I’m teaching this summer and can’t help but notice that students fall into one of several types. Each type is characterized by a very specific personality and mannerisms. Here are the ones I think are most prevalent:

The Quiet Asian: She (yes yes, it’s always a she) sits in the middle row all the way to one side. She never participates and is always frantically taking notes. Come exam time expect many many emails from her about whether or not X is on the exam.

The I Want to Be Funny But Actually Look Dumb Guy: He (always a he) loves to make poorly timed jokes about the content of the class in an attempt to be the class clown. Unfortunately, the class clown (who I love but usually doesn’t exist in business school) has already made that joke…and did it well. Sorry guy, too little too late.

The I Only Heard One Part of the Question Girl: She (again, usually she, but sometimes he) isn’t really paying attention, but something about what I asked the class resonated with her and she feels the need to contribute. Unfortunately, although I find her ideas about her pet fish interesting, they are only marginally related the US Bottled Water market.

The I’m Smarter Than Everyone Else Here Girl: She (yah yah, stop complaining) feels like her opinion is always right, regardless of what I (the professor) have to say about it. Certainly blue is objectively better than green. I mean who could argue with that? Right.

The Repeat Whatever The Last Person Said Guy: He loves to hear his own voice…especially when answering questions that have already been answered. Somehow he feels that when he says it, it counts, but when the person immediately before him spoke, he was probably just kidding.

The Eye Rolling Expert: He, for whatever reason, has decided to stop working as the head of marketing at some major corporation and return to school. Of course, now he’s in my Intro to Marketing course. Every comment out of my mouth is echoed by an eye roll from him followed by: “well when I was doing it, we did it this way.” Thanks guy, you’re a big help.

The Head-Nodder: This is my favorite person in class (honestly, no sarcasm here). He (usually he, though sometimes she) doesn’t participate much but, without fail, every time I look at him he is nodding his head in agreement. If ever I wanted affirmation that I’m getting my point across, I just look at him. Thanks Head-Nodder!

So who have I missed?

(adapted from Top 10 Reasons to Date an Entrepreneur)

1. Flexible Schedule: Aside from classes, anything goes. Lunch on Tuesday at 2pm? Sure. Dinner on Wednesday at 10pm? Why not! 3 week vacation to Bali? Okay, that’s trickier, but still doable!
2. Good Communication Skills: Classes don’t teach themselves
3. You can tell your friends you’re dating a doctor: Okay, so it’s not doctor in the MD sense, but it still counts!
4. You can go out with your friends and not worry about us: Hours of solitude as grad students means we know how to keep ourselves entertained
5. You can take us out to parties with you: Realize that academic conferences are 15% intellectual and 85% party. We’ve got PLENTY of practice with meeting new folks.
6. You’re on the cutting edge of science: Well maybe just the cutting edge of one small subset of a subset of science, but it still counts.
7. Bullshit Detector: “I swear, my printer broke 2 minutes before that assignment was due!” Yah, I don’t think so.
8. Not afraid to ask for directions: We spend our lives asking questions…this one is easy.
9. We actually care what you have to say: Other opinions count in science.
10. We’ll admit defeat: Scientific progress comes from disproving ideas, not proving them. Show us we’re wrong and we’ll love you for it.

This is a beautiful and mesmerizing kinetic sculpture.

[via Gizmodo]

Toby, over at kiwitobes posted a really neat visualization of the relationships between board members in corporate America. It’s quite striking to think that so few people have so much power. Nice work.

Now that I’m on the dating scene again I’ve been thinking a lot about how the things I’ve learned as a behavioral psychologist apply to the oldest game of them all.

Disclaimer: I wouldn’t say I’m a Casanova, but I do know how to hold my own in the dating arena. Take these suggestions/observations as you wish, but do realize that, much like all the dating advice out there, these are just what work for me.

Changing Venues

If any of you have read, The Game, you know that one of the suggestions Strauss gives is that when on a date, you should always change venues a number of times. This apparently gives the impression that the date has lasted longer and thus that the two of you think know each other more than you actually might. But is there any psychology to this?

It turns out that there is. Our perception of when an event happened in the past is correlated with how many memory markers we have. For example, imagine you were are asked to list all the things you can think of since you last went to an amusement park and also your subjective assessment of when you last went to the amusement park. What research shows is that these your subjective assessment will be correlated with the number of items you listed. Some fancier experimental design has also demonstrated that there is a causal connection here: thinking about events actually leads to the memory change.

So when you’re on date, make sure you go for drinks before and after dinner. With three venues you’ll make it feel like you’ve known the person forever (or at least just a little bit longer)!

Comparability

In Dan Ariely’s recent book, Predictable Irrationality, he makes the point that when going out looking for dates, make sure that the person you bring along is similar to you…but slightly worse on a few dimensions. This is in contrast to bringing your ugly socially awkward friend. Seems strange right? Clearly you’ll look that much better next to the socially awkward friend than to the slightly less attractive one. So why bring the latter?

It turns out that Dan found when we are more likely to make comparisons between objects when those comparisons are easy to make. It’s easy to say “Jim and Steve are pretty similar, but Jim is a little taller…I’ll go with him” than to say “Tom looks like a troll…I don’t even want to think about him…Jim’s okay I guess, but nothing special.”

The point is that you can easily compare two similar people and find the better one, but not so with two dissimilar people. Next you’re out on the town, bring Steve along and let Tom find his own luck!

Leave Them With Something To Remember You By

Let’s assume that you’ve successfully managed to be witty and charming enough to convince someone to go on a second date with you. You’re about to finish your first date with a hug (and maybe a kiss). What should you do? Simple, leave them something to remember you by. Something small and simple works best.

I had a first date where the woman I was with was cold and so I leant her my scarf. This was a cheep $5 scarf I got from some random vendor. If I never saw it again, it wouldn’t be end of the world. But the benefit I got from giving her something was huge.

First, she was no obliged to return the scarf. This meant actually seeing me again, thus increasing the chances that the second date would happen. Second, every time she saw the scarf in her home, she thought of me. Psychology research on fluency suggests that the more one thinks of something, the more one tends to like it (mere-exposure effect…and yes, there is plenty of research on satiation which goes the other way, but when a stimulus (or person) is novel, mere-exposure tends to win out). Third, I now seem like a nice guy who’s willing to lend my things to a person in need.

There is no down side to do doing this, and like I mentioned, plenty of psychology to yield positive potential.

What other dating advice to you all have? Is it backed by anecdotes or by science? I’d love to hear it all!