idealawg

"Reminders of Money Elicit Feelings of Threat and Reactance to Social Influence"

Abstract:

When consumers are reminded of money, do they conform, shrug off, or react against others’ attempts to influence them? Prior research on reminders of money suggests that either of the last two outcomes is probable. The current research proposed that the self-sufficient motivation induced by money reminders causes consumers to perceive social influences as threats to their autonomy. We predicted that consumers reminded of money would deviate from social influence, an effect that would be caused by feeling threatened. Across three experiments, money-primed participants behaved opposite to the source of influence, displaying reactance stemming from heightened feelings of threat. However, this reactance response was eliminated when money-primed participants were not personally invested in a decision; consequently, they showed indifference in the face of social influence. Hence, reminders of money boost the motivation to be autonomous and sensitize consumers to potential constraints on their personal decision-making freedom.

Click to read more of the article (Journal of Consumer Research) and References.

"Minority Rules: Scientists Discover Tipping Point for the Spread of Ideas"

News release (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute):

Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society. The scientists, who are members of the Social Cognitive Networks Academic Research Center (SCNARC) at Rensselaer, used computational and analytical methods to discover the tipping point where a minority belief becomes the majority opinion. The finding has implications for the study and influence of societal interactions ranging from the spread of innovations to the movement of political ideals.

“When the number of committed opinion holders is below 10 percent, there is no visible progress in the spread of ideas. It would literally take the amount of time comparable to the age of the universe for this size group to reach the majority,” said SCNARC Director Boleslaw Szymanski, the Claire and Roland Schmitt Distinguished Professor at Rensselaer. “Once that number grows above 10 percent, the idea spreads like flame.”

As an example, the ongoing events in Tunisia and Egypt appear to exhibit a similar process, according to Szymanski. “In those countries, dictators who were in power for decades were suddenly overthrown in just a few weeks.”

The findings were published in the July 22, 2011, early online edition of the journal Physical Review E in an article titled “Social consensus through the influence of committed minorities.”

An important aspect of the finding is that the percent of committed opinion holders required to shift majority opinion does not

Collaboration versus competition in the marketing of mediation

I thought I had posted this story about business development here at this blog few years ago, but cannot seem to find it in the archives. So here it is (I hope for the first time). I have copied and pasted this story of mediator collaboration from a listserv message I wrote in May of 2003. Time flies, doesn't it?

In the early '80s, I observed a good lesson in collaboration versus competition. Back then, several lawyers including myself recently had been trained in mediation; we'd all received training at the same Center in Marin County. Many of the trainees were from Sonoma County, one county north of Marin, in northern California; I was from the Bay Area but was close friends with several of them so knew how this all unfolded.

The Sonoma group had a meeting and decided they had two options: they could compete with each other, or they could all together promote the concept of mediation knowing there were enough clients for everyone. They chose the latter option, collaborated on many activities such as public education talks, and when I left California a

"Arousal Increases Social Transmission of Information": Why is some info shared more?

Abstract and excerpt:

Social transmission is everywhere. Friends talk about restaurants, policy wonks rant about legislation, analysts trade stock tips, neighbors gossip, and teens chitchat. Further, such interpersonal communication affects everything from decision making and well-being (Asch, 1956; Mehl, Vazire, Holleran, & Clark, 2010) to the spread of ideas, the persistence of stereotypes, and the diffusion of culture (Heath, 1996; Heath, Bell, & Sternberg, 2001; Kashima, 2008; Schaller, Conway, & Tanchuk, 2002; Schaller & Crandall, 2004). But although it is clear that social transmission is both frequent and important, what drives people to share, and why are some stories and information shared more than others?

Traditionally, researchers have argued that rumors spread in the “3 Cs”—times of conflict, crisis, and catastrophe (e.g., wars or natural disasters; Koenig, 1985)―and the major explanation for this phenomenon has been generalized anxiety (i.e., 

Video of Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, speaking at University of Denver

Click to listen to and watch Howard Schultz talk about the recent turnaround of Starbucks, his personal history, entitlement and hubris, and even about love. The program was sponsored by the Voices of Experience series at University of Denver's Daniels College of Business.

The introductions are much too long for my taste. Fast forward to 3:40 for the introduction of Schultz by Dr. Jim O'Toole. Schultz begins talking at 11:00.

"Metaphors We Think With: The Role of Metaphor in Reasoning"

Abstract:

The way we talk about complex and abstract ideas is suffused with metaphor. In five experiments, we explore how these metaphors influence the way that we reason about complex issues and forage for further information about them. We find that even the subtlest instantiation of a metaphor (via a single word) can have a powerful influence over how people attempt to solve social problems like crime and how they gather information to make “well-informed” decisions. Interestingly, we find that the influence of the metaphorical framing effect is covert: people do not recognize metaphors as influential in their decisions; instead they point to more “substantive” (often numerical) information as the motivation for their problem-solving decision. Metaphors in language appear to instantiate frame-consistent knowledge structures and invite structurally consistent inferences. Far from being mere rhetorical flourishes, metaphors have profound influences on how we conceptualize and act with respect to important societal issues. We find that exposure to even a single metaphor can induce substantial differences in opinion about how to solve social problems: differences that are larger, for example, than pre-existing differences in opinion between Democrats and Republicans.

