Attentional Focus - Publications - Faculty & Research

Mind the Attention Gap

Thales Teixeira, Harvard Business School professor, talks to McKinsey partner Dave Edelman about how companies need to focus on attention when thinking about advertising.

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2016
Working Paper

The Microstructure of Work: How Unexpected Breaks Let You Rest, but Not Lose Focus

By: Pradeep Pendem, Paul Green, Bradley R. Staats and Francesca Gino

How best to structure the work day is an important operational question for organizations. A key structural consideration is the effective use of breaks from work. Breaks serve the critical purpose of allowing employees to recharge, but in the short term, translate to... View Details

Keywords: Breaks; Productivity; Attention; Workload; Harvesting; Working Conditions; Behavior; Performance Productivity; Organizations

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Research Summary

Research Focus

By: Anita Elberse

My research focuses on "creative industries," defined as industries that supply goods that we commonly associate with artistic, cultural, or entertainment value -- including book and magazine publishing, film, music, television, video games, the performing... View Details

14 Jul 2014
Research & Ideas

Pay Attention To Your ‘Extreme Consumers’

people who are very unlike you." The Difference Between Saying And Doing As former marketing manager for female shaving products at Gillette, Avery often utilized principles of "design thinking," moving beyond surveys and focus groups to... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

Article

Thin Slices of Workgroups

By: Patricia Satterstrom, Jeffrey T. Polzer, Lisa Kwan, Oliver P. Hauser, Wannawiruch Wiruchnipawan and Marina Burke

In this paper, we explore whether perceivers can accurately assess the effectiveness of groups, how perceivers use group properties to inform their judgment, and the contextual and individual differences that allow some perceivers to be more accurate. Across seven... View Details

Keywords: Group Perception; Group Effectiveness; Thin Slices; Social Sensitivity; Attentional Focus; Groups and Teams; Performance Effectiveness; Perception

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21 Apr 2014
News

Mind the attention gap: What brands need to know about advertising today

Article

When Hiring CEOs, Focus on Character

By: Aiyesha Dey

The author, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, has studied the ways in which the lifestyle behaviors of CEOs—in particular, materialism and a propensity for rule breaking—may spell trouble for a company. Her research, which includes looking at... View Details

Keywords: CEOs; Lifestyle; Risk Management; Recruitment; Ethics

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06 Apr 2015
Research & Ideas

After Germanwings, More Attention Needed on Employee Mental Health

the one hand, it focuses tremendous attention on mental health in the workplace. " But an overreaction to the issue could result in costly ramp-ups of mental health screening of questionable effectiveness. Such screenings may do more harm... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding; Health; Air Transportation

25 Oct 2018
News

Bringing the Background into Focus

Murrell told the Times. “Would Manet really give all this pictorial space to someone he didn’t want us to pay attention to?” In a press release from Columbia announcing the exhibit, Murrell recalls her first time she viewed the painting... View Details

November 30, 2020
Editorial

Don't Focus on the Most Expressive Face in the Audience

By: Amit Goldenberg and Erika Weisz

Research has shown that when speaking in front of a group, people’s attention tends to gets stuck on the most emotional faces, causing them to overestimate the group’s average emotional state. In this piece, the authors share two additional findings: First, the larger... View Details

Keywords: Bias; Emotions; Perception

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Research has shown that when speaking in front of a group, people’s attention tends to gets stuck on the most emotional faces, causing them to overestimate the group’s average emotional state. In this piece, the authors share two additional findings: First, the... View Details

04 Feb 2019
Blog Post

Presenting…an Alternative to Company Presentations: Evercore Grabs Attention with Interactive Events

case study. When they added two more ingredients to the recipe – a focus on a familiar industry, amplified by media exposure the audience would recognize – they arrived at the heart of their presentation; a “live” case study about... View Details

19 Jun 2013
News

US accountable care organisations: factory-style focus calls for change in behaviour

07 Jul 2017
News

New Managers Should Focus on Helping Their Teams, Not Pleasing Their Bosses

27 Jan 2017
Working Paper Summaries

The Microstructure of Work: How Unexpected Breaks Let You Rest, but Not Lose Focus

Keywords: by Pradeep Pendem, Paul Green, Bradley R. Staats, and Francesca Gino

2020
Working Paper

(When) Does Appearance Matter? Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Tarun Khanna, Christos A. Makridis and Subhradip Sarker

While there is evidence about labor market discrimination based on race, religion, and gender, we know little about whether physical appearance leads to discrimination in labor market outcomes. We deploy a randomized experiment on 1,000 respondents in India between... View Details

Keywords: Behavioral Economics; Coronavirus; Discrimination; Homophily; Labor Market Mobility; Limited Attention; Resumes; Personal Characteristics; Prejudice and Bias

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July 1997 (Revised September 2004)
Case

Depreciation at Delta Air Lines and Singapore Airlines (A)

By: William J. Bruns Jr. and Jeremy Cott

Depreciation policies at Delta Air Lines and Singapore Airlines are compared and contrasted against a summary of operating data from each airline. Questions focus attention on differing depreciation policies. View Details

Keywords: Cost Accounting; Policy; Financial Statements; Air Transportation Industry

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