New York News: How Climate Change is Effecting Your Mood, and More

Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from New York City business schools this week.

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Climate Change Could Explain the Personality of Your Significant Other – CBS Newsroom

New research from Columbia Business School professor Adam Galinsky, along with Ph.D. candidate Jackson Lu has found a curious connection between the climates to which we grew accustomed as youngsters and our dispositions.

“Ambient temperature can shape the fundamental dimensions of personality. Our research reveals a connection between the ambient temperature that individuals were exposed to when they were young and their personality today. This finding can help explain the personality differences we observe in people of different regions.”

To further study to potential climate differences, the paper’s authors conducted research in two of the world’s most densely populated and geographically large countries: the United States and China. Lu explains the results:

“Clement [mild] temperatures encourage individuals to explore the outside environment, where social interactions and new experiences abound. Venturing outdoors and interacting with lots of people make people more agreeable, conscientious, emotionally stable, extraverted, and open to new experiences. But when the temperature is too hot or too cold, individuals are less likely to go outside to meet up with friends or to try new activities.”

Read more about the duo’s research here.

Launching a New Alumni Initiative – Rutgers Business School

The Rutgers Business School recently launched a new Corporate Alumni Advisory Council to strengthen the engagement between its current students and RBS alumni at marquee companies like PwC, Johnson & Johnson, and Wells Fargo.

“This is a very exciting initiative with huge potential for networking, lifelong learning and connecting on so many levels that can benefit our alumni, their companies and Rutgers Business School,” said Andrea Cunnell, director of alumni and corporate engagement at Rutgers Business School.

Read more about the initiative here.

Campus Recruiting Hurts Older Workers, Suit Against PricewaterhouseCoopers Claims – Wall Street Journal

In an interview with Kelsey Gee of the Wall Street Journal, NYU Stern School of Business assistant professor Michael North says that as more and more Americans over the age of 65 delay their retirement, certain corporate biases are hurting them. The result of the bias has become the basis of a lawsuit against PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Gee explains:

Attorneys for the unsuccessful candidates—men who applied to PwC dozens of times in their late 40s and early 50s—aimed to convince San Francisco District Judge Jon Tigar on Tuesday that 14,000 older workers were similarly disadvantaged by the accounting firm’s system of finding applicants at university career fairs and school-affiliated job websites, over a four-year period.

You can read more about the lawsuit here.

For the Most Complex Technology Problems, Stevens Research Turns to Nature – Stevens Institute of Technology

Data science expert Dr. Amir H Gandomi, at the Stevens Institute of Technology School of Business, has used techniques from evolutionary computation to gain insight into large-scale optimization and data-mining problems, as well as supply chain management and customer engagement and interaction.

“When you have mathematical solutions to your problems, that’s great, but real-world problems are more complex — they’re nonlinear, mixed variables, large scale, sometimes black box. In these cases, these kinds of algorithms are flexible and adaptable enough to help you find answers.”

Read more about about Dr. Gandomi’s innovative research here.

regions: New York City

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