Raising an Optimistic Child: A Proven Plan for Depresion-Proofing Young Children--for Life
(McGraw-Hill, 2006) by Bob Murray and Alicia Fortinberry

Creating Optimism:
A Proven Seven-Step Program for Overcoming Depression
(McGraw-Hill, 2004) by Bob Murray and Alicia Fortinberry

Written and researched by Bob Murray, PhD

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• Heart Attacks Linked to Jobs Loss
  Losing a job late in life can be stressful, researchers have found. Workplace ageism is a major factor.
• Cutting Middle Management Kills Productivity
  One-on-one relationships the key to employee commitment, and relationships the key to productivity.
• Social Identity the Key to Efficiency
  Employees are more like to 'go the extra mile' at work if they compare their workplace to other organizations.
• Low Status Leads to Heart Disease
  If you're on the bottom rung of the ladder at work you may be at risk for a heart attack!
• Which Personality Type Gets the Promotion?
  It's not always, or even mostly, the most talented candidate.
• Flirting in the Workplace
  A little sexual banter at work, if consensual, can build camaraderie..
• Depression Treatment Boosts Employee Productivity
  High-quality care for depression can improve productivity at work and lower rates of workplace absenteeism, according to a new report.
• Bullied Workers Suffer "Battle Stress"
  High rates of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) found among corporate employees.
• Another Fringe Benefit For Highly Paid Employees: More Fun At Work
  Studies show that the greatest fringe benefit that top people at corporations get is relationships.
• Your Kids Mood Predicts Your Work Performance
  Work and family really do affect each other.
• Unemployment Can Be Fatal
  Losing a job near retirement age significantly increases risk of stroke.
• Depression Sufferers Fear Stigma at Work
  82% employers aren't able to recognize the symptoms of depression.
• Unemployment Strikes a Blow on Men's Mental Health
  Men have fewer outside interests than women, and find it more difficult to form relationships.
• Why Some Workplaces Work and Some Don't
  Research shows some of the reasons people make an effective team.
• Women Most Effective Leaders for Today's World
  Studies find that women are better than men at running companies.
• It's Harder to Connect Via Email and Text
  Let's face it, man is not made to communicate electronically.
• We Don't Work for Money
  New research says being top dog makes us happier than simply getting top dollar.
• Office Bullies Cost Industry Millions
  Bullying is not a just school-yard thing.
• Study Says Anyone Can Be a Boss
  Most people can fit comfortably into a leadership role, but not everyone is cut out to be a subordinate.
• Sleep Deprivation Can Damage Your Health
  The growing trend of UK employees working from their beds is playing havoc with their sleeping patterns, research suggests.
• Job Loss Can Lead to Downward Spiral of Depression and Poor Health
  Job loss and its related financial strain put people at elevated risk for emotional and physical problems, according to researchers studying the consequences of being unemployed.
• Introverted Persons Are More Likely to Become Tired At Work

Heart Attacks Linked to Jobs Loss

Sep 17, 2006

Losing your job late in your career doubles the chance of suffering a heart attack or stroke, a study says. Yale University researchers studied 4,301 people aged 51 to 61 who were working in 1992, the research, printed in the Occupational and Environmental Medicine journal claimed. Of the sample group over 10 years, there were 23 heart attacks and 13 strokes among the group of 582 who were forced out of a job.

Lead researcher Dr William Gallo said: "For many individuals, late career job loss is an exceptionally stressful experience, with the potential for provoking numerous undesirable outcomes. I don't think it is necessarily because of the age, but rather related to the problems people over 50 have finding jobs of equivalent standard because of the ageism in the workplace.

"Based on our results, the true costs of unemployment exceed the obvious economic costs and include substantial health consequences as well."

In total, 202 had heart attacks and 140 had strokes from all the groups studied, which included those who had lost their jobs involuntarily, retired, taken a temporary break from work or were still employed. Once risk factors such as diabetes, smoking, obesity and high blood pressure were taken into account, the risk of the involuntary job loss group having a heart attack after losing their job was 2.5% and a stroke 2.4%.

Read more in Occupational and Environmental Medicine

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Cutting Middle Management Kills Productivity

May 25, 2006

Companies that cut middle managers jeopardize their productivity more than save costs, a study from McMaster University suggests. "Middle managers are the front line communicators with employees," says Rick Hackett, Canada Research Chair in Organizational Behaviour and Human Performance at the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University. "One-on-one social exchanges between bosses and their workers have a real impact on employee productivity, behaviour and commitment, and when you cut middle-management, often you lose that interaction."

Hackett found interactions between employers and employees must be reciprocal. For example, if a supervisor entrusts an employee with an important project and takes some risk by making the assignment, the employee is more likely to feel obligated to reflect positively on his supervisor, even after the project has finished. And in return, the employee is more likely to trust that the employer will reward his performance and give him further opportunities.

In his study published in the Academy of Management Journal, Hackett emphasized that rewards are not necessarily monetary. They can be as simple as increased autonomy, access to privileged information or more opportunities to develop. "Leaders must earn the respect, loyalty and trust of their followers," says Hackett. "All of the lauded leadership qualities, like being charismatic and inspirational, caring about and inspiring employees, only set the stage for effective leadership. CEOs cannot personally connect with each and every employee, so it is up to middle managers to manage the one-on-one exchanges that build trust and loyalty over time if they are to realize and sustain superior performance and behaviour from their followers."

Read more in Academy of Management Journal

Vistit our sister site Fortinberry-Murray Consulting

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Social Identity the Key to Efficiency

Aug 5, 2005

This is the conclusion of Rolf Van Dick of Aston University and colleagues at Philipps-University Marburg, Germany. It was published in te June 9 edition of the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology.

They questioned 464 teachers in German elementary and secondary high schools to assess how much effort the teachers thought they put into their jobs. The researchers discovered people are more likely to demonstrate solidarity with their work colleagues when a competitive climate is created between their profession and another similar profession. So when the teachers were asked to compare school teachers and kindergarten educators they thought teachers put more effort into their jobs.