Click to read the rest of "Metaphors We Think With: The Role of Metaphor in Reasoning" (PLoS ONE).

Notes and letters that arrive in snail mail: Long may they live!

Brandy Fedoruk and Rebecca Dolen hold a monthly letter-writing club. (Click for more about the letter-writing club.) While reading "Please Mr. Postman" (Utne Reader), I learned of their effort to preserve and even increase typewritten correspondence. From the article:

Spurred by a joint love of writing and, especially, receiving letters, as well as a desire to make use of their typewriters, the two have hosted the events since the shop [in Vancouver] opened in August 2005. Fedoruk reports that the evenings draw anywhere from 10 to 30 people who enjoy the novelty of the typewriters and drum up quite a racket with them.

'It's nice to feel like we are helping the letter gain

Want your correspondence to be remembered? Some unique suggestions

Late this afternoon I went to a salon. The event was given by Cindy Zimmerman, "self-appointed advocate of the handwritten note." This high-energy Arizonan is enthusiastic (very!) about causing a renaissance of handwritten communication.

From Zimmerman's Writing in Style Web site:

“It’s not about laborious long letters…” opines Cindy, “handwritten notes are fun, fast and bring such a valuable dimension and meaning to today’s techno-laden world.”  Think about the last time you received a handwritten note or card from someone.  Bet you didn’t throw it in the trashcan as quickly as you would a hit the delete button on a flat, impersonal email.  “Handwritten notes are an essential fiber in the fabric of our existence – wrought with emotion, care and personal sentiment.  This type of connection means so

"Gratitude for Aptitudes" (and one more reason why goal setting is very individual

Below is an article I wrote nearly a decade ago. Over the last many years since writing it, I have learned much more about why goal setting is not one-size-fits-all. (A great new book was just published on personalizing your goal setting for maximum effectiveness.) In the article, I mention an aptitude Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation calls "foresight" or, as Highlands Ability Battery labels it, "Time Frame Orientation".

Some people have short or immediate Time Frame Orientation, others have long-range Time Frame Orientation, and many have something in the middle. A person with each Orientation has his or her own way of best and most effectively setting goals.

What's all that mean?

From the Highlands Training Manual:

Time Frame Orientation is a measure of the ability to naturally consider the impact of present actions on future plans. It reflects an orientation towards planning, goal setting, and accomplishing tasks.

Your Time Frame Orientation indicates the most natural frame of reference for making plans, thinking about your future, or considering the impact of what you are doing now in your life. Time Frame Orientation tends to fall into three ranges:

Immediate—today up to one year
Intermediate—one to five years
Long-range—five to twenty years

As an example, I test long-range in both the Highlands and Johnson O'Connor assessments. That Orientation has some advantages, including the ability to stay focused on a distant goal. On the other hand, I may procrastinate because, well, there's always tomorrow!

In working with clients, I have found that it is extraordinarily helpful, if not necessary, for people to know their Orientation if they want to set goals they will reach.

Now that article . . .

A few reasons to be cautious when reading or hearing testimonials

Why do people trust testimonials? That's not a rhetorical question. I really am asking why. Testimonials are fraught with problems of validity, and I have never fully understood why buyers give them much weight.

Today on the Friends of Positive Psychology listserv, psychologist Todd Kashdan posted a very succinct note that summarizes several of my reasons for being leery of testimonials. (Kashdan was advising a list member about how to set up some research. He wrote (and I post here with his permission):

How will you handle the bias of coachees saying glowing things about the coaching process because of their investment in the process (what we call sunk costs and/or the endowment effect)? The latter is why nobody should trust testimonials. And how will you handle the bias of coaches who are heavily invested in what they do (includes the self-serving bias and the endowment effect)?

For those of you not familiar with the terms he uses:

Endowment effect: "The endowment effect is a cognitive bias which was first hypothesized by economist Richard Thaler. According to Thaler's theory, people value an object more if their ownership is clearly established. The results of the endowment effect can sometimes be quite interesting, and being aware of the endowment effect can be very important whether you are buying or selling something.

 Kashdan is implying that the effect works for services as well as objects.

Sunk costs fallacy: "[R]eluctance to abandon projects in which one has already invested considerable resources."

Self-serving bias: "[W]hen people attribute their successes to internal or personal factors but attribute their failures to situational factors beyond their control. The self-serving bias can be seen in the common human tendency to take credit for success but to deny responsibility for failure. It may also manifest itself as a tendency for people to evaluate ambiguous information in a way that is beneficial to their interests."

What are your thoughts on testimonials? This also is not a rhetorical question; I'd like to hear.