In This Issue

                             Self-esteem is the third, most-frequently used concept in psychology. Self-esteem is a person’s overall evaluation (self-appraisal) of his or her own worth Concepts such as self-worth, self-respect, self-regard are essentially the same or almost same as self-esteem.  A high self-esteem means that the individual values himself highly, compares himself favourably with others and believes that he is competent and capable of realising his ambitions. A low self-esteem is synonymous with lack of belief in oneself, a sense of hopelessness and a sense of helplessness. 
     Psychologists Abraham Maslow believed that self-esteem is a basic human need. According to him, there are two different forms of self-esteem - the need for respect from others and the need for respect from oneself. Respect from others entails recognition, appreciation, status and acceptance. It is more fragile and could be easily lost, compared to respect from oneself, which comes from integrity, honesty, values and morals.
     Social psychologist Jennifer Crocker explored what people believe they need to do, to be worthy as a person. She identified seven domains in which people frequently derive their self-worth.

     1.      Virtue
2.      God’s love
3.      Support to family
4.      Academic competence
5.      Physical attractiveness
6.      Gaining others’ approval
7.      Outperforming in competitions

      Crocker believed that people’s pursuit of self-esteem affects the satisfaction of the fundamental human needs for learning, relationships, autonomy, self-regulation, mental health and physical health. She also strongly believed that people’s pursuit of self-esteem affects not only the individual, but everyone around him as well.
     Research has shown that external factors of self-esteem such as physical appearance and academic success correlate negatively to well-being, even promoting depression. On the other hand, internal factors such as virtue and God’s love are positively related to one’s well-being.

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What makes a bad leader?

  Leaders who are low or high in assertiveness tend to be less effective, according to a recent study. The research suggests that being seen as under-assertive or over-assertive may be the most common weakness among aspiring leaders.
     When participants in the study were asked for their views on leadership strengths and weaknesses, intelligence, self-discipline and charisma were mentioned as strengths; too much assertiveness and too little assertiveness were mentioned as weaknesses by most of the participants. Effective leadership is having an optimal level of assertiveness.
     “It’s like salt in a sauce, When there’s too much or too little, it’s hard to notice anything else, but when it’s just right, you notice the other flavours. No one compliments a sauce for being perfectly salted, and it’s just as unusual for a leader’s perfect touch with assertiveness to attract much notice,” explained the researchers Daniel Ames, PhD, a professor at Columbia Business School and Francis Flynn, PhD, a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business.
     The researchers wanted to know why assertiveness at either extremes affected leadership negatively. They found that aspiring leaders who are low in assertiveness can’t stand up for their interest, and they suffer by being ineffective at achieving goals and delivering results. On the other hand, people high in assertiveness are often insufferable. So even though, they may get their way, they are choking off relationships with the people around them.
     Ames and Flynn caution that their work does not suggest that the solution for leaders is to be moderately assertive all the time. Instead, they claim that leaders seen as moderately assertive may be better able to ratchet up their responses when called for and to tone down their behaviour when necessary. Leaders stuck at the extremes of assertiveness may have a narrower repertoire of behaviour.

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Hello, are you listening?

    The four pillars of effective communication are listening, speaking, reading and writing. Schools teach us how to read and write and Colleges teach us how to speak, but we are seldom taught how to listen. Poor listening skills leads to poor communication and poor communication results in poor performance.
     Here are 7 listening strategies that could help one to improve listening, communication and performance.

1.      Be present: Arrest your mind from wandering into the past or into the future. Ensure that your mind is present so that it is available to what is being said.

2.      Look at the speaker: Looking at the speaker gives the opportunity to understand the non-verbal message from the speaker. It prevents chance of distractions. It assures the speaker that you are listening. On the contrary, if you don’t look at the speaker, he might conclude that you are not paying attention to him, even if you are listening.  

3.      Acknowledge the speaker: Convey to the speaker, that you are with him by responding verbally with ‘umm’, ‘yeah’, ‘okay’ or nonverbally by nodding your head.

