Letters Remain

Tag: psychology

  • Hand Washing Leads to Rational Evaluations

    Postdecisional dissonance–an extremely close relative of both post-purchase rationalisation and the choice-supportive bias–is the phenomenon whereby once we have made a decision we perceive our chosen option as the most attractive choice and the discarded alternatives as less attractive, regardless of the evidence. SomeĀ intriguingĀ recent research suggests that the physical act of cleaning one’s hands helps…

  • Price Reductions and Cognitive Fluency

    If the mental calculation required to determine the discount given on a product is difficult then we often misjudge the magnitude of the reduction. This “ease-of-computation” effect for judging price reductions is obviously related to other recent studies looking at ‘cognitive fluency‘ and is another way to manipulate and be manipulated through product pricing. Consumers’…

  • The Cognitive Impact of Evaluative ‘Grade’ Letters

    Priming students with “evaluative letters” (i.e. letters used to grade papers, such as A and F) has a significant influence on their performance on cognitive tests. As you can imagine, primed with an A their performance on the cognitive tests improve, while those primed with an F displayed degraded performance. That’s what researchers found when…

  • Happy Citizens are Good Citizens

    By fostering happiness in our cities, towns and villages we are simultaneously cultivating inhabitants that will give more blood, donate more to charity, and generally be better citizens. That’s the conclusion from a study looking at how happy people become better citizens as a result of being happy. Happier people trust others more, and importantly,…

  • Prevention of Attainment Increases Desire, Decreases Attractiveness

    Being prevented from obtaining something we desire simultaneously increases our desire for the item and decreases its eventual attractiveness. That’s the counterintuitive result from a study that shows the various surprising effects of “being jilted”. We show how being “jilted”–that is, being thwarted from obtaining a desired outcome–can concurrently increase desire to obtain the outcome,…

  • Abstraction to Increase Effort (and Spending)

    When there is a medium placed between our effort and a desired outcome, we strive to maximise this medium regardless of whether or not it leads optimally to that outcome (think points or virtual currencies as a medium when attempting to obtain goods). That’s my attempt at a concise summary of the findings from a…

  • Clarifying Questions Placate Detractors

    Feeling misunderstood and as if we are not being carefully listened to is a reason why conflicts can turn ugly, suggests Psychology Today‘s Professor Todd Kashdan. To prevent ugly, unpleasant arguments (and to resolve uncomfortable negotiations) we should ask simple, clarifying questions: If people show that they are curious and willing to learn more about…

  • Body Language Mimicry and Hypnotism

    Previously I discussed how body language mimicry increases affection by helping the mimicker see the other person as they want to be seen. Over a decade after it was conducted I’ve now read details of “the firstĀ rigorousĀ study looking at body language mimicry” and its effects. Affectionately known as ‘the chameleon effect’, three questions were asked:…

  • Information, Not Recommendation, the Best Advice

    Attempting to discover the most effective way to offer advice, researchers identified four separate types of advice: Advice for is a recommendation to pick a particular option. Advice against is a recommendation to avoid a particular option. Information supplies a piece of information that the decision maker might not know about. Decision support suggests how…

  • Our Common Navigational Mistakes

    Reading how some animals are able to “instinctively solve navigational problems” that baffle us humans, I was reminded ofĀ Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic, writing onĀ the most common navigational mistakes we all make. In [a recent study]Ā a number of subjects were asked to estimate the travel time for a northbound versus southbound bird. The majority of…