How we change what others think, feel, believe and do

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Talk to the right ear

When you want to persuade someone about something does it matter which ear they listen with? Apparently it does. Recent research by Marzoli and Tommas in Italy shows that if they listen with the right ear, they are far more likely to comply with requests.

Marzoli and Tommas went to night clubs, where loud music makes listening tricky, and tried a series of experiments. When they tried asking for a cigarette in the left ear or the right ear of their subjects, they found that almost twice as many requests to the right ear were successful.

This confirms a tip I've heard before that when doing a presentation you will be more successful if you stand to the left (as you face the audience). Of course then more of what you say will reach the right ear than the left ear.

The explanation is that sound in the right ear goes to the left brain hemisphere, which is used more for verbal communication. The left hemisphere also has been associated with approach behaviour as opposed to the right hemisphere avoidance tendency.

Reference:
Marzoli, D. and Tommas, L. (2009). Side biases in humans (Homo sapiens): three ecological studies on hemispheric asymmetries, Naturwissenschaften, published online 20 June 2009

Friday 06-November-09

Wise crowds, inside and out

There has been a buzz around for a few years now about the 'wisdom of crowds' and the perhaps-surprising idea that a lot of people can be smarter than one person. In particular you might expect a crowd to be statistically, well, average.'

The trick of course is not just to get a single vote but to get them to listen and interact. Even when they disagree, you can learn a lot by listening to the arguments. Methods such as the Delphi Technique let everyone know what others said before re-scoring.

An interesting recent study showed that you can also call on the 'crowd within'. The idea of multiple personalities has long been associated with disorders such as schizophrenia and stories such as 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde', and has more recently been gaining ground as a normal state of being. So why not adopt different positions and think again about your problems?

The new approach is called "dialectical boot-strapping" and has been tested with students by researchers Stefan Herzog and Ralph Hertwig. The basic principle is to make the decision, then pause and wonder if your decision is could be wrong somehow. Then think how and why it could be wrong and make another decision. Then find a third decision that takes into account the rationale of both previous decisions. If the decision was about numbers of some sort, the final choice could be an average. This final decision is likely to better than the original.

In their experiment, Herzog and Hertwig asked subjects to estimate historical dates. Half used dialectical boot-strapping, considered how a first estimate might be wrong, and then used this new perspective to make a new estimate. The other control subjects just made two best estimates. The average of each dialectical boot-strapper's two guesses was 4.1 per cent more accurate than their initial estimate whilst the control subjects were just 0.3 per cent more accurate.

So there you go. A very simple technique for better decisions.

Reference:
Herzog, S., and Hertwig, R. (2009). The Wisdom of Many in One Mind: Improving Individual Judgments With Dialectical Bootstrapping. Psychological Science, 20 (2), 231-237

Your comments

As the leader of a food marketing company, I am beginning to witness people over-process when it comes to decision making. Given today's economy, everyone is looking to make the right business decision. Two things to consider: 1.) There are no right or wrong decisions, just good or bad. If you make a bad decision, learn from it and move on. At least you made a decision. 2.) People need to start making decisions today that are innovative and will pay dividends two or three years down the road. Again at least make a decision. Stop over processing.

-- Jim M

Dave replies:
Good comment, Jim. We think a lot more about what's going on in our head these days and it can lead to 'analysis paralysis'. In the end, you have to make the best decision you can with the information you have at the time, then live with the consequences. It's important also when looking back to know this. Blaming yourself for a 'bad' decision just wastes energy. It can help to think of decision results as 'more effective' and 'less effective', so when you look back at a less effective decision you don't start thinking of your decision (and hence yourself) as 'bad'.

Friday 30-October-09

Cute kids

Are children deliberately cute? Do they flutter eyelashes and do cute things deliberately to get adults to like them? You bet.

On (or near) my first day in infant school, I asked my teacher to marry me. I remember doing it with a certain deliberation. I knew I was far too young (and she too old!) but I also knew that she's be tickled with the idea and that she may be nicer to me as a result. And it worked! I managed not to be over-needy and worked hard - partly because I knew that this would keep me in her good books. I met her years later, when she was retired and I was adult and she still remembered it with amusement and affection.

