Blog: Creative Decisions and Goal Achievement

Book Recommendation: How To Write A Lot

Posted on June 1, 2015 by by

Ursina Teuscher, PhD Posted in Achieving Goals, Book Recommendations, Coaching Practice, Creative Thinking, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management

Paul J. Silvia (2007). How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing.

Paul Silvia makes a strong case for scheduling in his book “How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing“.
It has been one of the most influential books for my own writing practice, and I often find myself mentioning gems of practical wisdom from this book in my own workshops and coaching sessions.

The book focuses on academic writing, but a lot of its advice applies to anybody who has a hard time working towards goals that are important in the long run, but not urgent on any particular day. Writing is just a really good example of such a goal.

by Ursina Teuscher at Teuscher Counseling, LLC

Own News: Our Article on Maximizers Got Published

Posted on May 27, 2015 by by

Ursina Teuscher, PhD Posted in Uncategorized

I’m happy to announce that another peer-reviewed paper from a collaboration with my Italian colleagues Raffaella Misuraca and Floriana Antonella Carmeci just came out:

Misuraca, R., Teuscher, U., & Carmeci, F. A. (2015) Who are maximizers? Future oriented and highly numerate individuals. International Journal of Psychology. Available from ResearchGate.

The paper highlights some cognitive mechanisms that may underlie the maximizing decision style.

ABSTRACT: Two studies investigated cognitive mechanisms that may be associated with people’s tendency to maximize. Maximizers are individuals who are spending a great amount of effort in order to find the very best option in a decision situation, rather than stopping the decision process when they encounter a satisfying option. These studies show that maximizers are more future oriented than other people, which may motivate them to invest the extra energy into optimal choices. Maximizers also have higher numerical skills, possibly facilitating the cognitive processes involved with decision trade-offs.
© 2015 International Union of Psychological Science.

by Ursina Teuscher at Teuscher Counseling, LLC

Featured Video: The Neuroscience of Moral Decisions

Posted on May 6, 2015 by by

Ursina Teuscher, PhD Posted in Uncategorized

How can our brain chemistry affect moral decision making?

The neuroscientist Molly Crocket gives some intriguing answers to this in a talk:

(It’s a video, but you could also just listen to it. Or if you prefer to read, there’s a full transcript on the Edge website.)

She is addressing her talk to a live audience of academics, and therefore assumes a lot of knowledge from her listeners, but I hope you will not be turned off too much by some friendly jargon. Her overall insights are still very understandable by a general audience (I think), and certainly interesting.

I’m only recommending the first ~25min, the rest is a discussion with the audience (other scientists) that did not add too much to my enlightenment — you may feel differently.

by Ursina Teuscher at Teuscher Counseling, LLC

What Are Your Strengths? Review of Two Self-Assessments

Posted on May 3, 2015 by by

Ursina Teuscher, PhD Posted in Book Recommendations, Career Development, Coaching Practice, Leadership, Self-Assessments

I’m featuring two self-assessments here that focus on clarifying what your strengths are: the Clifton StrengthsFinder®, and the VIA Survey.

The Clifton StrengthsFinder® was developed by the Gallup Organization. Based on a lot of interview data, they came up with 34 distinct patterns of strengths, or what they call “talent themes”. The online self-assessment tells individuals which of those “themes” are most pronounced in them. From the perspective of management consulting, the assumption here is that by identifying people’s strengths, an organization’s overall performance can be improved.

The VIA Survey was created by Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman, well-known researchers in the field of positive psychology. It is designed to identify a person’s profile of character strengths. The inventory informed the Character Strengths and Virtues Handbook (CSV), a counterpart to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) used in traditional psychology. Unlike the DSM, which categorizes human deficits and disorders, the CSV classifies positive human strengths.

So, the two assessments have different origins and purposes, but both are centered on helping people recognize and build upon their strengths.

I took both self-assessments online and read up on the research behind them, and here are my observations on both of them.

The research:

There is a technical report on the StrengthsFinder® website that summarizes the development and validation process of the assessment. Several studies with huge sample sizes by research groups both inside and outside of Gallup have tested the reliability and validity of the assessment, and the technical report provides a lot of information about the statistical characteristics of the measures and their usefulness for interventions.

