It's not as bad as you think

Part of the human experience is to find ourselves in embarrassing situations. We have all been there. In the pub we have knocked over a drink, had the odd wardrobe malfunction, or made an embarrassing mumble when giving a speech or presentation. 

You wish the ground would swallow you up. However, it may not be that bad, research now suggests that we generally overestimate the extent to which our actions or appearance are noticed by others. This phenomenon has even been given a name, The Spotlight Effect.

ProfessorThomas Gilovich, at Cornell University gave the spotlight effect its name and did some of the early research in this area. In one study he had participants put on a t-shirt showing a large picture of Barry Manilow’s face, (deliberately embarrassing) and then briefly go into a room filled with students. After each participant left the room, he or she was asked to estimate how many people in the room would be able to remember who was on their t-shirt. The students in the room were also asked if they could remember who had been on the t-shirt.

Participants completely overestimated how many people would remember they wore an embarrassing Barry Manilow t-shirt. Gilovich followed this up with a further study to see if the spotlight effect extended not just to people’s appearances, but also their actions. He put people into groups to discuss inner city problems. At the end of the discussion each person estimated how the other members of the group would rate their contribution and the performance of other group members. In most cases people overestimated how much attention had been paid to them when they were speaking.

According to Gilovich this happens because we are completely focused on ourselves, what we are doing and how we look. We have trouble appreciating that other people might not be that interested in us. Ever had an embarrassing post or picture put up on Facebook but never got the ridicule you initially expected? We focus on our own profile way more than others do.

Gilovich found evidence for this self-consciousness or self-focus when he ran the Barry Manilow t-shirt study a second time. On this occasion half the participants waited for 15 minutes before they completed their estimations. By delaying the estimation process, the experimenters gave the participants time to get used to wearing their shirts. Once the participants got used to their shirts, and became less self-conscious about their fashion infringement, they were no longer as aware of Manilow’s face, and neither did they assume that everyone else would notice it.

You have probably seen this yourself where the day after an embarrassing haircut or black eye, we are sure the whole world is pointing and laughing, but a few days later when we have got used to the face in the mirror, we think everyone else has too, even though many of the people we meet are seeing if for the first time.

The next time you make that mistake in public, don’t feel you have to blush and hide. You are probably the only person who was really paying attention to your calamity. But this is a two way street. For the same reason we also have to understand that when we make a witty remark or wear what we think is a cool or clever t-shirt, we may not get the attention or compliments we think we deserve. People aren’t paying as close attention to our appearance and actions as we are. Like us, they are too busy paying attention to themselves.

Being aware of this Spotlight Effect is important. Hanging on to or continuing to focus on your embarrassing mistakes can impact on your self-esteem and how you think of yourself generally. The best response is to smile, even if it comes out as that weird smile of embarrassment and admit that it was a cringe worthy experience. Then let it go because people who display embarrassment at their social transgressions are also the most prone to be liked. We like honesty.

The take-home message is perhaps this. When you find yourself mortified, be aware that other people simply don't pay as much attention to you as you think they do. Your slip up will not loiter long in the memory and that peculiar stain on your shirt or character won’t be the hot topic in the canteen. 

Your legend will not be secured on the basis of one particularly brilliant or embarrassing remark. It is not that you won’t be noticed, just that people do not brood over your actions you as deeply as you do. In other words, while you're stuck on your current problem or predicament, everyone else has already moved on. Shine the spotlight somewhere else, it will make you feel better about yourself. 

The Smart Look - Eye Contact

We go to great lengths to put our best foot forward in meetings and demos. We get the agenda right, have all the props in place, make sure the environment is up to scratch and we are quick to remind our audience of our capabilities and track record.

This however may not be enough. A study at Northeastern University looked at how people rate our intelligence and capabilities. They found that making eye contact with the audience is key. The researchers had people watch short videos of strangers talking to each other. They were then asked to rate the intelligence of the strangers in the video. People in the video who made more eye contact while chatting were perceived as more intelligent.

This ties in with research from the University of Michigan which found that people who avoided eye contact were rated as socially awkward, deceptive and insincere. Interestingly though this was for men rather than women. Women who avoided eye contact were seen as unattractive and disagreeable. Not good results for either gender.

So even if you get the presentation right, the pricing right, making good eye contact is an important part of sealing the deal. You need to get the intelligence and sincerity message across.

