Change Your Mood Just By Flexing Some Muscles... You Got To Agree With It.

You Can Change Your Feelings By Using Your Muscles As You Please.

Botox is a popular cosmetic procedure to reduce facial wrinkles. Botox is injected into various muscles, for instance in the face, and it paralyzes the muscles thereby causing the wrinkles to “relax”. It’s been known for a while that one of the side effects of Botox treatments are that people can’t fully express emotions (for example, they can’t move the muscles that would show they were angry, or even happy). New research shows another interesting side effect – people who have Botox injections can’t feel emotions either.

Muscles and feeling are tied together – If you can’t move your muscles to make a facial expression you can’t feel the emotion that goes with the expression. So if you have recently received a Botox injection and you go to a movie that is sad, you will not feel sad because you won’t be able to move the muscles in your face that go with feeling sad. Moving muscles and feeling emotions are linked.

Botox injections – Joshua Davis (2010) from Barnard College and his team tested this idea with some research. They injected people with either Botox or Restylane. Restylane is a substance that when injected fills out sagging skin, but does not limit muscle movement like Botox does. Before and after injecting the participants, they showed them emotionally charged videos. The Botox group showed much less emotional reaction to the videos after the injections.

Controlling muscles controls anger — David Havas (2010) gave people instructions to contract specific muscles – the muscles used in smiling. When the participants contracted those muscles they had a hard time generating a feeling of anger. When he instructed them to contract the muscles that are used when you frown, the participants had a hard time feeling friendly or happy.

Source : http://www.businessinsider.com/100-things-you-should-know-about-people-part-2#if-you-never-frown-you-wont-feel-sad-19

Your, Insight On This Please..

No Two People Perceive Time In The Same Way

Has this ever happened to you? You are traveling 2 hours to visit friends. It’s two hours to get there and 2 hours to get back, but the trip there feels much longer.

It’s about the mental processing — In his interesting book, The Time Paradox, Philip Zimbardo discusses how our experience of time is relative, not absolute. There are time illusions, just like there are visual illusions. The more mental processing you do, the more time you think has elapsed. If people have to stop and think at each step of a task, they will feel that the task is taking too long. The mental processing makes the amount of time seem longer.

It’s about expectations — The perception of time and your reaction to it, is also greatly influenced by predictability and expectations. Let’s say you are editing video on your computer. You’ve just clicked the button to produce the video file from your edits. Will you be frustrated by how long it takes to produce the video? If you do this task often, and it normally takes 3 minutes, then 3 minutes will not seem like a long time. If there is an in-progress indicator, for example a bar that is moving, or a message that says “2 minutes 48 seconds left to completion”, then you know what to expect. You’ll go pour yourself a cup of coffee and come back. But if it sometimes takes 30 seconds and sometimes takes 5 minutes, and you don’t which one it is going to be this time, then you will be very frustrated if it takes 3 minutes. Three minutes will seem much longer than it usually does.

Time expectations change – Ten years ago if it took 20 seconds for a website to load you didn’t think much of it. But these days if it takes more than 3 seconds you get impatient. There’s one website I go to regularly that takes 12 seconds to load. It seems like an eternity.

Take-aways

·         Always provide in progress indicators so people know how much time something is going to take.

·         If possible, make the amount of time it takes to do a task or bring up information regular, so people can adjust their expectations accordingly.

·         If you want to make a process seem shorter, then break it up into steps and have people think less. It’s mental processing that makes something seem to take a long time.

Source - http://www.businessinsider.com/100-things-you-should-know-about-people-part-2#no-two-people-perceive-time-in-the-same-way-12

Your, Insight On This Please..

This Will Explain Most Of Our Unconscious Behavior

Is Your Behavior Affecting Your Next Generation? I Want This Video To Sink To Your Mind.

Many a times we are not sure why we behave in certain way and where and how did we learn that. I am sure after watching this video you will recall your past and will think why you are what you are. Can negatives be changed and positives be induced in the next generation. Are we just our own role model or for our children too ?


