We attribute certain leaders to be charismatic through “magical thinking,” according to a paper recently published in the Journal of Management.

Columbia Business School’s Michael Morris, UCLA's Maia Young and Vicki Scherwin at California State University, Long Beach wanted to explore why some managers become hailed as charismatic, visionary leaders, with consequences for employees’ attitudes and actions toward them. A well–known example of this phenomenon is Steve Jobs; his mystique as a charismatic visionary has been earned in part by his spellbinding presentations of Apple products. Would audiences be as wowed by his informal, spontaneous pitches if they observed the 10 hours of practice Jobs commits to every 10-minute pitch? Would knowing his method make him seem less magical?

The study features three different experiments. The first tests whether ascriptions of mystique are associated with perceptions that the manager is visionary and will succeed in forecasting future business trends. The second examines whether managers who perform well in the absence of an obvious success–mechanism, such as extensive practice or technical skills, are more likely to be imputed mystique and judged more capable at tasks that require vision but not those that depend on administrative skill. In the third study, subjects judged two executives — one succeeded through vision and the other succeeded through hard work. The results show that, compared to the hard–working executive, the visionary executive was judged to be more creative, curious and charismatic.

The research results suggest that charisma is sometimes an illusion. While managers can establish a reputation as a transformational, charismatic leader in a number of valid ways, managers can also gain the mystique of charisma by veiling how they accomplish what they do, like a stage magician. 

“Winning in business and political endeavors comes not only from performing well, but also from managing the interpretations that others make of your performance,” said Morris, who leads Columbia Business School’s Program on Social Intelligence

While the organization may benefit from the establishment of a new executive as a leader in the eyes of the followers, such theatrics can also be dangerous, as they limit the transfer of skills from this manager to others. Hence, the research findings suggest that firms should probe more deeply when recruiting executives on the basis of charisma. 

(Story materials provided by Columbia University.)

Here we go again with another story about how the Internet is ruining us. This time, though, instead of making us more stupid, it's messing with our memories. 

“Since the advent of search engines, we are reorganizing the way we remember things,” said Columbia University psychologist Betsy Sparrow. “Our brains rely on the Internet for memory in much the same way they rely on the memory of a friend, family member or co-worker. We remember less through knowing information itself than by knowing where the information can be found.”

Sparrow’s research reveals that we forget things we are confident we can find on the Internet. We are more likely to remember things we think are not available online. (Hmm, that sounds familiar.) And we are better able to remember where to find something on the Internet than we are at remembering the information itself. This is believed to be the first research of its kind into the impact of search engines on human memory organization.

Sparrow’s paper in Science is titled, “Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips.” With colleagues Jenny Liu of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Daniel M. Wegner of Harvard University, Sparrow explains that the Internet has become a primary form of what psychologists call transactive memory—recollections that are external to us but that we know when and how to access.

The research was carried out in four studies.

First, participants were asked to answer a series of difficult trivia questions. Then they were immediately tested to see if they had increased difficulty with a basic color naming task, which showed participants words in either blue or red. Their reaction time to search engine-related words, such as Google and Yahoo, indicated that, after the difficult trivia questions, participants were thinking of Internet search engines as the way to find information.

Second, the trivia questions were turned into statements. Participants read the statements and were tested for their recall of them when they believed the statements had been saved—meaning accessible to them later as is the case with the Internet—or erased. Participants did not learn the information as well when they believed the information would be accessible, and performed worse on the memory test than participants who believed the information was erased.

Third, the same trivia statements were used to test memory of the information itself and where the information could be found. Participants again believed that information either would be saved in general, saved in a specific spot or erased. They recognized the statements that were erased more than the two categories that were saved.

Fourth, participants believed all trivia statements that they typed would be saved into one of five generic folders. When asked to recall the folder names, they did so at greater rates than they recalled the trivia statements themselves. A deeper analysis revealed that people do not necessarily remember where to find certain information when they remember what it was, and that they particularly tend to remember where to find information when they can’t remember the information itself.

