Why Some US Workers May Never Speak Out Against Employers

A new law prevents companies from silencing former workers about their job experiences. The
changes could be good – but they may not go far enough. In late 2022, Kim, a 28-year-old tech worker, was
laid off from her job at a start-up. “My severance offer was pretty generous, but in order to get it, I signed a
long agreement basically saying that I wouldn’t talk about anything that happened while I was at the
company,” explains Kim, whose last name is being withheld to protect her employment security. “It was
presented to me as a simple protocol – a document that everyone who left had to sign – and I didn’t really
think about it too much.”

Since she signed that document, however, the conditions around these common non-disparagement
clauses have changed. In February, the US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced most
companies could no longer ban workers from publicly sharing negative remarks about their former
employers. The NLRB, which is a federal agency, also determined that employers could not stop a former
worker from sharing the size and nature of a particular severance deal. This law, designed to protect a
worker’s ability to publicly share the terms and conditions of their severance package, has been hailed a
victory for employee rights. Indeed, the decision goes some way towards establishing transparency in
corporate culture.

Yet employment experts and former employees alike are sceptical of how much this will actually
address the existing culture of secrecy that allows discrimination and other forms of misconduct to persist.
First, there are many exceptions to the rule. And second, fear of speaking out against an employer – and
being branded unemployable as a result – is so ingrained in today’s labour-market culture, the law itself
might not actually change the situation as intended.

For decades, US employers have been inserting terms into severance agreements to prevent
departing workers from disclosing information, such as trade secrets or sensitive data. In recent years,
however, some employers have broadened those provisions, waiving employees’ rights to disclose anything
deemed potentially disparaging or conTidential – even allegations of discriminatory practices, harassment
or an unsafe work environment.

In 2020, the NLRB made the decision that forcing employees to waive their right to speak out in
order to receive severance was, indeed, legal. Since then, however, the new members that comprise NLRB
leadership have showed a more labourer-favourable outlook – leading to last month’s move, which
overturned the 2020 decisions. While some people celebrated the NLRB decision as a victory for workers’
rights, others have had a more tempered reaction. Legal experts and individuals who have been laid off and
felt unable to speak out about the terms of their severance are concerned that, in reality, it won’t change
much. “It certainly will make a difference to some workers,” says Tom Spiggle, an employment lawyer based
in Virginia, “but it probably won’t represent a sea change.”

One core reason, believe some legal experts, is that there are an array of workers and organisations
the ruling exempts. Federal, state and local government agencies – including public schools, libraries and
parks – do not fall under the scope of the NLRB's jurisdiction. Neither do railways and airlines. Another issue
is that some categories of workers are also unlikely to be covered by the ban, such as independent
contractors, agricultural and domestic workers and any individual employed by a parent or spouse. But one
of the most notable exceptions is that supervisors – a widely deTined term for anyone who hires employees
or sets pay – are not covered, either.
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 What China’s Baby Woes Mean For Its Economic Ambitions

Crystal, who wished to withhold her real name, is a 26-year-old living in Beijing. Unlike most
women from previous generations in China, she is unmarried and currently faces no pressure to tie the knot.
When asked why that is, she laughs: "I think it's because my family members are either never married or
divorced." It appears to be a common sentiment among young urban women in China.

A 2021 survey by China's Communist Youth League of almost 3,000 people between the ages of 18
and 26, found that more than 40% of young women living in cities did not plan to marry - compared to less
than 25% of men. This is in part due to rising childcare costs and the ghosts of China's one-child policy.
"Having just one child or no children has become the social norm in China," says Yi Fuxian, a senior scientist
in obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a prominent critic of the one-
child policy. "The economy, social environment, education and almost everything else relates back to the
one-child policy," he adds.

For Beijing, this is a worrying trend because China's population is declining. It's birth rate has been
slowing for years but in 2022 its population fell for the Uirst time in 60 years. That's bad news for the world's
second-largest economy, where the workforce is already shrinking and an ageing population is beginning to
put pressure on the state's welfare services. China's working age population - those between the ages of 16
and 59 - currently stands at about 875 million. They account for a little more than 60% of the country's
people. But the Uigure is expected to fall further, by another 35 million, over the next Uive years, according to
an ofUicial estimate by the government in 2021. "China's demographic structure in 2018 was similar to that
of Japan's in 1992," Mr Yi said. "And China's [demographic structure] in 2040 will be similar to Japan's in
2020."