These results support the idea that social identity is important in business settings and the researchers believe the study has implications not just for the teaching profession but for the entire work market.

The researchers also found the teachers were more likely to say they were willing to go the 'extra mile' and 'work for their school more than is absolutely necessary' when they were asked to compare their school to a specifically different type of school rather than just rate the effort of teachers generally. So even though elementary school teachers rated the amount of effort they put in as higher than the average teacher, when they compared themselves to secondary school teachers this rating rose further and vice versa.

Read more in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology

Low Status Leads to Heart Disease

Aug 5, 2005

According to research published in Circulation, men with "low-grade jobs," those with little control over daily tasks and those in low "social positions" had faster heart rates and little variation of heart rate. Both these traits are associated with increased coronary disease risk.

"This finding helps explain why men with low-paying jobs and less education have a higher risk for heart disease, a trend that has been evident for the last 30 years," said lead researcher Harry Hemingway, M.D., professor of clinical epidemiology, of the International Centre for Health and Society, department of epidemiology and public health, University College London Medical School.

The study suggests that the autonomic nervous system--which controls the function of all major body organs below the level of consciousness--is responding to environmental factors related to low-paying, low-control jobs in a way that's damaging to the heart. This was true even after controlling for factors such as smoking, poor diet and lack of exercise, which also could adversely affect heart rate, Hemingway said.

Researchers studied 2,197 men (ages 45 to 68) who worked for the British government. Civil servant grades in Britain rank employees by salary. This research analyzed three levels in the work hierarchy: senior civil servants, (executive officers) middle grades and low grades (clerical and support staff).

Researchers measured social networks on a scale of frequency and number of contact with friends, relatives and participation in a social group. Job control was rated on a 15-item scale. Workers completed questionnaires assessing job status, psychosocial factors (job control), education level, smoking status, exercise level, diet patterns and alcohol use. The men were also rated for depression and underwent electrocardiogram testing for heart rate and heart rate variability.

Healthy hearts have highly variable heart rates. "The heart doesn't, or shouldn't, beat like a metronome," Hemingway said. Instead, a healthy heart rate varies--often in response to outside stimulus such as in a "fight or flight" response. In the study, heart rates of men in low-level positions were an average 3.2 beats per minute faster than men in top-level positions. This difference was "statistically significant."

"Arteries behave as if they know how much a person makes and how much education they have had," Hemingway said. He noted that this difference was present "at every rung of the ladder," so a higher social position translated into a better heart rate profile. Lower heart rate variability and faster heart rates also were consistently found among the men with lower social positions, lower job control and higher depression.

"We hope this information provides insight into the mechanisms at work so that there is a possibility for interventions that will change this outcome," he said. Those interventions, he said, may not be medical. He speculated that organizational change, for example, may be important.

Read more in Circulation

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Which Personality Type Gets the Promotion?

June 6, 2005

When looking for help with a task at work, people turn to those best able to do the job. Right? Wrong. New research published in Harvard Business Online shows that work partners tend to be chosen not for ability but for likeability.

Drawing from their study encompassing 10,000 work relationships in five organizations, the researchers have classified work partners into four archetypes: the competent jerk, who knows a lot but is unpleasant; the lovable fool, who doesn't know much but is a delight; the lovable star, who's both smart and likable; and the incompetent jerk, who...well, that's self-explanatory.

Of course, everybody wants to work with the lovable star, and nobody wants to work with the incompetent jerk.

More interesting is that people prefer the lovable fool over the competent jerk. That has big implications for every organization, as both of these types often represent missed opportunities. Lovable fools can bridge gaps between diverse groups that might not otherwise interact. But their networking skills are often developed at the expense of job performance, which can make these employees underappreciated and vulnerable to downsizing.

The researchers claim that to get the most out of them, managers need to protect them and put them in positions that don't waste their bridge-building talents. In other words, there is a place in any organization for people whose main talent is relationship forming. They can be the glue which holds the organization together.

As for the competent jerks, many can be socialized through coaching or by being made accountable for bad behavior. We coach many of these-some of them in very senior positions.

As we have often said: in a business, like in any human organization, relationships are everything.

Read more in Harvard Business Online

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Flirting in the Workplace

March 1, 2005

Sexualized encounters in some work situations can actually contribute to building camaraderie in a workforce, according to a new study by a University of Washington sociologist who examines sexual banter and power in the workplace.

In addition, within certain cultural and organizational contexts, these encounters can help create a sense of belonging and help people to have some control over their working conditions, said Kari Lerum, an assistant professor of sociology and interdisciplinary studies.

To collect data for her research published in the journal Gender and Society, Lerum worked at a number of restaurants serving food and drinks over a 14-month period. These included an upscale Cape Cod, Mass., restaurant she called the Blue Heron and a Seattle strip club nicknamed Club X.

Her study focused on the banter and interactions among workers and between workers and supervisors, not those between workers and customers. Examples of this include sexual innuendos and puns as well as references to sex acts. She said banter and sexualized encounters were a normal part of working at the Blue Heron and Club X, and seem to be pretty common across the restaurant industry.

In analyzing the impact of these encounters in a restaurant or any job location, Lerum said it is important to understand the unique culture of each workplace. The Blue Heron was a gay-centered establishment and she said there was general agreement on what sexual banter meant among the staff and the owner of the restaurant. These kinds of encounters become part of the shared culture of a workplace.

Another factor influencing sexual banter is the hierarchy of a workplace. Lerum said that the flat, or informal, hierarchy between the manager and the employees at Blue Heron encouraged a sense of sexual camaraderie. In contrast, the more vertical, structured hierarchy at Club X, led to more conflict between managers and employees over the meaning of particular words and acts.