Source : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMQ7P1oi76c&feature=related

Your, Insight On This Please..

Science Of Your Love Relationship And Its Durability.

The Science of Love

There are many interesting hyperlinks embedded in this article, which will take you to complementary articles to complete or extend your reading curiosity.

• There are three phases to falling in love and different hormones are involved at each stage.
• Events occurring in the brain when we are in love have similarities with mental illness.
• When we are attracted to somebody, it could be because subconsciously we like their genes.
• Smell could be as important as looks when it comes to the fanciability factor. We like the look and smell of people who are most like our parents.
• Science can help determine whether a relationship will last.

Cupid's chemicals

People are usually in 'cloud nine' when they fall in love.

Flushed cheeks, a racing heart beat and clammy hands are some of the outward signs of being in love. But inside the body there are definite chemical signs that cupid has fired his arrow.

When it comes to love it seems we are at the mercy of our biochemistry. One of the best known researchers in this area is Helen Fisher of Rutgers University in New Jersey. She has proposed that we fall in love in three stages. Each involving a different set of chemicals.

Three Stages of Falling in Love

Stage 1: Lust

Lust is driven by the sex hormones testosterone and oestrogen. Testosterone is not confined only to men. It has also been shown to play a major role in the sex drive of women. These hormones as Helen Fisher says "get you out looking for anything".

Stage 2: Attraction

This is the truly love-struck phase. When people fall in love they can think of nothing else. They might even lose their appetite and need less sleep, preferring to spend hours at a time daydreaming about their new lover.

In the attraction stage, a group of neuro-transmitters called 'monoamines' play an important role:

• Dopamine - Also activated by cocaine and nicotine.
• Norepinephrine - Otherwise known as adrenalin. Starts us sweating and gets the heart racing.
• Serotonin - One of love's most important chemicals and one that may actually send us temporarily insane.

Discover which type of partner you're attracted to by taking our face perception test.

Stage 3: Attachment

This is what takes over after the attraction stage, if a relationship is going to last. People couldn't possibly stay in the attraction stage forever, otherwise they'd never get any work done!

Attachment is a longer lasting commitment and is the bond that keeps couples together when they go on to have children. Important in this stage are two hormones released by the nervous system, which are thought to play a role in social attachments:

• Oxytocin - This is released by the hypothalamus gland during child birth and also helps the breast express milk. It helps cement the strong bond between mother and child. It is also released by both sexes during orgasm and it is thought that it promotes bonding when adults are intimate. The theory goes that the more sex a couple has, the deeper their bond becomes
• Vasopressin - Another important chemical in the long-term commitment stage. It is an important controller of the kidney and its role in long-term relationships was discovered when scientists looked at the prairie vole

Find out how the three stages can feel even stronger for teenagers in love, experiencing first love and first sex.

The frisky Prairie Vole

In prairie vole society, sex is the prelude to a long-term pair bonding of a male and female. Prairie voles indulge in far more sex than is strictly necessary for the purposes of reproduction.

It was thought that the two hormones, vasopressin and oxytocin, released after mating, could forge this bond. In an experiment, male prairie voles were given a drug that suppresses the effect of vasopressin. The bond with their partner deteriorated immediately as they lost their devotion and failed to protect their partner from new suitors.

Looking in their genes

When it comes to choosing a partner, are we at the mercy of our subconscious? Researchers studying the science of attraction draw on evolutionary theory to explain the way humans pick partners.

It is to our advantage to mate with somebody with the best possible genes. These will then be passed on to our children, ensuring that we have healthy kids, who will pass our own genes on for generations to come.

When we look at a potential mate, we are assessing whether we would like our children to have their genes. There are two ways of doing this that are currently being studied, (to find out more click on the links):pheromones and appearance.

Source : http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/hottopics/love/index.shtml

Your, Insight On This Please..

