Category: Cognitive Psychology

The ‘illusion of control’ is the finding in psychology that people tend to overestimate their perceived control over events in their lives.

The illusion of control is a bias in a positive direction, just like the above-average effect or the optimism bias, that help us feel better about life, even if it is at the cost of truth.

The illusion of control is well documented and has been tested over-and-over in lots of different studies over four decades.

Illusion of control examples

Here’s an example of the illusion of control: you choose an apple which tastes delicious.

You assume you are very skilled at choosing apples (when in fact the whole batch happens to be good today).

Another example of the illusion of control: you enter the lottery and win millions.

You assume that this is (partly) a result of how good your lucky numbers are.

In fact, lotteries are totally random so you can’t influence them with the numbers you choose.

Although most of us know and accept this, we still harbour an inkling that maybe it does matter which numbers we choose.

Magical thinking

Sometimes the illusion of control manifests as magical thinking.

In one study participants watched another person try to shoot a miniature basketball through a hoop (Pronin et al., 2006).

When participants willed the player to make the shot, and they did, they felt it was partly down to them, even though they couldn’t possibly be having any effect.

It’s like pedestrians in New York who still press the button to get the lights to change, despite the fact they do nothing.

Since the late 80s all the traffic signals have been controlled by computer, but the city won’t pay to have the buttons removed.

It’s probably just as well: they help boost people’s illusion of control.

We feel better when we can do something that feels like it might have an effect (even if it doesn’t).

Is the illusion of control beneficial?

It’s sometimes argued that the illusion of control is beneficial because it can encourage people to take responsibility.

It’s like when a person is diagnosed with an illness; they want to take control through starting medication or changing their diet or other aspect of their lifestyle.

Similarly, studies find that hospital patients who are able to administer their own painkillers typically give themselves lower doses than those who have them prescribed by doctors, but they experience no more pain.

Feeling in control can also urge us on to do things when the chances of success are low.

Would you apply for that job if you knew how little control you had over the decision?

No.

But if you never apply for any jobs, you can’t get them.

So we pump ourselves up, polish our résumé and practice our interview technique.

But the illusion of control isn’t all roses.

Illusion of control in financial markets

To return to the discussion of lotteries, we can see the illusion of control operating in the financial markets.

Traders often feel they have more control over the market than they really do.

Indeed one study has shown that the more traders think they are in control, the worse their actual performance (O’Creevy & Nicholson, 2010).

A word of caution there for those who don’t respect the forces of randomness.

More generally, some argue that the illusion of control stops us learning from our mistakes and makes us insensitive to feedback.

When you feel you’re in charge, you are more likely to ignore the warning signals from the environment that things are not under your control.

Indeed an experiment has shown that the more power you feel, the stronger the illusion of control becomes (Fast et al., 2009).

Illusion of futility?

So far, so orthodox.

What’s fascinating is the idea that the illusion of control itself may be an illusion, or at least only part of the story.

What if the illusion of having control depends heavily on how much control we actually have?

After all, we’re not always totally out-of-the-loop like the experiments above suggest.

Sometimes we have a lot of control over the outcomes in our life.

This has been recently tested out in a series of experiments by (Gino et al., 2011).

What they found was that the illusion of control flips around when control over a situation is really high.

When participants in their studies actually had plenty of control, suddenly they were more likely to underestimate it.

This is a pretty serious challenge to the illusion of control.

If backed up by other studies, it reverses the idea that the illusion of control is usually beneficial.

Now we’re in a world where sometimes the illusion is keeping us back.

For example, applying for more jobs increases the chance of getting one, exercise does make you more healthy, buying a new car does make you poorer.

All these are areas in which we have high levels of control but which we may well be assuming we don’t.

This effect will have to be renamed the illusion of futility.

In other words: when you have high control, you underestimate how much what you do really matters.

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Aphantasia is when people ‘see’ nothing at all when they try to imagine pictures in their minds.

Imagine a tree sitting atop a hill and on that tree, a small yellow bird.

What do you see in your mind’s eye?

About 95 percent of people can visualise something, varying in detail from vivid to vague, depending on their natural abilities.

However, up to 5 percent of people — as many as 1-in-20 — ‘sees’ nothing at all.

They have ‘aphantasia’: a lack of all mental imagery.

While they might be able to imagine the sound of the wind or the feeling of grass between their toes, there is no accompanying image.

