Hot MedFax

You reprimanded your executive assistant for not reserving the correct seat on your flight to Tucson.  You did not invite the employee who missed a deadline to lunch with the rest of your staff.  You lowered another's performance review because he reminds you of your husband. Sound familiar? One of those happened to me and I can say for sure that abusive bosses exist. Why do they do it?  Some believe it's to make themselves feel better.  But duh, according to a new study, they don't feel good for long, newswise.com reports. Being a jerk to your employees may actually improve your well-being, but only for a short while, suggests new research on abusive bosses co-authored by a Michigan State University business scholar. Bullying and belittling employees starts to take its toll on a supervisor’s mental state after about a week, according to the study.  “The moral of the story is that although abuse may be helpful and even mentally restorative for super...

I know my son really enjoys it when a teacher assigns a project as a group .  It surprises me a little that so many projects in high school seem to be done in a group (when I was in high school, it was always on your own).  But a new study says that, taking turns, and working with friends, may lead to better grades. I wonder if that works in the workplace?  More on that later. Dreaded by some, loved by others, group projects typically aim to build teamwork and accountability while students learn about a topic. But depending on the assignment and the structure of the groups, a project can turn out to be a source of great frustration — for instructor and students alike — or the highlight of the school year. Now a University of Washington-led study of college students has found that the social dynamics of a group, such as whether one person dominates the conversation or whether students work with a friend, affect academic performance. Put simply, the more comfortable ...

Now hear this, those of you who believe the media pushes " fake news " (probably no one, if you're reading me!). But a new study says those who rely on 'gut' feelings, or trust their intuition,  tend to think  that the facts they hear are politically biased, and therefore, are likely to stand behind inaccurate beliefs, according to newswise.com.  And those who rely on concrete evidence to form their beliefs are less likely to have misperceptions about high-profile scientific and political issues, says  Kelly Garrett , the lead researcher and a professor of communication at The Ohio State University.  “Scientific and political misperceptions are dangerously common in the U.S. today. The willingness of large minorities of Americans to embrace falsehoods and conspiracy theories poses a threat to society’s ability to make well-informed decisions about pressing matters,” Garrett notes. “A lot of attention is paid to our political motivations, and while politi...

I suppose it's not a surprise, we push our kids so much.  But did you know that kids praised for being smart, well, cheat more?  According to newswise.com, " An international team of researchers reports that when children are praised for being smart not only are they quicker to give up in the face of obstacles they are also more likely to be dishonest and cheat. Kids as young as age 3 appear to behave differently when told 'You are so smart' vs 'You did very well this time.'” I wrote not long ago that I was shocked to learn that kids in my son's honor classes cheat all the time, especially when the teacher is not very alert (they look things up on their smart phones).  "Everybody cheats.  It's because of the competition for good grades," my son said. Isn't it wrong to push our kids so much? The study, co-authored by Gail Heyman of the University of California San Diego, Kang Lee of the University of Toronto, and Lulu Chen and Li Z...

Feeling stressed ?  Take deep breaths.  Close your eyes and imagine your favorite beach spot.  Try to put what you're worrying about out of your mind, think of releasing it like a balloon. Everything fail?  Try playing a video game. I kid you not.  That's what a new study is saying, according to newswise.com. It doesn't much matter if you're an executive assistant or marketing manager, sitting in an office.  But what if you're a commercial pilot, responsible for hundreds of lives?  Or a surgeon? More than half of Americans regularly experience cognitive fatigue related to stress, frustration, and anxiety while at work. Those in safety-critical fields, such as air traffic control and health care, are at an even greater risk for cognitive fatigue, which could lead to errors, the web site reports.  Given the amount of time that people spend playing games on their smartphones and tablets, a team of human factors/ergonomics researchers decide...

Who hasn't heard the saying, the only way to heal from pain is through it. Now a new study is saying that it's the way to recover from failure , too. According to newswise.com, our emotional responses to mistakes can lead to improvement. Feeling the pain of failure leads to more effort to correct your mistake than simply thinking about what went wrong, the study says. Researchers found that people who just thought about a failure tended to make excuses for why they were unsuccessful and didn’t try harder when faced with a similar situation.  In contrast, people who focused on their emotions following a failure put forth more effort when they tried again.  “All the advice tells you not to dwell on your mistakes, to not feel bad,” says  Selin Malkoc , co-author of the study and professor of  marketing  at The Ohio State University’s  Fisher College of Business , at newswise.com.  “But we found the opposite. When faced with a failure, it ...

Big surprise.   Exercise is linked to self-control, according to newswise.com. I can certainly attest to that.  The last thing I want to do most mornings after getting up is putting on my sneakers and going running.  Yet, I've been doing that for the last -- well, I don't want to tell you how many years because it's actually been decades. But a new study says  people engaged in a tailored physical activity intervention demonstrate improved self-control. “There’s a particular type of task called ‘delay discounting’ that presents individuals with a series of choices between ‘smaller/sooner’ and ‘larger/later’ rewards,” says Michael Sofis, a doctoral student in applied behavioral science at the University of Kansas, who headed the  study . “It’s something we all experience in our lives. Do you want a little money now — or wait and get a lot of money later? The degree to which one chooses that smaller/sooner reward is called impulsivity, and that has been l...

It's probably a big "duh" but a new study has found that Twitter doesn't reflect actual life experiences (kind of like Facebook).  Or emotions. Researchers have found no evidence that social media content shared on Twitter is a truthful reflection of how its users feel, according to newswise.com It's no surprise to anyone who tweets but the study demonstrated that  Twitter users "have developed their own unique cultural behavior, conversations and identities, which shape the ways in which they present their views online," the web site reports, adding that social convention, power relationships and identity influence online conversation just as much as off-line interactions, but in ways that are not yet fully understood. Research has also shown that Tweeters are not representative of the general population. In just one example, men are much more likely to use Twitter than women.  Those who may tweet many times a day may be over-represented in any ...