In 2015, the revelation that Volkswagen had been gaming emissions tests shook the corporate world. The deception involved 11 million diesel cars being fitted with a ‘defeat device’, which masked the emissions released by these vehicles when they detected they were undergoing testing, but otherwise polluted at levels flagrantly beyond legal limits. Since being busted, …
Do you ever get a niggling feeling that other people are doing better than you? Don't worry, we all do. In his new book The Status Game: On Social Position and How We Use It, Will Storr reveals the hidden force that triggers much of our anxiety: social status. From our hunter-gatherer ancestors who roamed …
Ranking people by their social status seems to come naturally to us humans. Indeed, social hierarchies are ubiquitous across cultures and throughout human history. Social hierarchies have allowed humans to coordinate effectively, and enabled large groups to make decisions and address collective action problems. Whether small-scale societies or industrialised nations, one can think of various …
We make our mind up about people after seeing their faces for barely a fraction of a second. Far from being trivial, these impressions impact our decision making and have real world implications. For example, politicians that simply appear more competent are more likely to win elections. Can we reliably discern character from people's faces, …
Almost 63 million Americans voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Trump's victory defied experts' predictions, and shocked the world. How could a man widely dismissed as a joke, a conspiracy theorist and an impulsive narcissist with no political experience whatsoever, capture the world’s most powerful political position? Not only did Trump …
Continue reading The Appeal of the Primal Leader: Human Evolution and Donald Trump
Darwinian Business 