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The Halo Effect: When Your Own Mind is a Mystery

Light Angel
[Photo by ericcastro]
This top 10 social psychology study not only demonstrates the 'halo effect' but also how little access we have to our own thought processes.

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.

Or perhaps, even if you do check, you'll still never know...Gulp.

» Read more on the hidden workings of our minds.

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Reference

Nisbett, R. E., & Wilson, T. D. (1977). The halo effect: Evidence for unconscious alteration of judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35(4), 250-6.

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Ramachandran on Capgras Syndrome, Phantom Limbs & Synaesthesia

Neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran provides an introduction to how we study the brain's deficits using three cool examples:



  • Capgras syndrome: where a man looks at his mother and says: "It looks like my mother but she's an imposter." How can a person recognise his mother's face yet feel it's not her?
  • Phantom limbs: why would an amputated limb still hurt? Can this pain be relieved?
  • Synaesthesia: Numbers are colours. Notes are colours. Cross-talk between the senses has a higher incidence in creative people: why?

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"Neurolaw" is Dubious at Best

The Times (of London) has a good skeptical piece by Professor Raymond Tallis on the dubious rise of neurolaw:
The legal profession in America is taking an increasing interest in neuroscience. There is a flourishing academic discipline of "neurolaw" and neurolawyers are penetrating the legal system. Vanderbilt University recently opened a $27 million neuroimaging centre and hopes to enrol students in a programme in the law and neuroscience. In the courts, as in the trial of serial rapist and murderer Bobby Joe Long, brain-scan evidence is being invoked in support of pleas of diminished responsibility. The idea is abroad that developments in neuroscience - in particular the observation of activity in the living brain, using techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging - have shown us that we are not as free, or as accountable for our actions, as we traditionally thought.

Which leads defence lawyers to try arguing their clients didn't commit murder - it's their brains that are to blame.
Those who blame the brain should be challenged as to why they stop at the brain when they seek the causes of bad behaviour. Since the brain is a physical object, it is wired into nature at large. "My brain made me do it" must mean (ultimately) that "The Big Bang" made me do it. Neuro-determinism quickly slides into determinism tout court.

On the other hand:
The brain is, of course, the final common pathway of all actions. You can't do much without a brain. Decapitation is, in most instances, associated with a decline in IQ.

Well, quite. Read on...

Thanks for the tip Andy.

How to Avoid a Bad Bargain: Don't Threaten

Threatening Fist
[Photo by Dplanet]
An award-winning social psychology experiment reveals why we often fail to bargain effectively with each other. This deceptively simple experiment examines the effect of two vital aspects of bargaining: threat and communication.

Bargaining is one of those activities we often engage in without quite realising it. It doesn't just happen in the boardroom, or when we ask our boss for a raise or down at the market, it happens every time we want to reach an agreement with someone. This agreement could be as simple as choosing a restaurant with a friend, or deciding which TV channel to watch. At the other end of the scale, bargaining can affect the fate of nations.

Big-scale or small-scale, bargaining is a central part of our lives. Understanding the psychological processes involved in bargaining can provide us with huge benefits in our everyday lives. In a classic, award-winning series of studies, Morgan Deutsch and Robert Krauss investigated two central factors in bargaining: how we communicate with each other and how we use threats (Deutsch & Krauss, 1962).

To do this, they used a game which forces two people to bargain with each other. Although Deutsch and Krauss used a series of different conditions - nine in fact - once you understand the basic game, all the conditions are only slight variations.

So, imagine you were a clerical worker at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in the late 1950s and you've been asked to take part in a psychology study. Every psychology study has a story, and this one revolves around two trucking companies...

Experiment 1: Keep on trucking


Before the experiment proper starts, the researcher explains that you'll be playing a game against another participant. In the game you will run a trucking company. The object of the game is the same as a real trucking company: to make as much money as possible.

Like the real-life trucking company you have to deliver as many of your goods as possible to their destination in the shortest possible time. But in this game you only have one starting point, one destination and one competitor. It looks like a pretty simple game.

Here's the catch.

The road map your one truck has to travel across presents you with a dilemma. You are the 'Acme' trucking company and your fellow participant is the 'Bolt' trucking company, although both of you have an identical problem. Have a look below.

Cycling
[Deutsch & Krauss, 1962, p. 55]


As you'll see there are two possible routes you can take from the start to your destination: the short and the long. Remember, time is money, so the longer it takes you to get to your destination, the less profit you make, which is the aim of the game. Unfortunately the short route has a major shortcoming: it is one-way. Only one of you can travel down it at a time towards your destination.

It seems you'll be forced to work out some agreement with your unknown rival to share this one-way route so that you can both make money. How you'll do this is another mystery, though, as there is going to be no communication between the two of you during the experiment. You are to be seated in a cubicle from where you'll only be able to see the control box for your 'truck' and the experimenter.

Threatening gates


You are to be given one method of communication with your rival, albeit indirect communication. Each of you controls a gate at your own end of the one-way road. The gate, though, can only be closed when your truck is on the main route. This will be your threat. It is reinforced by the experimenter that you are out to make as much money as you can for yourself - the other person's profit is not a concern.

On your marks, set, cooperate!


Once the experimenter sets you off, it soon becomes clear you're not going to make much money at all. In the first of 20 trials, both you and your rival shut your gates, forcing both trucks onto the alternative route. This is 50% longer and means you make a loss on the trip as a whole. In the second trial your trucks meet head-on travelling up the one-way road. You both have to reverse, costing you time and money.

The rest of the trials aren't much better. Occasionally you make a profit on a trip but more often than not it's a bust. You spend more time on the long route or reversing than you do chugging happily along the main route making money.

At the end of the experiment, the researcher announces how much profit you made. None. In fact you made a crippling loss. Perhaps trucking companies aren't so easy to run.

