Posted: 14 Jun 2010 10:05 AM PDT

TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Canadian Society for Industrial & Organizational Psychology recently announced that Stephen D. Risavy is the recipient of the 2010 RHR Kendall Award. Stephen is a Ph.D. candidate in the Industrial/Organizational Psychology program at the University of Guelph in Ontario. Sponsored by RHR International, a world leader in executive and organizational development, this award is presented for the best student paper of the year in Canadian I/O Psychology. It is named in honour of Dr. Lorne Kendall, a Canadian psychologist and member of the Canadian Psychological Association whose work on job satisfaction and various psychometric issues contributed greatly to the field of Industrial/Organizational Psychology. The winning paper was announced at the CPA Conference held in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Stephen's paper, entitled "Decision Making in Personnel Selection Using Personality Assessments: Implications for Adverse Impact and Hiring Rates," looked at the influence of different ways of using personality test data to make hiring decisions and found that depending on how the data were used, adverse impact and hiring rates were affected. Submissions were judged by the following criteria: 1) Quality of conceptual background, 2) Clarity of problem definition, 3) Methodological rigour, 4) Appropriateness of interpretations/conclusion, and 5) Clarity of presentation.

"The RHR Kendall Award was designed to acknowledge talented individuals in the area of Industrial/ Organizational Psychology at the very start of their careers," said Jeff Durocher, Vice President of Market Development for RHR International. "Stephen's paper is a welcome contribution to the field's body of knowledge and proves him a worthy recipient of this recognition."

ABOUT RHR INTERNATIONAL

We are a firm of management psychologists and consultants who work closely with top management to accelerate individual, team and business performance. We focus on five key areas of client need — Executive Selection and Integration, Accelerated Executive Effectiveness, Senior Team Effectiveness, Management Due Diligence and CEO Succession. We have been proven difference-makers for more than 65 years, unique in our combination of top management focus, psychologists' perspective and high-level business acumen.

RHR International has offices in Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States. The company is headquartered in Chicago, Ill. For more information, please visit our website at www.rhrinternational.com.

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The psychology of sports: Why do fans care so much?

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 04:14 AM PDT

The looming free agency of LeBron James has caused a seismic stir in the sports world. And beyond.

President Barack Obama has weighed in on the basketball superstar's future. So has the mayor of New York City.

Gov. Ted Strickland joined meteorologist Dick Goddard and other regional celebrities for the singing of "Please Stay LeBron," performed to the music of "We Are The World."

Celebrity chef Michael Symon of Cleveland has offered to cook a free monthly gourmet feast for LeBron if the Akron native doesn't flee.

A Cleveland talk-radio station has launched a "Beards for Bron" campaign. LeBron Appreciation Day is Saturday at the University of Akron's football stadium.

Doomsday-like clocks tick on websites, including one posted by ESPN, the sports cable television giant. They count down the days, minutes and seconds until July 1 — when LeBron can become a free agent and bid the Cleveland Cavaliers farewell.

The LeBron phenomenon begs the question — why are so many sports fans so emotionally vested in the career of a 25-year-old who dribbles a basketball?

Have we lost our minds? Is it a sign of the apocalypse?

'WE LOVE DISTRACTIONS'

Psychology and communications professors say there is no reason to be alarmed. Rooting for sports teams and athletes provides a sense of belonging for fans — known as sports identification. And sports offer an escape from the daily grind of work and life. Rooting for a team also bolsters self-esteem and creates a sense of pride. Even if it is basking in the glow of a single victory.

"Identifying with your sports teams is one of the ways you can vicariously experience success, and in real life, success is hard," said Ronald F. Levant, a psychology professor at the University of Akron who specializes in the psychology of men and masculinity. "We have ups and downs, a lot of things don't always go our way ... especially in this economy."

Sure, the LeBron soap opera pales in comparison to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the gravity of high unemployment.

But "this is kind of an important function to have because if we didn't have things to buoy us up, life would be really hard," Levant said.

Adam C. Earnheardt, an assistant professor of communication studies at Youngstown State University, agrees. He keeps an autographed photo of Pittsburgh Pirates baseball legend Willie Stargell in his office.

"We love distractions, and when the distractions are of less importance in the global scope, then we tend to latch onto them because they can pull us away from being concerned about some of the bigger issues," said Earnheardt, who has co-authored a book on the topic, "Sports Mania: Essays on Fandom and the Media in the 21st Century."

'VERY BASIC SOCIAL NEED'

Allen R. McConnell, a James and Beth Lewis endowed professor of psychology at Miami University, is a fan of James and the Cavaliers.

"Humans have a strong need to feel connected, to be part of something greater, to be something more than just an individual on an island," he said.