Lerum, who hadn't worked as a server before starting her research at the Blue Heron, admits being surprised initially when she became the target of sexual banter. "The first night I was shocked and couldn't believe people were saying those things. I didn't know how to react at first, but I learned to toughen up to fit in. I got better and started dishing it back. After the first month, I felt pretty comfortable and realized that sexual banter was just part of the job."

Lerum cautioned against using her findings to dismiss cases of sexual harassment, which she recognizes as a pervasive problem in many work settings. She observed one or two situations at the Blue Heron that caused people discomfort and could be called sexual harassment. She also witnessed one incident at Club X, where the line between banter and harassment was blurrier, that might be considered harassment.

"However, if people went to these places with a fixed definition of harassment, there would be instances of it every night," she said. "Ultimately, if you are trying to assess an incident it would be important to have a cultural understanding of that particular workplace and the people's understanding of that culture. It is a complicated question. Keep in mind sexual banter and camaraderie can empower workers so they have control over working conditions and their creative, productive selves. Sexual banter is okay if people feel they are working in a safe environment and the banter is not disrespectful or a form of discipline. Under the right conditions, sexual banter can help build camaraderie, and camaraderie is a positive thing for workers and the organization because if employees are happy and feel they belong they work harder and are more productive. This is not so much about sex, but about people being empowered and having ownership of their work life, " she said.

Read more in Gender and Society

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Depression Treatment Boosts Employee Productivity

December 6, 2004

Recently we have been bringing the Uplift Program into a wide range of businesses from medium sized building firms to fortune 500 giants. Corporations are increasingly worried about the loss depression causes in terms of productivity and profits.

Now a two-year study has shown that programs such as the Uplift improved productivity at work by an average of 6 percent, or an estimated annual value of $1,491 per depressed full-time employee.

The study showed that these programs reduced absenteeism by 22 percent in two years, saving the companies an estimated $539 for each depressed full-time employee.

The study published in the journal Medical Care is among the first research to "demonstrate that improving the quality of care for any chronic disease has positive consequences for productivity and absenteeism," say Kathryn Rost, PhD, of University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and colleagues.

"Over the short term, improvements in productivity generally benefit the majority of American employers who pay salaries rather than reimburse workers for piecework or by commission. And over the longer term, improvements in productivity may translate into employee raises," Rost explains.

The study included 326 full- or part-time blue-collar and white-collar workers who were diagnosed with depression at the start of the study. The workers were randomly assigned to receive either standard or "enhanced" depression treatment.

Patients on the enhanced treatment plan were regularly contacted by a care manager who discussed their symptoms and provided extra information about depression treatment. The care manager also encouraged the patients to stick with their treatments.

Rost and colleagues measured the effect of the two treatment regimes at six-, 12-, 18- and 24-month intervals during the study. They calculated productivity from patients' reports of their effectiveness at work and absenteeism as the total number of work hours lost due to illness or doctor visits.

Consistently employed patients benefited the most from the enhanced treatment, making the largest gains in productivity while reducing their rate of absenteeism and the severity of their depression, the researchers found.

Read more in Medical Care

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Bullied Workers Suffer "Battle Stress"

September 1, 2004

Soldiers under fire in Iraq and workers at some of our largest corporations are at risk. They are both in a battleground and both face enormous stress according to research carried out by a leading British psychologist.

Dr Noreen Tehrani has counselled victims of the troubles in Northern Ireland, soldiers returning from combat overseas and victims of workplace bullying. According to her "The symptoms displayed by people who have been in conflict situations and workplaces where bullying happens are strikingly similar."

Her findings tie in closely with my own experience of working both with veterans and corporate managers and executives.

According to Dr Tehrani, who was interviewed by the BBC News Online, "Both groups suffer nightmares, are jumpy and seem fuelled by too much adrenaline. In addition, they show greater susceptibility to illnesses, heart disease and alcoholism."

Psychologists define corporate bullying as persistent devaluing demeaning or harassing of someone at work.

To back up her years of experience, Dr Tehrani conducted a study of 165 professionals in the caring sector such as nurses and social workers. Bullying managers grab the headlines but it also occurs between people on the same grade or even on occasions subordinates can intimidate their boss. Again this accords with our own experience of working with the nursing and support staff in some of our major hospitals in Australia and the US.

Dr Tehrani found that 36% of the men and 42% of the women reported having experienced bullying. Overall, one in five people exhibited the main symptoms of PTSD.

The three most obvious signs of PTSD are hyper-arousal, a feeling of constant anxiety and over-vigilance; avoidance of anything to do with the traumatizing event; and re-experiencing, in which subjects suffer flashbacks or obsessive thoughts concerning the trauma.

Early signs of workplace bullying are sickness and absenteeism, Dr Tehrani added.

Bullying can take many forms from malicious gossiping to overt physical violence. "Generally, male bullies indulge in quite physical and loud verbal bullying," Dr Tehrani told the BBC. "Female bullies favour a strictly psychological approach to inflicting pain on others such as gossip and persistent criticism."

However the image of the bullying boss terrorizing staff doesn't paint the whole picture. Bullying managers grab the headlines, but it also occurs between people on the same grade or even on occasions subordinates can intimidate their boss. A manager or boss who is a bully gives the green light for bullying to occur throughout the organization. Firms tend to take on the psychological profiles of their CEOs, and other research as estimated that between 5 and 15% of all CEOs are psychopaths.

There are no hard and fast estimates as to how much workplace bullying costs the economy. However, research conducted for the British Occupational Health Research Foundation (BOHRF) by the Lancaster University Management School 2002 suggested that bullying in the UK workplace is rife.

Bullied employees take, on average, seven days per year more sick leave than others. "The cost to firms must be astronomical, many millions of pounds, and that doesn't include the mental impact on workers," said Professor Cary Cooper, co-author of the study.

