Thursday, 15 October 2009
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Are Your Friends Making You Poorer?
In a recent installment of The Boston Globe's Uncommon Knowledge column, the author summarized a handful of new insights stemming from social science studies. These insights looked the various ways social interactions influence or affect our careers and money.
Peer Pressure Can Make You Poorer
A team of economists conducted a study that demonstrated that college students are more likely to choose a major chosen by more those peers. The students whose major was chosen according to peer preferences were more likely to end up in lower paying jobs that they disliked than the students whose classes were randomly selected for them. So following your friends' choices may be making you poorer and more unhappy in the future!Teamwork Doesn't Always Work
A professor at Harvard Business School found that teams under pressure to perform would rely on the more senior group members, whether or not these senior members had the most knowledge of the client. This resulted in a worse performance as perceived by the client.Attention Residue Can Be Sticky
Like most people, I'm sure you've struggled with getting through a list of tasks before. This may be due to "attention residue", which is when your mind is still thinking about a previous task when you've moved onto a new one. This negatively affects productivity unless you have a firm deadline for the first task. Researchers found less attention residue when there was deadline pressure.The column also discussed feminism in Sparta and the ways money can make you feel better. Check out the full article here:
What do you think of these insights? Do you disagree with any of them?
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Comments (3)
You have got to make your own financial descisions, and at times even going out a lot can cost money you don't need to spend. I must admit, I used to be a vulerable to catalogue sales and some of my friends sold me quite a few items because they were distributors. I don't regret it - just wouldn't do it again now, and Im still using some of the products.
I thought this would be about how friends can cause people to spend more money than they're used to spending (going out to eat, etc.)
This happens to me sometimes when old friends come to visit for the weekend and we try to make the most of it.
Studies and statistics are only useful to those touting them, unless they can be broken down into extremely strong and clear language. 4 out of 5 dentists? Ok, what did the fifth guy say? Is it perhaps cause and effect that this person doing as his peers do is a "follower" and not a "leader", or doesn't excel at anything well enough to make a decision not resulting in lesser income performance? Maybe if they're gonna be broke, then at least having friends form school can be a job/job security source.
We overanalyze everything in this country. We usually do it for sensational effect.