We Smart People Get Fooled By Our Own Minds, Whom To Blame..

Impact of Visual Illusions

We often procrastinate because outside distractions interfere with our long-term goals. We make plans to exercise or to diet but find our attention irresistibly drawn toward attractions like the television or the candy bowl. When temptation strikes, our will power works overtime to try and drive the unhealthy / distracting cravings out of our head, or at least to stop us from acting on them. It doesn't have to be this hard, though. In fact, it doesn't have to be hard at all.

Outside distractions—what science calls environmental cues—activate our emotional limbic system, or System One. Since the time I started to write The Procrastination Equation, about a dozen other books have come out highlighting exactly this process, like Willpower by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney or Thinking Fast or Slow by Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman. As all these books confirm, environmental cues initiate mindless habits or distracting thoughts. The smell of popcorn as you enter a movie theatre, for example, is an olfactory cue that gets you to think about eating or initiates a well-rehearsed script that ends with you munching on a super-sized and superbly high-calorie bag of "buttery" kernels. Hopefully, however, your brain's System Two, the seat of willpower, comes into play before you cede to temptation. Like a brake competing with an accelerator, we try to override our urges and stop obsessing, stop buying, or, failing that, stop consuming what we bought. Wouldn't it be easier to stop the cues that started this all in the first place? You may not be able to control the cues in the movie theatre, but at home it is a different story

I am a big fan of Dr. Brian Wansink, who runs the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University. He tracks the connection between environmental cues and the amount we eat. He has conducted a wide range of studies on this theme, and shown that what we put into our mouths is often completely mindless, ruled by external cues rather than internal desires. It is a great lesson in the power of stimulus control; if we can influence what we smell, touch, or hear (stimuli), we can control our deepest urges.

In my book, I described Dr. Wansink's research on how plate size cues portion size. Whatever size of plate we choose, we tend to fill it. Consequently, if we shrink the diameters of our plates from 12 inches to 10 inches, we reduce the amount of food we eat by 22 percent. For most of us, this is all the reduction in eating we need to maintain or obtain a slender figure. And it can all be done effortlessly.

Recently, Dr. Wansink allied with Koert Van Ittersum to add another twist to his dishware defectively. The two researchers explored the contrast effect. Dividing a group of eaters into two, they gave one section a white plate and the other a red plate. People from each section got to serve themselves a meal with red sauce or a white sauce, specifically pasta with either tomato or Alfredo sauce on top. When the plate contrasted with the food, a white plate with tomato sauce or a red plate with Alfredo sauce, the pasta was more visible—an environmental cue that made the hungry people aware of just how much they were piling on. As with smaller plates, the eaters served themselves and consumed 22 percent less food.

The optical illusion Wansink and Van Ittersum are exploiting is called the Delboeuf Illusion, after the Belgian scientist who discovered it 150 years ago, and their paper, published in the Journal of Consumer Research, is entitled "Plate Size and Color Suggestibility: The Delboeuf Illusion's Biason Serving and Eating Behavior." It's an appropriate name; Delboeuf is French for "Of the beef," precisely the food we are looking to avoid if we want to reduce our meat intake to the recommended serving size of 3.3 ounces, about the size of a pack of cards.

And how can you make use of the Delboeuf illusion? Start by getting a few sets of dishes in the same color as the vegetables you tend to buy. Use the smaller plate for yourself and the smallest one for your kids. Taking a quick look online, you can get a four-piece dishware set in an array of vegetable colors for as little as $17 a set. For a family of four, you are looking at an investment of $68—get four sets in lettuce green and another four in carrot orange for a total of $136. You will naturally and effortlessly serve yourself more vegetables and eat less of food in other colors.