Until last year, many economists had assumed China's growth would surpass that of the US by the
end of the decade - a move which would cap the country's extraordinary economic ascent. But Mr Yi says
that is now looking unlikely, adding "By 2031-2035, China will be doing worse than the US on all
demographic metrics, and in terms of economic growth".

The average age in China is now 38. But as its population ages and birth rates plummet further,
there are concerns that China's workforce will eventually be unable to support those who have already
retired. The retirement age for men in China is 60 and for women, it is 55. Currently, those above 60 make
up almost a Uifth of the population. In Japan, which has one of the fastest ageing populations in the world,
nearly a third of the people are 65 or older. "Population ageing is not unique to China but the strain on
China's pension system is a lot more acute," says Louise Loo, a senior economist with Oxford Economics.

She says the number of retirees has already exceeded the number of contributors, leading to a drop
in contributions to the pension fund since 2014. The country's pension fund is administered at a provincial
level and on a pay-as-you-work basis - that is, contributions from the workforce pay the retirees' pensions.
So Beijing, aware of these cracks in its system, created a fund in 2018 to shift pension pay-outs from richer
provinces like Guangdong to those facing a deUicit. But in 2019 a report by the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences predicted that because of its shrinking workforce, the country's main pension fund would be
depleted by 2035.

Then in 2022 China launched its Uirst private pension scheme in 36 cities, allowing individuals to
open retirement accounts at banks to buy pension products like mutual funds. But Ms Loo says it's unclear
if many Chinese people, who typically invest savings in more traditional avenues such as property, would
turn instead to private pension funds. These problems are not unique to China - Japan and South Korea both
have a greying population and a shrinking workforce.
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 Australian Shreds Record For Longest Surf Session

An Australian man has broken the world record for the longest sur6ing session - and was continuing
to ride waves until Friday evening local time. Blake Johnston's record break came after 30 hours and 11
minutes in the water at Cronulla beach in south Sydney. Describing himself as "pretty cooked", Johnston told
reporters he would keep going as "I still have a job to do". His board-riding marathon has raised some
$A240,000 (£132,000) for charity.

With spotlights to illuminate a section of Cronulla's surf known as "The Alley", Johnston kept going
overnight and by Friday lunchtime had ridden over 600 waves. The 40-year-old former pro surfer and
distance runner faces the risk of blindness, infected ears and dehydration, as well as sleep deprivation,
hypothermia, shark attack and jelly6ish stings. He emerged brie6ly from the sea at lunchtime on Friday for a
medical check-up, and to receive eye-drops.

"I surfed at two in the morning with him, and the lights actually went out so it was pitch black," his
brother Ben told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "There were a whole bunch of jelly6ish out there,
so it was interesting to say the least." Speaking ahead of his challenge, Johnston said: "I thought, I could just
do it. I can run for 40 hours,"

"But, this way, I can surf with people, bring in the community and make a difference for the future."
Johnston is fundraising for the Chumpy Pullin Foundation, set up in the memory of Australian Olympic
snowboarder Alex 'Chumpy' Pullin who drowned off the Gold Coast while spear6ishing in 2020. He is also
supporting mental health charities, partly in tribute to his father who took his own life a decade ago.
 Fill The Words With Appropriate Meaning!

• Longest :
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 Why Sleeper Trains Are Being Revived Across Europe

Living in the Swedish capital Stockholm, the 33-year-old regularly travels by rail, not only to visit
her family in Luxembourg, but also to her holiday destinations. She favours train travel over ?lying mainly
for environmental reasons. Yet she adds that trains are simply more enjoyable, especially sleeper services.
"It's so much more fun," says Ms Senninger. "You meet more people, and you more have interesting
conversations." She is in luck, as sleeper trains are continuing to make a comeback in mainland Europe, with
a number of new services being launched since last summer, or due to start later this year, or in 2024. Back
in October, Ms Senninger and her husband travelled on the then newly-launched sleeper service from
Stockholm to Hamburg, Germany's second-largest city. This is run by Swedish railway company SJ.