What it means to be aphantasic is examined in research that surveyed 267 people with the condition.

Mr Alexei Dawes, the study’s first author, said:

“Aphantasia challenges some of our most basic assumptions about the human mind.

Most of us assume visual imagery is something everyone has, something fundamental to the way we see and move through the world.

But what does having a ‘blind mind’ mean for the mental journeys we take every day when we imagine, remember, feel and dream?”

The researchers compared the experience of aphantasics with 400 people who have mental imagery.

Mr Dawes said:

“We found that aphantasia isn’t just associated with absent visual imagery, but also with a widespread pattern of changes to other important cognitive processes.

People with aphantasia reported a reduced ability to remember the past, imagine the future, and even dream.”

People were asked to recall memories and indicate how vivid their mental imagery was for that moment.

People with aphantasia tended to agree with the statement: “No image at all, I only ‘know’ that I am recalling the memory.”

Those with strong mental imagery agreed with the statement: “Perfectly clear and as vivid as normal vision.”

Mr Dawes explained the results:

“Our data revealed an extended cognitive ‘fingerprint’ of aphantasia characterised by changes to imagery, memory, and dreaming.

We’re only just starting to learn how radically different the internal worlds of those without imagery are.”

Among the aphantasics, one-quarter also had difficulties imagining touch, sound, motion, smell, taste and emotion.

Aphantasics also dream less, which makes sense, considering how important visual imagery is to dreaming.

Professor Joel Pearson, study co-author, said:

“Aphantasics reported dreaming less often, and the dreams they do report seem to be less vivid and lower in sensory detail.

This suggests that any cognitive function involving a sensory visual component—be it voluntary or involuntary—is likely to be reduced in aphantasia.”

Aphantasics find it harder to recall memories and they are, overall, less vivid.

Mr Dawes said:

“Our work is the first to show that aphantasic individuals also show a reduced ability to remember the past and prospect into the future.

This suggests that visual imagery might play a key role in memory processes.”

What aphantasia feel like

Aphantasia can be an isolating experience for some, researchers have found (Zeman et al., 2015).

Tom Ebeyer, 25, from Ontario, Canada, who has aphantasia, didn’t discover he lacked a common mental ability until the age of 21:

“It had a serious emotional impact.

I began to feel isolated — unable to do something so central to the average human experience.

The ability to recall memories and experiences, the smell of flowers or the sound of a loved one’s voice; before I discovered that recalling these things was humanly possible, I wasn’t even aware of what I was missing out on.

The realisation did help me to understand why I am a slow at reading text, and why I perform poorly on memorisation tests, despite my best efforts.”

All of Mr Ebeyer’s senses are affected.

He can’t summon up any smell, emotion, sound, texture or taste.

Mr Ebeyer said:

“After the passing of my mother, I was extremely distraught in that I could not reminisce on the memories we had together.

I can remember factually the things we did together, but never an image.

After seven years, I hardly remember her.

To have the condition researched and defined brings me great pleasure.

Not only do I now have an official title to refer to the condition while discussing it with my peers, but the knowledge that professionals are recognising its reality gives me hope that further understanding is still to come.”

Professor Adam Zeman, the study’s first author, said:

“This intriguing variation in human experience has received little attention.

Our participants mostly have some first-hand knowledge of imagery through their dreams: our study revealed an interesting dissociation between voluntary imagery, which is absent or much reduced in these individuals, and involuntary imagery, for example in dreams, which is usually preserved.”

The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports (Dawes et al., 2020).

The psychology of money: including post-purchase rationalisation, the relativity trap, rosy retrospection and the restraint bias.

We all make mistakes with money, some more than others.

And in this economy, who needs it?

But many of these mistakes are avoidable if we can understand how we think about money.

Here are 10 biases that psychological research has shown affect our judgement…and how to avoid them.

1. Status quo bias

One of the biggest reason people lose out financially is they stick with what they know, despite much better options being available.

We tend to choose the same things we chose before.

And we continue to do this even when better options are available, whether it’s goods or services.

Research on investment decisions shows this bias (e.g. Samuelson & Zeckhauser, 1988).

People stick to the same old pension plans, stocks and shares, even though there are better options available.

It’s hard to change because it involves more effort and we want to avoid regretting our decision.

But there is better value out there if you’re prepared to look.

2. Post-purchase rationalisation

After we buy something that’s not right, we convince ourselves it is right.

Most people refuse to accept they’ve made a mistake, especially with a big purchase.