Amazingly simple and effective. Even better, the basic principles go far beyond just food. In my book, I've talked about how similar stimulus control techniques can do more than just help you lose weight but affect everything else, from getting to you to save money to buckle down to work. Given how powerful cues are, why aren't they used more? Well they are actually, an incredible amount—just not by you. Every time you find yourself eating when you are already full, spending when you are already deeply in debt, and indulging in every vice the Internet can offer while your own life goals lay languishing, there is probably a manufactured cue involved. You are acting to an agenda, one designed by others. However, if you read this far, you know the secret. Just believe it yourself and tell others about it.

Now if I just had a cue to get you started.

Source :- http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-procrastination-equation/201203/slimming-color-losing-weight-effortlessly-visual-illusion-0

My Insight:  After going through this article I started thinking that these are few tricks by which we can reduce our weight, but can such ideas can be a business plan for many people interested in this field ?

              Can these tricks be used for some social cause instead of marketing only and to drive certain kind of expected social behavior from people? This may help us to eradicate few social evils, and I am sure some work has already been started on theses lines, but a lot more needs to be done.

           

 Your, Insight On This Please..

Try This To Check If You Can Control Your Body Movements.

Most of the times we are not aware why we do certain things and we do not have control on our own body. Similarly we take many decisions in day to day lives that we are not aware of, and marketers exploit these weak part of human behavior. But with practice these weak areas can be mastered

Source :- https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=336668203046545&set=a.152104654836235.27077.119593158087385&type=3&theater

Your, Insight On This Please..

Pregnant Women Beware of This Marketing Trick.(Marketing To Unborn)

There’s some research to suggest that newborns develop preferences for specific stimuli when they’re in the womb. For instance, a study from Queen’s University found that babies are partial to theme songs that their pregnant mothers frequently listened to. Among other reactions, when hearing the theme song, the babies seemed more alert, stopped squirming and exhibited a decreased heart rate. When listening to new tunes, the babies didn’t show any reactions.

An Asian mall chain wanted to increase sales among pregnant women and started performing various stealthy strategies to prime these consumers to buy. They sprayed Johnson & Johnson baby powder in stores that sold clothes; they sprayed a cherry scent in spots that sold food. And in order to stir up positive emotions and memories, they played calming music dating back to when the women were born.

Sales did increase, but something even more fascinating happened: A year after the experiment, mothers sent a litany of letters to the mall telling them that their newborns were soothed when entering the shopping mall. Writes Lindstrom: “If they were fussing and crying, they simmered down at once, an effect that 60 percent of these women claimed they’d experienced nowhere else, not even places where they were exposed to equally pleasant smells and sounds.”

Source : http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/11/07/how-marketers-manipulate-us-to-buy-buy-buy/

Your Views, Amazing Insights & Write Ups. (Please Email & Share Them)

At, Piyush, Amazing Insights & You, I believe that this Blog is just not mine, it is your's to own it. Ideas are no one's monopoly, so if you have written something that you want me to put on this blog then kindly email it to.

"piyushsingh.insight@gmail.com"

I will definitely publish your article on this blog with due acknowledgement, if your amazing insight can quench the thirst of the awesome people who visit this blog regularly.

Kindly scroll down to bottom to find the details and mind & personality tests.

Thank You

Piyush Singh

Piyush, Amazing Insights & You.

http://insightscollection.blogspot.in/

Are You Being Decoyed By Companies ? Realize It ASAP.

In his brilliant book Predictably Irrational, author Dan Ariely shares a great example of the effect of decoy pricing. He ran an experiment using subscription offers to The Economist magazine. Participants were given one of two offers.

Offer A
$59 –Economist.com subscription (16% chose)
$125 – Print subscription (0% chose)
$125 – Print & web subscriptions (84% chose)

Offer B
$59 – Economist.com subscription (68% chose)
$125 – Print & web subscriptions (32% chose)

The results from this experiment are quite stunning. The only difference between the two offers is the inclusion of a third “decoy” choice print subscription in Offer A. No one chose the decoy item, but its mere presence made the print & web subscription option look like a no-brainer. Offer B takes a bit of thinking, whereas Offer A made the decision easy by giving consumers a default option. This experiment is one of many that show that presenting one option as a default option increases the chance it will be chosen.