Comparing threats


You find out later that you were in one of three experimental conditions. The only differences in the other two conditions were that in one there were no gates at either end of the one-way road. In the other there was only one active gate controlled by one player.

Before I tell you the results of the other two conditions, try to guess. One condition, which you've taken part in, contained bilateral threat - you could both threaten each other. One condition had unilateral threat - only one could threaten the other. And the final condition had no threat at all. What was the order of profit?

In fact it turns out that your condition, of bilateral threat, made the least profit when both participant's scores were added up. The next most profitable was the unilateral threat condition, while the most profitable overall was the no-threat condition.

Here's the first rather curious result. While the person who had the threat - control of the gate - in the unilateral condition did better than the person who didn't, they were still better off, individually and collectively, than if they both had threats. What this experiment is showing is that the availability of threats leads to worse outcomes to the extent that unilateral threat is preferable to bilateral threat to both parties.

Experiment 2: Lines of communication


But surely a little communication goes a long way? You weren't allowed to talk to the other participant in this experiment, so your trucks had to do the talking for you. Bargaining is all about reaching a compromise through negotiation - surely this should help?

To test the effect of communication Deutsch and Krauss (1962) set up a second experiment which was identical in all respects to the first except participants were given headphones to talk to each other.

Here's the next curious result: allowing the two participants to communicate with each other made no significant difference to the amount of money each trucking company made. In fact the experimenters found no relationship between words spoken and money made. In other words those who communicated more did not manage to reach a better understanding with each other.

Like the experimenters themselves, I find this result surprising. Surely allowing people to communicate let's them work out a way for them both to make money? And yet this isn't what happened in the experiment at all. Instead it seems that people's competitive orientation was stronger than their motivation to communicate. On the other hand, perhaps something specific to the situation in this experiment is stopping people talking?

Participants in the second study reported that it was difficult to start talking to the other person, who was effectively a stranger. As a result they were considerably less talkative than normal. Could it be that it was this situational constraint that meant little talking, and therefore little bargaining was going on?

Experiment 3: Forced communication


Deutsch and Krauss decided to test the effect of forced communication in their third experiment. Again the procedure is the same as last time but now participants are instructed that on each of the 20 trials they have to say something. If they don't talk on one of the trials they are gently reminded by the experimenter to do so. They are told they can talk about whatever they like, as long as they say something.

The results finally showed some success for communication. Performance in the one-gate (unilateral threat) condition came close to that achieved in the 'no-threat' condition (remember the no-threat condition has the best outcomes). Forced communication didn't have much effect on the 'no-threat' condition when compared with no communication, and neither did it improve the bilateral threat condition much. It still seems that people are so competitive when they both have threats it's very difficult to avoid both sides losing out.

Threat causes resentment


The most surprising finding of this study is how badly people do under conditions of bilateral threat. In this experiment not even forcing communication can overcome people's competitive streaks. Deutsch and Krauss provide a fascinating explanation for this.

Imagine your neighbour asks you to water their plants while they're on holiday Socially, it looks good for you if you agree to do it. On the other hand if they ask you to water their plants otherwise they'll set their TV on full blast while they're on holiday, it immediately gets your hackles up. Suddenly you resent them. Giving in when there is no threat is seen by other people as pro-social. Duress, however, seems to make people dig in their heels.

Applying the brakes


Before drawing some general conclusions from these studies, we should acknowledge the particular circumstances of this research. Deutsch and Krauss's experiment covers a situation in which bargaining is carried out under time pressure. Recall that the longer participants take to negotiate, the less money they make. In real life, time isn't always of the essence.

The present game also has a relatively simple solution: participants make the most profit if they share the one-way road. In reality, solutions are rarely that clear-cut. Finally, our participants were not professional negotiators, they were clerical and supervisory workers without special training.

Real-life implications


Despite these problems the trucking game has the advantage of being what game theorists call a non-zero-sum game. In other words if you win, it doesn't automatically mean the other person loses. When you total the final results, as you sometimes can in a financial sense, they don't add to zero. In real life many of the situations in which we find ourselves are of this nature. Cooperation can open the way to more profit, in financial or other form, for both parties.

As a result the trucking game has clear implications for real life:
  • Cooperative relationships are likely to be much more beneficial overall than competitive relationships. Before you go 'duh!', remember that increasing proportions of the world's societies are capitalist. Deutsch and Krauss's experiment clearly shows the friction caused by competitive relationships, such as those encouraged by capitalism. I'm not saying capitalism is bad, I'm just saying competition isn't always good. This simple fact is often forgotten.
  • Just because people can communicate, doesn't mean they will - even if it is to their advantage.
  • Forcing parties to communicate, even if they already have the means to communicate, encourages mutually beneficial outcomes.
  • In competitive relationships, communication should be aimed at increasing cooperation. Other methods will probably create more heat than light.
  • Threats are dangerous, not only to other's interests, but also to our own.

Remember all these the next time you are bargaining with your partner over a night out, about to shout a threat at a motorist blocking your path on a one-way road, or even involved in high-level political negotiations between warring factions with nuclear capabilities. It could save you, and the other side, a lot of trouble.

Have your say


Why not let everyone know what you think of this experiment. Are you surprised by the findings? Do you think it applies to real life? Does it make you reflect on how you bargain any differently? Or anything else you'd like to bring up. Whether you're a psychologist or a lay-person, do pitch in with your point of view. Remember you can now also get follow-up comments by email.

» Discover more of the best studies in social psychology.

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Reference

Deutsch, M., & Krauss, R. M. (1962). Studies of Interpersonal Bargaining. The Journal of Conflict Resolution, 6(1), 52-76.

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Get Follow-Ups to Your PsyBlog Comments by Email

There's a new small but powerful feature on PsyBlog. Now, when you comment on a post, you have the option to receive an email if anyone else posts a comment after you. This means you can keep up with an emerging conversation.

