单选题
Tricks of the Trade
A. As children, we are taught that working hard will get us good grades. When it comes to your job, the same logic should apply: being successful is all about working hard and getting the work done. But what if instead of impressing your new employer with your education, training and skills on your CV, it was your firm handshake and smile that got you hired? Or have you ever considered that those junks on your desk left over are causing your colleagues to doubt your abilities? And did nobody tell you that your chances of getting a raise may rest on whether you ask for it face-to-face or via email?
B. If psychology research is anything to go by, the 9-to-5 is a
minefield (危险地带), with a subconscious psychological disaster hiding around every corner.
C. We're not suggesting that these mental undercurrents govern your work life, but they certainly play a part. Whether it's deciding who to trust, or successfully matting a deal, the workplace decisions we think we make with skill and sense are, in part, affected by mind games we often aren't even aware of.
D. If that sounds depressing, look at it another way—use these psychological insights to your advantage and just imagine what they might do for you.
1. Smarten up E. Should your colleagues really care what you look like? Probably not—in an ideal world, we'd all be judged on our ability, not our personal appearance or vital statistics. Yet that's simply not how things work, says V. Bhaskar, a professor of economics at University College London. 'Humans have a bias towards attractive people and lots of research has shown that this can translate into a huge advantage in the labour market,' he says. In other words, good-looking people earn more than their less pretty colleagues. So it pays to look your best in the office.
F. One possible explanation for this is that attractive people are generally more healthy and so therefore more productive at work. Unfortunately, this seems unlikely, as Bhaskar showed in a recent study. He invited participants to take part in a game-show. Even when good-looking people performed worse on a task than their less attractive counterparts, Bhaskar found they were still preferentially selected to go through to the next round.
G. We don't realise we're doing it but it is human nature to discriminate according to looks, says Bhaskar, perhaps because the pressures of selecting a good mate have ended up as a false
analogy (类比) in the work place. Once we become aware that we are prejudicing people in this way, perhaps we can make an effort to address that bias, he adds. But until then, you may as well make an effort to look good at work and use this subconscious preference to your advantage.
H. While you're giving yourself a makeover, you could also consider doing the same for your work space. Even if you hadn't noticed the coffee rings on your desk, chances are your colleagues have, and it could have a bigger influence on your relationships than you might think. Psychologists at the University of Plymouth found that cleanliness actually reduces the severity of moral judgements against the person whose
hygiene (卫生) is in question. 'Because of its potential to lead people to regard moral actions as pure and good,' the psychologists conclude, 'cleanliness might indeed feel as if it were next to godliness.'
I. If you know you're a little untidy, and certainly won't be winning any beauty contests, don't worry, there are plenty of other ways to gain popularity with your co-workers. Try taking some advice from Madonna and 'Express Yourself'. During an experiment in which subjects were shown images of facial expressions, Barbara Wild and colleagues at the University of Tübingen, Germany, found that stronger facial expressions had a more powerful emotional response in the viewer, giving extra meaning to the saying 'smile and the world smiles with you'.
2. Breeze the interview J. The job market hasn't been this competitive for decades, so once you get an interview you'll want to make an immediate impression, and the first step is to get a grip. Anyone who has encountered a limp handshake will likely feel dislike at the thought, and now researchers at the University of Iowa have shown that a firm handshake, along with looking the interviewer in the eye, can boost your chances of getting hired. It's especially good news for the ladies, because the effect is stronger for women than men. A firm handshake subconsciously infers that the candidate is confident, and women capitalise on this to a greater extent simply because men are expected to have a stronger handshake in the first place.
K. For those still not convinced that first impressions matter, Janine Willis and Alexander Todorov at Princeton University found that we take one-tenth of a second to look at a face before making a snap decision about qualities such as trustworthiness, liability and competence. Even your facial features can make a difference—faces with upturned mouths and eyebrows that go up in the middle are judged by our brains to be more trustworthy. You can't change your face, of course, but these features are easy enough to imitate, and might give you the edge when you meet the interview panel.
L. If the thought that people are making judgements on your personality based on nothing more than a glimpse at your face is getting you hot under the collar, try not to let nerves get the better of you. In fact, you really should try to relax and smile. Because of a phenomenon called the 'halo effect'—whereby one good character trait will influence what people will infer about other traits—simply being warm and friendly can make the interviewer think better of your other attributes. In an experiment run by Richard E. Nisbett and colleagues at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, two interviews were staged with the same interviewee and recorded on video. In one interview he was warm and friendly and in the other cold and distant. When people watched the film in which he was cold and distant, they rated his appearance, accent and mannerisms as irritating, whereas those who watched the warm and friendly video found those exact same attributes to be appealing.
M. So don't be tempted to be too serious; just coming across as warm and friendly will have the interviewer imagining all sorts of other good qualities that you may, or may not, possess.
3. Bust that stress N. When work is getting too much, it's a common reaction to cut down on leisure activities to allow more time to get things done. Counter-intuitively, however, keeping up a range of enjoyable interests has been shown to reduce blood pressure, your body-mass index and even levels of the 'stress hormone'.
O. Where you take your break also makes a difference. Head to a park for maximum benefits, advises Ross Cameron from the University of Reading-, UK, as a green environment has psychological benefits.
P. Most work activities, like reading at your desk, require what psychologists call 'directed attention'. These tasks command all your concentration, which will end up taking a toll, leading to symptoms of stress. Getting out into a green environment helps you switch to a 'distracted' attention mode, where your surroundings can drift in and out of your mind without requiring all your attention at once. This, in turn, helps us to relax.
Q. 'There's strong evidence to show that as soon as you step into a park your blood pressure levels come down. Your body relaxes quickly in the natural environment,' says Cameron. Even having green plants on your desk can help to increase attention span and promote enjoyment at work, he adds.