The VIA team also provides a nice (shorter) overview of the survey’s psychometrics on their website. Aside from the standard measures that we would expect, such as alpha coefficients, they also present a factor analysis, which reveals a discrepancy between their model and the newer research. This gives me a better impression than if everything looked smooth, which honest research rarely is. While the number of studies that tested the VIA Survey is rather small, they have been conducted by more than one research group (suggesting at least one might be independent from the developers), and have been published in peer-reviewed journals (rather than books or self-published “reports”). The journal that published the factor analysis, “Assessment”, is a high-impact journal.

In addition to the validation of the survey itself, you’ll find an extensive literature overview on the VIA website, summarizing what the research says about character strengths in general.

The money, and what you get for it:

For the StrengthsFinder®, you have buy the book first, before you can take the assessment (you’ll need the access code you get in the book). As a result of taking the assessment, you get a report with your top 5 strengths, along with some suggestions for action plans. You would have to pay more for any more detailed reports, including the full rank order of your strengths.

The VIA® Institute of Character is a non-profit organization. You can take the assessment for free, without buying a book. As a result of that self-assessment, you’ll get your entire “Strength Profile”, as a rank order, along with a short description of 24 possible strengths. There too, you could pay for more elaborate results.

My subjective experience taking the assessments:

I found some of the questions in the StrengthsFinder® very irritating. Here’s one example of a question I wouldn’t possibly know how to answer:So if I’m somebody who never makes deadlines and don’t deliver what I promised, I get the same score (“Neutral”) as somebody who always makes deadlines and follows through on her commitments? That just doesn’t sound like a good idea.

The StrengthsFinder® enforces a time limit to answer each question, which is unusual for personality questionnaires. I don’t know of any research suggesting it would be an advantage to “not think too long” before answering. I suspect the real reason they’re doing this is to prevent people from copying the questions. (I did for example miss the question above, because I spent all my allotted time first scratching my head in disbelief and then taking a screenshot.)

The VIA Survey took less time to take, and the questions seemed (very subjectively!) to make more sense.

Overall, they both seem like well-researched instruments: the StrengthsFinder® more commercialized and more widely used, but also with more research history. I personally found that the VIA Survey gave me more bang for my buck (which was no buck at all in this case), and was less annoying to take.

How about you?

I’d love to hear other’s perspectives, and I know many of my readers are very familiar with the StrengthsFinder at least, if not with both instruments.

Did you ever take either of these assessments? Or are using them in your own practice with clients or employees? What has been your experience? (If you’d like me to respond, please don’t forget to include your email address — but I’ll be very interested in reading your comments either way.)

by Ursina Teuscher at Teuscher Counseling, LLC

Earlier posts on self-assessments:

Book Recommendations: How To Organize Both Space and Time

Posted on April 6, 2015 by by

Ursina Teuscher, PhD Posted in Book Recommendations, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management

If you’re up for some serious spring cleaning of not only your home or work space, but also your schedule, Julie Morgenstern has written two books that can help:

1. Organizing from the Inside Out: The Foolproof System For Organizing Your Home, Your Office and Your Life.

2. Time Management from the Inside Out: The Foolproof System for Taking Control of Your Schedule — and Your Life.

She applies the following three basic steps to organizing both space and time:

Analyze
Strategize
Attack

There are of course fundamental parallels between the two domains of space and time. The most important for practical purposes is maybe that the two skill sets — maintaining a well-organized space on one hand, and managing time on the other — both require dealing with a limited resource. Importantly, both skills, managing space as well as time, can be learned and practiced, and Julie Morgenstern offers a very useful and systematic approach, including many specific tips and helpful examples.

For the first book, I’ve written a 2-page summary of the practical steps, which I’m happy to share with anyone who asks me directly. (The only reason I won’t publish it on my blog is that there is nothing original about the content, it’s really just a summary.)

The brief outline was a helpful practical tool — sort of a cheat-sheet — for some of my own clients who have struggled with cluttered spaces, among other problems. I would however also like to point out that if organizing space is your main issue, there are specialized professionals who can help. I have three colleagues in particular whom I would highly recommend:

Felisa Contreras, specializing in office spaces and administrative systems:
savvyorganization.com

Sandy Parks, specializing in home reorganization, including downsizing etc that may come with major life transitions:
theorganizingcoach.biz

Anne McCallister, specializing in small business, self-employed and home office clients:
insidetheboxorganizing.com

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR

Decision Styles: Are Some Better Than Others?

