Author: Elaina Luna

🔒 Working for a Delayed Reward Can Boost Goal Persistence

Long-term goals, like losing weight, writing a book, or buying a house, are achieved by consistently completing short-term goals, like working out, reaching a word-count, or saving money (Sharif & Woolley,1). People often start off motivated to reach their long-term goal, but after a couple of days of completing short-term tasks, especially tasks that aren’t…

🔒 Allowing for Failure Leads to Long-Term Success

Persistence is the key to success. Yet, people continue to give up in the face of failure, not realizing that in “long-term goal pursuit, small short-term failures are inevitable” (Sharif & Shue, 17). When people decide on a long-term goal like losing weight or writing a book, they typically “set short-term goals, such as going…

🔒 Give Solicited Advice: People Are More Likely to Take It

Giving advice people will be receptive of can be a rather precarious task, especially in the workplace. It can be rather challenging to get a boss, colleague, or employee to utilize your advice, even if your advice is high-quality. Advice isn’t always met with a happy receiver. Not everyone wants advice or input from others.…

🔒 How to Protect Employees Against the Monday Blues

The Monday Blues is the idea that employees “start the week with a negative attitude” because the weekend has ended and the workweek has just begun (Pindek et al., 1449). This bad mood increases sensitivity to work stressors, specifically incivility and work constraints (1449).  Past research has shown that workplace incivility can lead to “decreased…

🔒 Avoid Giving Out Illegitimate Tasks

            If you want happy employees, avoid giving out illegitimate tasks. Illegitimate tasks are tasks that go against “what can be expected in a given role or position” (1637). These tasks “are incongruent with an employee’s occupation or professional identity” (1637). Illegitimate tasks can be separated into two categories: unreasonable tasks and unnecessary tasks. Unreasonable…

🔒 Beautiful People: Perceived as More Hireable

 It turns out beautiful people have an unfair advantage at work. Research has found that attractive individuals have a higher pay, are promoted more often, and are more likely to receive a positive work evaluation (Tu, 120). One reason for this is that society prefers attractive people over unattractive people (120). It’s also well-known that…