It's official: Your bullying boss really is an idiot

Got a bullying boss? Take solace in new research showing that leaders who feel incompetent really do lash out at others to temper their own inferiority.

"Power holders feel they need to be superior and competent. When they don't feel they can show that legitimately, they'll show it by taking people down a notch or two," says Nathanael Fast, a social psychologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, who led a series of experiments to explore this effect.

In one, Fast and his colleague Serena Chen, who is at the University of California, Berkeley, asked 90 men and women who had jobs to complete online questionnaires about their aggressive tendencies and perceived competence. The most aggressive of the lot tended to have both high-power jobs and a chip on their shoulder, Fast and Chen found.

To see if a bruised ego can actually cause aggression, the researchers manipulated people's sense of power and self-worth by asking them to write about occasions when they felt either empowered or impotent and then either competent or incompetent. Previous research has suggested that such essays cause a short-term bump or drop in feelings of power and capability, Fast says.

Feel-bad factor

Next, Fast and Chen asked their volunteers to select a punishment to be given to university students for wrong answers in a hypothetical test of learning. Volunteers chose between horn sounds that ranged from 10 decibels to a deafening 130 decibels.

The volunteers who felt the most incompetent and empowered picked the loudest punishments – 71 decibels on average. Workers who felt up to their jobs, selected far quieter punishments, between 55 and 62 decibels, as did those primed to feel incompetent yet powerless.

Flattery seems to temper the aggressive urges of insecure leaders. When Fast and Chen coaxed the egos of these volunteers by praising their leadership skills, their aggressive tendencies all but disappeared. This is proof that leaders are aggressive because of a hurt ego, not simply a threat to their power, Fast says.

This might also explain why leaders of organisations both big and small surround themselves with yes-men and women, he says.

Blind flattery may not be the best solution for the 54 million US citizens estimated to have experienced workplace bullying. But easing leaders into new positions of power, or telling them that it's natural to feel daunted, could prevent future outbursts, says Adam Galinsky, a social psychologist at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, Illinois.

From: http://www.newscientist.com/

Llama Love Spit

right before we got in trouble for taking pictures in the VAG

right after I wiped the air-spit from my cheek. I miss you even before I leave, Elle Bow!

Football porn

This month's VF features World Cup players nearly naked. Made me immediately put down my Vogue at YVR, and prance up to the counter to find a very unimpressed middle-aged man at the cash. He kept his eyes on my chocolate covered pretzels, but I'm sure he's been reading VF under the counter. How could he not?

And there is a video of the shoot here.

You are supposed to like it because it's Hitchcock

Is it a testament to the amount of literary theory that I have read that I can't enjoy my *first ever* Hitchcock film without referencing Zizek? A sad state of affairs, probably. It's great though. The leads are so smooth and hard to write off: psychologically flat but also deep; repetitiously compulsive and also funny. Let's do it again sometime, Mr. Hitchcock.

Bye, bye, baby bye, bye...

Sir Peter Scott is stepping down as vice-chancellor of Kingston University to take up a post at another institution, it was announced... More info at: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk

Check also: http://www.sirpeterscott.com/

Legal costs of university in St Andrews v Quigley

Dear Mr Quigley,

I refer to your request dated 3 May, 2010 under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 for "How much money did the University of St Andrews spend on legal representation in the case of Dr D Quigley v The University of St Andrews during 2002/3/4/5? I can confirm that the total cost inclusive of VAT was £204,192.36.

Yours sincerely,

June Weir
Freedom of Information Officer
University of St Andrews

------------------

For legal costs involving different universities, check: http://www.academicfoi.com/untoldstories/

One hopes that the new government will try to put an end to this waste of public money.

Egads! Feathertale Contest

The following has been cut and pasted from various places...


Feathertale invites writers and poets to pen one of Shakespeare's plays as if it were originally conceived on a Twitter feed. Winning submissions will be published on Feathertale.com and in The Feathertale Review. Deadline May 31, 2010.

not much time, eh? see here, now:

SHORT FICTION CONTEST:
Feathertale presents: the Twittering Bard Contest

The old oaks who claim ownership over the English language have condemned Twitter for being akin to some German blitzkrieg on the English language. We’re not entirely convinced by their fears that the current trend of linguistic bastardization is a detriment to our literary heritage. As such, we’re asking writers to help us prove to our elders that a rose by any other name is still a rose, even if it is misspelled and grammatically incorrect. But we need your help. We’re asking writers and poets of every ilk to pen for us one of Shakespeare’s plays as if it were originally conceived on a Twitter feed. Sound complicated? It isn’t. Here’s an example of how a scene fromRomeo and Juliet might have played out if it were written entirely on Twitter:

Romeo and Juliet
Act 3, Scene 5:

Jules @Romeo: pls dont go! it was a nightingale. see pic http://tinyurl.com/yjkql9s
Romeo @Jules: That’s no nightingale. Must hop. Popped your cuz ystrday. Prince on my ass. I call later. Promises.
Jules @Romeo: methinks you gonna die
Romeo @Jules: I h8 when u 4shadow
Jules @Romeo: be gone, away!

Guidelines:
Send your submissions to submissions@feathertale.com with Twittering Bard Contest in the subject line. Submissions should be conceived with attention to the rules of Twitter (no lines can be longer than 140 characters; proper spelling will be frowned upon). The more creative and original, the better. Writers are free to pick any Shakespeare play they wish to mess with. Winning submissions will be published online and will most definitely be considered for publication in The Feathertale Review.

Deadline: May 31, 2010