Fwd: Very intelligent people make less effective leaders, according to peers and subordinates

I thought you might like a little psychological research results.  Bill

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: BPS Research Digest <rd@lists.bps.org.uk>
Date: Thu, Nov 16, 2017 at 3:20 AM
Subject: Very intelligent people make less effective leaders, according to peers and subordinates

Also: alcohol aids foreign language skills; the benefits of teaching personality is malleable + much more! 

Share on   Forward to a friend View this email in your browser Find yourself procrastinating all the time? Check out the latest episode of our PsychCrunch podcast for tips on how to get going on what's most important.   About this email Every week we bring you engaging reports on the latest psychology research. Anyone can subscribe free. We also provide daily updates on the latest psychology research via our app and on: Twitter Facebook Google Plus Tumblr Issue Number: 384 Editor Dr Christian Jarrett Reach over 50,000+ subscribers by placing your banner in this space. Very intelligent people make less effective leaders, according to their peers and subordinates Highly intelligent people tend to make good progress in the workplace and are seen as fit for leadership roles: overall, smarter is usually associated with success. But if you examine the situation more closely, as does new research in the Journal of Applied Psychology, you find evidence that too much intelligence can harm leadership effectiveness. Too clever for your own good? Let's look at the research. Continue reading → A 30-minute lesson in the malleability of personality has long-term benefits for anxious, depressed teenagers There are many effective psychological therapies to help teenagers with depression, anxiety or other mental health problems. Unfortunately, for various reasons, most teenagers never get access to a professional therapist. To overcome this problem, some researchers are exploring the potential of brief, "single-session" interventions that can be delivered cheaply and easily to many at-risk teenagers outside of a clinical context. In The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Jessica Schleider and John Weisz at Harvard University present extremely promising results from their trial of a 30-minute computer session teaching depressed and anxious teenagers that personality is malleable. Continue reading → Moderate alcohol consumption improves foreign language skills Alcohol is not exactly known for its brain-boosting properties. In fact, it impairs all kinds of cognitive functioning, including working memory and the ability to ignore distractions. So it really should make it harder for someone to speak in a foreign language. However, as Fritz Renner of Maastricht University in the Netherlands, and colleagues, point out in a new paper in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, "contrary to what would be expected based on theory, it is a widely held belief among bilingual speakers that alcohol consumption improves foreign language fluency, as is evident in anecdotal evidence from numerous discussions in social and popular media." And in welcome news for holiday drinkers (not to mention language students) everywhere, it turns out that, at least at moderate levels, this belief seems to be right. Continue reading → Contrary to stereotypes, study of hedge fund managers finds psychopaths make poor investors If you're a psychopath who's good with numbers, you could make the perfect hedge fund manager. Your lack of empathy will allow you to capitalise blithely on the financial losses of others, while your ability to stomach high-risk, but potentially high-return, options will send your fund value soaring…. Well, that's the story that's been painted by popular media, folk wisdom and Wall Street insiders alike. The problem, according to a new paper in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, is that hedge fund managers with psychopathic tendencies actually make less money for their clients. Continue reading → Can evolutionary psychology and personality theory explain Trump's popular appeal? A year ago, Donald J Trump, a man with no political or military experience, defied expectations, winning the election to become the 45th president of the United States. Nearly 63 million voted for him, including, and in spite of his reputation for sexism, over half of all white women. In an open-access paper in Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture, Dan McAdams, one of the world's leading experts in personality psychology, proposes an explanation for Trump's popular appeal that is grounded in evolutionary psychology, personality theory and the social psychology of leadership. Continue reading → Editor's pick: 10 hellish psychology studies you'll be glad not to have participated in Many psychology studies involve nothing more challenging for participants than sitting down with a short paper questionnaire and ticking off agreement or not with a series of anodyne statements. This post is not about that kind of research. Here, we take a tour of some rather more arduous and quirky experiments from the psychology archives. After giving their consent, participants in these studies were prodded, embarrassed, disgusted, scared, teased, bored and more (though not at once). It was all in the name of science, to better understand the darker, less pleasant aspects of being human. We salute the men and women who volunteered their minds and bodies to take part. Their pain is our gain. Continue reading →   The Psychologist The Psychologist is the monthly magazine of the British Psychological Society. Visit our website for the November issue and latest online articles, including: Hearing the hidden hashtags – Hugo Maximillian Metcalfe and Alex Smith write. Also check out all our latest reports and feature articles and much more. Reach a large, international and professional audience: advertise in The Psychologist or Research Digest Want to change how you receive these emails? 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