Neuromarketing

February 3, 2014December 23, 2016

A Simple Daily Intervention Decreases Employee Stress

Stress levels and physical complaints declined by roughly 15% after employees were directed to spend 10 minutes writing about three things that had gone well each day, says a team of researchers led by Joyce E. Bono of the University of Florida. At the end of the work day, the employees logged on to a website where they were asked to write about events large or small, personal or work-related, and explain why they had gone well. The findings suggest that this intervention could have important effects on employee stress and health, the researchers say.

SOURCE: Building Positive Resources: Effects of Positive Events and Positive Reflection on Work Stress and Health

February 1, 2014December 23, 2016

Lavish Praise Can Backfire in Some Cases

Children whose self-esteem was at least 1.3 standard deviations below average reacted to lavish praise (“You made an incredibly beautiful drawing”) by becoming less willing to take on challenges, possibly out of fear that they might not be able to perform as “incredibly” well in the future, according to a study led by Eddie Brummelman of Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Children with high self-esteem did the opposite, responding to lavish praise by seeking greater challenges. Although many educators encourage parents and teachers to shower praise on pupils, adults should resist the temptation in the case of children who appear to have low self-esteem, the researchers say.

SOURCE: “That’s Not Just Beautiful–That’s Incredibly Beautiful!”: The Adverse Impact of Inflated Praise on Children With Low Self-Esteem

January 28, 2014December 23, 2016

To Detect a Lie, Don’t Think About It

Research participants who did puzzles for 3 minutes after hearing a series of true and false statements were about 6 times better than other people at figuring out which of the statements had been lies, according to a team led by Marc-André Reinhard of the University of Mannheim in Germany. The finding suggests that unconscious thinking (like the kind you do when you’re working a puzzle) gives people a chance to integrate the rich, complex information needed for accurate lie detection, and it supports a theory that deception judgments are largely driven by intuitions that may be inaccessible to the conscious mind, the researchers say.

SOURCE: Unconscious Processes Improve Lie Detection

January 17, 2014December 23, 2016

Why the Overconfident, Even After Being Exposed, Continue to Dominate

Overconfidence can be dangerous, leading entrepreneurs to risk too much in new ventures and CEOs to engage in too many acquisitions of other firms, yet overconfident people continue to occupy positions of power. A team led by Jessica A. Kennedy of The Wharton School suggests why: Overconfidence engenders high status even after overconfident individuals are exposed as being less competent than they say they are. In a series of experiments, overconfident people suffered no loss of status after groups received clear, objective data about participants’ true performance on a task.

SOURCE: When overconfidence is revealed to others: Testing the status-enhancement theory of overconfidence

January 6, 2014December 23, 2016

Do you have a paucity mindset? [BuzzBooster TV #91]

Even entrepreneurs sometimes have the wrong mindset about money. Are you one of them? Here is what to do. With hosts Shahar and Nashlah

December 10, 2013

Don’t Give Consumers Too Many Visual Choices

Online shoppers love seeing images of products, but when the number of choices is high, visuals become confusing and presentation of the options in text form helps consumers make better decisions, say Claudia Townsend of the University of Miami and Barbara E. Kahn of The Wharton School. A high number of visual options can also prompt consumers to give up trying to choose: Asked to select among 27 types of crackers, participants in an experiment were 5 times more likely to pick “none of the above” if the choices were presented visually rather than in words. Text prompts a slower, more systematic mental-processing style, the researchers say.

SOURCE: The “Visual Preference Heuristic”: The Influence of Visual versus Verbal Depiction on Assortment Processing, Perceived Variety, and Choice Overload

November 18, 2013

When You Feel Powerful You Talk Too Much, and Your Subordinates Perform Poorly

In a computer-based simulation of a Mount Everest expedition, teams whose leaders had been induced to feel powerful (“Think about a time when you had power over someone”) achieved just 59% of their goals, in comparison with 76% by teams whose leaders hadn’t been induced to feel powerful, according Leigh Plunkett Tost of the University of Michigan, Francesca Gino of Harvard, and Richard P. Larrick of Duke. A feeling of power prompts leaders to verbally dominate, which gives the impression that they are less open to others’ ideas; this perception diminishes team performance. Organizations might be able to minimize this effect by maintaining an egalitarian culture, reminding leaders of subordinates’ importance, and encouraging employees to question the legitimacy of leaders who dominate social interactions, the researchers say.

SOURCE: When Power Makes Others Speechless: The Negative Impact of Leader Power on Team Performance

November 11, 2013

Why It Might Be Helpful to Apologize for Something That’s Not Your Fault

An apology for something beyond anyone’s control, such as the weather, has the effect of making others trust the apologizer, says a team led by Alison Wood Brooks of Harvard Business School. For example, when a young man approached strangers in a train station on a rainy day and said, “I’m so sorry about the rain! Can I borrow your phone?” he was successful 47% of the time, compared with just 9% if he simply asked to borrow a phone. Past studies have shown that when culpability for negative situations is ambiguous, people reward those who take blame more than those who express remorse.

SOURCE: I’m Sorry About the Rain!: Superfluous Apologies Demonstrate Empathic Concern and Increase Trust

November 7, 2013

Chatting with the Cashier Will Improve Your Mood

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

November 6, 2013

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.

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