Faculty Research Lightning Talks: Meet Linda Wunderley

The UCBA Library’s 3rd Annual Faculty Research Lightning Talks on March 10, 2020 featured four presenters and their discipline-based research projects via short, 15 minute presentations. In our  Meet the Presenters series, each presenter shares some insights into their research project.

Linda Wunderley | Assistant Professor, Adjunct | Business & Economics
Presentation: The Real Truth About What Determines Our Professional Performance

Linda Wunderley presents her research.

Linda Wunderley discusses her research.

Research Project
Today’s frenetic pace of market change and stressful organizational environments have the business world struggling with not only redesigning their professional development efforts to address this new normal, but also attempting to understand why past practices have repeatedly proven so ineffective! At the same time, Neuroscience research may have uncovered a critical correlation (between an individual’s significant life experiences and their repetitive thoughts, feelings and behavior) which could provide the very insight and direction needed for a professional development reinvention. But empirical data specific to the business world is needed. This research study is attempting to provide that data.

collage of famous people in a powerpoint slide

A slide from Linda Wunderley’s The Real Truth About What Determines Our Professional Performance presentation. Source: Linda Wunderley

What excites you most about your research?
Top management across the U.S. today, as well as the likes of Deloitte and McKinsey, report little or no behavior change on the part of the ‘trained’ or the ‘coached.’ But the need for improved soft skills such as better communication, persuasion, team building and creativity is huge and growing. This research could provide the empirical data for a potential sea change in our approach to such Professional Development.

What are your next steps with your research?
Continue to recruit participants to increase sample size.

Past Publication

Wunderley, L. J., Reddy, W.B. & Dember, W.N. (2006). Optimism and Pessimism in Business LeadersJournal of Applied Social Psychology. 28 (9) 751-760.

Additional Resources
* Library copy currently unavailable to request at this time

  • *Dweck, C. S. (2007). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Random Books.
  • Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2017). The Talent Delusion: Why Data, Not Intuition, Is the Key to Unlocking Human Potential. Great Britain: Piatkus
  • Felitti, V. J. et.al. (1998). Relationship of Childhood Abuse and Household Dysfunction to Many of the Leading Causes of Death in Adults: The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. American Journal of Preventative Medicine. 14, 4, 245-258.
  • Kellerman, B. (2012). The End of Leadership. New York: HarperCollins.
  • *Lipton, B. (2005). The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter & Miracles. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House Publishers.
  • Merzenich, M. (2013). Soft-Wired: How the New Science of Brain Plasticity Can Change Your Life.

San Francisco: Parnassus Publishing.

 

By Lauren Wahman