Marketers know this, so they try to encourage part-ownership first, using things like money-back guarantees.

Once you’ve made a decision, you convince yourself it was the right one (see: cognitive dissonance), and also start to value it more because you own it (e.g. Cohen et al., 1970).

Fight it! If the goods or services aren’t right, return them.

Most country’s legal systems incorporate a cooling off period, so don’t rationalise, return it!

3. Relativity trap

We think about prices relatively and businesses know this.

That’s why recommended retail prices are set high, then discounted.

Some expensive options on restaurant menus are there only to make the regular meals look reasonable in comparison.

The relativity trap is also called the anchoring effect.

One price acts like an anchor on our thinking.

It’s easy to fall for, but also easy to surmount by making comparisons they don’t want you to make (read more about the relativity trap).

Use price comparison websites.

And try comparing across categories of goods.

Is an iPad really worth a month’s groceries or three years of cinema trips or a new set of clothes?

4. Ownership effect

We value things more when we own them.

So when it comes to selling our stuff, we tend to set the price too high.

It’s why you sometimes see second-hand goods advertised at ridiculous prices.

Unlike professionals, amateur sellers develop an emotional attachment to their possessions (read the research on 6 quirks of ownership).

It also works the other way. When bidding on eBay, it’s possible to feel you already partly own something before you actually buy it.

So you end up paying above the market value.

When buying or selling you have to try and be dispassionate.

Be aware that unless you set limits, your unconscious may take over.

5. Present bias

In general humans prefer to get the pleasure right now, and leave the pain for later.

Economists call this hyperbolic discounting.

In a study by Read and van Leeuwen (1998), when making food choices for next week, 74 percent of participants chose fruit.

But when deciding for today, 70 percent chose chocolate.

That’s humans for you: chocolate today, fruit next week.

The same is true of money. Marketers know we are suckers for getting discounts right now, so they hide the pain for later on (think mobile phone deals). Unfortunately buy now, pay later offers are often very bad deals.

One way to get around this is to think about your future self when making a purchasing decision.

Imagine how ‘future you’ will see the decisions of ‘present you’.

If ‘future you’ wouldn’t like it, don’t do it.

6. Fear of losses

People tend to sell things when they go up in price, but hold on to them when they go down.

It’s one demonstration of our natural desire to avoid losses.

This effect has been seen in a number of studies of stock-market trading (e.g. Weber & Camerer, 1998).

The fact that prices are falling, though, is a big clue.

If you can fight the fear of losing, in the end it could leave you better off.

7. Familiarity bias

Advertising works partly because we like what we know, even if we only vaguely know it.

We even choose familiar things when there are clear signals that it’s not the best option (Richter & Spath, 2006).

Always check if you’re buying something for the right reasons.

Mere familiarity means the advertisers are winning.

Smaller companies that can’t or won’t afford pricey TV commercials often provide better products and services.

8. Rosy retrospection

We tend to remember our decisions as better than they really were.

This is a problem when we come to make similar decisions again.

We have a bias towards thinking our previous decision was a good one; it could be the holiday, house or car you chose (e.g. Mitchell & Thompson, 1994).

That’s partly why we end up making the same financial mistakes again: we forget we made the same mistake before.

Before making an important financial decision, try to dredge up the real outcomes of previous decisions.

Only without the rose-tinted spectacles can we avoid repeating our mistakes.

9. Free!

The word ‘free’ has a magical hold on us and marketers know it.

Behavioural economics research shows we sometimes take a worse deal overall just to get something for free.

Watch out if you are offered something for ‘free’ as sometimes the deal is not that good.

10. Restraint bias

Many mistakes with money result from a lack of self-control.

We think we’ll control ourselves, but, when faced with temptation, we can’t.

Studies like Nordgren et al., (2009) show people are woefully optimistic in predicting their self-control.

So, don’t put yourself in the situation of being tempted.

This is why cutting up credit cards is often recommended.

We’re mostly weaker than we think, so we shouldn’t give ourselves the opportunity.

Pareidolia is seeing meaning in an object, pattern or shape when there is none.

Face pareidolia is the common experience of seeing faces in the moon, in clouds or even in a lake seen from space.

It is a type of pareidolia, which is seeing meaning in an object, pattern or shape when there is none.

Face pareidolia is so strong that even vague patterns of shadows can appear to contain faces, such as the pictures of the region of Mars called Cydonia (see below).

