Trends

Posted on

Chatting with the Cashier Will Improve Your Mood

consumer behavior

If you buy your coffee quickly at Starbucks without saying much of anything, you’ll probably arrive at the office sooner, but if you stop to chat with the cashier, you might get to work in a better mood. Research participants who smiled, made eye contact, and briefly conversed with the cashier subsequently reported greater satisfaction with the visit and were in better moods (4.31 versus 3.80 and 4.22 versus 3.60, respectively, on 1-to-5 scales) than those who avoided unnecessary conversation, say Gillian M. Sandstrom and Elizabeth W. Dunn of the University of British Columbia. Seemingly trivial interactions can confer a sense of belonging, an effect that people tend to overlook in their quest for efficiency, the researchers say.

SOURCE: Is Efficiency Overrated? Minimal Social Interactions Lead to Belonging and Positive Affect

Posted on

Are Your Most Compliant Customers Those Who Are Emotionally Disorganized?

People who were momentarily alarmed at what they believed were parking tickets on their windshields were subsequently 1.65 times more likely to comply with a street vendor’s request to purchase aromatic Indian sticks. Similarly, people were more likely to answer a questionnaire if the surveyor first asked, “Haven’t you lost your wallet?” (nothing had happened to the wallets). These experiments, by Dariusz Dolinski and Katarzyna Szczucka of Warsaw School of Social Services and Humanities in Poland, demonstrate that the “emotional disorganization” following apprehension and relief makes people more likely to comply with a request.
Don’t Tidy Up Before You Do Your Creative Thinking

SOURCE: Emotional disrupt-then-reframe technique of social influence

Posted on

Video marketing for Non-Profits

Here is a great example on how to create video marketing that works. It comes from a Human society

There are over 1,000 zoos in the world, and thousands more reserves, preserves, parks, vets, human societies, and other animal-related businesses. If you work for one of these, grab a $100 HD camera and go film the cuteness that is surely happening around you every day.

Over 500,000 views.

it is not complicated to do online videos that work. You can really do on your own, but if you need help, just let us know.

Posted on

Your Status Depends Partly on Your Upward or Downward Momentum

An individual who was said to have risen in status to become the fourth-ranked member of a 10-person team was viewed by research participants as having greater prestige (6.60 versus 5.24 on a 1-to-9 scale) than if he was said to have declined to become fourth-ranked, according to a team led by Nathan C. Pettit of New York University. In judging status, people appear to consider not only current position but also whether an individual has upward or downward “momentum,” the researchers say.

An individual who was said to have risen in status to become the fourth-ranked member of a 10-person team was viewed by research participants as having greater prestige (6.60 versus 5.24 on a 1-to-9 scale) than if he was said to have declined to become fourth-ranked, according to a team led by Nathan C. Pettit of New York University. In judging status, people appear to consider not only current position but also whether an individual has upward or downward “momentum,” the researchers say. SOURCE: Rising Stars and Sinking Ships: Consequences of Status Momentum

SOURCE: Rising Stars and Sinking Ships: Consequences of Status Momentum

Posted on

Don’t Tidy Up Before You Do Your Creative Thinking

This is just great news for me!!!

Research participants in a room where papers were scattered on a table and the floor came up with 5 times more highly creative ideas for new uses of ping-pong balls than those in a room where papers and markers were neatly arranged, says a team led by Kathleen D. Vohs of the University of Minnesota. A disorderly environment seems to aid creativity by helping people break from tradition, order, and convention, the researchers say.

Don’t Tidy Up Before You Do Your Creative Thinking

SOURCE: Physical Order Produces Healthy Choices, Generosity, and Conventionality, Whereas Disorder Produces Creativity

Posted on

What Do You Fail to Notice When You’re Hard at Work?

83% of two dozen radiologists who were searching for a lung nodule didn’t see the white outline of a standing gorilla that researchers had inserted into a computed tomography scan, even though it was 48 times the size of the average nodule, says a team led by Trafton Drew of Harvard Medical School. All of the participants reported seeing the gorilla when, after the experiment, they were shown the CT scan and asked if they noticed anything unusual about it. Past studies have demonstrated that people who are engaged in a task often fail to notice unrelated images and occurrences; the current finding suggests that this “inattentional blindness” affects even experts.

What Do You Fail to Notice When You’re Hard at Work?

SOURCE: The Invisible Gorilla Strikes Again: Sustained Inattentional Blindness in Expert Observers

Posted on

Simple Food Rituals Increase Enjoyment

See how the principle of scarcity is well and alive and tat it should be part of your marketing strategies.

People who were induced to follow ritualized behaviors such as stirring and pouring liquid and rapping their knuckles on a desk reported greater enjoyment of subsequent food-consumption experiences, says a team led by Kathleen D. Vohs of the University of Minnesota. For example, those who unwrapped and ate first one half, then the other half, of a chocolate bar rated its flavor as 5.58, on average, on a 1-to-7 scale, versus 5.22 among those who hadn’t followed the simple ritual, and their willingness to pay for the chocolate was 73% higher.
neuroscience

SOURCE: Rituals Enhance Consumption

Posted on

Media Coverage of Terrorist Attacks Creates Its Own Adverse Effects

Watching 1 to 3 hours of TV coverage per day in the week after the 9/11 terrorist attacks predicted a 20% increase in reports of physician-diagnosed physical ailments such as asthma and hypertension 2 to 3 years later, says a team led by Roxane Cohen Silver of the University of California, Irvine. This and other findings from their survey data on more than 1,700 people strongly suggest that widespread media coverage of terrorism can have negative mental- and physical-health consequences over time, even for people not directly exposed to attacks.

SOURCE: Mental- and Physical-Health Effects of Acute Exposure to Media Images of the September 11, 2001, Attacks and the Iraq War

consumer psychology