Posted on March 26, 2015 by by

Ursina Teuscher, PhD Posted in Intuition

I was excited to find a new study about decision styles and how they relate to decision qualities.

We know that people have different ways of approaching decisions – or different decision styles. Several studies have suggested the existence of five distinct styles:

baddecisions

1) Rational
An example item in a questionnaire would be:
“I make decisions in a logical and systematic way.”

2) Intuitive
E.g.,“When I make decisions, I tend to rely on my intuition.”

3) Avoidant
E.g.,“I avoid making important decisions until the pressure is on.”

4) Dependent
E.g.,“I rarely make important decisions without consulting other people.”

5) Spontaneous
E.g.,“I generally make snap decisions.”

One big question is: are some of these styles better than others? Or in other words, can decision styles distinguish between “good” decision makers and “bad” decision makers? It would be interesting to know, for example, if decision makers with a more “rational” style generally make better or worse decisions than people with a more “intuitive” style.

A recent study by Nicole Wood and Scott Highhouse attempted to answer exactly this question. They found some interesting answers indeed:

While intuitive decision-makers rated themselves as the best decision makers, their peers did not agree with those high opinions. It was on the contrary the rational decision style that was related to higher quality decisions, when the decisions were judged by others, rather than the decision makers themselves.
None of the other decision styles (avoidant, dependent, or spontaneous) explained much difference in decision qualities at all. Only the avoidant style was somewhat related to low self-ratings, but with a small effect size, and none of those decision styles were related to peer ratings in any way.

Additionally, the researchers looked at personality styles, which have been much more extensively studied in the past already, and are at this point better understood than decision styles. They found that conscientiousness, as a personality trait, is also a characteristic of people who are judged as good decision makers by their peers.

To put this most recent study into perspective: the new findings line up well with previous research supporting the idea that careful decision processes lead to good outcomes. For example, it is already known that careful decision makers are more satisfied with their careers, and that they perform better in school. There are also several studies showing that rational thinkers are less likely to be tricked by typical biases and errors that most people fall for.

Taken together, there is a growing body of research suggesting that careful decision-making predicts decision quality in a number of contexts, and that a rational decision style is effective and beneficial in many areas of life.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR

Sources, references and more info:
More information about the measure “General Decision Making Style” (GDMS) on the website of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making (JDM)
Baiocco, R., Laghi, F., & D’Alessio, M. (2009). Decision-making style among adolescents: Relationship with sensation seeking and locus of control. Journal of Adolescence, 32, 963–976.
Crossley, C., & Highhouse, S. (2005). Relation of job search and choice process with subsequent satisfaction. Journal of Economic Psychology, 26, 255–268.
Curseu, P. L., & Schruijer, S. G. L. (2012). Decision styles and rationality: An analysis of the predictive validity of the general decision-making style inventory. Educational and Psychology Measurement, 72, 1053–1062.
Denes-Raj, V., & Epstein, S. (1994). Conflict between intuitive and rational processing: When people behave against their better judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 819–829.
Epstein, S., Donovan, S., & Denes-Raj, V. (1999). The missing link in the paradox of the Linda conjunction problem: Beyond knowing and thinking of the conjunction rule, the intrinsic appeal of heuristic processing. Personality and Social Psychological Bulletin, 25, 204–214.
Epstein, S., Lipson, A., Holstein, C., & Huh, E. (1992). Irrational reactions to negative outcomes: Evidence for two conceptual systems. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 328–339.
Epstein, S., Pacini, R., Denes-Raj, V., & Heier, H. (1996). Individual differences in intuitive–experiential and analytical–rational thinking styles. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 390–405.
Faul, F., Erdfelder, E., Lang, A.-G., & Buchner, A. (2007). G⁄Power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behavior Research Methods, 39, 175–191.
Goldberg, L. R., Johnson, J. A., Eber, H. W., Hogan, R., Ashton, M. C., Cloninger, C. R., et al. (2006). The International Personality Item Pool and the future of public- domain personality measures. Journal of Research in Personality, 40, 84–96.
Kirkpatrick, L. A., & Epstein, S. (1992). Cognitive-experiential self-theory and subjective probability: Further evidence for two conceptual systems. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 534–544.
Loo, R. (2000). A psychometric evaluation of the General Decision-Making Style Inventory. Personality and Individual Differences, 29, 895–905.
Scott, S. G., & Bruce, R. A. (1995). Decision-making style: The development and assessment of a new measure. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 55, 818–831.
Wood, N. L., & Highhouse, S. (2014). Do self-reported decision styles relate with others’ impressions of decision quality? Personality and Individual Differences, 70, 224–228.