According to Sparrow, a greater understanding of how our memory works in a world with search engines has the potential to change teaching and learning in all fields.

“Perhaps those who teach in any context, be they college professors, doctors or business leaders, will become increasingly focused on imparting greater understanding of ideas and ways of thinking, and less focused on memorization,” Sparrow said. “And perhaps those who learn will become less occupied with facts and more engaged in larger questions of understanding.”

(Story materials provided by Columbia University.)

People who travel extensively for business have increased rates of poor health and health risk factors, including obesity and high blood pressure, reports a study in the April Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, official publication of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Catherine A. Richards, MPH, and Andrew G. Rundle, DrPH, of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University compared health risks for employees at different levels of business travel, using data on more than 13,000 employees from a corporate wellness program. Close to 80 percent of the employees traveled at least one night per month. Nearly one percent were “extensive travelers”—on the road more than 20 nights per month. 

Employees who did not travel at all were actually a less-healthy group. Compared to light travelers (one to six nights per month), non-travelers were about 60 percent more likely to rate their health as fair to poor. This may reflect a “healthy worker effect,” with employees who have health problems being less likely to travel. 

Otherwise, rates of less-than-good health increased along with nights of travel. Extensive travelers were 260 percent more likely to rate their health as fair to poor, compared to light travelers. 

Other health risk factors showed similar patterns: obesity was 33 percent more likely for non-travelers and 92 percent more likely for extensive travelers. The same two groups were also more likely to have high blood pressure and unfavorable cholesterol levels. 

Although business travel is often equated with long airline flights, relatively short business trips in personal cars are much more common. Several factors could contribute to health risks in frequent business travelers—for example, poor sleep, fattening foods and long periods of inactivity. 

More research is needed to substantiate the link between frequent business travel and increased health risks. Meanwhile, the authors suggest some steps that companies can take to help employees stay healthy while they're on the road—for example, offering stress management classes, selecting hotels with gym facilities or tying meal reimbursements to healthier food choices. 

(Story materials provided by American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.)

Too much choice can be a bad thing—not just for the individual, but for society. Thinking about choices makes people less sympathetic to others and less likely to support policies that help people, according to a study published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

In the U.S., important policy debates are often framed in terms of choice, such as whether people get to choose their own healthcare plan and a school for their children. 

“When Hurricane Katrina happened, people asked, why did those people choose to stay?” said Krishna Savani of Columbia University. 

But many people didn’t have a choice about whether to escape New Orleans, and no one knew how bad the disaster would be. 

“One could say that these individuals made bad choices, but did they really have a choice?” Savani said.

Americans tend to assume that what people do and what happens to them is under their control, is a consequence of their choices and is their own personal responsibility.

Along with Nicole Stephens of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and Hazel Rose Markus of Stanford University, Savani looked at how thinking about choice affected people’s feelings on public policies. For example, in some experiments, participants watched a video of a person doing a set of routine daily activities in an apartment. Some people were told to push the space bar every time he made a choice; others were told to do so every time he touched an object for the first time. They were then asked their opinions on social issues.

Simply thinking about choice made people less likely to support policies promoting greater equality and benefits for society, such as affirmative action, a tax on fuel-inefficient cars or banning violent video games. Another experiment found that when people think about choice, they are more likely to blame others for bringing bad events on themselves, like having a heart attack or losing a job.

Savani and his colleagues wondered if this was also true for people outside of the U.S., so they tried an experiment in India. After choosing among consumer objects such as pens and chocolate bars, both American students and Indian students were shown a photograph of a poor child and given a description of his life. Thinking about choice led Americans to be less empathetic, but had no effect on Indians. 

“In America, we make choices all the time—in the cafeteria, in the supermarket, in the shopping mall,” Savani said. 

He wonders if, in the long run, all those consumer choices might have a cumulative negative impact by making people less sympathetic toward others and less concerned about the collective good.

(Story materials provided by the Association for Psychological Science.)