ADD AN EXPENSIVE OPTION

In the above example, adding an inferior, but similarly priced product (print only subscription) helped increase sales of the more attractive print & web subscription by reinforcing its value. Another decoy pricing strategy is to add an expensive option.

Let’s say for example you sell watches; $100 for the basic and $200 for the premium version. Some people buy the premium option, but most elect for the basic. You could add a decoy super-premium option priced at $500. Shoppers probably aren’t going to buy it, but it will boost sales of the $200 option because it suddenly seems like a great value.

TRADE CUSTOMERS UP

Apple is genius when it comes to decoy pricing. Let’s take a look at pricing for the iPad:

A shopper goes in thinking an iPad will only cost them $499 because 16GB is all they need. But for $100 they can get double the storage amount and $200 more will get them 4x more storage. Many end up with the most expensive 64GB option because it would be silly to purchase one of the other options. Apple’s decoy pricing strategy trades shoppers up by making the most expensive version the “right choice”.

Source : http://marketingstylee.com/2011/08/02/understanding-customer-thinking-part-3-decoy-pricing/

Now They Use Colors To Influence Your Purchase Decision. Do You Also Get Influenced ?

For retailers, shopping is the art of persuasion. Though there are many factors that influence how and what consumers buy. However, a great deal is decided by visual cues, the strongest and most persuasive being color. When marketing new products it is crucial to consider that consumers place visual appearance and color above other factors such as sound, smell and texture. To learn more about color psychology and how it influences purchases, see our latest infographic.

Source :- http://blog.kissmetrics.com/color-psychology/

You Can Save Yourselves From Such Tricks.

Imagine you’ve been getting these terrible migraines. Desperate for the pain to stop, you visit the doctor. He tells you that he has the perfect treatment, a pill that has been proven to eliminate migraines in 95% of patients. You fill the prescription and your migraines disappear. What if you found out the pill your doctor prescribed was simply a sugar pill that has no effect on migraines? Your migraines vanished, but how?

The reason is this—you expected to get better after taking the medication, so you did. This phenomenon is called the placebo effect and it is responsible for helping thousands of sick and ailing people every year. The placebo effect is what happens when a person’s condition improves after he or she takes a medication that has no proven therapeutic effect for that particular condition. The person’s perception and belief that the medication will help is what improves their condition, not the medication itself.

In this post, I am going to dig into this concept of the placebo effect, but with a focus on the role that price plays.

Price & Placebo Effect in Marketing

Price is the de facto placebo effect in marketing. It plays a very important role in influencing how people perceive a product and, in the end, shaping their expectations. This is why designer jeans fit so perfectly, why Nike’s make us run faster and jump higher, and why $5 Starbucks just tastes better.

It turns out that price affects not only perceived quality, but actual quality as well.

Research published in the Journal of Consumer Research explored whether marketing actions (such as pricing), can actually alter the effectiveness of the product.

In a series of experiments, researchers had participants drink SoBe Adrenaline Rush, a drink that claims to improve mental ability. To determine the effect of the drink on people’s performance, the researchers had the subjects perform a series of puzzles (unscramble words).

Participants were exposed to two variables. First was information about the effectiveness of the drink. The high expectancy group was told that drinks such as SoBe Adrenaline Rush create large improvements in thinking. The low expectancy group was told that the drinks provide only slight improvements in mental performance.

Participants were also given information about the cost of the drink. Half of the participants were told the regular price of the drink ($1.89), while the other half was told that the drink was purchased at a discount ($0.89).

The results (below) are surprising; those who got the discounted drink performed worse than those who received the full-price drink.

The takeaway from this study is the role that price can play in the experience customers have with your product. Price shapes expectations. When people pay more for a product, they find greater enjoyment because they Believe and Perceive that it will give them more satisfaction—the placebo effect. With this in mind, maybe you should consider raising your prices, it just might make for happier and more satisfied customers.

