Trends – Page 15

April 14, 2014December 23, 2016

The Price of Popularity: Lower Ratings

In the two years after books win splashy awards such as the Man Booker Prize, their average ratings on Goodreads.com decline by about a quarter-point on a 1-to-5 scale, whereas those that were runners-up maintain their high ratings, say Balázs Kovács of the University of Lugano and Amanda J. Sharkey of the University of Chicago. A big award draws a larger audience, which includes a greater proportion of people whose tastes aren’t aligned with the book’s style or subject. Also, readers sometimes react negatively to popularity and are thus more inclined to give lower evaluations to popular books, the researchers say.

SOURCE: The Paradox of Publicity: How Awards Can Negatively Affect the Evaluation of Quality

April 13, 2014December 23, 2016

How your spine affects your brain

Coming up on April 15th on Boomerology Revealed:

How your spine affects your brain with Dr Shannon Parisi

April 9, 2014December 23, 2016

Your Belief That the World Is “Just” Can Make You Cruel

eople’s wish to see the world as just and orderly sometimes leads them to harm those who have already suffered injustice, according to Daniel P. Skarlicki and R. Anthony Turner of the University of British Columbia. In an experiment, managers with self-reported hiring experience provided lower ratings for fictitious job applicants whose only difference was that they had been mistreated by their former employers, such as by being laid off without notice. People derogate victims in this way to avoid the cognitive dissonance that comes from trying to understand how individuals can suffer injustice in a just world, the researchers say.

SOURCE: Unfairness begets unfairness: Victim derogation bias in employee ratings

April 8, 2014December 23, 2016

Feeling Fear in the Presence of a Brand Makes You More Attached to It

People who were scared by clips from the movies The Ring and Salem’s Lot felt more emotionally attached to a brand of sparkling water that had been placed on their desks than did others who watched clips from exciting or sad movies or happiness-inducing scenes from the series Friends (3.70 versus 2.11, 2.54, and 2.28, respectively, on a 7-point emotional-attachment scale), say Lea Dunn of the University of Washington and JoAndrea Hoegg of the University of British Columbia. Fear makes people want to share their experience with others, and if a brand is present it can satisfy this desire, almost as though it were a person, the researchers say.

SOURCE: The Impact of Fear on Emotional Brand Attachment

April 7, 2014December 23, 2016

Seniors Travel Online to Book Trips

Are you paying attention to seniors in your marketing?

Over eight in 10 consumers ages 50 and older use websites to plan and book leisure trips
eMarketer expects 58.7 million US consumers ages 55 and older to use the internet this year, representing 69.0% of that age demographic and 23.3% of internet users. As internet usage becomes more common among seniors, they’re heading to the digital world to perform many tasks, including those related to travel.

An October 2013 study by AARP found that 83% and 84% of consumers ages 50 and older used websites to book and plan leisure travel, respectively. Those ages 60 to 69 were the most likely to use websites to plan and book nonbusiness trips, while the 50-to-59 age group was the least likely to use sites for organizing and booking travel.

Read more at http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Seniors-Travel-Online-Book-Trips/1010706#M124Fdq2JdvHDfbI.99

April 5, 2014December 23, 2016

Rigid Gender Roles Can Take a Toll on Women’s Quality of Life

In countries with strict gender roles, women’s total work hours tend to increase as they perform more paid labor outside the home. In Spain, for example, women’s work at home (housework and child care) declined by only 6 hours per week as their workplace labor increased by 8 hours per week from 2002 through 2010, say Jose Ignacio Gimenez-Nadal of the University of Zaragoza in Spain and Almudena Sevilla of Queen Mary University of London in the UK. The result is that Spanish women lost 2 hours of weekly leisure time over that period. A decline in leisure hours suggests a declining quality of life.

SOURCE: Total work time in Spain: evidence from time diary data

April 4, 2014December 23, 2016

Do You Need to Hear a Musical Group to Judge Its Quality?

Research participants who watched silent videos of chamber-music ensembles were 26% more accurate at guessing which ones had been winners of past musical contests (such as the Saint Paul String Quartet Competition) than people who had watched both audio and video of the groups, says Chia-Jung Tsay of University College London. Participants who listened to audio without video were the worst at guessing the competition winners. In evaluating the groups without sound, the viewers were apparently responding to what they perceived as strong leadership and indications of group unity, such as the players’ proximity and similarity of appearance—probably the same factors that had influenced the judges of the competitions, Tsay says.

SOURCE: The vision heuristic: Judging music ensembles by sight alone

April 3, 2014December 23, 2016

Are Male Boomers Happy With Their Lives?

Here is another episode of Boomerology Revealed TV

Are male Baby Boomers happy with their lives? Let’s find out in this episode where we put together several baby boomers and let them talk about their wants and fears.

You can find past episodes and submit comments and questions at Boomerology Revealed TV

This show is also available on iTunes, YouTube and Roku at the Buzz and Biz channel under the Special Interest category.

Every share, like, comment and rating matters

April 1, 2014December 23, 2016

Don’t believe that rituals in business matter?

Don’t believe that rituals in business matter? They do and you can use them in your marketing.

Sales of Saint Joseph Statuettes Reflect the Real Estate Market, in Reverse

The real-estate market and sales of Saint Joseph statuettes tend to move in opposite directions, according to a Missouri-based religious-goods company queried by the Wall Street Journal. For instance, from 2009 to 2010, when local home prices were stagnant, sales of the figurines slightly more than doubled; when prices began to rise, sales of the saint’s image declined. In 2013, statuette sales were down 10.6% from the previous year, a period in which the median U.S. existing-home sale price rose 11%. Some people believe that they can better sell their houses if they bury a statuette of Saint Joseph, the patron saint of home and family, upside-down in the yard.

SOURCE: Bless Our Happy Home Sale