The service departs Stockholm every day at 5.30pm and arrives into Hamburg at 6.30am. "We
booked the train as soon as it launched," says Ms Senninger, who works for ?irm of architects. "It still sounds
like a long time, but you go to sleep, and it's such a nice atmosphere on the train." The carbon footprint is
just a fraction of a ?light. Flying from Stockholm to Hamburg results in around 250kg of carbon dioxide
emissions per passenger, according to calculation website EcoPassenger. By contrast, the C02 released by
travelling via electric-powered train is just 26kg. The SJ night train has nine coaches, and capacity to carry
400 passengers. Dan Olofsson, head of tendered services at SJ, says the new service was proposed by the
Swedish government, "as they wanted to move more people towards climate-friendly travelling, and one of
the solutions was the night train between Sweden and Germany".

The service is powered by renewable energy, and Mr Olofsson says it is typically being used by
Swedes to connect them to other rail services from Hamburg. "Hamburg isn't the main destination for most
travellers, but is an important hub for people to reach more destinations in Germany and France and so on,"
he says. "We have people wanting to travel on it to reach ski resorts, but then also to have meetings in
Brussels. That's why we arrive early in Hamburg." The company plans to extend the route to Berlin from
April. It will compete with an existing provider of night trains between Stockholm and Hamburg and Berlin
- Snä lltå get. There was much buzz among train fans earlier this year when news emerged that Belgian-Dutch
train ?irm European Sleeper was to begin transporting people overnight from Brussels and Amsterdam to
Berlin.

European Sleeper intends to extend its route to Prague, the Czech capital, from next next year.
French night train business Midnight Trains says it wants to "reawaken the enchanting experience of the
night train" when it launches its ?irst luxurious services from Paris in 2024. Aiming to ultimately serve more
than 10 destinations include Rome, Porto and Edinburgh, it claims its trains will be like "hotels on rails" that
have old-fashioned "glorious roaring 20s charm". Meanwhile, existing sleeper train service Nightjet, which
is owned by Austrian Railways, will later this year start operating its Brussels-Vienna and Paris-Vienna lines
on a daily basis, up from three times a week.

However, depending on the location, and especially if starting from the UK, travelling by train can
often be more expensive than ?lying. Trains fares in the UK can in fact be 50% more costly than ?lights,
according to a 2021 study by consumer choice magazine Which?. "Like ?lying, you do need to book ahead to
?ind a cheaper price," says Mark Smith, founder of train guide website Seat61. "But you need to remember
airlines pay no duty on fuel. "Some countries charge VAT on train journeys, but no-one does on air tickets.
But then sleeping on a train overnight saves a hotel bill." He adds that even if long-distance rail travel can be
more expensive, "we're seeing lots more people choose the train". "It used to be that people had a ?lying
phobia or just liked trains, but now everyone is trying to cut their carbon footprint and wants a more
enjoyable journey," says Mr Smith.
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 The Rise Of 'One-And-Done' Parenting

Among social and economic considerations, more parents are foregoing siblings, choosing to stop
at one child. When Jen Dalton got pregnant in 2018, she made a spreadsheet. Taking into account maternity
leave, family-spacing health recommendations and even potential family holidays, she planned out when to
have each of the four kids she thought she wanted. "I look at it once in a while and I giggle at how naı̈ve I
was," says Dalton, 31. That’s because, just two months after her daughter's birth, she and her husband
decided they were 'one and done'. Part of it was their struggle with sleep deprivation and mental health;
Dalton dealt with a traumatic birth, postnatal depression (PND) and postpartum anxiety (PPA). But even
when life became easier, the decision felt right.

It wasn't only that Ontario, Canada-based Dalton and her husband didn't want to risk her – and their
family's – wellbeing by going through it all again. It was also that they knew there wasn't anything "wrong"
with not "giving" their child a sibling. "I'm an only child, and I'm very happy," says Dalton. "I'm so close with
my parents." Then, in 2022, Dalton had a wobble. She and her husband moved into their "forever home".
Close friends had a new-born, who reminded them of their daughter. She felt if she had PPD or PPA again,
she'd have more tools to manage it. And social-media algorithms kept pushing content showcasing big,
beautiful families. "It really made us think like, 'Yeah, we could do it again'," she says.