Win or lose, McConnell said, sports fans seek the benefits of "group affiliation" through teams. That's also reflected throughout society, he said. Examples include the family structure and church.

Those who are not sports fans sometimes "pooh-pooh sports fans as boorish (and) people who just live for tailgating or ... for the playoffs," McConnell said. "Everyone has those needs, so the person who may pooh-pooh the football fan or the basketball fan may be a vehement supporter of local opera or ballet."

"It's a very basic social need," he said.

While living in Boston for nearly 20 years, Levant, the Akron professor, said he was part of the rabid "Red Sox Nation." That was before the baseball franchise won the World Series in 2004.

"I would experience kind of the July thrill and the August depression," said Levant, referring to the team's late-season slumps. "Just because I'm a psychologist doesn't mean I'm any saner than any of the other people."

CLEVELAND FANS

Bill Ivany, 51, of Jackson Township, loves sports. He grew up in New Jersey, and as a child, attended New York Knicks games — one of LeBron's potential suitors. And he had Cavs season tickets two years before LeBron was drafted. He maintains an assortment of tickets, taking friends and family to games. His seats are on the floor — behind the basket and behind the team benches.

"It's brought the family closer," Ivany said.

After the Celtics bounced the Cavs out of the playoffs, he was dejected. "I'm an avid weightlifter, even at this age ... and I've noticed I'm a lot longer in the gym lately," Ivany said, laughing. "I've been taking out some aggression."

Portions of Ivany's home resemble a sports bar. Hardened by years of heartbreak in Cleveland, he's hoping for the best with LeBron. "I have to admit, 'The Drive,' 'The Fumble' ... maybe I've become a little bit numb after going through so many horrific experiences," he said, referring to the debacle-rich history of Cleveland sports.

Chuck Schuster, a member of the Canton Browns Backers and a Meyers Lake resident, travels to Browns games in an old school bus painted in team colors. The bus features a urinal, five couches and cooking equipment.

After the franchise moved to Baltimore, Schuster rarely could bring himself to watch any NFL football until a new team was formed in Cleveland.

Camaraderie with longtime friends draws the 56-year-old Schuster to sports. "It's a release, and then you go up there and they get pounded, and it's not a release — then you're miserable."

Schuster manages the Canton Club Event Center and operates a catering business. He keeps sports in perspective.

"Sports are a pastime, sports are recreational, sports are fun," Schuster said. "I'm so sick of the LeBron thing. I don't care if he goes or he doesn't go because there's so many more important problems in the world today than whether LeBron James plays in Cleveland or LeBron doesn't play in Cleveland."

"I worry more about my friend (a fellow Browns fan) ... coming back home after his (military) tour (in Afghanistan) than I worry where LeBron is going to play," he said.

Don't expect Schuster to bail on the Browns. "I wait for Santa to come, and Santa keeps bringing coal," he said, referring to a Super Bowl.

"I just have hope that one day it's going to happen."

Michael Thomas, a North Canton dentist, first purchased a Cavaliers season-ticket package during the Shawn Kemp era of the late 1990s.

Back then, it was difficult to give away tickets, he said. Excuses included watching "Seinfeld" episodes.

He's skeptical LeBron will stay with Cleveland. "I guess I'm hoping for the best but expecting the worst," he said.

"And we're hoping because this fella has hometown roots, he might be the one to stay," said Thomas, vice chairman of the Stark State College board of trustees. "If he did, I think he might be rewarded more than he ever expected. He would be the new Jim Brown."

With or without the reigning MVP, Thomas plans to attend Cavs games because he enjoys the event.

"I wouldn't think about it for more than a few minutes," he said of LeBron leaving.

THE LEBRON EFFECT

The connection between LeBron and Cleveland fans is especially strong, Levant said.

"In our region, there's even more of a need to kind of identify with a team that will allow us to vicariously experience success and feel good about ourselves," he said. "The great thing about the Cavaliers and LeBron is they have been extraordinarily successful in the last few years, and they're probably the best things about the region when you think about it."

Earnheardt, the Youngstown State professor, said the LeBron quandary reflects the region. He cited the decline of the steel and rubber industries. And the nearly 46-year championship drought in major professional sports in Cleveland.

"If LeBron leaves, regardless of whether you're in Youngstown, Akron or Cleveland, there's going to be this sense of here we go again, we take another blow to the gut," Earnheardt said. "But if he stays there will be jubilation."

WHAT IF HE LEAVES?

So what if LeBron bolts for the bright lights of New York, the glitz of Chicago or the sunny beaches of Miami?

"It will certainly have self-esteem implications for an area that has received a lot of bad press lately as one of the most undesirable places to live," McConnell said.