Remember: this will NOT email you every comment on the site, only any comments on that particular post that are placed after yours. You can unsubscribe from these emails at any time by clicking one link.

A few things to bear in mind:
  • To get follow-up comments emailed to you, tick the box that appears on the 'post a comment' page.
  • You need to be logged in to a 'Google account' to receive email updates. This could be a Gmail account, Blogger, Google Groups etc. account.
  • If you don't have one of these it only takes a few minutes to sign up. Follow the 'Sign up here' link from the comments page (you'll see this after you click 'post a comment' from any blog post).
  • This account also needs to be 'verified' which means they've sent an automatic email to you, and you've replied (I think).

I know all this seems needlessly complicated but (unfortunately) I didn't design this system. Let me know how it goes and if there's any problems we'll try and work them out.

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College Binge Drinking 'Seriously Kicks Ass'

A wry smile, courtesy of The Onion:
"Data collected at bars and fraternity parties on the UMass campus has yielded unexpected conclusions with regard to the practice of binge drinking," study head Dr. Albert Greaves said. "Over the course of our research, a consistent pattern emerged demonstrating that binge drinking seriously kicks ass."

"There was this one bar called The Depot, where they serve beer in these humongous three-foot glasses that are like giant boots," Greaves continued. "You have to stand back and tilt the thing to drink it all. Our team conducted an experiment to see who could finish one off the fastest. Myself, Dr. Milton Laurian and these eight 20-year-old test subjects lined up against a wall and started chugging away. After completing the test and subsequently throwing up all over the place, I could only conclude that downing huge-ass boot beers is really awesome."

Now read on (via The Language Log).

Larry David is Role Model for Schizophrenia Sufferers

From The New Yorker:
[Trainee clinical psychologist, David] Roberts began showing TV clips during therapy sessions [with schizophrenia patients]. Soon he had narrowed his selections down to one show: television's purest expression of social dysfunction, "Curb Your Enthusiasm." Roberts considers Larry David to be the perfect proxy for a schizophrenic person. "On his way into his dentist's office, he holds the door open for a woman, and, as a result, she's seen first," he said. "He stews, he fumes, he explodes. He's breaking the social rules that folks with schizophrenia often break. [...] It's a classic example of a major social cognitive error-jumping to conclusions - that schizophrenic patients are prone to."

So...
Roberts and his U.N.C. adviser, David Penn, began to formalize these findings, mapping out a teachable technique called Social Cognition and Interaction Training. They tested SCIT in four preliminary studies, and in post-training evaluations patients showed significant improvement in deciphering social situations.

'Face-Blind' are Poor at Judging Facial Attractiveness

As a social species we rely on being able to recognise other people by looking at their faces. This is a skill most of us take for granted. So imagine if you couldn't recognise the faces of people close to you: your parents, your partner, your children. This condition is called prosopagnosia or face-blindness and about 2% of people are affected at some level. A new study shows that people with face-blindness have difficulties judging other people's attractiveness.

Eight face-blind participants were shown a series of anonymous male and female faces and asked to judge their attractiveness. Their ratings were compared to a control group who were not face-blind. The results showed that those with face-blindness only rated the more attractive slightly higher than average faces.

One of the researchers, Professor Jason Barton explains:
"While the beauty of a face might seem a more fitting topic for an artist, this work helps settle a debate by showing that areas that code the identity of a face also play a key role in the perception of beauty."

Face blindness has a variety of causes: some people have the condition from birth, others develop it after conditions such as strokes or brain.

Is beauty a curse?


However the condition is caused, its very existence prompts some interesting thoughts. If many more of us were face-blind and consequently had difficulty judging the attractivity of others, our culture would undergo some subtle shifts. Here's a few speculations I came up with:
  • We would be exposed to more talented actors, singers and other performers. Let's face it, the less attractive have a harder time getting their faces in front of our faces.
  • We would feel less pressure to be attractive. Upward comparisons are bad for our self-esteem. If Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie didn't look so super-hot in comparison, you'd feel better about yourself.
  • Plastic surgeons would go out of business.
  • Less attractive people would earn more money. We tend to infer a variety of positive qualities into those who are more attractive. This is bound to affect the hiring process. In the brave new world there'd be a level playing field.
  • People would be happier with their partners - upward comparisons with more attractive potential parters creates dissatisfaction. One study has found teachers who are surrounded by young fresh-faced students all day are less happy with their partners than others.
  • World peace resulting from more interracial/inter-cultural marriage. Obviously I'm pushing it but perhaps one of the barriers to world peace is simply that we don't like to partner up with people who don't conform to our particular cultural stereotype of attractivity. Take that away and BOOM! we all intermarry and so...world peace!

Strangely, only positive effects came to mind off the top of my head. Hence beauty might not be a curse for an individual, but it might well be a curse for our society. I'm sure you can come up with many more both positive and negative...

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Even Peas Have Brains, Here's Proof

Fun BBC mockumentary on the brain. Contains two ground-breaking experiments, the first involving inserting a pin into Nigel's 'broab' - the brain area that controls sneezing. The second has a brain in a jar counting nuts in another jar. Communication with the brain is via a bright red 1970s style telephone.



It's a bit too long but good fun for those who remember these sorts of dodgy educational films. For those too young, think of those educational films in The Simpsons that used to start: "Hi I'm Troy Mclure, you may remember me from such classic slasher movies as "Honey, I Shrunk My Brain," and "Nightmare on Cerebellum Street." (via Omni Brain)

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Why War? The Most Dangerous Animal by David Livingstone Smith

'The Most Dangerous Animal' of David Livingstone Smith's title is, of course, man. It is man's continued determination to band together in order to slay members of its own species that qualifies us for this most dubious of superlatives. The question this book tackles is simply: why? Smith employs a variety of academic disciplines to answer this question. It crosses territory from psychoanalysis to prehistoric archaeology and even microbiology, but the heart of his argument lies in evolutionary psychology.