I don't think I'm that unusual. Sure, I grew up to be interested in how changing minds happen, some might say it's a bit of an obsession, but I think I'm mostly normal otherwise and was a relatively normal child. I got into scrapes and was not always the teacher's favourite (something I quickly learned was not a great idea with regard to some of the other children). Children don't have money or positional power, but they do have surprising influence over the people who are interested in them in some way, from peer to parents to teachers.

It also makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. When you are a weak and vulnerable child, you need the protection and support of adults for many years, so you'd better learn to keep them onside. You also need to live with the other kids, so need to balance your toadiness. Being a child is a classroom in the art of persuasion and influence, and those who learn well here are more likely to be successful in the art as adults.

Friday 23-October-09

Engaging with The Body Shop

The Body Shop are a UK-based sustainable cosmetics company that is a perennial High Street favourite with the ethically minded. Founded when the green movement was seen as a bunch of cranks, it got popular with its 'good' philosophy, no-nonsense products, simple packaging and reasonable pricing. Since the death of its founder, Anita Roddick, I've not seen too much of them and, a statistic of one, my wife no longer shops there. But they're still battling on.

A powerful advert from them that I saw today showed six bottles of assorted lotions, each with a different smell and base, and asked readers to choose which one to 'save'. And you can indeed vote here if you're interested. The idea is that the variants that are voted for most will be kept on the shelves whilst the others are retired.

So what's going on? The Body Shop could easily find out which are the most popular products by looking at their sales figures. What they are doing is borrowing from a principle that has been used a lot on TV recently, from reality shows to talent contests. By involving readers in the keep-or-retire decision,. the company starts to bond the customers, increasing loyalty and the likelihood of re-purchase, especially the voted-for product. When we vote, we feel we must be consistent also with our actions, so we buy the product to show ourselves that we really do care. They are also using the scarcity principle in reminding us that if we do not vote then we will lose the opportunity to buy something we like. The banner shouts 'They're back, at adorable prices', and the 3.99 price is proudly displayed in red heart, glorifying rather than hiding the price and implying (with subtle brand leverage) that it is all good (I have no idea if this is a good deal, but it looks like it). 'Vote to keep your favourite' it then says, with a neat assumption that you indeed have a favourite. 'I (heart) the Body Shop' it concludes, bonding you tighter again.

With such a battery of persuasive methods, one might wonder at the how ethical the advert is.

Interestingly, to vote properly, you would have to buy all six bottles and try them out, which could easily take longer than the campaign is running. Actually it does not matter and many people will just be drawn to the shops by curiosity. I might even pop in myself.

Friday 09-October-09

Lighting performance

How significant is your lighting at work with regard to how effective you are? What if you turned down the lights a bit to save cost and energy? What about the effects of different type of lighting, placement, etc?

The human mind is programmed by evolution to respond to light in different ways. Low light means dusk and time for bed, and can make us sleepy. Sunlight is good for us, stimulating the skin in vitamin production and literally energising us. And yet we work in dingy offices with highly variable lighting. Fluorescent lighting in particular, whilst cheap can be harmful, particularly when the 100Hz flicker interferes with cognitive processes.

Researchers Mark Winterbottom and Arnold Wilkins investigated the effect in UK schools and found a number of issues. Many fluorescents were of the 100Hz flickering kind and were found in 90% of classrooms. Ambient light was not even and 88% had areas of the room which were too bright. Other problems included fixed-angle computer screens that caused uncomfortable reflective glare.

It is a false economy to base workplace design on cost or convenience. There are many things beyond lighting that, if not considered and designed into the workplace, will negatively impact performance and can lead to long-term harm of the people who work there.

Reference:
Winterbottom, M., & Wilkins, A. (2009). Lighting and discomfort in the classroom. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 29 (1), 63-75

Your comments

The history of technology is fascinating.