In addition, it appears that bullying can have a negative impact on observers. "Our research showed that witnesses to the bullying suffered many of the same mental problems as the people being bullied," said Professor Cooper. (See our article PTSD and Childhood Trauma.)

Bullying was found to be particularly prevalent in the police, prison service, teaching and healthcare professions. The UK government is so worried about the problem of bullying in the public sector that is has given the Amicus trade union £1m to conduct research into its causes.

Read more in BBC News Online

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Another Fringe Benefit For Highly Paid Employees: More Fun At Work

Increasingly we have been called into corporations to work with their depressed or burned-out, underachieving employees. In fact research has shown that over 30% of major corporations suffer from depression.

Now a new study has come out which throws some new light on why higher-paid workers become workaholics. It turns out that highly paid workers aren't just reaping the greatest material rewards on the job -- they are also more likely than lower-paid employees to report rich social lives among their co-workers.

We have for a long time said that the main reason people go to work was to socialize and that the more computerized and automated work becomes the more isolated and stressed employees become. Certainly up until very recently automation affected lower paid workers more than their highly-paid brethren. The new study published in a recent issue of the journal Social Science Quarterly bears out the link between work and socializing.

The researchers found that highly paid workers reported more cohesion and solidarity among their colleagues and were more likely to participate in social activities with co-workers. “The social attractions of the workplace are strongest for those who are already rewarded with the biggest paychecks,” said Randy Hodson, author of the study and professor of sociology at Ohio State University.

Hodson said highly-paid workers tend to have jobs with more freedom and autonomy in which they can interact with their co-workers and develop friendships. They are also more likely to work in teams in which interaction with others is both necessary and encouraged. Lower-paid workers, such as those in manufacturing, may spend more time working with things, rather than people, and often don't have the time to interact with their colleagues.

Hodson, along with three advanced graduate students, did a detailed analysis of 124 book-length studies of employees in various workplace settings. These included books about meat packers, taxi drivers, lawyers, doctors, and people from a variety of other occupations. The researchers organized and coded information from all of these books to measure types and amount of social interaction at a variety of workplaces from around the world. This allowed Hodson to build a data set that would allow a quantitative, statistical comparison of different workplaces and different kinds of employees.

Hodson said the results suggest that when people develop friendships at work, it is because they enjoy their work and co-workers. “It is the carrot of having an enjoyable and well-paid job that leads to rich social lives at work, not the stick of worrying about job loss,” Hodson said. “But of course, only some people are offered the carrot.”

The results showed men tended to report richer social lives at work than women, but analysis revealed that was because men tended to have jobs that made workplace friendships more likely. Women, when they had jobs in which social interaction with co-workers was common, tended to have on-the-job social lives similar to those of their male colleagues. Earlier research, also reported on this site, shows that women's social lives tend to be richer than men's overall and that they have a wider circle of friendships outside of work which is why job-loss doesn't affect them so much overall.

Hodson said the study suggests that for many highly paid workers, work is the place that provides meaning and fulfillment in their lives. “The friendships and camaraderie they have with their co-workers is part of the appeal of work. For these lucky employees, the workplace is a strong competitor for their time with home and home life.” Workaholism, then, may be partly the result of employees who truly enjoy their work and co-workers, and not necessarily a result of fearing for their jobs, Hodson said.

Read more in Social Science Quarterly

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Your Kids Mood Predicts Your Work Performance

June 26, 2004

Over the years there have been numerous studies conducted on the impact of dual-earner parents' employment on their children, yet the reverse process: the impact of children and their behavior on the work functioning of their parents has been ignored.

Now a study by researchers from the University of Wisconsin, and published in Child Development, has remedied that. This study investigated spillover from the mother role to the work role in a sample of more than 300 families. What they found was that at 4 months, 12 months, 3.5 years, and 4.5 years of age, the child's difficult temperament was significantly associated with is or her mother's work productivity and work satisfaction.

A child's mood also had a large influence on how a parent was able to balance work and family. Of course this may seem like a statement of the obvious, but then a lot of research is devoted to proving or disproving what is regarded as the obvious.

It turns out also that mothers tend to feel that they are bad parents if their child is moody or depressed and that this tends to make them feel incompetent in other areas of their lives, such as work.

Read more in Child Development

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Unemployment Can Be Fatal

May 11, 2004

Human beings were never meant to feel useless. Throughout their lives our hunter-gatherer ancestors may have progressed from being active hunters or gatherers to being wise elders but their worth actually increased with age. There was never any sense of being "retired" or "unemployed." Not so now. But the more we relegate people into these two categories, the more stressed they become and the more liable to psychological and emotional pain.

A new Yale University study underlies this social dysfunction vividly. The researchers found that employees who lose their jobs in the years immediately preceding retirement have twice the risk of suffering a stroke when compared to peers who are still working.

"Our results suggest that late career involuntary job loss more than doubles the risk of subsequent stroke," said William Gallo, the senior author of the study and associate research scientist in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at Yale School of Medicine.

The researchers used six years of data from the national Health and Retirement Survey to identify 457 workers who were either laid off or left jobless because of a plant shutdown. The comparison group included 3,763 older persons who were still employed. All of the participants were born between 1931 and 1941. The researchers also took into account other risk factors such as smoking, problem drinking, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and mental health.

Gallo and co-authors studied the risk of both heart attack and stroke among older persons who lose their jobs. They found no link between involuntary unemployment and heart attack. The link with the incidence of strokes, however, was significant.

Gallo said the findings reveal the need for increased health education concerning potential health risks of job loss, added screening and prevention efforts during employment transitions, extended insurance coverage, or outreach programs to connect displaced workers with needed health services.

More fundamentally, it seems to us, is a change in society's attitude to the whole question of work and retirement. Human beings should never be made to feel useless or a burden on society or without value.

Read more in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine

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Depression Sufferers Fear Stigma at Work

April 3, 2004

A new study by researchers at the University of Michigan Depression Center confirms what we have found when we have worked for major corporations, namely that many workers feel that they will be penalized if they openly acknowledge that they suffer from depression.

