neuromarketing

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

October 30, 2013

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.

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

October 29, 2013

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.

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

October 28, 2013

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.

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

October 27, 2013

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.

SOURCE: Rituals Enhance Consumption

October 25, 2013

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

October 22, 2013

Music Based on Neuroscience

I was so happy to find this site.
It offers music based on Neuroscience.
According to the site, the music will help you relax and focus better.
The site is called: Focus @ Will

Here is what they have to say about it:
Listening to music with soothing aspects, that plays at 60 beats per minute, can decrease neural activity, and lead to a relaxed, but awake state called alpha state[11] that is defined by an increase in alpha brain waves and a decrease in higher activity beta waves. Increases in alpha waves have been tied to a psychological state of decreased self-awareness, timelessness, and motivation known as “flow”. Songwriters, musicians, writers, athletes, and meditators are all people who separately describe the same experience when flow state is reached.

Once flow state is reached how is it maintained, and for how long? We know that it takes approximately 20 minutes to get into a state of concentration, flow or not, in which you are able to habituate to irrelevant external stimuli[9]. Most people are able to maintain their concentration from a minimum of 20 to a maximum of about 40 minutes before having to take a break. Psychologists call this waning of attention the ‘vigilance decrement’, and suggest that it is due to either a reduction in cognitive resources or mindlessness and goal habituation. Some research suggests that a brief break can reduce this goal habituation and enable people to maintain vigilance for longer periods of time.

The entire process of maintaining focus for an extended period of time is not easy. It requires work on the part of your brain and is stressful[27]. An area of research devoted designing technologies that work with your brain to make work less effortful is called neuroergonomics.[28, 29, 30] Through neuroergonomics, technologies can produce experiences that enable your brain to feel less stress, and you to get more work done. That said you still need to be personally motivated to get to work and find your flow.