4.      Pat attention to content: Listen to what is being said rather than how it is said. Ignore grammatical mistakes, pronunciation mistakes, repetitions and exaggerations.

5.      Overcome prejudices: Avoid preconceived judgments based on appearance, race, social status, gender, age etc.

6.      Listen completely: Let the speaker finish what he wants to say. Interrupting him breaks his chain of thought, leads to misunderstanding, conveys disrespect and might snap the rapport with him.

7.      Remove distractions: Eliminate distractions such as ringing of cell phones, watching television, reading emails, tapping the feet, shuffling the papers etc.

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Gender perception affects earnings

   A University of Florida study found that men who believe in traditional roles for women earn more money than men who don’t, and women with a more traditional view earn less than women with more egalitarian views.
     The researchers Timothy Judge PhD and Beth Livingston from the University of Florida studied 12686 people over a period of 25 years. Participants were asked about their views on gender roles in the work place and at home. They answered questions such as whether they believed a woman’s place is in the home, whether employing wives leads to more juvenile delinquency, whether the man should be the achiever outside the home, whether the woman should take care of the home and family etc.
     The researchers found that men in the study who had more traditional gender role attitudes, made an average of $8500 more annually compared to those who had less traditional attitudes. For women, the situation was reverse. Women who held more traditional views about gender roles made an average of $1500 less annually compared to women who held more egalitarian views.
     As to why some people hold more traditional or less traditional perceptions of gender roles, the researchers found that people whose both parents worked outside the home had less traditional views regarding gender roles, whereas people who are married and people who are religious tended to have more traditional views regarding gender roles.
     It was also found that younger people had less traditional views but became more traditional over time.                                                                                     Back to top

How you spend affects how much you spend

   There is fresh evidence that people spend less when paying cash than when usg credit or cash equivalent scrip. They also spend less when they have to estimate expenses in detail.
     Cash is viewed as the most transparent form of payment. “The more transparent the payment outflow, the greater the aversion to spending, or higher the ain of paying,” according to the researchers Priya Raghubir, PhD of the Stern School of Business at New York University and Jaydeep Srivastava, PhD of the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. They found that cash discourages spending and credit card encourages it.
     In the second study, researchers highlighted the future pain of paying by having the participants estimate food expenses for an imaginary Thanksgiving dinner, item by item rather than a holistic total. When they did this, the cash-credit spending gap closed. When people confronted the detailed reality of expenses, it no longer mattered whether they used cash or something else.
     People are willing to spend more when they use a credit card than when they use cash, as cash payment can reinforce the pain of paying. The studies suggest that less transparent payment forms tend to be treated like play money and are hence more easily spent or parted with. People must be aware of the deceptive ease of non-cash payments. They must realize that simple manipulations such as ‘Buy now pay later’ can alter their spending behaviour and deceive them into spending more than what they otherwise spend.  

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How to make your email communication more effective

Unlike face-to face conversation, email communication leaves out the tone of voice, body- language and the context, which can lead to misunderstanding.
     “People can cultivate ways of communicating in online contexts that are equally as effective as those used offline. The degree to which individuals develop unique conventions in the medium will determine their ability to communicate effectively,” suggest Daniel A.Menchik and Xiaoli Tian, both from the University of Chicago.
     Capital letters, use of quotations, emoticons, exclamation points, bullet points, colour etc. help the sender communicate effectively the meaning of a message. For example, ‘I feel betrayed’ reads differently from ‘I FEEL SO BETRAYED!” together with a winking smiley emoticon.
     Cutting and pasting from previous emails, using subject lines that refer to previous discussions, signatures, disclaimers and other information about the person’s state of mind, help in maintaining conversational flow.
     The researchers found that people felt more comfortable once they knew a little about each other, like the information included in a signature. They also found that indicating the frame of mind as a disclaimer, for example, ‘I wrote this at 5AM’ or ‘I wrote this on a blackberry while on vacation’ helped prevent the email from being misinterpreted.
     People can make use of linguistic monitors such as Eudora’s ‘MoodWatch’ which tries to indicate to the sender that their email might be considered inflammatory and to the receiver that they are about to receive such an email.

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