The study looks at the way employees suffering from the disease believe they are seen by their employers and by their fellow workers. The researchers found there is a difference between the way employers believe they respond to depressed workers and what employees say they experience in the workplace.

Previous research has found that the rate of depression in the workplace is as high as 30% (almost twice the rate of the population as a whole). The present study reported that a majority of the workers who suffer from depression said there was a stigma attached to the illness, even when their treatments succeeded in alleviating symptoms. For example, only 41% of the employees felt they could acknowledge their illness and still get ahead in their careers, the researchers said.

This, of course is tragic since openly acknowledging the problem is the first step to a cure because it is only then that the sufferer can reach out for the help that he or she needs.

Of those polled, 65% of the benefit managers said their firms offer employee assistance programs for workers who suffer from depression, but only 14% of depressed employees have used the service, the study said. In fact, the researchers concluded, only 18% of middle managers had received the training necessary to identify workers with depression and help them--even though 85% of them said that it was part of their job! Only 11% of benefit managers had offered screenings for depression, even though they acknowledged the huge losses in productivity associated with the illness.

"Before employees can be treated, they need to first understand that they have an illness," Thomas Carli, a psychiatrist and a member of the University of Michigan Depression Center told The New York Times. Carli added that providing inexpensive screening, disease education, and management training programs can go a long way to helping depressed workers and the companies they work for. He said such initiatives "can have a tremendous impact on worker productivity and overall employee wellbeing." According to the university, depression costs companies as much as $52 billion annually due to absenteeism and lost or reduced productivity.

One of the problems of depression is that it can mask itself so effectively that even physicians find it difficult to accurately diagnose. For example it can somatize (mimic a "physical" illness) and symptoms can include aches, pains, headaches, and backaches, chronic fatigue, chronic pain and fibromyalgia. Often this means that corporations are unwittingly spending huge sums on treatments which do not attack the real problem.

When the Michigan researchers interviewed depressed workers, they found that 82% had difficulty concentrating, 83% said they lacked motivation, and 24% complained of chronic physical pain that made it uncomfortable for them to work. Additionally, 50% said they had missed one to three days of work per month because of their illness.

The study concluded that once depression is treated, the individual's work performance is indistinguishable from coworkers' who do not have the disorder.

Read more in The New York Times

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Unemployment Strikes a Blow on Men's Mental Health

February 18, 2004

We have been saying for some time that unemployment strikes men harder than it does women and the reasons stem from our hunter-gatherer past.

It's true that women typically have higher rates of unemployment than men, however the mental health of unemployed men tends to be worse than that of unemployed women has been confirmed by a recent study.

Unemployment had a higher impact on men's mental health than on women's, especially among married people. Other factors affecting the unemployed people's mental health included whether they received unemployment compensation and whether they had family responsibilities or not.

For married men, unemployment struck a harder blow to their mental health than those single, whereas for unemployed women, having children living at home tended to bolster their mental outlook in the face of losing a job.

We believe that the problem for men lies in the fact that the workplace is the modern substitute for the hunting band. It was within this group that men got their sense of purpose and formed their closest attachments. Expulsion from the band meant not only shame, but also real fear for a man's very survival. Men tend to form fewer relationships outside of work for this reason.

Men also need to feel that they are the providers (even if this was never really the case since the women in a hunter-gatherer band brought in most of the food). For a man loss of employment means loss of status. Other recent research has shown that "house husbands"--who are performing what they consider lower status work--are four times more likely to die of a heart attack that those who are employed.

Unemployment can also mean the loss of the family car, an essential mobility symbol. Without mobility a hunter can't hunt.

No wonder unemployed males become depressed and more prone to suicide!

Read more in the American Journal of Public Health

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Why Some Workplaces Work and Some Don't

October 31, 2003

I read an interesting article in the latest issue of Personality and Social Psychology Review by Gary Bronstein of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem on intergroup conflict. It got me thinking why some teams that we coach are effective at working together and others are not. Bernstein's review of the research confirmed many of the ideas that we have been bringing into the workplace recently.

Being in a corporation, or being a member of a team in a unit within a large company, is rather like a gambler with a stack of chips in front of him. The job of the team leader is to persuade the team members that it is in their interests to commit those chips to the team effort -- rather, as Bronstein says, like a general has to persuade his troops that it is in their interests to go into battle.

The chips that the corporate team players have are of three kinds: self-esteem chips, time chips and effort chips. The team members will commit, or withhold their chips according to whether they perceive that working in the team will meet their own needs or is in the broader social interest.

We would say that the personal needs of the team members come, broadly, under four headings and that they will ask themselves a number of questions pertaining to each of these areas:

Physical safety
"Will the job last?"
"Will being a member of the team give me good career experience?"
"Will the success of the team effort give me greater job security?"

Emotional security
"Can I trust the corporation or the people I will be working with?"
"Do I like the people I will be working with?"
"Will the people I will be working with support me emotionally?"

Attention
"Will I be treated with respect?"
"Will the success of the team increase my sense of rank?"
"Will I feel proud of working with the team?"

Importance
"Will my ideas be taken seriously?"
"Will I have a significant say I the decision-making process?"
"Will I be supported in my work?"

Depending on the answers to these questions the team members will commit or withdraw their chips.

Bornstein points out that, contrary to popular belief, people will not work harder to try and make a team effort work if they perceive that it is failing. Rather, like an army on the verge of defeat, they desert, they take their chips off the table. They will not redouble their efforts to make it work. This leads to conflict within the team between those who think the effort is worthwhile and still have their chips on the table and those who don't. Those whose chips are still in play will become increasingly unwilling to negotiate or compromise which will lead to a further withdrawal of time, self-esteem and effort by the remainder.

