#psychological-distance

#psychological-distance

Whether they're colleagues, clients, or customers, you're sure to encounter difficult people at work. It might be someone who hinders productivity, rubs you the wrong way, makes you upset, or is simply annoying. When we encounter difficult people, we immediately form an explanation for why they are this way. We create these "stories" without conscious thought. Think about a difficult person with whom you work.

Bailenson is the founder of Stanford's Virtual Human Interaction Lab, a research center studying the psychological and behavioral impacts of virtual and augmented reality, the latter of which overlays digital images onto the real world. He's worked on experiments aimed at increasing people's focus on climate change for more than a decade, having found some success. His team discovered that when people put on a VR headset and cut down a tree, feeling the vibration of the chainsaw, they use less paper afterward.