Sentient Insight: the business blog for consumer psychology and consumer marketing

Some choices are hard to make, especially when the options we are faced with are nearly equivalent. Nevertheless we manage to make decisions every day and, buyer’s remorse notwithstanding, we frequently feel satisfied with our choices. And those previously attractive alternatives? Well, we tell ourselves, they were somehow lacking anyway.  But have we arrived at that conclusion through rational consideration of each alternative’s objective value, or do we subjectively—and retroactively—adjust the value we place on rejected options in order to feel better about the choice we made?

Do you remember the pop science trivia factoids about Einstien’s brain that used to travel freely through social parlance? “His brain was so much bigger than the average human’s!” “It’s science, man, he used sixty percent more of his brain than the rest of us.” The real science, actually, has shown repeatedly that brain size has nothing to do with intelligence and that there are no “dead zones” in the brain that we just don’t use. Evolution probably wouldn’t build us with heaps of junk built into our most adaptive and most active human resource– that would be quite the luxury indeed. (Although on a side-note, there has been research showing how Einstein was smarter than the rest of us, if that’s really any surprise.)

In act II of Romeo and Juliet, Juliet first learns that Romeo (her new love) is a Montague, a longstanding familial rival. Overwhelmed by the dismay of her predicament, she famously longs for her lover in harmonious soliloquy: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet,” as if saying, ‘I don’t care what his name is, names are arbitrary; like a rose, I love him for who he is, not his name.’

My mother has always told me that age is a state of mind, and if you wanted to be younger, you can simply “think younger”. Though I’m sure many aging folk would disagree with such maternal wisdom, behavioral researchers John A. Bargh, Mark Chen, and Laura Burrows have evidence that supports my Mom’s thesis! In their 1996 experiment, Automaticity of Social Behavior: Direct Effects of Trait Construct and Stereotype Activation on Action, these three NYU researches tested whether or not subconscious priming can directly affect behavior.

I’m sure we’ve all noticed that “the weather” is the classic go-to conversation starter if you’re in need of small-talk, especially if you’re with a stranger and have nothing to say. It’s always a wonderful candidate for speaking-about-nothing because it’s ubiquitous (there’s weather everywhere), it affects everyone, and it’s a fairly objective, neutral topic. For those same reasons, it’s also an interesting topic for behavioral science.

Surely who we choose for a sexual partner is based on our conscious preferences, right? Perhaps not as much as you think. Apparently, the power of the subconscious is so substantial that male preference for romantic partners is dependent on how much change ($) we have in our pockets at the time of evaluating a mate for selection. In a brilliant experimental manipulation, Nelson and Morrison (2005) found that male preference for ideal weight of a romantic partner actually depends on whether we have money on our person when we are asked the question.

In 1996, behavioral psychologists Ulf Dimberg and Arne Öhman sought to test if the human mood is independent from its immediate external environment. Their study, Behold the wrath: Psychophysiological responses to facial stimuli investigated the affect of primed facial gestures on the participant’s mood. When I present these findings in talks, I usually tease that only a social psychologist could write a title like that. At Sentient, we affectionately call this study: Why am I so Happy? And the answer, as you will clearly see is, “I have no idea.”

Kurt Warner doesn’t want to make an emotional decision. Good luck with that. In a thriller last night in Arizona, the 38 year-old Quarterback threw for five touchdowns and 379 yards on 29 of 33 passing in a 51-45 victory over the Green Bay Packers. With that kind of performance, the talk around the absurdity of the veteran’s potential retirement swirled. The flames were fueled in part by Warner’s victory lap around the stadium waving goodbye to the Arizona fans (albeit, it was his last home game of the season).

A colleague once remarked to me that certain academically-oriented books are so accessible, so fun to read, and so compelling that they are like “scientific candy.” Jonah Lehrer’s How We Decide certainly has the pith and the readability of such candy, but it also has a surprising depth of insight and careful structuring that set it apart. He brings the science to the reader via understandable analogies and examples ranging from Tom Brady’s strengths as a quarterback to the Gulf War. Unlike other types of candy, Lehrer’s blend never is too simplistic, too one-dimensional, or too focused to be unable to step back and look at the big picture.

“Gentlemen, the final rose tonight,” Chris Harrison, the host of The Bachelorette, dramatically intones. It is the dreaded moment for any contestant on the hit television show but especially for the current Bachelorette, Jillian Harris. At the end of each episode, Jillian must eliminate another suitor in her quest for “true love” and the perfect husband. She tearfully cries, “This is the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make.” But she said that last episode. And the one before that. And on the first episode.