In the first place Smith is keen to point out that when we talk of war, we are not talking of the sanitised version seen on our TV screens or at the cinema. He means the real thing - where it's the lucky ones that die quickly. Consequently the book is scattered with descriptions that are not for the weak-stomached. The point is well made though, that if war is so...well...obscene, then why do we do it?

Smith explains. As social primates we share the violent and xenophobic tendencies of our chimpanzee cousins. Like the chimpanzees and the rest of life on Earth, our brains are the result of evolution. Our brains give us the power to imagine great things. But most of our mental modules process information outside of our conscious awareness. We are, therefore, at once both supremely imaginative and yet cut off from our most basic cognitive processes.

Central to our war-like behaviour and built on the inaccessibility of our internal processes, is our ability to lie to ourselves. Self-deception is also vital to our ability to deceive others. If we can trick ourselves then we can do the same to others.

What do we do with this amazing capacity for imagination and self-deception built on a bedrock of inaccessible processes? Well, one thing we do is create morals. Put simply, morals are our ideas about the difference between right and wrong. Although some will (incorrectly) tell you otherwise, our morals are not constructed in a neutral fashion and are not of an absolute nature. Instead we demonstrate a number of important biases.

First we have a moral bias towards those who are similar to us. Most importantly we value the lives of those who are more like us to a greater extent than those who are less like us. That's why if a plane crash happens in a far away country, your local news tends to focus on, or at least mention, the people from your country, even if they only form a tiny minority of the victims.

The second moral bias is that we care less about people we don't directly come into contact with. Third is our bias towards those we are related to - if you have to choose between rescuing your two children or two strangers from a burning building, you'll leave the strangers to burn. Any other choice makes you deranged.

These three biases (actually from philosopher David Hume) dovetail beautifully with sociobiological theories. Effectively these find that ingratiating ourselves with others through apparently altruistic acts is vital to our own survival. As a result of these biases, morals are inevitably culture-specific and will inevitably favour the group of which we are a member.

What we might have so far is a reason to go to war, but it doesn't yet explain how humans actually go through with the bloody act itself. After all, could you actually kill another person?

For this Smith again calls on our powers of self-deception. Soldiers in battle have to rely on creating both psychological and physical distance from the enemy. In the age of modern technological warfare, physical distance is now much easier to accomplish. Bombers can loose their deadly loads without directly confronting the results of their actions.

Psychological distance is achieved by not looking too closely at the 'target'. The old adage of not opening fire until you can see the whites of their eyes is precisely the opposite of what war requires. Politicians and generals must dehumanise the enemy to make them easier to kill. The last thing the majority of soldiers want is to look into the eyes of those they are killing.

The strength of Smith's work is that the outlines of war do genuinely emerge by drawing on disparate academic disciplines. In particular his use of evolutionary psychology makes this book attractive to those interested in psychology.

Right from the start Smith is determined to make this an accessible book, which he does. No prior knowledge is required to follow his arguments, for example even the basic processes of evolution are outlined. The prose is also clear and straightforward. This is a fascinating response to a question we ignore at our peril: why war?

» Buy The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War

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Professor Richard Wiseman is King of Weird Psychology Studies

Ducks
Ducks are the funniest animals [Photo by Gaetan Lee]
The king of weird psychology studies here in the UK is Professor Richard Wiseman who has published books on magic, luck and psychics. Wiseman is the author of a new book, 'Quirkology: How We Discover the Big Truths in Small Things' which contains some interesting 'coctail party' psychology. Here's a taster of some of some of his work. Please make sure your cocktail glass's rim is liberally coated with salt.

The 'Q' test


This test is to see if you are a high 'self-monitorer'. What this means will become clearer when I explain the test. The idea is that you trace the capital letter 'Q' on your forehead. Then see which way the dash on the Q points. If you draw it down to your left - so that it is 'facing' outwards then you are a high self-monitorer. These people:
"By temperament, they tend to focus outwardly: they are concerned with how other people see them, enjoy being the center of attention and adapt their actions to suit the situation. They are also skilled at manipulating others, Wiseman says, which makes them good at deception."

Wiseman is spinning this so it sounds like you can tell whether people are good liars. Just because you're externally focussed, though, doesn't mean you will use your powers for evil, does it? Am I taking this too seriously? Perhaps.

Most successful chat-up lines


According to a study of 100 speed daters, the most successful strategy was to encourage the other person to talk about themselves but in a quirky way. So questions such as "If you were on Stars in Their Eyes, which celebrity would you be?" and "If you were a pizza topping, what would you be?" were highly rated. Amongst the least successful chat-up lines was: "I have a PhD in computing." Shocking. More from BBC News.

Most successful personal ads


Here's another dating one. For this study 40 women and 40 men wrote 25-word personal ads. Then participants were asked to circle those that appealed. The ads most often circled weren't necessarily the funniest, but rather the ones that had the best balance between a focus on the self and on the other. Those ads circled most frequently by participants were those that were 70% describing themselves and 30% about the type of person they were looking for. That's 17 words on yourself and 8 words on what you're looking for. Wiseman says it's like a 'golden ratio' for personal ads.

Right/left-brain test


To find out whether you're right-brain or left-brain dominant simply interlink your fingers naturally so that one thumb sits on top of the other. If the right finger is on top then you rely on your left-brain. This means your bias is towards logic, language and analysis. If your left finger was on top then you're more right-brained. This means you're more creative, visual and intuitive.

We're all walking 10% faster since 1994


People in 35 cities were observed walking 60 feet unencumbered by phones, shopping or companions. These results were compared with a previous study from 1994, showing the world has speeded up by 10%. You'll find the fastest walkers in the world are in Singapore. London came in at number 12.

If we're all walking faster then how to explain the rise in obesity? Perhaps to compensate everyone in the countryside is walking slower...?

