I host solo.
I have ESP on my mind lately (see this post and this post). A potentially controversial paper on ESP authored by Daryl Bem and colleagues, which is forthcoming in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, got me wondering about an important questions about the peer-review process: In spite of the lofty standards of top […]
Apes, babies, and people everywhere (with the possible exception of Switzerland) enjoy humor. But why is humor so prevalent? And why is it so pleasurable? Why do we seek spouses, friends, books, movies, television programs, websites, and LOL cat photographs that make us laugh? Most likely, humor is ubiquitous and enjoyable because it somehow enhances […]
Kelly Herd is a PhD student at the Leeds School of Business. Kelly’s expertise is in the area of consumer behavior, creativity, and innovation. I asked her when is “too many choices” not too many choices? Her response: . . Kelly’s research highlights a limitation of the emerging belief that providing consumers with “too many […]
I recently wrote a post about ESP, where I mentioned work by Daryl Bem. Yesterday’s New York Times reports a forthcoming and controversial paper by Bem (LINK). The paper describes nine unusual lab experiments performed over the past decade by its author, Daryl J. Bem, an emeritus professor at Cornell, testing the ability of college […]
Consumers have never been more powerful. Why? Here are two reasons: 1) The rise of the smartphone ……… Almost better than cash. Actually, it is the power of information. To demonstrate the power of information, I recently conducted a class demonstration: I held up a copy of the book “The Magic of Thinking Big” and […]
Probably.. I recently met Louis C.K. backstage before a stand-up performance (documented in this post). One striking observation was his demeanor during the performance was much more appealing than during the interview. Why? A large literature in psychology finds that people are strongly influenced by situational rather than dispositional consideration, and in that regard, he […]
Kit, co-owner of the Boulder cafe Atlas Purveyors (@atlaspurveyors), is helping me run an experiment. We want to sell this rubber chicken: How would you do it? Tell us: ____ Lower the price (e.g., only $.50) ____ Raise the price (e.g., only $5) ____ Make it scarce (e.g., last one!) ____ Highlight its benefits (e.g., […]
[Tuesday is the new Wednesday. This post is going up one day early.] . Carmel Hagen (@carmelelise) recently gave a guest lecture in my Consumer Behavior class. Carmel’s expertise is in the area of social media and branding. She is also a pretty cool gal. After her talk, I asked her when brands should ask […]