While on the subject of perceived intelligence, being well dressed and looking good is a perquisite. Research by Zebrowitz and colleagues is one of many studies to establish a link between attractiveness and how smart people think we are. People who are seen as attractive are also seen as more intelligent. Scrub up, wear the good suit and make eye contact, you can’t lose.

Motivation via The Goal Gradient Effect

Charting progress is important. If you are a software developer, keep a list of the bugs you fix and knock them off one by one. If you are cold calling, keep track of the calls made and hopefully a few sales too. This sounds a bit obvious, we are likely to track work we have completed. The point here however is that it’s a good idea to visually display the work completed as progress, so you can see a list or some other evidence that you are getting places. This is known as the Goal Gradient Effect.

An article on Business Insider explains this in a neat way. It cites a study in the Journal of Market Research which looked at a coffee shop that uses frequent buyer cards. Regular customers were given frequent buyer cards. Each time they bought a cup of coffee they got their card stamped. When the card was filled they got a free cup of coffee. However there were two different scenarios:

Card A: The card had 10 boxes for the stamps, and when you get the card all the boxes are blank.

Card B: The card had 12 boxes for the stamps, and when you get the card the first two boxes are already stamped.

The research looked at how long it would take to get the card filled. Would it take longer or shorter for scenario A vs. scenario B? After all, you would have to buy 10 cups of coffee in both scenarios in order to get the free coffee. So does it make a difference which card you use?

The results say it does. Card B gets filled faster than Card A. It is the Goal-Gradient Effect in action.

The goal-gradient effect was first noticed in research with rats where they would run faster as they got to the end of the maze and closer to their food reward.

The goal-gradient effect makes us accelerate our behaviour as we get closer to our goal.

The take-way here could be these two points. Firstly, the closer we get to our goal the more motivated we are. Therefore structuring peoples work schedule (to have goals tangibly close and not weeks or months away) or sales targets becomes an important part of ensuring people are motivated and pushing themselves.

Secondly, the progression towards a goal can be an illusion or contrived (as shown the in coffee shop research). Giving someone a ‘head start’ or making it look like you can start progressing straight away improves motivation. Getting back to the software developer, give them some short ‘easy’ bugs first to get the ball rolling. For the cold caller, have the early targets based on getting the sales script right rather than closing any sales.

For the marketing people, maybe the coffee shop customer behaviour has lessons for how we distribute loyalty card points or explain bulk purchase schemes. We like our goals, almost as much as our coffee. 

To Do or to Have?

You are after a hard week, it’s the weekend, time to treat yourself. There is the temptation to go a restaurant or maybe engage in a bit of retail therapy. You might pick up a new gadget, clothes or some other reward, to make yourself feel better. 

You see this approach used in some advertising campaigns. You are encouraged to “Go out and buy yourself something nice”, the ad tells you that you have worked hard all your career, now it’s time to think of yourself, you deserve a new BMW or a designer watch. As the people in L'Oreal Paris say,  'Because you're worth it'

Research suggests that you may be better off leaning more towards the restaurant idea rather than the clothes or gadgets. Leaf Van Boven from the University of Colorado and Thomas Gilovich from Cornell University addressed this in their article ‘To Do or to Have? That Is the Question’.

They defined experiential purchases as those “made with the primary intention of acquiring a life experience: an event or series of events that one lives through,” while defining material purchases as those “made with the primary intention of acquiring a material good: a tangible object that is kept in one's possession”.

Some items fall between these definitions, for example buying a new bike or a TV, where we get both the goods and a new experience. That said, most people surveyed were able to decide if recent purchases were in the ‘Do’ or ‘Have’ box.

When participants were asked which of these two purchases options made them happier, 57% of respondents reported that they got greater happiness from their experiential purchase, while only 34% reported greater happiness from their material purchase.

Similar results emerged when participants were randomly assigned to think about a material or experiential purchase they had made in the past. People contemplating a past experiential purchase reported being in a better mood than their colleagues contemplating a past material purchase. This suggests that experiential purchases produce more lasting hedonic benefits. The buzz from the experience lasts longer and is more durable than the buzz from getting a new material item.

Of course you do need to choose your experiences wisely. Buying yourself tickets to the Opera if you prefer a football game may not work very well. The idea is that you may feel happier going for a nice meal or some event rather than picking up a new pair of shoes. Better still, the buzz from the experience will last longer than the more temporary hit you get from picking up the clothes, shoes or gadget.