The job of the team leader, or, in our case the trainer, is to get the whole team to agree to the goals of the team -- including an overall social goal. The next thing is to work out the individual needs of the team members under the four headings. These will have to be met for them to feel that committing their chips is a good idea. Once this is done the employees can work together as a smooth team and there will be far less conflict, bullying and anxiety.

Read more in Personality and Social Psychology Review

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Women Most Effective Leaders for Today's World

October 31, 2003

I'm going to let Alicia and Sophie run the Uplift Program! The latest research shows that a mere man is clearly inadequate to the task!

Much has been written about the glass ceiling, the double standard and other barriers to women in management. A related question that has consumed both academic and popular writers is whether men and women have the same leadership abilities.

The answer suggested by a comprehensive meta-analysis published in the Psychological Bulletin might surprise you. On average, women in management positions are somewhat better leaders than men in equivalent positions, according to the study. This project, "Transformational, Transactional and Laissez Faire Leadership Styles: A Meta-Analysis Comparing Women and Men," statistically combines the results of 45 published and unpublished studies on leaders in business, academics and other areas to examine whether the typical leadership styles of men and women differ.

"The meta-analysis revealed relatively small sex differences, which is to be expected since the men and women compared are in equivalent roles with relatively similar responsibilities," said Alice Eagly, lead author of the study and professor of psychology at Northwestern University. "Thus, the differences in male and female managerial behavior are in the discretionary aspects of behavior, because all managers have to carry out basic tasks required by their roles," she said. "Still, the implications of our findings are encouraging for female leadership when you consider that all aspects of leadership style on which women exceed men relate positively to effectiveness."

The meta-analysis showed that women are more likely than men to use leadership styles that other studies have shown produce better worker performance and effectiveness in today's world. Specifically, women were more likely to be transformational leaders, defined as those who serve as role models, mentor and empower workers and encourage innovation even when the organization they lead is generally successful.

Eagly's meta-analysis grows out of a substantial body of research that attempts to identify leadership styles that are especially attuned to contemporary conditions. Gaining momentum in the 1990s, that research showed that transformational leadership strengthens organizations by inspiring followers' commitment and creativity.

Leadership researchers found that, in contrast, "transactional" leaders appeal to subordinates' self-interest by forming exchange relationships, based on using reward and punishment as incentives. The researchers also distinguished a laissez faire style that is marked by an overall failure to take responsibility for managing. In Eagly's study, women also scored higher than men on one measure of transactional leadership -- rewarding employees for good performance. "That is the only aspect of transactional leadership that is associated with positive outcomes," Eagly noted.

Men scored higher than women on the other transactional aspects, such as using punishment, and on laissez faire leadership -- behaviors that do not appear to produce more effective organizations.

"Giving women equal access to leadership roles obviously would increase the size of an organization's pool of potential managers," Eagly said. "What people may not realize is that adding women to that pool likely increases the proportion of candidates with superior leadership skills."

The glass ceiling itself may produce more highly skilled female leaders. Research shows that higher standards are often imposed on women to attain leadership roles and to retain them. Because transformational leadership constitutes skillful leadership, women may be more skillful leaders than men because they have to meet a higher standard.

Read more in the Psychological Bulletin

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It's Harder to Connect Via Email and Text

October 31, 2003

Millennia of evolution have made face-to-face communication man's preferred method, says Dr Ned Kock, director of the E-Collaboration Research Center in Temple University's Fox School of Business and Management.

"There is a principle from evolution theory called the 'repeated use principle,' which argues that we have to repeatedly use a medium of communication, an organ, or a task so that our biological apparatus becomes optimized to use that tool or perform that task," says Kock. "Since we have communicated during most of the past three to five million years by using face-to-face interaction, you have to conclude that we have optimized our biological apparatus for that type of communication."

Kock argues that a lot of today's electronic communications takes us too far away from face-to-face communication, and requires increased cognitive effort on our part. "For example, a telephone allows us to use tone of voice," says Kock. "It's synchronous, so we have immediate feedback on what we say." But, Kock points out, since the telephone doesn't allow one person to see the other, a bit more cognitive effort is required when communicating over the phone, as opposed to face-to-face.

"Now, if we go to e-mail, there's considerably more cognitive effort required than over the telephone," he says.

Kock did a study in which he compared twenty groups performing complex tasks--ten groups interacting by face-to-face, and the other ten via e-mail. The study indicates that the amount of time cognitive effort (measured as "time") required to convey a certain number of ideas via email is between 5 and 15 times that required to convey the same ideas in a face-to-face conversation. "In a typical conversation, we exchange hundreds, maybe thousands, of words. If you measure the time it takes for that conversation to take place, and then try to have the same conversation over e-mail and measure the time that takes, you would get a time that is considerably higher than the face-to-face conversation," he says.

Kock contends that it is our innate programming that make us view it as more difficult to communicate through any medium other than face-to-face. "We have optimized our biological communication apparatus for face-to-face communications," he continues. "As we move away from it, the more cognitive effort is needed."

Man's ability to learn, which is the highest in the animal kingdom, may eventually serve as a counterbalance to our predisposition to use face-to-face communications. "In other words, if we use e-mail for very complex communications for many, many years (say, about 100,000), and we avoid face-to-face communications, obviously, we're going to become good at using e-mail for that type of communications," says Kock. "But our predisposition toward face-to-face communications won't go entirely away."

How can we create virtual communication that's people-friendly? Kock believes by trying to make electronic communications as close to face-to-face as we can. He points out that some successful online companies like LivePerson.com are developing technologies that give a company's online customers the impression that they're dealing with a live person over the Web.

Separate research has shown that intra-company emailing can lower productivity by almost 30%. We ourselves have worked with corporations whose employees, often seated no more than six or so feet from each other, use email rather than get up and go and talk to their fellow workers. These messages frequently become angry and can disrupt whole departments.