While seeing faces in all kinds of objects was once thought a sign of psychosis or a type of disorder, nowadays pareidolia is viewed as a normal part of human experience.

The so-called ‘face on Mars’

Face pareidolia

The reason for face pareidolia is that the brain interprets illusory faces using the same cognitive processes that identify real human faces.

In other words, the brain is automatically ‘looking’ for faces everywhere.

Professor David Alais, the study’s first author, said:

“From an evolutionary perspective, it seems that the benefit of never missing a face far outweighs the errors where inanimate objects are seen as faces.

There is a great benefit in detecting faces quickly, but the system plays ‘fast and loose’ by applying a crude template of two eyes over a nose and mouth.

Lots of things can satisfy that template and thus trigger a face detection response.”

Face recognition is so important to human beings that we process faces in just a few hundreds of milliseconds.

Professor Alais said:

“We know these objects are not truly faces, yet the perception of a face lingers.

We end up with something strange: a parallel experience that it is both a compelling face and an object.

Two things at once.

The first impression of a face does not give way to the second perception of an object.”

Lake in the Vladimir oblast, Russia

Pareidolia and facial expressions

Our brains have specialised ‘face recognition’ circuits, which non-faces also get processed by automatically.

That is why we also see facial expressions in inanimate objects.

And, as social creatures, we look for meaning in those faces.

The clouds, moon, Mars or a rock do not just conceal a human face, but we also see happiness, sadness or laughter in them as well, Professor Alais said:

“Pareidolia faces are not discarded as false detections but undergo facial expression analysis in the same way as real faces.

We need to read the identity of the face and discern its expression.

Are they a friend or a foe? Are they happy, sad, angry, pained?”

That is why the lake above looks like it is not just a face, but a face that is off its face.

A series of experiments conducted by Professor Alais and colleagues revealed that pareidolia goes further: imagined faces are even processed in the same biased way as real faces.

In a Tinder-like situation of judging one face after another, our assessment of one face is influenced by the last.

The same is true of inanimate objects.

Professor Alais said:

“When objects look compellingly face-like, it is more than an interpretation: they really are driving your brain’s face detection network.

And that scowl, or smile; that’s your brain’s facial expression system at work.

For the brain, fake or real, faces are all processed the same way.”

The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (Alais et al., 2021).

Just noticeable difference was investigated by a 19th century psychologist called Gustav Fechner, who perfected the technique.

Just noticeable difference in psychology is the amount a sensation, like weight, has to be changed in order to be noticeable.

For example, imagine you have an orange in each hand, but one is slightly heavier than the other.

How small does the difference in weight between the oranges have to be before you can notice?

That is just noticeable difference.

Just noticeable difference is a part of an area of psychology called psychophysics, which is the scientific study of how our sensations and perceptions are affected by stimuli.

Development of just noticeable difference

Just noticeable difference or the difference threshold was first described by the physiologist Ernst Weber.

It was expanded on by Gustav Fechner, a physicist turned proto-psychologist.

It was Fechner who, with the publication of his masterwork Elements of Psychophysics in 1860, is often credited with helping to found experimental psychology (Fechner, 1860).

Strange, really, for a man who set out to prove plants have souls.

Psychophysics might have a name that sounds exciting, but its experimental methods are pretty dull.

Just noticeable difference examples

What Fechner was interested in was measurement, measuring the relationship between a stimulus and the resulting sensation.

He did this using a variety of experimental methods.

Typically, though, he would give a participant two weights and ask them which they thought was heavier.

Then he would repeat this procedure over and over and over again until he was satisfied he had enough measurements.

In one such experiment he took 24,576 measurements.

Fechner wanted to prove there was a mathematical relationship between stimulus and sensation.

In doing this he perfected the technique of measuring ‘just noticeable difference’ gained from his mentor, Ernst Weber.

This is done by decreasing the differences between different stimuli – say the weight of two balls – until the participant can no longer tell them apart.

It is not just weights that were investigated.

Psychologists have looked at the smallest changes in levels of light that people can detect, the smallest levels of pressure, sound, smell, hearing, touch and taste — the list goes on.

The soul-life of plants

The irony is that Fechner set about this huge mountain of rather hard-headed measurements for quite whimsical reasons.

He wanted to provide evidence for his philosophical ideas, most notable amongst these was his insistence that plants had minds.

Indeed he devoted a whole book to discussing the ‘soul-life of plants’.

