During times of upheaval do people naturally choose what is familiar or don’t they? The notion of “comfort food” seems to imply that when faced with trying situations people take comfort in certain old favorites that, well, comfort them. This is conventional wisdom and as we know researchers like to question said wisdom. That is what Stacy Wood set out to do and her findings offer interesting implications for marketers.
You have manipulated computers using devices such as a keyboard, mouse perhaps even a touch screen or voice commands. But have you ever done it with your thoughts or seen someone do that?
As I have mentioned previously (24), the American Time Use Survey is an exhaustive survey of what people report doing at all times of the day. But it’s just that. A self-reported account of what people are doing. Another complimentary perspective is provided by the Twitter data analyzed by some researchers that shows the mood of the nation as measured by the sentiments expressed by tweets at all times of the day.
Let’s pick a topic. Any topic. How much would you say you know on that topic? More than average? How much do you think you need to learn in order to become well-versed on that topic? Not a whole lot? You just may be experiencing what is known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect. It is a mental bias that seems to afflict people who are unskilled or not very knowledgeable. They routinely make poor decisions because their lack of competence itself denies them the ability to realize their lack of competence. It happens to a lot of us in certain areas like personal financial planning.
Several popular books have appeared over the last few years on topics related to consumers, behavior, psychology and economics. Perhaps the most popular are the ones by Malcolm Gladwell. While most use academic research liberally to make their points, relatively few have actually been written by an academic. The reasons are twofold. One, you need an academic who has done sufficient research in an area that is worthy and of interest to the general public and two, you need good writers for lay readers. That combination is hard to come by -- which makes The Art of Choosing an unusual and interesting book. It was written by Sheena Iyengar, a professor at Columbia University Business School and deals with a topic we are all familiar with – choice. She has spent a couple of decades studying this topic and is hence eminently suited to write on it. The fact that she is blind makes it almost awe inspiring to read.
There was a fascinating news item today on NPR about the use of text mining to understand something about a person’s private life. Ian Lancashire, Professor of English at the University of Toronto used text mining to study Agatha Christie’s novels. While he has done this with other authors before he came cross something particularly interesting in Agatha Christie’s 73rd novel.
Have you ever been curious about the popularity of rental movies by neighborhood? The NY Times graphics department was and they got movie rental data from Netflix for a dozen cities. The result is this very interesting visual.
How do you make choices in your life? Even simple ones like chocolate cake or fruit salad for a snack? Are you completely rational about the process, calculating the costs and benefits properly before choosing (also known as the cognitive approach)? Or are you more likely to go by feel, allowing your emotions to guide the choice (the affective approach)? Traditionally, researchers have favored the rational model, but more recently the emotional side has been getting more attention. Regular folks may even argue that they use both approaches depending on the situation, even though they may not know which one predominates without their knowledge. But can your decision-making process, and thus the choices you make, be influenced by external conditions to the extent that you will switch from one mode to another? That was the question that drove two researchers in their quest to understand the process of making choices.
In casual conversation do you use terms like “Up North” and “Down South”? Why? Is north vertically higher than south? Of course not. It is just a common usage of language that we are used to, right? But does it have any consequences for behavior? Research has shown that people often make mistakes in travel related judgment, especially when estimating time and distance. Research has also shown that people associate vertical position with meaning. For example, people are faster to identify the relationship between words like “basement” and “attic” when the word presentation is consistent with their spatial relationship (“attic” above “basement”). Given all that, is it possible that people may consider traveling north to be longer or costlier or more difficult than south bound travel simply because we think of it as being “up”? That is the research question.
For those interested in the visual display of information Edward Tufte is no stranger. He is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Statistics and Computer Science at Yale, but his claim to fame is expertise in displaying information. A quick visit to his website will show you the scope of his work and suffice to say he is a renowned expert. Now he is getting in the act to help the government.