"People overestimate" the impact of such events, he said. "We get over them a lot more fully ... than we anticipate."

And if LeBron switches teams, Levant has advice for fans who would feel betrayed.

"I would say LeBron has meant a lot to this region, LeBron has probably meant a lot to you ... but eventually it will wear off."

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How psychology impacts the economy

Posted: 13 Jun 2010 03:16 PM PDT

By ROSS GITTINS - The Age

John Maynard Keynes first recognised it when seeking to explain why the Great Depression happened even though the economic theory of the time said it couldn't.

But it has taken the global financial crisis to help us rediscover that truth: the main reason economies fluctuate as they do is the changing psychology of the people who compose the economy.

Keynes called this our ''animal spirits'', which is the title of a book by George Akerlof, a Nobel laureate in economics, and Robert Shiller, a leading proponent of behavioural finance.

These days, the term animal spirits is usually used to refer to business and consumer ''confidence'', as measured by, for example, the Westpac-Melbourne Institute index of consumer sentiment and the NAB survey of business confidence.

But Akerlof and Shiller point out that ''animal'' means ''of the mind'' or ''animating''. So they take the term to refer to all our non-economic, non-rational emotions and motivations.

Their point is that although these motivations have been defined as non-economic (and thus have been excluded from the conventional, neo-classical model of the economy), that doesn't stop them having a considerable influence over our economic behaviour.

The truth is that the neo-classical model can't explain why market economies have always moved in boom-bust cycles. It simply assumes the economy is always at full employment. But the changing moods and attitudes of the humans who make up the economy can explain the business cycle.

Akerlof and Shiller acknowledge confidence as the cornerstone of animal spirits, but argue they have four other components: fairness, corruption and bad faith, money illusion and stories. These other elements are needed to explain adequately the economy's ups and downs, and catastrophic events

such as the global financial crisis.

Conventional economics assumes that when businesses or individuals make significant investment decisions, they consider all the options available and all the possible monetary outcomes; they attach probabilities to each outcome, multiply the two together and then add them up to get the ''expected benefit''. If it's high enough they go ahead with the project.

But often the probabilities are no more than educated guesses. So whether the project goes ahead often depends on how confident people feel about the prospects for the economy and their project, whether they're in an optimistic or pessimistic mood.

Concerns about fairness are excluded from the conventional model, but not from the motivations of economic actors.

Sociologists tell us there are behavioural ''norms'' that describe how people think they and others should behave in particular circumstances. We get angry when people fail to conform to norms and this anger may have adverse consequences for businesses.

One area where perceptions of fairness are very much to the fore is in the setting of wages. Workers get angry when there's any suggestion of their wages being cut (even though they may well accept a fall in their real wages if economic conditions seem to warrant it).

Employers' inability to cut nominal wages when there's a fall in the demand for their product means downturns in the economy lead to more unemployment than they would if wages and prices were more flexible (as the model assumes).

Most recessions involve corporate corruption scandals and instances of ''bad faith'' (people behaving in ways that are unethical but not illegal).

The business cycle is connected to fluctuations in personal commitment to principles of good behaviour and to fluctuations in predatory activity, which in turn is related to changes in opportunities for such activity.

''Money illusion'' means people base their economic decisions on ''nominal'' monetary amounts, failing to allow for the effect of inflation. But one of the most important assumptions of modern economics (where ''modern'' means it has reverted to the neo-classical assumptions that prevailed before the Keynesian revolution) is that people always see through the ''veil'' of inflation and compare prices in real terms.

The obvious truth is that sometimes people allow for inflation and sometimes they don't. Or, they do to an extent, but not completely. If so, this causes them to behave in ways contrary to those predicted by the conventional model.

The mind is built to think in terms of narratives, of sequences of events with an internal logic and dynamic that appear as a unified whole. And much human motivation comes from living through a story of our lives that we tell ourselves.

The same is true for confidence in a nation, a company or an institution. Great leaders are first and foremost creators of stories.

High confidence tends to be associated with inspirational stories, stories about new business initiatives, tales of how others are getting rich. ''New era'' stories (such as that the internet has brought us to a new era of profit and prosperity) have tended to accompany major booms in sharemarkets.

So ends Akerlof and Shiller's list of all the main ''non-economic'' things that are in our minds and that influence our economic behaviour, but aren't in the conventional model. Capitalism isn't really in crisis, they conclude, it must merely live within certain rules and governments must set those rules.

Psychology

Monday, June 14, 2010

“RHR International Sponsors Award for Best Student Paper in I/O Psychology” plus 2 more

“RHR International Sponsors Award for Best Student Paper in I/O Psychology” plus 2 more

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