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Scholars of various kinds long have documented the great degree to which people are influenced by similar others. Indeed, the opinions, experiences and behaviors of friends, neighbors and coworkers can provide an invaluable gold mine of persuasive resources. But even savvy executives can fail to appreciate...
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Wisdom has intrigued both scholars and laypersons since antiquity. On the one hand, its seemingly thereal yet obvious qualities are timeless and universal. On the other hand, these same qualities are evolving and responsive to historical and cultural change. Novel societal and personal dilemmas emerge...
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One of America's foremost political theorists explores the connections between our political and ethical convictions, changing forever the way we understand the notion of "sovereignty." Throughout the history of human intellectual endeavor, one concept has cut across arenas as diverse as...
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John T. Cacioppo's groundbreaking research topples one of the pillars of modern medicine and psychology: the focus on the individual as the unit of inquiry. By employing brain scans, monitoring blood pressure, and analyzing immune function, he demonstrates the overpowering influence of social context...
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The adaptive toolbox is a Darwinian-inspired theory that conceives of the mind as a modular system that is composed of heuristics, their building blocks, and evolved capacities. The study of the adaptive toolbox is descriptive and analyzes the selection and structure of heuristics in social and physical...
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Some actions are freer than others, and the difference is palpably important in terms of inner process, subjective perception, and social consequences. Psychology can study the difference between freer and less free actions without making dubious metaphysical commitments. Human evolution seems to have...
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The trait-based perspective of leadership has a long but checkered history. Trait approaches dominated the initial decades of scientific leadership research. Later, they were disdained for their inability to offer clear distinctions between leaders and nonleaders and for their failure to account for...
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Leadership depends on the situation. Few social scientists would dispute the validity of this statement. But the statement can be interpreted in many different ways, depending, at least in part, on what one means by leadership. This article begins with a definition of leadership and a brief description...
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The agenda for theory and research in the field of leadership studies has evolved over the last 100 years from focuses on the internal dispositions associated with effective leaders to broader inquiries that include emphases on the cognitions, attributes, behaviors, and contexts in which leaders and...
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"No one in this world, so far as I know, has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people." -H. L. Mencken H. L. Mencken was wrong. In this endlessly fascinating book, New Yorker columnist James Surowiecki explores a deceptively simple idea that...