The word's funniest joke


People all over the world posted their jokes to a website and then rated those of others. It turns out that one of the funniest animals in a joke is a duck, and not because of its rhyming capabilities. No, apparently it might have something to with the hard 'k' sound. This joke, while not the best, was highly rated:
Two ducks were sitting in a pond. One of the ducks said: 'Quack.' The other duck said: 'I was going to say that.'

So, here it is, the world's best joke:
A couple of New Jersey hunters are out in the woods when one of them falls to the ground. He doesn't seem to be breathing, his eyes are rolled back in his head. The other guy whips out his cell phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps to the operator: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator, in a calm soothing voice, says: "Just take it easy. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a shot is heard. The guy's voice comes back on the line. He says: "OK, now what?"

Wiseman explains it probably appeals to a wide cross-section of people which is why so many people voted for it.

Younger siblings are 'more amusing'


Thank God I didn't have to tell that joke out loud because I'm terrible at that. Maybe it's because I'm the eldest sibling? According to this study, Wiseman says that younger siblings may have to learn to be more creative when competing for parental attention. So, naturally they become risk-takers and precocious humorists. Older children are, apparently, more serious. I think my parent might have a word or two to say about that!

» Visit Professor Richard Wiseman's website and buy Quirkology: How We Discover the Big Truths in Small Things.

» Read more weird psychology studies.

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Why We Don't Help Others: Bystander Apathy

Hands Tied
Are your hands tied? [Photo by eqqman]
In the next nomination for the best social psychology study I need your help as I'm in two minds. On one hand this study, inspired by the highly publicised murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964, is mentioned in every textbook and often dubbed 'seminal'. On the other, I'm not sure how original it is. So I'll explain the study then ask you to vote on whether it should be included in my top ten social psychology studies. Get your critical faculties into gear!

The study investigates the 'bystander effect'. In social psychology this is the surprising finding that the mere presence of other people inhibits our own helping behaviours in an emergency. John Darley and Bibb Latane were inspired to investigate emergency helping behaviours after the murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964.

The newspaper report of the murder stated that 38 people had heard and seen the attack, which lasted an hour, yet they did nothing. Subsequent reports, however, suggest the number of witnesses was much lower and few, perhaps none, had witnessed the whole attack.

Epileptic seizure


Whatever the status of this incident the facts of the study are well-known. Participants were invited into the lab under the pretext they were taking part in a discussion about 'personal problems' (Darley & Latane, 1968). Participants were talking to a number of unknown others, varying from just one up to four in each of the experimental trials.

Because of the sensitive nature of the discussion they were told the discussion would take place over an intercom. In fact this was just a ruse to ensure the participants couldn't physically see the other people they were talking to.

During the discussion one member of the group would suddenly appear to be having an epileptic seizure. Here is the script:
"I-er-um-I think I-I need-er-if-if could-er-er-somebody er-er-er-er-er-er-er give me a little-er-give me a little help here because-er-I-er-I'm-er-erh-h-having a-a-a real problem-er-right now and I-er-if somebody could help me out it would-it would-er-er s-s-sure be-sure be good . . . because-there-er-er-a cause I-er-I-uh-I've got a-a one of the-er-sei er-er-things coming on and-and-and I could really-er-use some help so if somebody would-er-give me a little h-help-uh-er-er-er-er-er c-could somebody-er-er-help-er-uh-uh-uh (choking sounds). . . . I'm gonna die-er-er-I'm . . . gonna die-er-help-er-er-seizure-er-[chokes, then quiet]."

The experimenters then measured how long it took for participants to go the person's aid. They clearly found that the more people were involved in the group discussion, the slower participants were to respond to the apparent emergency. It seems that the presence of others inhibits people's helping behaviours.

Don't you care?


Some participants made no move to intervene in the apparent emergency. What was going on? Darley and Latane (1968) report that those who did not act were far from uncaring about the seizure victim. Quite the reverse in fact, compared to those who did report the emergency, they appeared to be in a more heightened state of arousal. Many were sweating, had trembling hands and looked to be in considerable discomfort.

The non-helpers appeared to be caught in a double bind that locked them up. One part of them felt shame and guilt for not helping. Another part of them didn't want to expose themselves to embarrassment or to ruin the experiment which, they had been told depended on each conversant remaining anonymous from the others.

More than Milgram?


It's here that I wonder about the originality of the finding. Certainly Milgram's study of obedience casts a long shadow over this experiment. Similar to the Milgram situation, participants here were put under pressure to continue with the experiment by authority figures (the psychologists). Again, someone was suffering discomfort and participants felt conflicted about whether or not to intervene. In this case in an epileptic seizure, in Milgram's study, it was the electrical shocks participants themselves were administering.

This study's originality comes from the finding that the more people are present, the longer participants take to help. And this is certainly an important insight in social psychological terms. Because of the way the experiment was set up participants had no way of knowing how the other people who heard the seizure had responded. This meant that the only variable was how many other people they knew to be present.

What do you think?


So, do you think this study should be in the top 10 social psychology studies? To help you make up your mind have a look at the full report of the study [PDF]. For those of you not familiar with reading psychology reports, skip down to the part labelled 'Procedure' which has a clear, detailed description of what participants actually experienced. Then vote below...



» Read on for the best social psychology studies

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Reference

Darley, J. M., & Latane, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: diffusion of responsibility. J Pers Soc Psychol, 8(4), 377-83.

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How and Why We Lie to Ourselves: Cognitive Dissonance

Serious Face
[Photo by Darwin Bell]
A classic 1959 social psychology experiment demonstrates how and why we lie to ourselves. Understanding this experiment sheds a brilliant light on the dark world of our inner motivations.

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 his classic work '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.

» You can read Festinger and Carlsmith's entire report at Classics in the History of Psychology.

» Read on for the best social psychology studies

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Reference

Festinger, L., & Carlsmith, J. (1959). Cognitive consequences of forced compliance. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 58, 203-10.