Fechner also believed that plants, like humans were part of a hierarchy of minds, at the top of which sat our sun, and above that, the universe as a whole.

These free-floating ideas seem a far cry from the 24,576 meticulous measurements, but such is the human spirit.

Few of Fechner’s ideas have survived in modern psychophysics and yet Fechner’s obsession with measurement lives on today in many areas of psychology.

Indeed, it is for his methods more than his findings that he is celebrated.

It has been argued that ability measurement is the single largest contribution psychology has made to society (Michell, 1999).

While IQ and personality test may not bear much direct relation to Fechner’s ideas, their spirit is the same: to measure, to quantify, to know the difference between.

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Hypnosis is a real phenomenon but there are many myths and misunderstandings about it. Here are 8 common ones.

Hypnosis is a mental state in which people display focused attention, vivid fantasies, increased susceptibility to suggestion and reduced peripheral awareness.

In other words, hypnosis puts people in a trance.

Hypnosis certainly can be an effective therapy, particularly for pain and anxiety.

Hypnosis can achieve all sorts of fascinating effects, among other things, people can:

• have visual or auditory hallucinations,
• move their bodies without intending to,
• and feel less pain.

But much of what many people believe about hypnosis is total and utter rubbish.

Here are 8 very common myths:

Myth 1: Only the mentally weak can be hypnotised

It is a myth that only the mentally weak are susceptible to hypnosis.

In fact, the exact reverse is probably more true.

The higher your intelligence and the stronger your self-control, the more easily you are hypnotised.

That’s because entering a hypnotic trance is all about concentrating, so people with mental health problems can find it difficult under hypnosis.

However, finding it hard to enter a hypnotic state doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you.

People naturally vary in how susceptible they are to hypnosis.

Studies have shown that around 30 percent of people are relatively resistant to hypnosis.

Although, with effort, a hypnotic state can usually be achieved eventually.

Myth 2: Under hypnosis, people are helpless

It is a myth that people are helpless under hypnosis.

It’s difficult to get people to do things under hypnosis that they wouldn’t normally do.

While hypnotised people are still in touch with their morals and normal standards of behaviour.

That said, though, it is possible to reduce people’s inhibitions under hypnosis and they will more readily accept suggestions.

Stage hypnotists rely on this heightened suggestibility, along with picking the types who, let’s say, don’t mind a little attention.

That’s how they get people to quack like ducks and the rest.

Don’t we all know someone who would quack like a duck if it meant everyone would look at them?

Myth 3: Hypnosis is sleep

Yes, people look like they’re asleep when they’re hypnotised because their eyes are sometimes closed and they look peaceful.

But it is a myth that under hypnosis they are asleep.

The brain waves of a person who is hypnotised are nothing like those of a person who is asleep.

In fact, the hypnotic trance is a heightened state of concentration.

A high level of alpha waves on an EEG show that a hypnotised person is awake, alert and very responsive.

Myth 4: Hypnotherapy works in one session

It is a myth that hypnosis alone can cure any ailment in one session.

Nevertheless, some of the most outrageous curative claims are made about hypnotism (although usually not by hypnotherapists themselves).

These have their origins in stage hypnotism as well as hucksters of all types.

Of course, people regularly repeat claims that they were cured in only one session of hypnotherapy because it’s such a good story.

Who wants to hear about how it took you a decade, three divorces and 19,423 nicotine patches to give up smoking?

The truth is that almost no one is cured in one session, if they are cured at all through hypnosis.

Hypnotherapists usually insist that patients commit to 6 sessions, or sometimes 20 sessions.

This isn’t naked profiteering, change takes time.

Even then, hypnotherapy is often used as an added extra to some other kind of treatment, rather than as the main method.

Myth 5: Hypnotists must be flamboyant or weird

It is a myth that practitioners of hypnosis need to look unusual or flamboyant.

That’s just people in showbusiness.

In reality, it would be distracting if the person trying to hypnotise you had swirling eyes, kept talking about black magic and wore very loud ties.

Your average hypnotist is much more likely to wear a grey suit.

Myth 6: Under hypnosis long forgotten memories can be retrieved.

It is a myth that under hypnosis, long forgotten memories can be retrieved.

But, if you believe this one, then you’re in very good company.

Many members of the public think this is true, as do some psychologists and many hypnotherapists themselves.

