seminal article by Peter Salovey and Jack Mayer in 1990, and then taken to a heightened level with my 1995 book by that name, there have been ample criticisms of both the theory and the claims made for it. In the… Read more »
Happy Days: Friends, Family and Tradition
A radio interviewer in Dublin recently asked me why, in my view, people in Ireland were no happier now that their booming economy had brought them a sudden tide of prosperity. In answering I cited longstanding data showing that once people leave the poverty level and are able to satisfy their basic needs, there is… Read more »
The iPod Bubble
I have a friend who has an unusual hyper-sensitivity to sounds. Hearing someone jabbering on a cell phone, or the honking of cars stuck in stop-and-go traffic, or a dog barking sends him a jolt. Worse, he lives in Manhattan. So when he goes outside he finds a bit of solace by putting on his… Read more »
Pizzled
A Dilbert cartoon shows Dilbert and a co-worker madly clicking away on their Blackberries while a third, who they are ignoring, says, “I don’t believe in Blackberries. I prefer the old ways.” He adds, “The only effective way to communicate is person to person,” while the other two continue clicking, oblivious. One clicks a message,… Read more »
Power, Prestige or Money: What Drives Us
“All the people in this room are motivated by power, prestige, or money. Which do you think is most important?” That was the question asked of me recently by a managing director of a large European bank who had asked me to speak to about 200 top executives. Let’s take them one by one. I… Read more »
Biological Allies
When I wrote an essay in the Science section of the New York Times on how we are connected to each other physiologically, and so can be biological allies for loved ones in distress, it became the “most e-mailed” article in the Times that day. The idea that social neuroscience sees people as connected physiologically… Read more »
Kids and Lead: A Puzzle Solved
“What do you believe that you cannot prove?” was the question posed to me and maybe a hundred others by The Edge, a website devoted to cutting edge thinking. In my answer, I proposed that children we unintended victims of larger technological and economic forces that inadvertently were hampering the development of emotional and social… Read more »