Is getting people to behave better a matter of what pictures you hang on the wall?
examined the effect of an image of a pair of eyes on contributions to an honesty box used to collect money for drinks in a university coffee room. People paid nearly three times as much for their drinks when eyes were displayed rather than a control image. This finding provides the first evidence from a naturalistic setting of the importance of cues of being watched, and hence reputational concerns, on human cooperative behaviour. Source: "Cues of being watched enhance…
1 min read
Does repeating yourself make you more influential?
spite the importance of doing so, people do not always correctly estimate the distribution of opinions within their group. One important mechanism underlying such misjudgments is people's tendency to infer that a familiar opinion is a prevalent one, even when its familiarity derives solely from the repeated expression of 1 group member. Six experiments demonstrate this effect and show that it holds even when perceivers are consciously aware that the opinions come from 1 speaker. The results also indicate that…
1 min read
Does seeing altruism make you more altruistic?
elings of elevation, elicited by witnessing another person perform a good deed, have been hypothesized to motivate a desire to help others. However, despite growing interest in the determinants of prosocial behavior, there is only limited evidence that elevation leads to increases in altruistic behavior. In two experiments, we tested the relationship between elevation and helping behavior. Prior to measuring helping behavior, we measured elevation among participants in an elevation-inducing condition and control conditions in order to determine whether witnessing…
1 min read
Does superstition actually increase performance?
s: Superstitions are typically seen as inconsequential creations of irrational minds. Nevertheless, many people rely on superstitious thoughts and practices in their daily routines in order to gain good luck. To date, little is known about the consequences and potential benefits of such superstitions. The present research closes this gap by demonstrating performance benefits of superstitions and identifying their underlying psychological mechanisms. Specifically, Experiments 1 through 4 show that activating good-luck-related superstitions via a common saying or action (e.g., “break…
1 min read
Should every store have a beautiful female employee?
teris paribus, having her there should make the store better at selling expensive stuff to guys: Exposure to mating cues activates the goal to signal one's mate value to members of the opposite sex. This mate attraction goal may render men perceptually ready for products that signal their mate value to women. As men's mate value is partly determined by their financial prospects, men may be more likely to notice products that would signal their financial resources to women. The…
1 min read
Where should you sit during a meeting to be most influential?
t in the middle: This paper examines centrality of physical position as a cue that leads to systematic biases in people’s decisions to retain or eliminate a participant from a group. Termed the “centre- stage” effect, we argue that people use their belief that “important people sit in the middle” as a schematic cue that they substitute for individuating performance information for individuals who occupy central positions when the goal is to eliminate all but one of the group members.…
2 minutes
Can just looking at Red Bull improve performance?
show that brand exposure can have double-sided effects on behavior, with brand identity associations creating both positive and negative effects on objective consumer performance. Experimental results from a racing game involving functionally identical cars with differently branded paint jobs show that Red Bull branding creates a U-shaped effect on race performance, as Red Bull's brand identity of speed, power, and recklessness work both for and against the players. Even though brands were exposed supraliminally, effects traveled through nonconscious channels.…
1 min read
Do we perform better during interviews on sunny days?
analyzed the results of consecutive medical school interviews at the University of Toronto between 2004 and 2009... Overall, those interviewed on rainy days received about a 1% lower score than those interviewed on sunny days... The difference in scores was equivalent to about a 10% lower total mark on the Medical College Admission Test. Source: "Rainy weather and medical school admission interviews" from CMAJ 2009 Join over 190,000 readers. Get a free weekly update via email here. Related posts: How To…
1 min read