Except that nowadays most people in the know think that the hypnotic trance isn’t much good for accurately retrieving memories.

Worse, hypnotists can easily implant false memories, because people in a hypnotic trance are easily suggestible.

That scene in the movie where hypnosis helps the victim see the killer’s face is pure Hollywood: entertaining but total fiction.

Myth 7: You can’t lie under hypnosis

It is a myth that you cannot lie under hypnosis — in fact, you can!

Hypnosis is not some kind of magical state in which you can only speak the truth.

This is a natural result of the fact that you are not helpless when hypnotised and your usual moral (and immoral) faculties are still active.

Not only can you lie under hypnosis, but lying is not necessarily any more detectable hypnotised than when not (Sheehan & Statham, 1988).

Myth 8: You’ve never experienced hypnosis

Many people think they’ve never been hypnotised since they’ve never been to a hypnotherapist or been involved in stage hypnosis.

In reality, most of us have experienced a state of mild hypnosis, at least.

For example, when you drive a long distance and start to feel dissociated from your body and the car, that’s a mild state of hypnosis.

Your unconscious is taking care of all the mechanical aspects of driving while you conscious mind is free to float around.

Or if you’ve every meditated then you’ve hypnotised yourself.

Meditation is really a specific type of hypnosis.

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The magic number 7 plus or minus 2 in psychology refers to the fact that we can fit about seven pieces of information into our short-term memories.

It is sometimes said human beings are nothing more than a collection of memories.

Memories for people, events, places, sounds and sights.

Our whole world is funnelled in through our memories. In fact, they may be our most prized possessions.

The study of memory has always been central to psychology – this article describes one of its most influential findings.

The title of this article comes from a 1956 study by the psychologist George A. Miller in which he describes the capacity of human memory (Miller, 1956).

The article’s opening has become famous amongst historians of psychology:

“My problem is that I have been persecuted by an integer.

For seven years this number has followed me around, has intruded in my most private data, and has assaulted me from the pages of our most public journals.

This number assumes a variety of disguises, being sometimes a little larger and sometimes a little smaller than usual, but never changing so much as to be unrecognizable.”

The magical number seven (plus or minus 2)

It’s not just Miller who was persecuted by this number though, it’s all of us.

What this magical number represents – 7 plus or minus 2 – is the number of items we can hold in our short-term memory.

So, while most people can generally hold around seven numbers in mind for a short period, almost everyone finds it difficult to hold ten digits in mind.

Remember that memory is a slippery concept: short-term memory for psychologists refers to things that are currently being used by our brains right now.

For example, as you’re reading this post the words you’ve read go into short-term memory for a very short period, you extract some meaning (hopefully) and then the meaning is either stored or discarded.

You’ll probably still have some faint memory of this article tomorrow, but won’t be able to remember most of the actual words.

Disputing the magical number seven

All sorts of experiments and theories have followed disputing the magical number seven approach to memory.

More recent studies have, for example, shown how we put items together in order to ‘chunk’ data.

Still, the basic concept that our immediate short-term memory is relatively limited is still valid.

If you think seven isn’t much then be thankful you’re not a six-month-old infant.

Recent research suggests they can only hold one thing in short-term memory (Kaldy & Leslie, 2005).

Poor little chaps — it explains a lot though.

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The illusion of truth effect in psychology is the tendency to believe false information if it is repeated often enough.

The illusion of truth effect, is very simple: people are more likely to believe something, the more often it is repeated to them.

With repetition, it is easier for the human mind to process a statement relative to other competing ideas that have not been repeated over-and-over again.

Repetition is used everywhere to persuade people, in advertising, politics and the media, and it certainly works.

Examples of the illusion of truth effect

We see ads for the same products over and over again.

Politicians repeat the same messages endlessly (even when it has nothing to do with the question they’ve been asked).

Journalists repeat the same opinions day after day.

Can all this repetition really be persuasive?

It seems too simplistic that just repeating a persuasive message should increase its effect, but that’s exactly what psychological research finds (again and again).

Repetition is one of the easiest and most widespread methods of persuasion because of the illusion of truth effect.

In fact it’s so obvious that we sometimes forget how powerful it is.

People rate statements that have been repeated just once as more valid or true than things they’ve heard for the first time.

They even rate statements as truer when the person saying them has been repeatedly lying (Begg et al., 1992).

That is how powerful the illusion of truth effect is.

And when we think something is more true, we also tend to be more persuaded by it.