Source - http://marketingstylee.com/tag/understanding-customer-thinking/

Have You Ever Done Such Irrational Act In Past ? Why Did You Do That?

This video shows how we follow the crowd even if we are right or we have no rational reason to follow it. This happens with most of the people that, we look for society’s acceptance and do not want to be an exception in the crowd.

Please watch this video and you will find that how a person is changing positions just because other 3 people are doing. It will be a great idea and fun that you try this with others at public places.

This technique is used by many marketing companies to manipulate your subconscious behavior. So next time watch out for such manipulation.

Giving Incentives May Decrease Your/Employees' Motivation. (Personal & Professional Perspective of Over Justification Theory).

The effect where giving a reward to someone for doing something that is intrinsically rewarding undermines the "joy" for doing that thing. Because the person now sees the reward as the motivation, he/she performs the task less frequently. In a study, children were given opportunities to play with some toys. They really enjoyed playing with these toys -- it was fun for them. Then the researchers gave the children rewards for playing with the toys. What happened was the kids no longer enjoyed playing with the toys. It became less about fun and more about "work".

             Can this be a reason of high attrition in sales related jobs, or at jobs where performance is directly rewarded with extrinsic incentives like bonus etc. ?  

                   It may also make us short sighted as we will be just struggling to get a short term extrinsic incentive and not for a long term benefit of the organisation. 

                      In personal life, if we give incentives to our Children, Ourselves or to any Relative  for doing something then the feelings will be different but, if next time similar kind of incentive is not given then definitely the feelings will change. I know it will be tough to accept this, but why not to try this at your home or office and then contradict this statement. 

Complete Research Explanation can be seen on - http://www.psych-it.com.au/Psychlopedia/article.asp?id=389

Definition - http://theneuron.wetpaint.com/page/Psych+M.D.+-+Overjustification+Effect

                    

How & Why You Lie To Yourself ? (Cognitive Dissonance)

The ground-breaking social psychological experiment of Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) provides a central insight into the stories we tell ourselves about why we think and behave the way we do. The experiment is filled with ingenious deception so the best way to understand it is to imagine you are taking part. So sit back, relax and travel back. The time is 1959 and you are an undergraduate student at Stanford University...

As part of your course you agree to take part in an experiment on 'measures of performance'. You are told the experiment will take two hours. As you are required to act as an experimental subject for a certain number of hours in a year - this will be two more of them out of the way.

Little do you know, the experiment will actually become a classic in social psychology. And what will seem to you like accidents by the experimenters are all part of a carefully controlled deception. For now though, you are innocent.

The set-up

Once in the lab you are told the experiment is about how your expectations affect the actual experience of a task. Apparently there are two groups and in the other group they have been given a particular expectation about the study. To instil the expectation subtly, the participants in the other groups are informally briefed by a student who has apparently just completed the task. In your group, though, you'll do the task with no expectations.

Perhaps you wonder why you're being told all this, but nevertheless it makes it seem a bit more exciting now that you know some of the mechanics behind the experiment.

So you settle down to the first task you are given, and quickly realise it is extremely boring. You are asked to move some spools around in a box for half an hour, then for the next half an hour you move pegs around a board. Frankly, watching paint dry would have been preferable.

At the end of the tasks the experimenter thanks you for taking part, then tells you that many other people find the task pretty interesting. This is a little confusing - the task was very boring. Whatever. You let it pass.

Experimental slip-up

Then the experimenter looks a little embarrassed and starts to explain haltingly that there's been a cock-up. He says they need your help. The participant coming in after you is in the other condition they mentioned before you did the task - the condition in which they have an expectation before carrying out the task. This expectation is that the task is actually really interesting. Unfortunately the person who usually sets up their expectation hasn't turned up.