It's not surprising that Dalton started to question her decision. Even though, in many countries, only
children are becoming the norm, pressure to have more than one remains. Stereotypes about only children
being spoilt or lonely persist, despite consistent debunking. Parents say they feel pressure to have more kids
from everyone from family members to perfect strangers. On social media, mothers post adorable moments
of their broods with captions like, "This is your sign, give them the younger sibling" and "I never met a mama
who regretted having that one more".

Even as deciding to be one-and-done becomes more common, this background noise means parents
who make this choice often Zind themselves having to convince other people – and even themselves – that
they've done the right thing. Particularly after the contraceptive revolution of the mid-20th Century, which
gave many women some real control over fertility, the choice of how many children to have has been
personal. But there have been clear social and cultural trends, too.

In many countries, those trends are shifting towards fewer kids. In the EU, the largest proportion of
all families with children – 49% – have one child. In Canada, only-child families make up the largest group,
ticking up from 37% in 2001 to 45% in 2021. And looking at mothers near the end of their childbearing
years – arguably a better way to measure the popularity of only children, since census data gives only a
moment-in-time snapshot – 18% of US women in 2015 had one child, up from 10% in 1976.

The fact that women are having children later is a signiZicant piece. But there's also an element of
choice involved, says investigative journalist Lauren Sandler, author of One and Only: The Freedom of Having
an Only Child, and the Joy of Being One. "There are a lot of people who will say, no-one wants to have just
one kid – that [the rise in only-child families is] all because of delayed fertility," she says. "Well, that is a way
of making this choice, too, right? You're saying, 'There are all of these other things that are really important
to me as well, and I am going to prioritise them, and hopefully I'll get there.' Instead of, 'Those things don't
matter and what comes Zirst is my motherhood'."

Widespread ideas about the ideal number of children are also changing. For millennia, the
preference to have more than one child made sense. Even just two centuries ago, more than four in 10
children died before their Zifth birthday. Having multiple children helped the family with the many tasks
required to survive. And, of course, in the absence of reliable contraception, and with women getting
married at far younger ages, having just one child wasn't just undesirable. It often wasn't feasible.
 Fill The Words With Appropriate Meaning!

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 The Companies That Churn Through Young Workers

Some employers look to hire and continually turn over junior employees – sometimes harming
young workers’ careers before they’ve even begun. Sarah had always dreamed of working in the fashion
industry. Aged 21, she decided to follow her dream, move to London and Bind a career she loved. “Like many
young people, my passion was fashion,” she says. “But the reality wasn’t quite so glamorous.” After working
for less than a year in fashion retail, Sarah secured an e-commerce assistant role in the head ofBice of a global
luxury brand. In both jobs, she was surrounded by like-minded twenty-somethings, all of whom wanted to
succeed in the fashion world. “It’s like any creative industry: young people always see it as cool to work in,”
she says. “And the perks are great, even in sales: we’d get heavily discounted items all the time.”

However, Sarah adds that there was always a high ofBice turnover – particularly among low-level
staff. “Young employees would quit all the time: an 18-year-old intern only lasted a week after realising her
job was essentially unpaid manual labour, and long hours just carrying and packing away clothing returned
from shoots. The interns who lasted months would eventually quit from burnout. There was just a steady
churn of young, impressionable workers and nothing was ever done about it – it just became a test of who
had the thickest skin.”

While Sarah lasted in her job for two years, the excitement of working in fashion soon gave way to
frustration and tedium: “Admin tasks with long hours and bad pay.” Without management offering her a
clear career trajectory or a sense of progress, she says her job eventually ground her down – she quit. “Both
management and employees knew it was a competitive workplace to be at – that your job would always be
in high demand. If you left, you’d be replaced with another young worker excited to be there.”

Experts say there are many employers that speciBically hire new graduates looking to pursue their
passions – often in competitive, even ‘glamourous’ careers. In some cases, this can be great for these
workers, who are looking for a way into an industry of their dreams. Sometimes, however, young employees
can get ground down in low-paying, demanding roles, as employers know that vacancies will always be hotly
desired. These situations can leave early-career workers, hoping to establish themselves, making them
vulnerable to burnout or disillusionment right at the start of their careers.