Many people expect Air Conditioning is installed for their comfort in warm climates. True, but actual criteria may show that it is justified by improved productivity, efficiency or performance even in temperate climates. In fact, early AC projects were intended to improve material and process properties first, the benefit to the staff was a by product.

When new AC equipment is being installed the staff might quip to the technicians - "...it's about time we had this, now we can relax and cool off...", the technician would quip back, "...true, but be careful, you're gonna have to work harder now, at least before you had an excuse on a hot day....".

Lighting is probably not much different. In the least bright lights look industrious. In the days before energy conservation brightly lit office towers were beacons that the economy was productive.

In a sort of irony I once had a group of electronic technicians zealously object to an energy retrofit which reduced window size in their workshop. They had no intention of surrendering their "natural light" source.

I suppose the occupant is as important as the occupation?

-- Peter

Tuesday 24-March-09

Can you become more emotionally intelligent?

The notion of emotion in business was once anathema as the Taylorist principles of 'rational man' assumed a mechanistic system of managers telling and workers obeying unquestioningly. Particularly as manufacturing headed East and service industries grew, unthinking and unfeeling employees became more and more undesirable.

Into this mix, Daniel Goleman published the hugely influential 'Emotional Intelligence', which took the notion IQ and turned it 90 degrees into the field of emotion. Now managers with low 'EI' are seen as dangerous and there is an ongoing scramble to become more 'emotionally intelligent.' EI is also good for your health, your career and has even been linked to improved orgasms (now there's an interesting experiment!')..

So can you increase you EI? A recent study Delphine Nelis and colleagues says yes, training in emotional intelligence (EI) actually works. Students were given training of 4 weekly sessions lasting 2.5 hours each plus homework. After six months, tests showed distinct improvements in aspects of emotional intelligence normally considered immutable traits, including emotion identification and emotion management of self and others' emotions. Curiously, 'emotional understanding' showed no improvement.

What this means for you and me is that we have no excuses. EI has clear benefits and we can improve. So let's get to it!

Reference:
Nelis, D., Quoidbach, J., Mikolajczak, M., & Hansenne, M. (2009). Increasing emotional intelligence: (How) is it possible?, Personality and Individual Differences, 47 (1), 36-41

Friday 25-September-09

Bad taste, literally

Where does the phrase 'bad taste' come from? It means 'bad judgment' but how is judgment related to gustatory senses?

Hanah Chapman and colleagues watched the subjects as they tasted unpleasant liquids, looked at gory pictures, and were conned in a financial game. In each situation, the same muscles controlling the wrinkling of the nose and raising of the upper lip were activated. They also reported that a picture of a disgusted expression best captured how they felt. In other words we pull the same face whether we literally experience a bad taste or when something morally reprehensible is done.

Interestingly, the linkage between gustatory sensation and bad judgment are linked in language -- hence the word 'disgust' which literally means 'bad taste'.

Reference:
H. A. Chapman, D. A. Kim, J. M. Susskind, A. K. Anderson (2009). In Bad Taste: Evidence for the Oral Origins of Moral Disgust. Science.

Friday 25-September-09

Bad taste, literally

Where does the phrase 'bad taste' come from? It means 'bad judgment' but how is judgment related to gustatory senses?

Interestingly, the linkage between gustatory sensation and bad judgment are linked in language -- hence the word 'disgust' which literally means 'bad taste'.

Reference:
H. A. Chapman, D. A. Kim, J. M. Susskind, A. K. Anderson (2009). In Bad Taste: Evidence for the Oral Origins of Moral Disgust. Science.

Tuesday 24-March-09

Can you become more emotionally intelligent?

What this means for you and me is that we have no excuses. EI has clear benefits and we can improve. So let's get to it!

Reference:
Nelis, D., Quoidbach, J., Mikolajczak, M., & Hansenne, M. (2009). Increasing emotional intelligence: (How) is it possible?, Personality and Individual Differences, 47 (1), 36-41

For more, see the ChangingMinds Blog! Archive or the Blogs by subject. To comment on any blog, click on the blog either in the archive or in the column to the right.

Best wishes,

Dave

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