Tags: decision quality, decision styles, decision-making, deliberate, rational thinking

Featured Video: How to Make Hard Choices

Posted on March 10, 2015 by by

Ursina Teuscher, PhD Posted in Intuition

I would love to hear what other people take away from this TED talk. Is it helpful? I have lost the distance to the topic, so I want to say: “yes, sure, but there’s more! there’s help! there are tools!” But I guess that’s not her point. She does make other valid points, however her talk still leaves me wondering: would she know how to approach a decision more systematically, if she wanted to? I hope so, because I’ve seen so many times how helpful that can be. Even if in the end, yes, it does come down to personal values.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR

A Career Development Tool For Academics

Posted on March 4, 2015 by by

Ursina Teuscher, PhD Posted in Achieving Goals, Career Development, Self-Assessments, Strategic Planning, Business Decisions, Organizational Development

Continuing my series about self-assessments, the one I’m reviewing here is for academics:

the myIDP.

The myIDP is an Individual Development Plan for science careers, and is mainly targeted to grad students and postdocs, with the goal of helping them define and pursue their career goals.

It includes a self-assessment part covering skills, interests, and values. Aside from the online questionnaires that show your scores right away, can also download blank skills assessment forms to share with a mentor or colleague. Based on the assessment, it offers a long list of career paths and shows you how well each matches with your interests and skills. As you explore those options, you get suggestions of how to consider your values in those contexts.

After this assessment and exploration part, the website includes a personal planning system for setting your own goals and implementing next steps. For example, you can set skill improvement goals and plan specific activities to reach those. To help define your own skill improvement goals, you get all the information from the skills assessment, but you choose where you want to improve. In my own case, my lowest skill score was in animal research – not an area in which I need to improve given that I have no plans of working with animals in the foreseeable future. However my semi-low scores in “how to negotiate” might be relevant for my life and worth improving.

As is fitting for a target audience of scientists, this tool does not give you easy answers, let alone ONE easy answer. It asks a lot of questions, gives you many answers and a lot of homework, including suggestions of further research to do (not in those exact words…). All the assessments are very transparent, no hidden magic.

The website can be used free of charge. You just need to set up an account, so that your data can be saved, but you don’t need to provide any information other than an email address. It looks like this is really just a service (funded by several educational institutions), not part of a research project or a business.

If you try it, let me know what you think!

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR

Book Recommendation: The Upside of Irrationality

Posted on February 6, 2015 by by

Ursina Teuscher, PhD Posted in Achieving Goals, Book Recommendations, Health Decisions, Intuition

Dan Ariely (2011). The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic.

Dan Ariely is a great thinker, scientist and story-teller. In this book, he weaves personal anecdotes and research findings together to help us gain insight into our own irrational minds.

Recognizing our own behaviors and thinking patterns is a great stepping stone towards improvement. But rather than assume we could do better and be more rational (which I do believe is important and possible too, at least sometimes…), Dan Ariely suggests we should find ways to make our own irrationalities work in our favor. I find this mindset very useful in practice. In particular, he suggests many methods of how the “right” choice can become the “easy” choice for us. Those are great strategies to set us up for success.

In general, I’m a big advocate of making things as easy as possible on ourselves. There will always be enough hard choices left, where we can use all the mental resources we have left.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR

Book Recommendation: How To Write A Lot

Own News: Our Article on Maximizers Got Published

Featured Video: The Neuroscience of Moral Decisions

How can our brain chemistry affect moral decision making?