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Big Picture Questions for Humanity from 'Overcoming Bias'

Continuing my search for intelligent life in the blogosphere, I wanted to introduce you to a blog I've belatedly realised is excellent. 'Overcoming Bias' is from Oxford University's 'Future of Humanity Institute' whose mission statement says they are:
"...pursu[ing the] big picture questions for humanity. We study how anticipated technological developments may affect the human condition in fundamental ways, and how we can better understand, evaluate, and respond to radical change."

Good stuff. A couple of posts I'd recommend you take a look at. Firstly this one on thinking outside the box which has a great opening, and the rest isn't bad either:
"Whenever someone exhorts you to "think outside the box", they usually, for your convenience, point out exactly where "outside the box" is located. Isn't it funny how nonconformists all dress the same..."

And I love this idea of 'cached thoughts':
"It's frustrating, talking to good and decent folk - people who would never in a thousand years spontaneously think of wiping out the human species - raising the topic of existential risk, and hearing them say, "Well, maybe the human species doesn't deserve to survive." They would never in a thousand years shoot their own child, who is a part of the human species, but the brain completes the pattern.

What patterns are being completed, inside your mind, that you never chose to be there?"

I feel I should apologise for not having mentioned this before.

Now my duty is discharged.

Accessible Science Blogging Outside Psychology

In the spirit of open-minded exploration I have been looking around at blogs outside psychology to see what's going on. As I mentioned earlier in the week I'm particularly interested in blogs on physics and sociology - two fine bedfellows! Nothing on sociology yet but here's a couple of physics blogs and one where the professors 'rate' their students, letting out all that bottled up tension.


String theory - terrible science?
Ever since school days I've harboured a fascination for the deeply uncool activity of physics. I never could stomach the maths but I enjoyed turning over the concepts in my mind. So I had a poke around for any physics blogs accessible to the layperson. Not much luck I'm afraid. One blog I came across which showed some promise - in that it's about string theory, which I've heard of - is 'Not Even Wrong' written by Columbia mathematician Peter Woit.

The title of the blog, and accompanying book, comes from the theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli's put down for bad science. If he considered an idea scientifically untestable, he would say it was 'not even wrong'. Woit uses this quote in attacking string theory - a set of theories attempting to marry all the natural forces into one Grand Unified Theory. He believes string theory is just that: scientifically untestable and therefore 'not even wrong'.


Cocktail Party Physics
Now this title is more my physics style. Written by Jennifer Ouellette and her alter-ego/avatar Jen-Luc Piquant, I've already come across a stack of posts here that I could easily understand, such as this one describing the physics of the recent Nobel Prize winners. It's not surprise this blog is well-written as Jennifer is also the published author of two books describing physics to the masses.


What do the professors really think of their students?
At colleges and universities across the land there's one time of year that the blog Rate Your Students truly dreads: student evaluations. Right from their early days Rate Your Students have been expressing their frustration at this useless exercise. To get their own back, the understandably anonymous blogging professors have been venting their collective spleens about their own students. These take the form of messages to particular students including 'the asshole' and 'the spitter'.

Some of these posts are pretty dark. But fair play to the profs, they don't reserve their scorn for their students, it is also turned inwards. Have a poke around, there's plenty of well-written bile to enjoy.

More social psychology to come!


Next week brings more entries for the greatest social psychology studies of all time to add to the three nominations already in for Sherif, Zimbardo and, of course, the mighty Milgram. If you've got any particular studies you'd like to lobby for then I'm still open to representations! Comment away...

Are You Just Shy or Do You Have a Social Phobia?

Shy Woman
[Photo by gre]
There's a 50% chance that you consider yourself shy. But is this 'just' shyness or is it a mental disorder? Since 1980 the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders used by psychiatrists in diagnosis has included the categories of 'social phobia' and 'social anxiety disorder'. This suggests that what would previously have been your particular way of being, has become a 'disorder' with a biological cause which needs some medication...

No one would dispute the fact that shyness is on a continuum, but in his new book, 'Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness', Christopher Lane argues that the bar has been set way too low:
The problem, Lane argues, is that DSM-defined symptoms of impairment in 1980 included fear of eating alone in restaurants, concern about hand trembling while writing checks, fear of public speaking and avoidance of public restrooms.

By 1987 the DSM had removed the key phrase "a compelling desire to avoid," requiring instead only "marked distress," and signs of that could include concern about saying the wrong thing. "Impairment became something largely in the eye of the beholder, and anticipated embarrassment was enough to meet the diagnostic threshold," says Lane.

"That's a ridiculous way to assess a serious mental disorder, with implications for the way we also view childhood traits and development," Lane adds. "But that didn't stop SAD from becoming what Psychology Today dubbed 'the disorder of the 1990s.'"

Privately shy


Where, though, are all these shy people hiding and what causes it? Bernardo Carducci, Director of the Shyness Research Institute and Phillip Zimbardo explain:
  • Many people are shy without appearing ill-at-ease. Only a small percentage (15-20%) are visibly shy to the casual observer.
  • Shyness is mostly the result of parenting and life experiences although it does have a small genetic component.
  • Levels of shyness vary across cultures with Israelis being the least shy and those from Japan and Taiwan being the most shy.
  • Levels of shyness in the US have increased by about 10% to the current figure of 50% in the last three decades.
  • Some people are shy extroverts - US talk-show host David Letterman is a good example of someone who has learned to 'act' extroverted.


Costs of shyness


Shy people are at risk of losing out in many situations:
  • Shy children may self-select solitary activities which fail to boost their social skills.
  • Shy children are the easiest targets for bullies at school as they are usually highly reactive.
  • Shyness leads to loneliness. Loneliness isn't good for anyone.
  • Shyness leads to a lack of social support. We all need someone to give us a bit of perspective. Without it we can easily hold onto unrealistic beliefs about ourselves and others.
  • Shy people find it difficult to live in the present in social situations - they will tend to hesitate while they review what are perceived as past failures.