Read more on the website of Temple University

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We Don't Work for Money

October 31, 2003

New research by a group of economists and psychology researchers at the University of Warwick reveals that our rank within an organization has a bigger effect on our happiness within a job than the happiness generated by our actual level of pay. In short being top dog makes us happier than simply getting top dollar.

The researchers, led by economists Professor Andrew Oswald and Dr Jonathan Gardner studied data from 16,266 individuals from 886 separate actual workplaces, and also carried out two further psychological experiments. They presented their findings recently to a conference at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

The results from the analysis of happiness, pay and rank data from the 16,266 individuals found that the level of actual pay, or the average level of pay in an organization, had very little effect on how happy people were.

However when they looked at people's overall rank position the researchers found that rank did produce a significant impact on both how happy people were with the level of respect they had within that organization and how happy people were with their achievements. When employees were asked to rate how happy they were with their pay, the researchers found that rank within an organization had 50%-60% more effect on that level of happiness than the actual amount that people were paid!

The experiment subjects clearly demonstrated that even if actual pay levels for everyone were exactly the same placing them in different rank orders created different levels of happiness.

A lot of research has shown that our perceived rank amongst our peers has a big influence on our self-esteem, and happiness depends to a large percent on our self-esteem. BM

Read more on the website of University of Warwick

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Office Bullies Cost Industry Millions

July 8, 2003

Recent research has shown that workplace bullying is one of the most significant causes of stress, is on the increase and costs industry billions of dollars annually.

Much has been done to try to eradicate bullying at school however, relatively few people are aware of the seriousness of bullying within the workplace. Surveys have been highlighting this point for a long time but now at last it seems that some companies and organizations are beginning to realize the hidden costs of bullying, and attempting to wipe it out.

Among some recent headlines:

• 53% of employees felt they had been bullied at work.
• 72% of teachers experienced bullying by colleagues, not pupils.
• The journal Nursing Times reports a new breed of "macho-managers" who under the pressure of restructuring were passing on stress factors to staff.
• According to Ronin research services, 50% of respondents had received abusive or critical messages by email.
• One in eight of all workers complained of being bullied at work (but only one in three actually complain).

According to a recent report ("Key Facts on Harassment at Work") issued by the Institute of Personnel and Development (IPD), which represents personnel and human resources managers, in the past bullying at work was always regarded as being due to over-zealous management or awkward workers that needed a firm line taken with them. The report says that bullying is bad for business because staff become too stressed to do their jobs, and some even cease to turn up for work.

The IPD advises that "any persistent behavior which a person finds intimidating, upsetting, humiliating or offensive should be investigated."

A new type of bullying is via the use of the computer, which has become known as "flame mail". A recent survey by Ronin research services found that staff regularly receive abusive messages via the use of internal electronic mail systems. Men were found to be the victims as well as the perpetrators, being five more times likely than women to send this type of mail and twice as likely to receive them. One in 70 people said that they had left their jobs because of these messages. More worrying was the fact that the survey found that the most common response was to reply similarly with another abusive message. A third of the respondents said that they actually stopped communicating with colleagues.

The whole area of bullying is fraught with difficulties. There are different kinds of bullies and different kinds of bullying. A recent article in the journal of the Association of First Division Civil Servants (FDA), which represents UK civil service and NHS managers sought to highlight the different types of bullying, as follows:

• Pathological: They simply get pleasure from hurting people.
• Situational: They threaten and intimidate their staff when under pressure themselves. So-called "cascade bullying."
• Role-playing: They follow the authoritarian model of management used in their organization.
• Punishing: They believe that the "stick" is more effective than the "carrot."
• Psychopathic Manager: A variant of the pathological bully. Psychologists say they have a history of school truancy and develop a cold disregard for the feelings of others.

"If you work for an office bully, verbal abuse and humiliation may be the least of your problems. They may set you impossible deadlines and unattainable targets, remove your responsibility, take credit for your work or spread rumors and lie to senior management about you," states the article.

"Cascade bullying" seems to be the most common form of bullying, especially in areas which have been exposed to the pressures of restructuring. The "downsizing" and "delayering" culture brings with it a feeling of job insecurity which in turn puts much more pressure on managers as they become overworked. They in turn then tend to transfer this pressure onto their staff.

The FDA article states that as many as 40 million days per year in the UK may be lost through absence caused by bullying--at a cost of at least GBP 4 billion.

The FDA advises that the following check-list should be used:

• Do not explode. The bully will use this against you, but at the same time do not simply accept the situation.
• Keep a record of the incidences.
• Talk to your workplace representative or welfare officer.
• Remember that senior managers may have a different view about the bully.
• Do not resign--the bully has then won.
• And stand up for yourself and get the bully out of the workplace.

Read more on the FDA site

Read more on the IPD site

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Study Says Anyone Can Be a Boss

July 8, 2003

The research is published in the Journal of Personality.

"People who don't want to be in a lower role are going to fight against it," said Judith Hall, a Northeastern psychology professor who conducted the study.

The research was conducted by pairing 138 undergraduates with another person of their same gender for a role-playing exercise involving the management of an art gallery. Each person was asked whether they would prefer to play the role of the art gallery owner--the boss--or the owner's assistant--the subordinate.

The participants were then assigned randomly to their roles, meaning that some would-be bosses had to slum as subordinates, while some natural born second-fiddles were asked to take the leading role.

The pair then had to work together to choose a painting to hang in the mock art gallery. The people who were thrust into the boss position against their wishes were assertive and behaved much like those designated bosses who had asked for the responsibility. The unwilling subordinates, however, chafed at being placed in the lower position and tried to act dominant even though it was not their job.

This finding, according to researchers, could give managers insight about office dynamics. "If people who aspire for a higher status position behave relatively dominantly, such people may become particularly aggressive if they do not get their wished-for promotion," Marianne Schmid Mast, a psychology professor at the University of Zurich, said in a statement. "They could easily be involved in power struggles and that might burden office relationships."

