Priming
In my Tip this week I talk about priming, the idea that we're incredibly susceptible to suggestion. One type of priming is the letter effect where you prefer things that begin with the same letter as your name. From the book The Happiness Hypothesis: “Men named Lawrence and women named Laurie are more likely to become lawyers. Louis and Louise are more likely to move to Louisiana or St. Louis, and George and Georgina are more likely to move to Georgia.”
What do you think?
What do you think?
Tags: letter_effect, priming
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Mark H. Hendricks on -
I have long felt that even persons with the same first name tend to have similar personality characteristics. I realize that doesn't make sense, but it still played a big part in the naming of my children. Perhaps this better explains the similarities I probably just choose to see.
From a more general marketing perspective, I have to tell business owners that their gut is all but worthless. If they thought like the average joe, they wouldn't be in business! They'd be working for someone else. In fact, you might be surprised at the number that have no respect for their employees because they honestly can't relate to the idea of working for anyone. They really do assume that to be an employee one must be stupid or lazy.
-
Permalink Reply by Cindy Moret O'Keeffe on
-
"Susceptible to suggestion" - what a great topic around election time. I have been so intrigued and exasperated by what I'm seeing in politics and the media that I wrote about it in my Oct. newsletter:
Be Smarter Than a Sound Bite
It’s almost hard to remember a time when Hillary, Barack and John weren’t dominating the news. Then the national conventions came along and unleashed a new round of finger pointing, snarkiness and oversimplifications. Sarah was also thrown into the mix.
Breath easy, I'm not trying to influence your vote. Instead, I'm hoping to encourage some reflection on how we’re responding to “information” and making our decisions relative to that vote. The other night I heard someone say they were still undecided because they tend to fall in line with whomever they heard last. Don’t we all hate working for bosses who make decisions that way? We can do better when deciding the next President.
Both culturally and individually, we’re adjusting to the relatively new phenomena of real time media, unlimited sources of information, email floods, highly crafted and staged commentary, as well as the resulting feelings of overwhelm. In my more optimistic moments, I imagine that we will be looked upon as e-Neanderthals. I dream of succeeding generations who benefit from evolved cultural norms and technology that cull the excess and inaccurate, leaving only needed and valid content.
Alas, we are not there yet. The best we can do is make an effort to be rigorous and discerning with our precious 2008 vote. There are a few overused communication tricks that make this harder than it should be:
Outright fallacies conveyed with utmost conviction – Take advantage of www.snopes.com or www.factcheck.org.
Collapsed distinctions – This is a coaching term we use when clients have intertwined ideas so fully that they don’t distinguish them as actually unrelated. For example, “patriotism” is often linked to all sorts of other ideas. The implication is that you are unpatriotic unless you support those specific initiatives, when in fact it may have nothing to do with patriotism or people just have different interpretations. This type of rhetoric is particularly crafty.
Insultingly simplistic explanations – Boiling down the $700B bill as “bailing out Wall Street” at the expense of “Main Street” comes to mind. In our complex, global economy it seems trite to sum up the current financial crisis in a pithy one liner. Support the package or not, but do so with a real understanding of its actual merits or flaws.
Yes, life has become very fast-paced and we have access to more information, more quickly than previous generations would ever have imagined. It’s up to us to dig out from under the avalanche and see the way to clear, thoughtful decision-making. At the moment, much of political rhetoric insults our intelligence and unfortunately the American public often takes the bait.
-
Permalink Reply by Sara Hruska on -
I LOVE snopes.com! Every single time someone forwards me something, whether I agree or disagree, whether I believe it or not, I check it out there. There's a lot of fallacies out there people just take at face value.
-
Permalink Reply by Josh R. on -
I got tired of all the forwarded bogus email warnings, so I told mine and my wife's friends about Snopes. Teach a person to fish, right?
Then, some of these bogus emails started embedding "this was verified on Snopes,com!" right in the message. I guess that's the best compliment Snopes could get but, of course, I had to have that fact-checking conversation with a couple of people again.
-
Permalink Reply by Maxine Zdebiak Karchie on -
Sara, Josh, yes, Snopes is great! Years ago all that came over the internet was taken at face value. Snopes is great for literally ANY querry. I used to take articles that came up on the internet at face value for the most part, up until several years ago. Case in point: I received an email from a friend saying a child had been abducted, likely by her father. I was so upset for this mother and child, I began emailing this missing child report all over the world to every contact I knew, as they thought she could have been removed from Canada. Then a client emailed me from snopes - it was not true! I was floored! I could not believe anyone would start such a horrible rumor. How could anyone use a child missing; to what end? So one can only imagine what emails and internet comments have done to damage the reputations of companies, products, employers and employees. Now I always check snopes for everything from A to Z.
-
Permalink Reply by Josh R. on
-
I gravitate toward the prevailing opinion on my radar, and I've come to realize that friends with broad perspectives are essential!
For example, parenting. An easy topic on which to get wrapped around the proverbial axle. Our local community of fellow parents is very uniform in their philosophy (at least, the most vocal members are), so my wife and I have made a habit of reaching outside that community whenever we start to feel hemmed in or uncomfortable with the expectations we perceive.
So yes, my surroundings certainly impact my thinking, and I'm learning to collect a variety of perspectives in order to make better decisions. Meanwhile, when I'm stuck voting in a firehouse, being aware of the limits to my own objectivity is good.
-
Permalink Reply by Maxine Zdebiak Karchie on
-
As much as I wish this were not true, now that it is mentioned I have noticed this quite often in different situations. License plates for example. People, when at a registry here. Two people ahead of me were purchasing new plates. They were given the opportunity to choose, i did notice they choose a plate with initials of theirs or their loved one etc. Numbers of their birthday anniversary numbers numbers were noted. I am not sure if they subliminally chose initially or if they actually both thought of it, but the person serving them commented on to the final person, noting that it was the initials of the spouse and date of his birth he chose. I think that in marketing there is a lot to be said for this. It is so similar to the tug at the heart mind set. We are creature of habit, so perhaps this falls in line with that thought. I believe that although we as humans although very complex, are more predictable than at times we realize.
Maxine is in Marketing.
Keith's Books
Sign up for Keith's Tip of the Week Newsletter!
Visit Keith at KeithFerrazzi.com and become a VIP Member of his Inner Circle. (Limited Time Offer)
Greenlight Community Success Stories
Badge
Greenlight Research Group Poll of the Week
© 2010 Created by Keith Ferrazzi
