Author: Lloyd Morgan
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The Cognitive Importance of Good Sleep
After a week of surviving on minimal sleep you may assume that a lazy weekend will allow you to recover in time for the coming days. Not so: research has shown that not even a full week of quality sleep can reverse the cognitive and physiological ‘damage’ just five days of poor sleep can inflict on…
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(Insincere) Flattery Works
Flattery–even exaggerated, insincere and obvious flattery–works. That’s the conclusion from a study looking at whether compliments initially dismissed as “meaningless flattery” in advertising copy work on an implicit, unconscious level. They do. What this research suggests […] is that the implicit positivity we experience as a result of viewing [positive advertising] images could play an important role in what…
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Framing Financial Loses to Conservatives
In a series of novel framing experiments, researchers have shown that our self-identified political leanings correlate with how we perceive financial losses. Hundreds of online participants chose between various flights, computers and so on. In each case they could plump for a cheaper option or a more expensive, greener option, the latter including either a ‘tax’…
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Selling Premium Goods
In a short profile of ‘luxury sales consultant’ Jean-Marie Brücker, we discover a few psychological techniques he teaches to his clients on how to sell high-end luxury goods: Describe an item in terms of its ‘value’ rather than it’s ‘price’ or ‘cost’. Sell a story (‘romance’ and ’emotions’) rather than ‘products’. The macaroon technique: sandwiching the…
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The Anti-Vaccine Movement and the Rejection of Science
Already covered to death, it’s been on my bookmarks list since I read the following from Wired editor Mark Horowitz on it’s day of publication: Best/worst day. Story I am proudest of assigning and editing at Wired goes live today. […] But I also lose job. Bummer! That story is a fantastically well written and researched article…
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Fostering Innovative Thinking
By interviewing and surveying 3,500 visionary entrepreneurs over a six-year period, a pair of professors believe they have identified the five habits and skills common to ‘creative executives’ that distinguish them from the rest: Associating: the skill of connecting seemingly unrelated questions, problems and ideas. Questioning, especially “questions that challenge the status quo and open…
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Systems for Innovation and Microsoft
Microsoft is a hugely innovative company, but the culture that has developed there has stunted or even thwarted its innovations, suggests former Microsoft Vice President Dick Brass. The ingredients of this culture are numerous, but it has flourished largely because of the company’s structure preventing the development of “a true system for innovation”. Not everything…
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The ‘Solution Looking for a Problem’ Syndrome
In characteristically colourful style, Dave McClure admonishes the entrepreneurial community for pitching their products solution-first. This isn’t how you should pitch and it isn’t how you should position your product, suggests McClure. Problem-first pitching is how one should engage an audience and is how to create a product that has a use. Pitch the PROBLEM…
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The Entrepreneur’s Ignored Demographic
Andrew Warner of Mixergy recently interviewed Alex Algard: the entrepreneur who founded the $57m a year (revenue) business WhitePages. One exchange in the interview I particularly enjoyed is when Warner ponders WhitePages’ target demographic. Realising that he, his colleagues and his friends don’t use the site, don’t talk about the site or even hear about the…
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Typography, Pronunciation and Cognitive Fluency
How easy something is to read and understand significantly affects how we perceive it in terms of its risk, beauty, difficulty, credibility and truthfulness. Factors that influence this cognitive fluency include typography (typeface choice, contrast, etc.), ease of pronunciation, familiarity and how much the words rhyme. The cover story of this month’s The Psychologist is…