introduction: curiouser and curiouser

Someone studied that? Someone actually studied the relationship between company performance and the width of the CEO’s face? That was my first response on reading an academic paper on leaders’ facial dimensions. I often react that way when I encounter the more unusual studies in out-of-the-way journals. Someone really estimated my likelihood of dying in the week after I get a bonus? Someone actually studied the effect of organic food on my moral judgments? Someone calculated the percentage of Prius drivers who ignore pedestrians in crosswalks?

But in four years of writing the Daily Stat, Harvard Business Review’s online digest of reports from the front lines of research in business, economics, and psychology, I’ve come to appreciate the breadth and depth of the topics being examined in laboratories and field studies around the globe.

For one thing, many of the findings published in the Daily Stat and compiled in this book turn out to be surprisingly useful: Background noise and a glimpse of green can make you more creative. Two-person teams are quicker than four-person teams.

Other stats are entertainingly odd: A taste of sugar gives people greater self-control. Disgust makes people more receptive to the new.

Most important, the data tells us a story about who we are: Single male CEOs take bigger financial risks in order to appear more attractive. Better-educated workers are less satisfied with their lives. High-status individuals are more likely to believe that people are smiling at them. There are two main messages in all this: Even in a high-tech age, we integrate our most human foibles and vulnerabilities into our work. And Prius drivers should watch where they’re going.

—Andrew O’Connell