So, they ask if you wouldn't mind doing it. Not only that but they offer to pay you $1. Because it's 1959 and you're a student this is not completely insignificant for only a few minutes work. And, they tell you that they can use you again in the future. It sounds like easy money so you agree to take part. This is great - what started out as a simple fulfilment of a course component has unearthed a little ready cash for you.

You are quickly introduced to the next participant who is about to do the same task you just completed. As instructed you tell her that the task she's about to do is really interesting. She smiles, thanks you and disappears off into the test room. You feel a pang of regret for getting her hopes up. Then the experimenter returns, thanks you again, and once again tells you that many people enjoy the task and hopes you found it interesting.

Then you are ushered through to another room where you are interviewed about the experiment you've just done. One of the questions asks you about how interesting the task was that you were given to do. This makes you pause for a minute and think.

Now it seems to you that the task wasn't as boring as you first thought. You start to see how even the repetitive movements of the spools and pegs had a certain symmetrical beauty. And it was all in the name of science after all. This was a worthwhile endeavour and you hope the experimenters get some interesting results out of it.

The task still couldn't be classified as great fun, but perhaps it wasn't that bad. You figure that, on reflection, it wasn't as bad as you first thought. You rate it moderately interesting.

After the experiment you go and talk to your friend who was also doing the experiment. Comparing notes you found that your experiences were almost identical except for one vital difference. She was offered way more than you to brief the next student: $20! This is when it first occurs to you that there's been some trickery at work here.

You ask her about the task with the spools and pegs:

"Oh," she replies. "That was sooooo boring, I gave it the lowest rating possible."

"No," you insist. "It wasn't that bad. Actually when you think about it, it was pretty interesting."

She looks at you incredulously.

What the hell is going on?

Cognitive dissonance

What you've just experienced is the power of cognitive dissonance. Social psychologists studying cognitive dissonance are interested in the way we deal with two thoughts that contradict each other - and how we deal with this contradiction.

In this case: you thought the task was boring to start off with then you were paid to tell someone else the task was interesting. But, you're not the kind of person to casually go around lying to people. So how can you resolve your view of yourself as an honest person with lying to the next participant? The amount of money you were paid hardly salves your conscience - it was nice but not that nice.

Your mind resolves this conundrum by deciding that actually the study was pretty interesting after all. You are helped to this conclusion by the experimenter who tells you other people also thought the study was pretty interesting.

Your friend, meanwhile, has no need of these mental machinations. She merely thinks to herself: I've been paid $20 to lie, that's a small fortune for a student like me, and more than justifies my fibbing. The task was boring and still is boring whatever the experimenter tells me.

A beautiful theory

Since this experiment numerous studies of cognitive dissonance have been carried out and the effect is well-established. Its beauty is that it explains so many of our everyday behaviours. Here are some examples provided by Morton Hunt in 'The Story of Psychology':

§  When trying to join a group, the harder they make the barriers to entry, the more you value your membership. To resolve the dissonance between the hoops you were forced to jump through, and the reality of what turns out to be a pretty average club, we convince ourselves the club is, in fact, fantastic.

§  People will interpret the same information in radically different ways to support their own views of the world. When deciding our view on a contentious point, we conveniently forget what jars with our own theory and remember everything that fits.

§  People quickly adjust their values to fit their behaviour, even when it is clearly immoral. Those stealing from their employer will claim that "Everyone does it" so they would be losing out if they didn't, or alternatively that "I'm underpaid so I deserve a little extra on the side."

Once you start to think about it, the list of situations in which people resolve cognitive dissonance through rationalisations becomes ever longer and longer. If you're honest with yourself, I'm sure you can think of many times when you've done it yourself. I know I can.

Being aware of this can help us avoid falling foul of the most dangerous consequences of cognitive dissonance: believing our own lies.

