Appearances Can Be Deceiving (4. Bravery)

Think twice—what you see may not be what you think. In three previous posts, we explored situations in which a single behavior might have multiple meanings and interpretations. First, we considered how fidgeting is not always impatience. Then, how solitude is not necessarily loneliness. Last week, how smiling is not always liking. I call these...

Appearances Can Be Deceiving (3. Smiles and Liking)

What you see isn’t always what you get Indeed. As I wrote in two recent posts about solitude (not always loneliness) and fidgeting (not always impatience), common behaviors don’t necessarily originate with common causes. Will Shakespeare would have us think otherwise, as he suggested when he had Julius Caesar say this of Cassius: Let me...

When You’re Not You

“You just don’t seem your same self!” someone remarked with friendly concern. “What’s going on?” What does it mean to be oneself? And, what does it mean not to be oneself? One’s self is who we are in our shoes-off state—being able to take our shoes off is (usually) evidence that we are experiencing minimal...

Either/Or, or Shades of Gray

Once upon a time there was an adult mind who craved simplicity. One day it met up with its mirror opposite who craved complexity. They argued. Failing to resolve, they called Einstein to referee. “Tis wise to be as simple as possible, but not too simple!” the German-American wise man urged. In my field—personometrics, the...

Appearances Can Be Deceiving (2. Solitude and Loneliness)

All that glitters is not gold, and alone is not always lonely. Last week I began a series on behaviors that are often mistaken for one another. Elsewhere I’ve called them “multi-source behaviors,” in the sense that one single behavior might originate in different psychological spaces. Last week we saw how fidgeting and restlessness could...

Appearances Can Be Deceiving (1. Impatience and Boredom)

Last week a colleague called me impatient. I bristled—I don’t like to be called impatient. “What leads you to say that?” I asked, puzzled not knowing the evidence that led him to judgment. “You sometimes look away from others, move around a bunch in your chair when others are talking with you or to the...

People as Particles

I often enjoy comparing small scale elements of nature to their large scale counterparts—the melting of an ice cube to the melting of a glacier, an ant colony to a major metropolis, a piano score to a symphonic score. Studying similar natural phenomena at different levels leads to new insights. Such is the case with...

Perform, or Else!

That is intended to sound like a threat! I have just finished reading an important book by Santa Monica psychologist Hendrie Weisinger and performance expert J. P. Pawliw-Fry titled Performing Under Pressure: The Science of Doing Your Best When It Matters Most (Crown Business, 2015). Critical to understanding their work is distinguishing between stress and...

A Pet Peeve

No, perhaps more than a pet peeve, which I just saw defined as a “minor irritant.” It is really a major irritant. To wit: Researchers report results without regard to individual differences. Put simply: Too many researchers ask a simple question, such as “How satisfied are you with the direction your life is taking?” Then...

Communication Practices of Great Teams

At the Human Dynamics Laboratory of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, researchers pinned electronic badges on 2,500 team members from diverse industries. These badges collected a wide range of team-relevant data such as tone of voice, length of talking episodes, who was addressed, body language, standing versus sitting, and so forth. Lab director Alex “Sandy” Pentland...