Several studies on the illusion of truth have shown that people are more swayed when they hear statements of opinion and persuasive messages more than once.

How the illusion of truth effect works

The illusion of truth effect works at least partly because familiarity breeds liking.

As we are exposed to a message again and again, it becomes more familiar.

Because of the way our minds work, what is familiar is also true — hence the illusion of truth.

Familiar things require less effort to process and that feeling of ease unconsciously signals truth, this is called cognitive fluency.

As every politician knows, there’s not much difference between actual truth and the illusion of truth.

Since illusions are often easier to produce, why bother with the truth?

Reversing the illusion of truth

The exact opposite of the illusion of truth is also true.

If something is hard to think about, then people tend to believe it less.

Naturally this is very bad news for people trying to persuade others of complicated ideas in what is a very complicated world.

Some studies have even tested how many times a message should be repeated for the maximum effect of the illusion of truth.

These suggest that people have the maximum confidence in an idea after it has been repeated between 3 and 5 times (Brinol et al., 2008).

After that, repetition ceases to have the same effect and may even reverse.

Because TV adverts are repeated many more times than this, advertisers now use subtle variations in the ads to recapture our attention and avoid the illusion of truth backfiring.

This is an attempt to avoid the fact that while familiarity can breed liking, over-familiarity tends to breed contempt.

When the illusion of truth fails

Repetition is effective almost across the board when people are paying little attention, but when they are concentrating and the argument is weak, the effect disappears (Moons et al., 2008).

In other words, it’s no good repeating a weak argument to people who are listening carefully — then the illusion of truth does not operate.

But if people aren’t motivated to scrutinise your arguments carefully then repeat away with abandon—the audience will find the argument more familiar and, therefore, more persuasive.

This suggests we should remain critical while watching TV adverts or the illusion of truth effect will creep in under our defences.

You might think it’s better to let the ads wash over you, without thinking too much, but just the reverse is true.

Really we should be highly critical of the illusion of truth otherwise, before we know it, we’re singing the jingle, quoting the tag-line and buying the product.

When the argument is strong, though, it doesn’t matter whether or not the audience is concentrating hard, repetition will increase persuasion and the illusion of truth effect works.

Unfortunately, I find it’s often people with the best arguments who don’t take advantage of the illusion of truth.

Persuading groups

When people are debating an issue together in a meeting, you can see a parallel effect.

When one person in a group repeats their opinion a few times, the other people think that person’s opinion is more representative of the whole group (see my previous article: loudest voice = majority opinion).

The same psychology is at work again: to the human mind there is little difference between appearances and truth.

What appears to be true might as well actually be true, because we tend to process the illusion as though it were the truth.

It’s a depressing enough finding about the human ability to process rational arguments, but recent research has shown an even more worrying effect.

We can effectively persuade ourselves through repetition — which takes the illusion of truth to new heights.

A study has shown that when an idea is retrieved from memory, this has just as powerful a persuasive effect on us as if it had been repeated twice (Ozubko et al., 2010).

The aspiring sceptic, therefore, should be especially alert to thoughts that come quickly and easily to mind—we can easily persuade ourselves with a single recall of a half-remembered thought.

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The definition of the cocktail party effect in psychology  is when we tune into one voice from many conversations going on in a noisy room.

For psychologists the ‘cocktail party effect’ or phenomenon is our impressive and under-appreciated ability to tune our attention to just one voice from a multitude.

For example, at a party, when bored with our current conversational partner — and for the compulsive eavesdropper — we can allow our aural attention to wander around the room.

Perhaps only the most recidivist eavesdroppers are aware how special the cocktail party effect is.

But even they might be surprised — and worried — by just how much we can miss in the voices we decide to tune out.

What is the cocktail party effect?

The cocktail party effect or phenomenon — our ability to separate one conversation from another — is beautifully demonstrated in a classic study carried out by Colin Cherry (Cherry, 1953).

Cherry used the simple method of playing back two different messages at the same time to people, under a variety of conditions.

In doing so he discovered just how good we are at filtering what we hear, which is how we overcome the cocktail party problem.

To accomplish this task, Cherry reports, participants had to close their eyes and concentrate hard.

In the first set of experiments on the cocktail party effect he played back two different messages voiced by the same person through both ears of a pair of headphones and asked participants to ‘shadow’ one of the two messages they were hearing by speaking it out loud, and later by writing it down.

