Stats and Curiosities. Harvard Business Review
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male business professionals who self-report high ethical character earn, on average, 3.4% less than their peers who don’t report having such standards, according to an analysis of data on thousands of students by Andrew Hussey of the University of Memphis. Moreover, men who reported that their MBA programs enhanced their ethical standards received 6.5% lower wages than men who reported no such gain. For women, the situation is different: female professionals who self-report high ethical standards receive no pay penalty, and women who said that their schooling had raised their standards received a premium averaging 5.5%.
richer executives are more likely to be indicted for insider trading
Executives who are indicted for insider trading tend to be just as rich as or richer than other top managers. In fact, the likelihood of being indicted on this charge increases with compensation and wealth, according to a study of 52 accused executives by Utpal Bhattacharya of Indiana University and Cassandra D. Marshall of the University of Richmond. The motive for the crime thus may have more to do with hubris or company culture than a desire for money. The benefit that Martha Stewart would have received from her alleged insider trading was just 0.007% of her $650 million net worth in 2001, the authors say.
making plans to be good can cause you to act badly
Planning ahead is usually seen as beneficial for self-control. But in a study of people with low savings who got a US stimulus rebate in 2008, those who were instructed by researchers to plan their use of the money ended up spending about 38% more of it on purchases as opposed to saving or investing, say Claudia Townsend of the University of Miami and Wendy Liu of UC San Diego. There was no such effect for people with high savings. That’s because if you’re already behind on a goal, planning to further the goal can be stressful and can undermine your self-control, the researchers suggest.
what happens to your smartphone after you lose it
72% of people who found “lost” smartphones in five cities tried to access photos, 57% tried to open a file named “Saved Passwords,” and 43% tried to open an app named “Online Banking.” Symantec’s experiment involving 50 phones deliberately left in food courts, restrooms, and other locations also showed that just half of the finders tried to contact the owners, whose phone numbers and e-mail addresses were prominently shown in the phones’ contact lists, according to Credit.com’s report on the study.
high percentage of hybrid drivers ignore pedestrians in crosswalks
About one-third of drivers of Prius hybrids failed to yield to pedestrians in a series of experiments on crosswalks in the San Francisco Bay area, giving the brand one of the highest rankings for “unethical driving,” say psychologist Paul Piff of the University of California, Berkeley, and a team of colleagues. Drivers of hybrids “who believe they’re saving the Earth may feel entitled to behave unethically in other ways,” says Piff, who is quoted on news.sciencemag.org.
people lie more in e-mails than face-to-face
When getting to know new people, about 70% of people lie about things ranging from their feelings to their achievements, but the incidence of deception is higher over e-mail than in face-to-face meetings, say Mattitiyahu Zimbler and Robert S. Feldman of the University of Massachusetts. In a study of undergraduates’ 15-minute conversations with same-sex individuals, those using e-mail had 5 times more lies per word communicated than those speaking face-to-face. Lying appears to be more common when the communicator is psychologically and physically distant from the person receiving the message, the researchers say.
volunteerism drops as governments raise social spending
An increase in government spending on social benefits by 1 percentage point of GDP decreases an individual’s likelihood of volunteering for religious, sports, arts, or any other kind of organization by about 2 percentage points, say Franz Hackl, Martin Halla, and Gerald J. Pruckner of the University of Linz in Austria. Another factor that diminishes volunteerism is the population’s confidence in its elected officials. Among the countries with the smallest proportions of adults doing unpaid work are Hungary, Japan, and Spain, at 16%; at the other end of the spectrum are Sweden, the Slovak Republic, and the United States, with volunteer rates of 56%, 54%, and 50%, respectively.
why kenyan bus passengers yell at their drivers
Inexpensive messages urging Kenyan minibus passengers to heckle and criticize their drivers for being reckless caused a 60% reduction in insurance claims involving injury or death, say James Habyarimana and William Jack of Georgetown University. Stickers carrying messages aimed at passengers such as “Don’t just sit there as he drives dangerously! Stand up. Speak up. Now!” and showing graphic illustrations of severed feet and legs were placed inside the buses. Drivers were given incentives to leave the stickers in place.
moral sentiments seem to arise from a single molecule
An infusion of the neurohormone oxytocin into research participants’ noses increased their generosity 80% in an experimental game, suggesting that this molecule is responsible for humans’ moral sentiments, says Paul J. Zak of Claremont Graduate University. A previous study showed that an oxytocin infusion can more than double the number of subjects who trusted a stranger with all their money.
to your
health
These days, we’re inundated with health advice from sources as diverse as newspapers, doctors’ bulletin boards, and fortune cookies. But only here will you learn that forcing yourself to smile by gripping chopsticks in your teeth might reduce your stress level, as is suggested by Tara L. Kraft and Sarah D. Pressman of the University of Kansas. What this behavior might do to your coworkers’ stress levels is a subject for further research.
the effect of college drinking is like having a bad teacher
Drinking alcohol depresses college students’ academic performance by roughly the same amount as having a bad professor for an entire semester, according to a team led by Scott E. Carrell of the University of California, Davis. In a study of students at the US Air Force Academy, where underage drinking is tightly controlled, the researchers found that performance dropped by one-tenth of a standard deviation after students turned 21 and were allowed to drink, an effect that lasted 8 months and, surprisingly, was most pronounced for the best students.
thoughts of organic food reduce your desire to be helpful
People who viewed images of food labeled “organic” made harsher moral judgments about others’ behavior and volunteered 6 minutes less of their time to help someone out, compared with