Bosses, said Hall, should not take offense at the study, which finds just about everyone could step into their shoes. "We didn't actually measure the quality of the performance," Hall said.

Read more in the Journal of Personality

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Sleep Deprivation Can Damage Your Health

October 22, 2002

The pressures of the 24-seven society are forcing many individuals to squeeze more working time out of their day from the comfort of their bedrooms. Hard-pressed staff are often surviving on less than the recommended eight hours sleep a night as a result. This according to a study reported on BBC Online.

One in six people taking part in a DuPont survey admitted they catch up on work in bed and a third said they make work-related phone calls from under the covers. Others use their laptops and send e-mails from the bedroom. More than a third of British residents are sleeping six hours or less each night -- losing a month's sleep every year. One in 10 manage five hours sleep or less each night -- missing about six weeks of sleep a year.

Specialists say changing sleep cycles can damage people's health. Research suggests that sleep deprivation doubles the risk of a heart attack. Dr Derk-jan Dijk, a sleep researcher from the University of Surrey at Guildford, told BBC News Online that, even for a young person, on average, six hours a sleep a night was not enough. Even among those who believed they could cope on this amount or less, he said, research had suggested that they were still suffering from the effects of sleep deprivation.

He said: "Whereas after a few days of sleeping these hours, the sleepiness wears off, performance continues to decline. The brain has to process a lot of information, and it's likely that it simply can't do this continuously."

If you go to bed with a whirring brain, your brain will continue to whirr afterwards, Dr Peter Venn, director of the Sleep Studies Unit at Queen Victoria Hospital in Sussex, told the BBC. "There is certainly data that has shown that if you don't get adequate sleep there are consequences for health in later life," he said.

"It is not just the time you are in bed for that matters, it is the quality of sleep. Even if you are sleeping alone if you have snoring and breathing difficulties you can disrupt your own sleep."

Dr Venn said it was important to prepare for sleep properly. "We all go and watch Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight and get very wound up about things, and then we go to bed and expect to switch off and go to sleep. But life isn't life that."

He said hot milky drinks acted as a sedative. Sleeping alone was best, but if you slept with a partner, it was best to use separate duvets to minimise the disturbance created by the other person's movement.

Other studies have shown that curling up to a partner at night helps you sleep. Let's not be so hasty to create even more isolation between people! AF

Read more in BBC News

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Job Loss Can Lead to Downward Spiral of Depression and Poor Health

With world-wide unemployment increasing, more attention is being focussed on the plight of the unemployed. A new report, published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, states that unemployment can start a vicious cycle of depression, loss of personal control, decreased emotional functioning and poorer physical health.

The authors came to this conclusion from interviewing 756 recently unemployed job seekers. The subjects had been unemployed for less than 13 weeks, were actively looking for a job and were not expecting to retire within the next two years. Their average age was 36 years old. Forty-one percent were male and 59 percent were female. Seventy-five percent were White, 21 percent were African American and three percent were from other ethnic groups. Fifty-two percent of the sample were married or lived with a romantic partner. Their education varied: 9 percent had not completed high school; 32 percent had completed high school; 36 percent had some college education; 11 percent had completed four years of college and 11 percent had completed more than four years of college.

At the beginning of the study, the participants rated their current and anticipated financial strain, answered questionnaires concerning depression, personal control, health and emotional functioning. They also responded to these questions at six months and then again at two years.

The results show that this chain of adversity (job loss-financial strain-depression-personal control-emotional functioning-physical health) appears to continue over two years, suggesting "that even reversible life events such as job loss can have lasting effects on those who experience them." At the end of two years, 71 percent were re-employed, working at least 20 hours or more per week but still reported the negative effects of their job loss.

These findings suggest that increases in depression and loss of personal control with those who lose their jobs can have adverse affects on health and emotional functioning for longer than the initial triggering event of job loss, possibly interfering with finding another job, said Dr. Price. Professionals working with suddenly unemployed people should be aware of this chain of events and be ready to help these individuals improve their mental health so they better their chances of re-employment and interrupt the downward cycle.

This study fits in with what we and other evolutionary psychologists have been saying for some time: that job loss, especially among males, leads to a devastating loss of status coupled with an exclusion from the tribe. This latter would be the worst thing that could happen to our hunter-gatherer ancestors. BM

Reported in BBC News

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Introverted Persons More Likely to Become Tired At Work

September 30, 2002

Introvert people have a higher risk of becoming tired than their extravert colleagues. This was revealed in the first large-scale and systematic study into the influence of personality on tiredness, which was carried out by researchers from Tilburg University. The researchers followed more than 700 people for a period of two years. Every six months these employees completed questionnaires concerning personality, styles of coping with problems, (work-related) stress and social support. Demographic aspects, such as having a child, were also included in the study. The study revealed that after two years, introvert persons have greater a chance of becoming tired than extrovert persons. The degree to which people experience their workload is also significant. Employees who think that they are busy have a greater chance of becoming tired than colleagues who do not think they are that busy.

The Tilburg study also revealed that the manner in which an individual copes with problems does not influence tiredness. For example, an employee who acts as if a problem does not exist is not more susceptible to tiredness than somebody who is the same in almost every aspect, but approaches and deals with problems in a systematic manner. Contrary to what was expected, it turns out that physical and mental tiredness are inextricably linked to each other. One cannot be physically tired without being mentally tired and vice versa. The researchers therefore recommend that company doctors include physical tiredness as well as mental tiredness in their investigations.

Reported on the Tilburg University web site

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About the Author

Dr Bob Murray is a widely published psychologist and expert on emotional health and optimal relationships. Together with his wife and long-term collaborator Alicia Fortinberry, he is founder of the highly successful Uplift Program, and author of Raising an Optimistic Child (McGraw-Hill, 2006) and Creating Optimism (McGraw-Hill, 2004).