Study tracks cognitive stability from childhood to old age and reveals extent of genetic influence.

By Heidi Ledford of Nature magazine

A Scottish intelligence study that began 80 years ago has borne new fruit. Researchers have tracked down the study’s surviving participants–who joined the study when they were 11 years old–to estimate the role that our genes have in maintaining intelligence through to old age.

Researchers have long been interested in understanding how cognition changes with age, and why these changes are more rapid in some people than in others. But, in the past, studies of age-related intelligence changes were often performed when the subjects were already elderly.

Then, in the late 1990s, research psychologist Ian Deary of the University of Edinburgh, UK, and his colleagues realized that Scotland had two data sets that would allow them to take such studies a step further. In 1932 and 1947, officials had conducted a sweeping study of intelligence among thousands of 11-year-old Scottish children. The data, Deary learned, had been kept confidential for decades.

He and his colleagues set about tracking down the original participants, many of whom did not remember taking the original tests. The team collected DNA samples and performed fresh intelligence tests in nearly 2,000 of the original participants, then aged 65 or older.

Previous analyses of the team’s data had shown that childhood intelligence correlated well with intelligence in old age. «But it’s not a perfect relationship,» says Deary. «Some people move up the list and some move down.»

Περισσότερα εδώ.

Via Scoop.it – personnel psychology

If you are unhappy at work, it could be partly due to your boss’ management style, according to a new study by Dr. Nicolas Gillet, from the Université François Rabelais in Tours in France, and his team. Both over-controlling managers who use threats as a way to motivate employees, and organizations that do not appear to value individuals’ contributions, frustrate our basic needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness (how we relate to others). This, in turn, is likely to have a negative impact on our well-being at work. The research is published online in Springer’s Journal of Business and Psychology.
Via www.sciencedaily.com

Via Scoop.it – Greek HR

To Harvard Business Review είναι ένα από τα καλύτερα και σημαντικότερα επιχειρηματικά περιοδικά. Tο τελευταίο του τεύχος (Ιανουάριος-Φεβρουάριος 2012) έχει ένα ειδικό αφιέρωμα στην ευτυχία, από την σκοπιά της Θετικής Οργανωσιακής Ψυχολογίας και Συμπεριφοράς, ένα ζήτημα που μας έχει απασχολήσει αρκετά σε αυτό το blog. Σε μια σειρά από κείμενα (http://hrm-in-greece.blogspot.com) θα μεταφέρουμε τα σημαντικότερα σχετικά άρθρατα τα οποία ελπίζουμε να βρείτε χρήσηιμα.
Via hrm-in-greece.blogspot.com

Via Scoop.it – personnel psychology
A new study shows that using the Internet to look for a job reduces the time spent unemployed by an average of 25 percent.   The discovery directly contradicts a 2004 study showing that using the Internet actually prolonged unemployment. «In 2004 the researchers came up with two scenarios for their findings — the Internet was not an effective tool or that people who looked on-line for jobs were not as qualified,» said Hani Mansour, Ph.D., assistant professor of economics at the University of Colorado Denver who conducted the new study with Peter Kuhn, economics professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara. The sweep and depth of the Internet has also changed dramatically since the late 1990s, Mansour said. The share of young unemployed workers using the web to look for employment increased from 25 percent in1998/ 2000 to 74 percent in 2008/2009. Utilizing the Internet has a large impact on the duration of unemployment especially when used to contact friends and family. A decade ago, Mansour said, people who didn’t have personal contacts used the Internet for their job search to little effect. Now, those using personal contacts on-line have dramatically increased their chances of finding employment. Job sites themselves are better designed and far more specific and user friendly than in the past. «This hypothesis is certainly consistent with our findings that the Internet is highly effective when used to look at ads, to send out resumes and to fill applications,» the study said. «Simply because the Internet now connects each work to many more firms (and vice versa) in several new and low-cost ways it may be a more powerful tool in the job search process than it was a decade ago.» Mansour and Kuhn’s study drew on data collected from surveys of young job seekers, asked a series of questions about the methods they used to find employment. «What we don’t find is that online job search increases wages compared to the worker’s last job,» Mansour said. The findings, says Mansour, help solve the puzzling results of the 2004 study showing the Internet increased the time spent unemployed. «We speculate that significant improvements in technology over this period, ranging from better on-line job sites to network externalities associated with greater overall Internet penetration itself, might explain this change over time,» the study said.
Via www.sciencedaily.com

Via Scoop.it – Greek HR

Διοίκηση Ανθρώπινου Δυναμικού στην Ευρώπη: Τάσεις και Προκλήσεις, Αθήνα 3 Μαΐου 2012.   Το Συνέδριο πραγματοποείται υπό την επιστημονική καθοδήγηση του Μεταπτυχιακού Προγράμματος Σπουδών στην Διοίκηση Ανθρώπινου Δυναμικού του Οικονομικού Πανεπιστημίου Αθηνών.   Κύροι ομιλητές του συνεδρίου θα είναι οι Prof. Arnold Bakker και Prof. David Guest.  
Via hrm2012.wordpress.com