Psychology: it’s not exactly rocket science…

“Psychology seems to progress using colourful analogies. Over a period of a hundred years, the science of human behaviour has been based on the behaviour of a dog, a rat, a pigeon, a thermostat, a computer and, no doubt soon, a coffee percolator.”

Great stuff. If you want an enjoyable and tongue-in-cheek scamper through all that’s important in psychology, squashed into 63 pages, The Bluffer’s Guide to Psychology is the book for you!

The Bluffer’s Guide to Psychology by Warren Mansell.

Picture credit: Clipartheaven.com

Practical intelligence key to entrepreneurial success

It’s fact that being a business success is not always down to brains. There are plenty of supremely well-educated people who fail, and likewise plenty with few formal qualifications who succeed. Research at the University of Maryland now suggests that one of the key differentiators is practical intelligence, or ‘know-how’, or common sense… It seems that a touch of nous can make quite a difference. The Maryland study, based on a new model of practical intelligence, predicting increased sales and employment 27% of the time. Take it from me, this is pretty good for this sort of thing. It might also throw some light on why the Oxbridge candidates on BBC TV’s, The Apprentice, often fair far worse than those from less privileged backgrounds. It seems it’s all a question of knowing your onions, or if memory serves me correctly, in Alan Sugar’s case, his beetroot!

The study by Robert Baum, Barbara Bird and Sheetah Singh is due to published in the next issue of Personnel Psychology.