However, this can leave young workers looking to break into a career susceptible to mis-sold jobs
or toxic working environments. “Graduates can Bind themselves vulnerable to exploitation where they
haven’t acquired the experience to know what’s OK and what’s not,” says Hughes. “Graduates can get a sense
that it’s really competitive, so they feel desperate to accept a challenging role that may not have the best
conditions.” Many, however, feel like they don’t have a choice but to stick it out, especially if they’re trying to
break into certain industries with high barriers to entry. For young workers desperate to establish
themselves in a competitive career, faced with long hours and bad working conditions, the effects can be
insidious.

The good news is the current employee-favourable job market can give young workers options if
they Bind they’re in an exploitative position with no path to advance, or that’s becoming highly taxing. “There
are now also more questions being asked about graduate jobs,” says Hughes. “And there’s more calling out
of bad work practices on social media, meaning there’s greater pressure for organisations that don’t look
after their young employees to change.”

However, even in the age of stafBing shortages and online reviews, many of these tough
environments will endure. This means the burden may fall to entry-level employees to recognise when
they’re in a bad position. But identifying this may be easier said than done, since employees with little
workforce experience may not know what’s standard in a junior role, versus what may be a step too far.
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 The Millennials In Sexless Marriages

Millennials should be at their sexual prime. Why are so many couples reporting major dry spells?
As 2022 comes to a close, we're bringing back our favourite pieces of the year. See the rest of our Best of
Worklife 2022 collection for more great reads. “The Girst [several] years of our marriage we had an amazing
sex life … and as he got older (he’s 30 now), he just doesn't seem interested in sex anymore.” This is one of
many comments Gloating around the r/DeadBedrooms subreddit on the social-media platform Reddit – a
self-described “discussion group for Redditors who are coping with a relationship that is seriously lacking
in sexual intimacy”. Frustrated anecdotes like these abound from people who are in low- or zero-sex
relationships. “Why does he prefer his own hand over having sex with me?” one poster asks. The subreddit’s
outlook is relatively bleak: “Advice is always appreciated,” reads its description, “just don't be surprised if
we've heard it all.”

While it may seem natural enough for these stories to come from older couples struggling to retain
the spark they had decades earlier, many are posted by people who self-identify as being in their late 20s or
30s. Some say children or marriages put a halt to their sex lives; others say their “low-libido” husbands can
watch endless pornography, yet won’t get aroused with them. The list of grievances continues from throngs
of millennials posting about their ‘dead bedrooms’. Although millennials are in or around their sexual prime,
some members of this generation around the world have reportedly been “retreating from sex”. Accounts
from millennials forums including r/DeadBedrooms corroborate this, especially for married and long-term
couples. Some recent statistics tell a similar story: a 2021 survey of adults ages 18 to 45 across the US,
conducted by the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University and sex-retailer Lovehoney, showed that among
married adults, millennials were the most likely to “report problems with sexual desire in the past year”.
The survey showed 25.8% of married millennials reported this problem, while only 10.5% of married Gen
Z and 21.2% of married Gen X adults reported the same.

Although “low desire isn’t necessarily synonymous with being in a sexless marriage”, says Justin
Lehmiller, research fellow at the Kinsey Institute, “when one or both partners in a marriage experience a
drop-off in desire for sex, sexual frequency usually declines – and loss of desire is one of the biggest reasons
why marriages become sexless in the Girst place”. What, exactly, is going on? Sex therapists and researchers
suggest a variety of factors that may explain millennials’ sexless marriages, from their current life stages to
the almighty inGluence of the internet. Regardless of the speciGic reasons causing sexual fractures in the
bedroom, overwhelmingly, this generation is facing some unique – even unprecedented – obstacles to
healthy sex lives.