Carducci and Zimbardo only mention one ray of hope for the shy: they make good listeners. It's not much, though, set against this litany of disadvantages.

Overcoming shyness


John Wesley, who explains his shyness is a major weakness, has some useful suggestions about how to overcome shyness:
  • 'It's Not You It's Them' - Realising that the perceived slights from others shouldn't be taken personally.
  • 'Other People Aren't So Different' - Well now you know 50% of people consider themselves shy - that's a lot of people who feel the same as you.
  • 'Realizing Self-Worth' - Get used to sharing your thoughts with others by forcing yourself to speak up.
  • 'The Duty to Contribute' - Shyness can limit your own growth and your ability to contribute.

These are useful suggestions and most of them involve what shyness expert Dr Carducci sees as the central issue (Carducci, 2000). For the shy, he argues, the key is to become more other-directed.

A group identified in the research as the 'successfully shy' recognise their own shyness and take particular steps to combat it. They plan ahead for gaps in the conversation, they arrive early to parties to get the lie of the land, they rehearse conversational opening gambits. They use any trick to move their focus of attention from themselves and their own self-consciousness and outwards to the other people.

Dr Carducci argues that what our society needs is not less shy people but actually more 'successfully shy' people. I couldn't agree more.

Are you shy?


If you consider yourself shy do you agree with the research findings discussed above. If not, what is your experience of shyness? What strategies do you use to combat your shyness?

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Reference

Carducci, B. (2000). Shyness: The New Solution. Psychology Today, 33(1), 38-40.

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Wealth Psychologists: Money is a Problem

Folded Dollar
[Photo by EricGjerde]
It's so hard to be rich nowadays that people need special help from 'wealth psychologists'. Apparently one of the problems frequently faced by the rich is guilt. Along with this there's the question of how to raise kids responsibly when almost anything is affordable. Financial management firms are now hiring their own in-house psychologists to help those rolling in piles of filthy lucre.

Reading this tale of woe I'm sure many of you are on the verge of tears on behalf of the wealthy. If so you better not read on as it may be too upsetting. According to 'Wealth Legacy Group' some of the problems faced by the wealthy are:
  • Fear of being loved for their money rather than themselves.
  • Worry about how money will affect their level of intimacy in personal relationships.
  • Being nervous when others ask for a loan.

In all seriousness, of course, just having money doesn't mean psychological problems evaporate. What it does mean is the wealthy have the cash to hire the services of psychologists, and so a form of 'boutique' psychologist is born.

Inverting the problems above, though, produces a more serious list of complaints:
  • Fear of being hated for being poor.
  • Worry about how money will affect levels of intimacy in personal relationships.
  • Being nervous about asking for a loan.

Now there's a list that's easier to be sympathetic with.

Self-sufficiency


Either way money is a problem. Psychological research into money has found that when people are reminded about money they act in a more self-sufficient way (Vohs, Mead & Goode, 2006). They are then more likely to perform 'socially insensitive' actions, cutting themselves off from others.

Perhaps this is the greatest problem faced by people thinking about money, whether they are rich or poor: that they separate themselves from others through thinking selfishly. Even the super-rich need friends, or in the psychological terminology 'social support', and without it are likely to become miserable. A continuing focus on money serves only to cut us off from others.

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Reference

Vohs, K. D., Mead, N. L., & Goode, M. R. (2006). The Psychological Consequences of Money. Science, 314(5802), 1154-1156. (Abstract)

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It's 'Psychology Day' at the United Nations & World Mental Health Day

Did you know that today is the United Nations' official 'psychology day'? No, neither did I until just now. According to the official press release this event is all about making UN officials aware of what psychologists have to offer. Two panels will discuss psychology in relation 'Peace and Conflict Resolution' and 'Human Rights and the World of Work'.

Update: Oh, and I see it's World Mental Health Day as well (via Providentia and Mad World).

Beautiful Linky Goodness

Here are some interesting articles I've been reading lately. Before you skip on to them I want to ask you a quick question. What other sciencey blogs outside of psychology do you read that are easily accessible to the educated? Please post suggestions in the comments. I'm particularly interested in any physics, philosophy or sociology blogs. If anyone can find a blog that covers all three...well, I'll probably have a heart attack!


Marital Spats, Taken to Heart (New York Times)
"Arguing is an inevitable part of married life. But now researchers are putting the marital spat under the microscope to see if the way you fight with your spouse can affect your health."

Tightwads, Spendthrifts, and Everyone Else (Neuromarketing)
"Marketers love to segment their potential customers, and now there's a new way to do it: spendthrifts, tightwads, and everyone else. Research at Carnegie Mellon University shows that 40% of consumers can be classified as either spendthrifts or tightwads, while 60% fall into a middle category without strong tendencies in either direction."

Computer-Based Therapy Options Expanding (Anxiety, Addiction and Depression Treatments)
"Anonymity and efficiency have driven thousands of Britons to their keyboards for electronic therapy to treat their potentially crippling phobias and other mental illnesses."

Health and Psychology Lecture Content (PsychSplash)
"An article over at Techcrunch about how the University of California Berkeley has started uploading video recordings of course lectures on to YouTube (the full listing can be obtained here) got me thinking about where you can find online lecture content. Thankfully a number of responses to the TechCrunch article pointed out some additional web-based video resources."

Why Are So Many Americans in Prison? (Boston Review)
"The early 1990s were the age of drive-by shootings, drug deals gone bad, crack cocaine, and gangsta rap. Between 1960 and 1990, the annual number of murders in New Haven rose from six to 31, the number of rapes from four to 168, the number of robberies from 16 to 1,784 - all this while the city's population declined by 14 percent."