When doing this they could, with effort, and while hearing the clips over and over again, separate one of the messages from the other.

With the two voice presented together, as though the same person were standing in front of you saying two completely different things at the same time, this task appears to be very hard, but still possible.

Pushing participants further Cherry found he could confuse listeners, but only by having both messages consist entirely of nonsensical platitudes.

Only then were participants unable to pick apart one message from the other.

This is not a wholly satisfying demonstration of the cocktail party effect.

An example of how the cocktail party effect works

The real surprise, though, came in the second set of experiments on the cocktail party effect or phenomenon.

For these Cherry fed one message to the left ear and one to the right ear — and once again both messages were voiced by the same speaker.

Suddenly participants found the task incredibly easy.

Indeed many were surprised how easily and accurately they could tune in to either one of the messages, and even shift their attention back and forth between the two.

No longer did they have to close their eyes and furrow their brows – this was much easier.

What participants were experiencing here seems much closer to most people’s experience of the cocktail party phenomenon.

At a party people are arrayed all around us and their conversations come from various different directions.

We seem to be able to use this information, which is key to the cocktail party effect, to reject all but the one in which we are interested.

Ignoring rejected speech

Although we are fantastically good at tuning in to one conversation over all the others, we seem to absorb very little information from the conversations we reject.

This is the flipside of the cocktail party effect and where it can get embarrassing.

Cherry’s experiments on the cocktail party effect revealed that people picked up surprisingly little information presented to the other, ‘rejected ear’, often failing to notice blatant changes to the unattended message.

When asked afterwards, participants:

• could not identify a single phrase from the speech presented to the rejected ear.
• weren’t sure the language in the rejected ear was even English.
• failed to notice when it changed to German.
• mostly didn’t notice when the speech to the rejected ear was being played backwards (though some did report that it sounded a bit strange).

Across all the different conditions in these cocktail party effect studies, there were only two aspects of the speech to the rejected ear the participants could reliably identify.

The first was that it was speech compared to a tone, the second was when the speaker suddenly changed from male to female.

Missed your own name

This research on the cocktail party effect doesn’t bode at all well for people with a habit of tuning out of conversations when they  lose interest (you know who you are!).

If you really are listening to someone else it’s likely you won’t hear a word of what’s being said to you directly.

One study has found that two-thirds of people don’t even notice when their own name is slipped into the unattended speech, while those who do notice are likely to be of the extremely distractable variety (Conway et al., 2001).

That demonstrates the power of the cocktail party effect.

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The unconscious, or gut instinct, can do just as well as a conscious, deliberate decision in the business environment.

Instinctive, gut decisions may be just as good as those based on data, a study suggests.

Managers who rely on gut instinct to make decisions about new projects are just as likely to be right as those relying on the data, the research found.

However, relying on gut instinct is much faster, as data analysis typically takes a long time.

Think or blink?

Malcolm Gladwell wrote a well-known book called ‘Blink‘ about the power of the unconscious to make complex decisions in the blink of an eye.

However, since then studies have failed to back up the idea that the unconscious can outperform the conscious mind.

Still, there is evidence that the unconscious, or gut instinct, can do just as well as a conscious, deliberate decision.

And as this study underlines, sometimes gut decisions have other benefits, such as speed and requiring fewer resources.

The study comes at a time when 92 percent of companies are investing in data initiatives, which might prove unnecessary.

About the study

For the research, 122 managers in digital, advertising, publishing and software companies were asked about how they decided to allocate resources to new projects.

Among the ways they reported making decisions were:

1. Majority: making the choice that most people wanted.
2. Experience: going with the option that the most experienced individual preferred.
3. Tallying: choosing the option with the most positive points.

The results showed that managers often relied on a ‘tallying’ approach more than other methods.

More analysis did not provide much of a boost to accuracy in decision-making and took considerably longer, the results showed.

Using instinct and rules of thumb, like tallying positive points, was just as accurate as more data analysis.

Dr Oguz A. Acar, study co-author, said:

“This research shows that data-driven decision-making is not the panacea in all situations and may not result in increased accuracy when facing uncertainty.

Under extreme uncertainty, managers, particularly those with more experience, should trust the expertise and instincts that have propelled them to such a position.

The nous developed over years as a leader can be a more effective than an analytical tool which, in situations of extreme uncertainty, could act as a hindrance rather than a driver of success.”

The study was published in the journal Psychology & Marketing (West et al., 2021).