There are multiple deGinitions of a sexless marriage. One is literal: the couple has not had any sex
at all for a long period of time. Another widely used measure for a sexless marriage is having sex fewer than
10 times a year. Experts who spoke with BBC Worklife also had varying ideas. New York City-based sex
therapist Stephen Snyder says, “I usually think of ‘sexless’ as four times a year or less,” unless that couple is
“having sex quarterly and they both say it's awesome”. Kimberly Anderson, sex therapist and assistant
professor of psychiatry at UCLA's School of Medicine, puts the rate of a ‘low-sex’ marriage at fewer than 25
times per year. Others say the deGinition is purely subjective; if a couple is unhappy with the frequency at
which they’re having sex, there’s a problem worth addressing.

Many factors can lead to a sexless or low-sex marriage. If there’s a “desire discrepancy”, as
California-based sex therapist Christene Lozano puts it, that imbalance can grow over time if the couple
doesn’t do a good job of addressing it. The person who wants more sex and keeps initiating it might give up
and lose self-esteem if they continue to get rejected, for instance. Meanwhile, the partner doing the rejecting
might feel increasingly guilty, altogether creating even worse conditions for fostering arousal. Other factors
including medical or mental-health issues can also contribute, as these can make sex impossible, painful,
difGicult or undesirable. Busy lives, with work and/or children, can remove sex from the equation, too, as
can poor communication about each partner’s desires.

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• Unprecedented :
• Regardless :
• Purely :
• Worse :
• Undesirable :
• Quarterly :
 Why Indecision Makes You Smarter

Indecision can seem like a wholly undesirable trait. But research shows it might actually lead to
smarter judgements. In the TV series The Good Place, the character Chidi Anagonye is de@ined by his inability
to make even the simplest of decisions – from choosing what to eat, to proclaiming love for his soulmate.
The very idea of making a choice often results in a serious stomach-ache. He is stuck in continued ‘analysis
paralysis’. We meet Chidi in the afterlife, and learn that his indecisiveness was the cause of his death. While
standing in the street, endlessly equivocating on which bar to visit with his best friend, an air-conditioning
unit from the apartment above falls on his head, killing him instantly. “You know the sound that a fork makes
in the garbage disposal? That's the sound my brain makes all the time,” he says in one episode. And besides
making himself unhappy, Chidi’s lack of con@idence in his own judgements drives the people around him
crazy.

If that sounds like an exaggerated version of you, then you are not alone: indecisiveness is a common
trait. While some people come to very quick judgements, others struggle to weigh up the options – and may
even try to avoid making a choice at all. As Chidi shows, indecisiveness can be linked to problems like anxiety,
yet recent research suggests that it can also have an upside – it protects us from common cognitive errors
like con@irmation bias, so that when the person does @inally come to a judgement, it is generally wiser than
those who jumped to a conclusion too quickly. The trick is to learn when to wait, and when to break through
the inertia while it’s holding you back.

Psychologists have various tools to measure indecisiveness. One of the most common
questionnaires – the Frost Indecisiveness Scale – asks participants to rate a series of statements on a scale
of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). They include:

• I try to put off making decisions

• I have a hard time planning my free time
• I often worry about making the wrong choice
• It seems that deciding on the most trivial thing takes me a long time

Using this scale, psychologists have shown that indecisiveness is often a product of perfectionism.
Perfectionists are scared of the shame or regret that may come with making the wrong choice – and so they
put off making decisions until they feel certain they are doing the right thing. (And in some cases, of course,
they simply never reach that level of con@idence.) The frustration this brings can be a barrier to happiness;
in general, the higher someone scores on the scale above, the lower they will score on measures of life
satisfaction, according to a study by Eric Rassin, a professor of psychology at Erasmus University, in the
Netherlands.

From these results, indecisiveness would seem like a wholly undesirable trait. Recent research,
however, suggests that the struggle to come to a quick conclusion – as uncomfortable as it may be – can also
have an upside, since it protects people from some important cognitive biases. Evidence for these bene@its
comes from a recent paper by Jana-Maria Hohnsbehn, a doctoral researcher, and Iris Schneider, a professor
of social psychology, at the TU Dresden (Technische Universitä t Dresden).

