Alphaverse.com

Original source: SimoleonSense.com .

H/T Liam Delaney @ Geary Behavior Center

Click Here To Read: Decision Making: Religion & Savings

Abstract (Via Geary Behavior Center)

In the Neoclassical growth model the saving ratio and human capital might be seen as the most important factors fostering economic growth. At last since Weber [2005 (1904/05)] it seems clear, that religious beliefs and involvement shapes both social and economic human behavior. This paper tests the hypothesis whether religious belonging and believing influence a household’s economic decision-making in the USA, which was found to foster economic growth, namely the saving ratio at the individual level. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), we find religious effects on saving. Regarding the decision to save money no large differences within the Christian religions, namely Protestants and Catholics, were found. However, large differences exist compared to non-religious people as well as to Non-Christians and Jews.

Click Here To Read: Decision Making: Religion & Savings

Original source: SimoleonSense.com .

I have to thank Paul Kedrosky for finding this article, it makes me think of many things. Primarily, that us value investors still have hope that is value investors focusing on rather dull, boring, not so sexy businesses.

Click Here To Read: The Boring Age: Is There Really As Much Innovation As We Think?

Excerpt (Via Paul Kedrosky)

We like to believe we live in an era of unprecedented change: technological innovation is proceeding at a rate with no parallel in all of human history. The information revolution and globalization are radically disruptive. Just as Barack Obama would like to be a transformational President, so the rest of us like the idea that we live in a thrilling epoch of transformation. But the truth is that we are living in a period of stagnation.

Surprisingly, this stasis is most evident in an area where we assume we are way ahead of our predecessors: technology. In fact, the gadgets of the information age have had nothing like the transformative effects on life and industry that indoor electric lighting, refrigerators, electric and natural gas ovens and indoor plumbing produced in the early to mid-20th century. Is the combination of a phone, video screen and keyboard really as revolutionary as the original telephone, the original television set or the original typewriter was?

Click Here To Read: The Boring Age: Is There Really As Much Innovation As We Think?

Original source: SimoleonSense.com .

Interesting article via Noah Goldstein Phd, author of Yes: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways To Be Persuasive

Click Here To Read: Influence: A Great Recipe for Employee Productivity…in Five Easy Minutes

Introduction (via Noah Goldstein)

When it comes to encouraging employees to be productive workers, managers seemingly have many tools in their motivational toolbox at their disposal. For example, perhaps they can increase worker motivation by offering to pay more to workers who are especially productive. Or maybe they can try to enhance overall employee morale by including them in a profit-sharing program. Or perhaps they could try to provide recognition to the best workers by offering rewards such as toasters, iPhones, and vacations. Although all of these tactics have the potential to be effective, they can be extremely costly to implement. However, some new research suggests a recipe for success without spending a dime, all in five easy minutes.

Adam Grant, a scholar in the field of organizational behavior, realized that workers often fail to live up to their potential because they’ve lost track of the significance and meaningfulness of their own jobs. He figured that if he could remind employees of why their jobs are important, they might become more highly motivated, and therefore, more productive individuals.

Click Here To Read: Influence: A Great Recipe for Employee Productivity…in Five Easy Minutes

Original source: SimoleonSense.com .

Via the Your Mind Your Money Show—on Nightly Business Report

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Related Video: Investor Overconfidence

Original source: SimoleonSense.com .

David DiSalvo has posted an interesting review on NeuroNarrative of some fascinating research….

Click Here To Read: Time Pressures, Expectations, & Performance

Introduction -via NeuroNarrative

Let’s say that you’re preparing for an extremely important test that you and roughly 100 other classmates will be taking in a week.  A few days before the test, you find out that your instructor will be going on a trip not long after the test is over and will be providing written and verbal feedback to the students within a day of the test.

This is unusual, because ordinarily the instructor waits a week or more before providing feedback.  About half of the class finds out that they’ll be getting rapid feedback and the other half thinks they won’t receive feedback for several days, per usual.

Which group is more likely to perform better on the test?

That question was investigated by University of Alberta researchers Keri Kettle and Gerald Haubl in a study published in the journal Psychological Science. The researchers hypothesized that the mere anticipation of proximate feedback would result in better performance on a test. Previous research has shown that when feedback is rapid, the threat of disappointment increases. The desire to avoid the negative feeling of disappointment—the feeling you get when you fall short of expectations—is a potent motivator to perform well.

Click Here To Read: Time Pressures, Expectations, & Performance

Original source: SimoleonSense.com .

H/t Blogosphere -quite frankly I don’t remember where I found this.

Click Here To Read: understanding the educational peer effect mechanism

Abstract (Via Science Direct)

Using a new administrative panel data set from the University of Maryland, this paper explores conventional peer effects and the effects of socially proximate peers at a large public university where some students are randomly assigned to housing. Results show that there is little evidence of robust residential peer effects on undergraduate performance. The impact of socially proximate peers’ characteristics on student achievement is then examined using an instrumental variables technique. Results indicate that social “friends” do not impact performance more than randomized peers. The paper casts doubt on the notion that social tie formation is the route to peer effects, and urges caution in the continued pursuit of peer effects in education without substantial empirical or theoretical innovation.

Click Here To Read: understanding the educational peer effect mechanism

Original source: SimoleonSense.com .

About the Lecture
Few companies have endured such hardship, or risen to such heights in a brief span of time as Akamai Technologies. Paul Sagan tells how he became the CEO of this young firm, and helped it survive and then flourish despite “unimaginable adversity.”

Brought up in a Chicago newspaper family, Sagan trained for a life in journalism. He cut his teeth as a broadcast news producer and executive in the 1980s, and in the 1990s. He helped launch New York 1, a cable news network pioneering digital video technology, and later, an interactive TV project in Orlando that featured video on demand and customized newscasts. Over the years, says Sagan, he picked up critical lessons on running a business: Don’t count on the permanence of any customer, job, or venture. He also “glimpsed the digital future,” realizing that if “you married the interactivity and openness of the web with the bandwidth available from cable…you could change the way the internet worked.”

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