Avoid Email Miscommunication

Woman emailing
[Photo by larskflem]
The tone of an email is incredibly easy to misinterpret, explains emotional intelligence expert Daniel Goleman, writing in the New York Times. The main problem is there is no channel to convey our emotion - other than emoticons which are notoriously crude.

We've all done it: written something that's meant to be a joke in an email and then received a cold response when the message is misunderstood. Or received an email we can't make head nor tail of. Is this a joke or are they being serious?

Causes of miscommunication


Common email misperceptions include:
  • Positive emails are reinterpreted as neutral while neutral emails become negative.
  • Recipients rate jokes as less funny than the person who sent them.
  • Emailers overestimate how effectively they can communicate feelings.
  • Recipients also overestimate how well they can understand feelings.
  • Small initial differences between email correspondents can easily grow, sometimes causing the breakdown of relationships.

The cause of these misperceptions is the gap between how we feel when we are writing and the ambiguous meaning of the actual words on the screen. As we are writing we 'hear' the emotional content of an email, but forget there's no way to telepathically send this emotional content to the recipient. Researchers suggest we do this because people are naturally egocentric, we assume that others understand how we are feeling when often they don't.

Avoiding miscommunication


The solutions are pretty simple, but that doesn't make them any less important:
  • We're less likely to misunderstand someone we know well. If you need to be on someone's wavelength, get to know them face-to-face or on the phone. This can create a buffer of good feeling, then email exchanges will be smoother.
  • Think about emails from the recipients perspective.
  • Take time to write an effective email. Because of the medium it's easy to knock out short messages that can be interpreted as rude.

Is email dying?


Perhaps these problems will soon be a thing of the past as younger generations adopt newer communication technologies. US studies of teen internet habits (PDF, 468K) are starting to show a clear preference for instant messaging and text messaging. The bad news is that many youngsters see email as 'for old people'.

Of course reports of email's demise are seriously mistaken. But it's useful to remember that when emailing anyone under the age of 25, there's a good chance of a catastrophic communication failure - they might simply never read it.

» The psychology of email.

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"Silliest" Psychology Research

Toilet Paper
[Photo by Olivander]
Studies on the physics of wrinkled sheets and the side-effects of sword swallowing were amongst the winners at the 2007 Ig Nobel awards. Prizes are awarded for research that makes you: "laugh and then think". Unfortunately (or fortunately) no wins this year for psychologists, but psychological research has produced pretty weird winners in previous years. Here's the countdown of the 'silliest' research in psychology as judged by the Ig Nobel awards over the past 16 years.

I include my own silliness rating for each study on a five-point Likert scale:

* = not very silly at all.
***** = jolly silly.

Missing years had no winners in the psychology category.

1993 - Alien abductions are real


Professor John E. Mack was a Harvard psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who said people who claimed to have been abducted by aliens were not crazy. Along with David M. Jacobs of Temple University, he thought the experience of abductees didn't fit with either psychological or psychiatric models. In fact he believed the abduction stories were true and argued their purpose was the production of children.

***** - Sorry Professor, full marks for this one, very silly.


1994 - Heavy fines for spitting out gum


The 1994 winner was Lee Kuan Yew, the Prime Minister of Singapore, who carried out a 30-year study into the effects of punishing the citizens of Singapore for chewing or spitting out gum or feeding the pigeons. Stiff fines for both littering and spitting have succeeded in making Singaporeans some of the most litter-conscious citizens in the world.

* What on Earth is silly about this one?


1995 - Art loving pigeons


Continuing the flying rat theme, in 1995 Shigeru Watanabe, Junko Sakamoto, and Masumi Wakita, of Keio University won the Ig Nobel for teaching pigeons to discriminate between the paintings of Monet and Picasso. When the paintings were upside down, however, they could still spot Picasso's paintings but not Monet's.

*** - moderately silly, but I'm sure they had they're reasons. Please tell me they had their reasons!


2000 - Incompetent people don't know they're incompetent


After the pigeon bonanza, psychology took a back-seat at the Ig Nobels until 2000. Then Justin Kruger and David Dunning of Cornell University regained the limelight with their study of incompetent people (PDF, 468k). It seems the incompetent suffer a dual burden: not only are they bereft of talent, they also don't know they are bereft of talent. Their gross over-estimation of their talents then leads them to make ever more stupid decisions. For evidence of this, just turn on your TV to pretty much any channel.

Entertainingly, the study also found that explaining their incompetence to participants actually improved decision-making considerably. So there's a great rationalisation for telling stupid people how stupid they are. Great.

** - a bit silly but redeems itself with the final insight.


2001 - Gleeful children


This has got to be the sweetest study ever undertaken. Lawrence W. Sherman of Miami University carried out an ecological study of glee (abstract) in small groups of preschool children. Even the definition of glee makes me feel happy: "...joyful screaming, laughing, and intense physical acts which occurred in simultaneous bursts or which spread in a contagious fashion from one child to another."

Not only did Sherman find that outbreaks of glee amongst children tended not to disrupt the class, he also found that the optimum number of glee participants was between 7 and 9. Super.

* - I don't care what anyone says, I love this study. Not at all silly.


2003 - Voters' uniquely simple decision-making


Gian Vittorio Caprara and colleagues found that when judging which politician to vote for, people only used two dimensions: trustworthiness and energy levels. I suggested this explains why Tony Blair spent the period before the last election running around and talking to 'ordinary' people.

**** - Very silly.


2004 - Inattentional blindness


I'll tell you nothing about this one except that it's the work of Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris. If you know the experiment where you count the passes of a basketball, skip the video, otherwise click play and concentrate...



** - I fell for this so I'm still annoyed. Any other unbiased person would probably give this a 1-star rating as it's pretty sensible.


Vote now!


So there it is. Apparently the 'silliest' research in psychology. Or is it? What do you think?

Which is the "silliest" psychology research?


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The Truman Show Experiment

Jim Carrey
I recently contributed to The BPS Research Digest for a series of articles on the best psychology experiment that's