Hidden Motives

A look at the hidden factors that really drive our social interactions

by Ken Eisold, Ph.D.

God in the Closet

The escalation of religious intolerance has reached a point, according to the noted anthropologist T.M. Luhrman, that people are becoming reluctant to own up to being religious at all. Read More

"Zombie Directors"

Does shareholder democracy really matter? .... But inactive or complicit boards are a real problem. Read More

James Gleick, writing about the coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing, noted that we have reached a turning point in our embrace of new media, but could he be mourning the end of old media? Read More

Guns and the Self-Interest of Politicians

The recent defeat of all efforts at gun control is shocking, given the fact that 90 percent of Americans supported the measures. How could that happen? Read More

Capitalism: The Return of the Repressed

Talking about capitalism has not been easy. The word is freighted with ideological connotations of conflict. Merely using it raises the specter of Marxism, along with such concepts as “alienation” and “exploitation,” terms that reflect historic struggle. Read More

Convenience and Ignorance

We don’t really need to know how things work in order to use them, do we? More and more, technology is hidden behind “user friendly” controls. But there is a growing case to be made for the dangers of our increasing technological ignorance – or incompetence. Read More

Real Hearts, Real Minds

A prominent researcher in Positive Psychology now suggests that our “heart’s capacity for friendship . . . obeys the biological law of ‘use it or lose it.’ This has implications not just for our states of mind, but for our ways of communicating. Read More

The Marx Brothers on Wall Street

“Gibberish,” concluded Floyd Norris, the financial reporter for The New York Times, summing up the “London Whale’s” description of his disastrous strategy to the JPMorgan group charged with overseeing investments. Read More

The Papal "Awards"

The parallels between the papal conclave and the Oscars, Tonys, and Grammys are just too striking to miss, and not just because the Vatican ceremony came in the middle of our awards season. Read More

The Purple Squirrel

There is an interesting story hidden within the news about the rise in employment. Read More

Crime Without Punishment

It often looks as if banks are being punished for their infractions and crimes, but appearances can be deceptive. Read More

Narcissism and Leadership

“Levels of narcissism are increasing among college students, says Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer at Stanford’s business school.” Worse, “business school students are more narcissistic than others.” But, surprisingly, he adds that may not be so bad. (See Businessweek, “Does It Matter If B-Schools Produce Narcissists?”) Read More

Shoddy Credit Ratings

A recent report of the Federal Trade Commission called attention to disturbing practices in the credit rating business. Among the findings: “nearly 26 percent of consumers . . . found at least one potentially material mistake on at least one of the three credit reports.... Read More

Money and Happiness

Studies have shown that money does not makes you happier -- beyond a certain point. Read More

When is a Job Real?

It is a difficult fact to face but businesses do not want to be stuck with most of their employees. Read More

Guns, Paranoia and Twinkies

Since the school shooting in Newtown Connecticut, the National Rifle Association reports gaining 100,000 new members. Gun sales have gone through the roof, many items are in short supply. Prices have doubled or tripled. What’s going on? Read More

What "Big Data" Can't Do

Sometimes called “the internet of things,” Big Data has arrived. It will “replace ideas, paradigms, organizations and ways of thinking about the world,” said Professor Brynjolfsson, Director of M.I.T.’s Center for Digital Business at a recent conference. Well, maybe. But it’s worth thinking about what it might not be able to do. Read More

Neuroeconomics?

Economists like facts, facts with numbers. And they like to link those facts with human behavior, specifically choices we make about spending, saving and investing. For many years, they had a favorite theory of motivation.... Read More

The Age of Apocalypse

We are surrounded by visions of the end of time. The recent obsession about the “end” of the world when the Mayan calendar runs out is just one example of how our culture is fixated on apocalypse. Why? Read More

Debates Don't Matter Anymore

As we look back on November’s election, we hope to understand what produced the outcome: what issues persuaded most voters, what policies carried more weight, what candidates proved more trustworthy. But Sasha Issenberg, a reporter for Slate, has come out with a book that suggests none of those things mattered. Read More

How Much Violence Can We Take?

A highly respected former sports reporter turned editorial commentator for The New York Times, Joe Nocera, just asked the question, “Should kids play football?” And the answer wasn’t clear. Read More

Where Is the 'Human' in H.R. Now?

H.R. professionals used to work hard to maintain their usefulness and integrity. They understood that providing personal professional services is particularly complicated when the provider is a friend, a colleague or a boss. Nowadays, however, they are increasingly hard to find. Read More

Neuromyths

A recent study revealed that two-thirds of the American public believe we only use 10% of our brains, and that is just one of our most widely held “neuromyths,” according to a recent account in The Wall Street Journal. Ironically, “the teachers who knew the most about neuroscience believed the most myths.” (See, “Using Just 10% of Your Brain? Think Again.”) Read More

Learning From Fragility

But Can We Make Ourselves Vulnerable? Five years ago, Nassim Nicholas Taleb captured our attention with his account of “black swans,” unpredictable events of extraordinary consequence. Within the year, the financial crisis both illustrated and vindicated his concept, and “black swans” entered our lexicon. Read More

Voting: A Different Kind of Choice

It looked for a while that a flood of money would deeply skew the election, but that did not happen. The money was raised and spent, but to little effect. In a report on the electoral impact of the Super Pacs, The Daily Beast concluded: “No surprise, the conservative-leaning groups tended to be the biggest losers in our survey.... Read More