Image credit: Darwin Bell

http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/10/how-and-why-we-lie-to-ourselves.php

Unconsciously, Most Of Your Rational Decisions Are Based On Looks And Not On Rational Factors. Are You A Passive Victim Of Good Looking People/Things? (The Halo Effect)

The 'halo effect' is a classic finding in social psychology. It is the idea that global evaluations about a person (e.g. she is likeable) bleed over into judgements about their specific traits (e.g. she is intelligent). Hollywood stars demonstrate the halo effect perfectly. Because they are often attractive and likeable we naturally assume they are also intelligent, friendly, display good judgement and so on. That is, until we come across (sometimes plentiful) evidence to the contrary.

In the same way politicians use the 'halo effect' to their advantage by trying to appear warm and friendly, while saying little of any substance. People tend to believe their policies are good, because the person appears good. It's that simple.

But you would think we could pick up these sorts of mistaken judgements by simply introspecting and, in a manner of speaking, retrace our thought processes back to the original mistake. In the 1970s, well-known social psychologist Richard Nisbett set out to demonstrate how little access we actually have to our thought processes in general and to the halo effect in particular.

Likeability of lecturers

Nisbett and Wilson wanted to examine the way student participants made judgements about a lecturer (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977). Students were told the research was investigating teacher evaluations. Specifically, they were told, the experimenters were interested in whether judgements varied depending on the amount of exposure students had to a particular lecturer. This was a total lie.

In fact the students had been divided into two groups who were going to watch two different videos of the same lecturer, who happened to have a strong Belgian accent (this is relevant!). One group watched the lecturer answer a series of questions in an extremely warm and friendly manner. The second group saw exactly the same person answer exactly the questions in a cold and distant manner. Experimenters made sure it was obvious which of the lecturers alter-egos was more likeable. In one he appeared to like teaching and students and in the other he came across as a much more authoritarian figure who didn't like teach at all.

After each group of students watched the videos they were asked to rate the lecturer on physical appearance, mannerisms and even his accent (mannerisms were kept the same across both videos). Consistent with the halo effect, students who saw the 'warm' incarnation of the lecturer rated him more attractive, his mannerisms more likeable and even is accent as more appealing. This was unsurprising as it backed up previous work on the halo effect.

Unconscious judgements

The surprise is that students had no clue whatsoever why they gave one lecturer higher ratings, even after they were given every chance. After the study it was suggested to them that how much they liked the lecturer might have affected their evaluations. Despite this, most said that how much they liked the lecturer from what he said had not affected their evaluation of his individual characteristics at all.

For those who had seen the badass lecturer the results were even worse - students got it the wrong way around. Some thought their ratings of his individual characteristics had actually affected their global evaluation of his likeability.

Even after this, the experimenters were not satisfied. They interviewed students again to ask them whether it was possible their global evaluation of the lecturer had affected their ratings of the lecturer's attributes. Still, the students told them it hadn't. They were convinced they had made their judgement about the lecturer's physical appearance, mannerisms and accent without considering how likeable he was.

Common uses of the halo effect

The halo effect in itself is fascinating and now well-known in the business world. According to 'Reputation Marketing' by John Marconi, books that have 'Harvard Classics' written on the front can demand twice the price of the exact same book without the Harvard endorsement. The same is true in the fashion industry. The addition of a well-known fashion designer's name to a simple pair of jeans can inflate their price tremendously.

But what this experiment demonstrates is that although we can understand the halo effect intellectually, we often have no idea when it is actually happening. This is what makes it such a useful effect for marketers and politicians. We quite naturally make the kinds of adjustments demonstrated in this experiment without even realising it. And then, even when it's pointed out to us, we may well still deny it.

So, the next time you vote for a politician, consider buying a pair of designer jeans or decide whether you like someone, ask yourself whether the halo effect is operating. Are you really evaluating the traits of the person or product you thought you were? Alternatively is some global aspect bleeding over into your specific judgement? This simple check could save you voting for the wrong person, wasting your money or rejecting someone who would be a loyal friend.

Image credit: ericcastro

Source - http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/10/halo-effect-when-your-own-mind-is.php