What's an easy thing salespeople can do to close more deals? - Barking up the wrong tree

What's an easy thing salespeople can do to close more deals? - Barking up the wrong tree: "An experiment was carried out in a retail setting where four sales clerks were instructed to mimic, or not, some of the verbal expressions and nonverbal behavior of the customers. On their way out, these customers were asked to evaluate the sales clerks and the store. Results showed that mimicry was associated with a higher sales rate, greater compliance to the sales clerk's suggestion during the selling process, and more positive evaluations of both the sales clerks and the store."

Is there a way to make yourself more attractive to the opposite sex without changing anything about yourself at all? - Barking up the wrong tree

Is there a way to make yourself more attractive to the opposite sex without changing anything about yourself at all? - Barking up the wrong tree: "As predicted, the decoys swayed the choices of most volunteers, tugging them toward the one the decoy most resembled. In other words, they had an irrational attraction to one dating partner or the other, based only on the false comparison to some guy they would never consider dating."

Rebounding is a Mental Skill | The Wages of Wins Journal

Rebounding is a Mental Skill | The Wages of Wins Journal

It turned out that elite athletes, but not coaches and journalists, showed a sharp increase in activity in the motor cortex and their hand muscles in the crucial milliseconds before the ball was released. The scientists argue that this extra activity was due to a “covert simulation of the action,” as the athletes made a complicated series of calculations about the trajectory of the ball based on the form of the shooter. (Every NBA player, apparently, excels at unconscious trigonometry.) But here’s where things get fascinating: This increase in activity only occurred for missed shots. If the shot was going in, then their brains failed to get excited. Of course, this makes perfect sense: Why try to anticipate the bounce of a ball that can’t be rebounded? That’s a waste of mental energy.

10 Simple Postures That Boost Performance — PsyBlog

10 Simple Postures That Boost Performance — PsyBlog

We tend to think of body language as something that expresses our internal states to the outside world. But it also works the other way around: the position of our body also influences our mind.

A Comment on Coaching and Learning | The Wages of Wins Journal

A Comment on Coaching and Learning | The Wages of Wins Journal

Yelling at people who make mistakes is not likely to be an effective reaction. Improvement observed after yelling is probably just regression to the mean. Furthermore, yelling – as Henry notes – likely imposes additional costs on the player. One also suspects that at some point, players just learn how to tune out the yelling (something I have asked student-athletes about in the past).

Can you make yourself more persistent just by looking at a bottle of Gatorade? - Barking up the wrong tree

Can you make yourself more persistent just by looking at a bottle of Gatorade? - Barking up the wrong tree: visual exposure to a sports drink, relative to a spring water control condition, led to greater persistence on physical tasks, consistent with the well-known association between sports drinks and endurance.

Marginal Revolution: A rainfall theory of democracy

Marginal Revolution: A rainfall theory of democracy

We argue that settled agriculture requires moderate levels of precipitation, and that settled agriculture eventually gave birth to the fundamental institutions that under-gird today’s stable democracies.

Going on a Diet? Start Paying in Cash - NYTimes.com

Going on a Diet? Start Paying in Cash - NYTimes.com

Paying with credit or debit cards makes people more likely to make impulsive, unhealthy food purchases, according to a new study in The Journal of Consumer Research.

Those with a desk job, please stand up

Those with a desk job, please stand up

But when we sit, researchers say, important biological processes take a nap. An enzyme that vacuums dangerous fat out of the bloodstream only works properly when a body is upright. Standing also seems to ward off deadly heart disease, burn calories, increase how well insulin lowers glucose and produce the good brand of cholesterol. Most of these processes occur - or don't - regardless of whether someone exercises. Human beings need to stand.

Our Love/Hate Relationship with Carrots and Sticks - NYTimes.com

Our Love/Hate Relationship with Carrots and Sticks - NYTimes.com

The better, but perhaps less arresting, message is that “Carrots and Sticks (like chemotherapy) are powerful medicines that sometimes work.” It behooves us to figure out when.