Snippets From The World Of Psychology - April 2008
When a Name is more than just a Name
Several studies recently conducted by Nelson and Simmons have revealed that fondness for our own names can have a detrimental effect on performance when our initials correspond with negative performance outcomes. After analysing strike outs in American baseball over a 93 year period, researchers found a higher strike out rate among those individuals whose first or last name began with the initial K. They surmised this was due to the fact that in baseball, K is used to represent a strike out.To further expand on their theory, the researchers analysed 15 years of MBA students’ grades at a large American university and found poorer performance among students with the initials C or D, who scored significantly lower grades than students whose initials were A or B, or unconnected to grade scores. Could this be just a case of examiner bias? No. Self preference was a key moderator. When individuals showed a preference for their own initials, and when their initials were related to negative performance outcomes, their performance suffered as a result of their affection for their names.
What’s in a face?
It seems that a company’s profits can be linked to the facial appearance of its Chief Executive. A recent study conducted in the US involved the rating of the faces of the Chief Executives of the 25 highest and lowest ranked companies for the year 2006 from the Fortune 500 website. Companies tended to be more profitable if they had a Chief Executive with a face rated by observers as being more competent, dominant, and mature. Similarly, companies where the Chief Executive was judged to be a good leader, based purely on (his) facial appearance, also tended to be more profitable. Interestingly, these associations still hold even after controlling for the influence of age and perceived attractiveness. Of course, this begs the question of whether Chief Executives with a certain kind of appearance help their company towards profit, or if instead profitable companies choose to employ Chief Executives who look a certain way!Researchers do not know which facial cues observers are using to make these judgments, but more research is planned.