These @indings are important, since con@irmation bias is one of our most common cognitive errors,
preventing us from analysing evidence rationally in everything from our personal relationships to our
political views. Trait ambivalence helps protect us from this kind of oversimplistic thinking – and may also
help us with other forms, too. Studies by Schneider, for instance, suggest that people with high trait
ambivalence are also less prone to “correspondence bias”, which is a tendency to ignore the context of
someone’s behaviour and to instead attribute any failures and successes directly to the person themselves.
To give a straightforward example: if someone slips over, correspondence bias might lead us to conclude
that they are inherently clumsy (an internal factor), rather than recognising the slipperiness of the @loor (an
external factor).

Fill The Words With Appropriate Meaning!

• Trait :
• Simplest :
• Afterlife :
• Equivocating :
• Instantly :
• Fork :
• Upside :
• Cognitive :
• Visit :
• Strongly :
• Judgement :
• Instantly :
• Conclusion :
• Inertia :
• Scale :
• Common :
• Deciding :
• Trivial :
• Measure :
• Barrier :
• Certain :
• Ambivalence :
• Prone :
• Slip over :
• Recognising :
• Exaggerate :
• Disposal :
• Indecisive :
• Anxiety :
• Con@idence :
 The Mindset To Re-Kindle Lost Passion

It’s easy to lose the spark for work you once loved. Five strategies can help re-ignite your ;ire. I have
wanted to be a writer since I ;irst borrowed my parents’ old typewriter, aged six. (To my frustration, I wasn’t
yet allowed on the family PC.) As I saw my thoughts take shape on the blank page, I was instantly hooked.
As an author and journalist, I recognise how lucky I am to be following these childhood ambitions, but I
would be lying if I said there aren’t regular periods when that passion ebbs. This is particularly so in the
dank and dull of London in January, when my mood is already low, and the repetition of the weekly deadlines
can start to feel exhausting. I feel like I’m on a never-ending treadmill – and I want to jump off. For some, a
loss of passion may be a sign that you need to change careers – but such a drastic move is not always possible.
Fortunately, recent studies show that some people naturally apply “cultivation strategies” to reignite their
passion and motivation – and there are many ways we can all apply these techniques. '

The ;irst study comes from Patricia Chen, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at
Austin, US. Using detailed questionnaires that measure people’s mindsets and various workplace outcomes,
Chen found that these beliefs become self-ful;illing prophecies. The ;it theorists will struggle to ;ind
happiness in a job that doesn’t meet their speci;ic criteria. The develop theorists, in contrast, can learn to
;ind enjoyment and interest in the different tasks, so that their satisfaction grows over time, even if the job
didn’t initially tick all the desired boxes. Chen’s new paper aims to explore how the develop theorists manage
their passion in this way. What strategies do they use to fan the ;lames of their zeal for work?

To ;ind out, she ;irst surveyed 316 undergraduates of various academic disciplines about the ways
their passion for their subject had changed throughout time. Crucially, this included an open-ended question
on what had caused this change in passion. From the hundreds of responses, the researchers identi;ied ;ive
common strategies that the students claimed had raised their motivation. They were:

• Recognising personal relevance: A student studying business, for instance, could try to think of the
ways that theoretical knowledge would help them to found a start-up.
• Recognising societal relevance: A student might ask themself how the subject could help them to
understand the world, and how that knowledge could ultimately bene;it others.
• Building familiarity: Acquiring new knowledge can itself prime someone’s curiosity to know more, as
they identify further points of interest, and the very fact of having made progress and mastered dif;icult
tasks can be a reward in itself. So, someone who is feeling demotivated might look for new ways to
grow their skill set.
• Gaining practical experience: Many of the students found that work placements and internships
increased their enthusiasm for their academic studies.
• Finding mentors and changing the environment: Students could actively seek teachers that inspired
them, or friends who could help to make the work more fun.

Overall, Chen con;irmed that the students with the develop mindset were more likely to see positive
increases in their passion for their subject over time, and that change was correlated with the number of the
passion cultivation strategies that they had used. The students with the ;it mindset, in contrast, did not seem
to be employing those strategies so effectively. Chen’s ;indings chime with broader psychological research
looking at the ways that people regulate their interest and motivation in their work. Besides con;irming the
use of the strategies that Chen had identi;ied – such as identifying the personal or societal relevance of the
work – these studies suggest a few other ways of reviving your mojo.
 Fill The Words With Appropriate Meaning!

• Mojo :
• Blank :
• Ebbs :
• Childhood :
• Fortunately :
• Cultivation :
• Apply :
• Reignite :
• Loss :
• Tick :
• Prophecies :
• Speci;ic :
• Various :
• Theorists :
• Zeal :
• Undergraduates :
• Throughout :
• Raised :
• Relevance :
• Gaining :
• Mentor :
• Develop :
• Fit :
• Suggest :
• Initially :
• Aim :
• Struggle :
• Correlated :
• Contrast :
• Enthusiasm :
 Why We Snap-Judge Some People As 'Boring'

Why do people with certain professions and interests make us yawn – even before we get to know
them? Imagine you are at a party, and your friend calls you over to meet their cousin Barbara. Your friend
peppers his introduction with a few facts: Barbara lives in a small town and works as a data analyst for an
insurance agency. Her favourite pastime is watching television. You may Bind yourself groaning at the mere
thought of the meeting – and that reaction may say as much about you as it does about data analysts who
enjoy a bit of trash TV.

According to recent research, people have many preconceptions of what features make up a
stereotypical bore. Like other types of stereotyping, these biases may not be objectively true – but they
come with extremely negative consequences. People judge those who match ‘boring’ stereotypes harshly,
considering them less competent and warm than the average person, and unfairly shunning them in social
interactions – before they have even opened their mouths. “They’re marginalised,” says Wijnand van
Tilburg, an experimental social psychologist at the University of Essex, UK, who led the recent research.

Such Bindings might lead us all to reconsider our assumptions before meeting a Barbara at a social
gathering. By entering an encounter with unduly negative expectations, you may end up missing out on a
potentially enjoyable conversation – whereas a more open mind might allow a budding friendship to
blossom. The research can also offer some tips for making a better Birst impression yourself. Van Tilburg’s
research builds on more than two decades of scientiBic interest in people’s experiences of boredom. This
research has shown it is one of our most excruciating emotions, with a surprisingly profound inBluence on
our behaviour.

In 2014, for instance, researchers at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville asked participants
to spend 15 minutes in a sparsely-furnished room. The participants did not have their mobile phones,
computers or any reading materials – but there was a device that delivered a small electric shock at the
press of a button. Despite the obvious pain that this would bring, 18 of the 42 participants decided to do
this at least once to break up their boredom. It seems that any stimulation – even deliberate physical
discomfort – was better than not engaging with their environment at all.

You may wonder whether this reaction was peculiar to the set-up of the experiment – but it has
now been replicated in other situations. In one later study, participants were forced to watch a tedious Bilm
that played the same 85-second scene on repeat for an hour. When given the opportunity, many participants
chose to play with a device that delivered an uncomfortable zap of electricity. Danckert’s research shows
that feelings of boredom are especially agonising when we are consciously reminded of the other potential
sources of stimulation that we could be exploring. People Bind it much harder to sit in a room doing nothing
if they can see an unBinished jigsaw or a table with Lego that they are not allowed to touch, for example.

This may explain why it is so insufferable to be stuck with a bore at a party, while we can hear all
the other excited conversations around us. While we are obliged to hear about the minutest details of our
new acquaintance’s job, we are missing the chance to make a deeper social connection to someone who
would be much better suited to our personality. In psychological terms, we become aware of all the
“opportunity costs” that have arisen from the conversation. Given the agonies of ennui, it is natural that we
should wish to avoid those unrewarding interactions. Unfortunately, humans have an annoying tendency to
unfairly pre-judge people based on incomplete information. And this means that we will often decide that
someone is going to be a bore before they have even had a chance to spark our interest.
 Fill The Words With Appropriate Meaning!

• Mojo :
• Cousin :
• Analyst :
• A bit of :
• Recent :
• Preconceptions :
• Stereotypical :
• Impression :
• Boredom :
• Whereas :
• Marginalised :
• Shunning :
• Excruciating :
• Enjoyable :
• Profound :
• Deliberate :
• Engaging :
• Peculiar :
• Discomfort :
• Jigsaw :
• Despite :
• Agonising :
• Potential :
• UnBinished :
• Allowed :
• Exploring :
• Insufferable :
• Deeper :
• Unfortunately :
• Tendency :