No time like the present

We are biased to getting our pleasures in life in the here and now. This is known as the ‘Present Bias’. Unlike the kids who could resist the marshmallow in Walter Mischels experiment, most of us are unwilling to put off getting what we want. Economists have noted this and describe the effect as Hyperbolic Discounting.

Essentially it means we are suckers for a discount now or a low ball entry price, even if the long term price is pretty high.

A 1998 study by Read and van Leeuwen investigated this by asking participants to make food choices for today and for next week. When it came to next week, 74% of participants decided on fruit. But when thinking about today, 70% chose chocolate. Putting off the treat was not on the menu.

Getting back to the economists, their modelling of this has influenced how many services and goods are presented to us. You can get a new iPhone for a really low price but must sign an 18 month contract with a minimum monthly package. Getting the iPhone now is very attractive, though the long term cost over 18 months can be quite expensive. Similarly you will hear advertisements for new cars which only cost €100 per week. Again, that sounds very attractive, though the long term part of the deal is often based on Hire Purchase or relatively high interest rates.

The take away here is that we fall for the ‘get it now, pay later’ deals. Like the participants in Read and van Leeuwen’s study, we are more concerned about today than next week. We are willing to spoil our present selves at the expense of our future selves.

If you are selling, then tap into this Present Bias or Hyperbolic Discounting, if you are buying, be wary of the discount offers and try to think a little more long term.

Compliance is all about Freedom

We all try different persuasion techniques from time to time. It could be to get a sale, to get a colleague to swap shifts or to get a buddy to go for a beer. You may have some tricks or techniques that you think work better than others.

There is one technique however that seems to work best of all. It is the “but you are free” (BYAF) compliance-gaining technique. This operates by telling the target that he or she can refuse the request.

The key thing here is reminding people of their freedom to choose. By emphasising their freedom you are letting them know that it is OK to say No and you are not forcing them into anything. They have a free choice.

Christopher J. Carpenter reviewed 42 psychology studies (covering 22,000 people) using this technique. His meta-analysis showed that this simple idea can be pretty effective. Across all the studies it was found to double the chances that someone would say ‘yes’ to the request.

The meta-analysis shows how people donate more to good causes, are more likely to partake in surveys or lend someone the bus fare if they are caught short.

Try it for yourself, I think it's a good idea but it's up to you.

Truth & Photos

Ever been in a position where you were designing a brochure and wondered whether you should put in a particular photo? You might have decided against it because you felt a generic photo might look bland or you had trouble getting a photo that fitted well with the point you were trying to make.

It turns out that the choice of photo might not really matter that much, the important thing is to have a photo and almost any kind will do.

The BPS reports on a study involving New Zealand and Canadian students which found that including a photo with a statement made us more inclined to believe a statement accompanying the photo was true. The participants were given a series of statements saying if well known and obscure celebrities were either dead or alive. As fast as they could, without compromising their accuracy, the students had to say whether each statement was true or not. Crucially, half the statements were accompanied by a photo of the relevant celebrity and half weren't.

The statements with the photo were rated more likely to be true. As the researchers put it, the presence of the photo seemed to "inflate truthiness".

Another study with 70 New Zealand undergrads was similar but this time uninformative photos accompanied obscure general knowledge facts. For example, "Macademia nuts are in the same evolutionary family as peaches" was presented alongside a photo of macadamia nuts that provided no clues as to the veracity of the statement. The same effect was found - the students were more likely to wager that a fact was true when it was accompanied by an uninformative photo

So if you are designing a brochure and have testimonials that say your software is best of breed or your customer service has an approval rating of 99% or your deliveries are always on time, include a photo of a PC, Customer Service Agent or Delivery Guy. Generic non-descript photos are no problem, it need not be actual people or items. People will be more likely to rate your claim as true.

The same could be true for how you design websites, how politicians design election material or how you organise your eBay shop or any other on-line profile you may have. Any kind of photo will "inflate” the "truthiness" of your proposition. Guess I should have included a photo as part of this post.

An Initial Boost

These days is it not unusual to see CEO’s giving presentations in casual tee-shirts or jeans. We've seen Mark Zuckerberg do it, Steve Jobs often strode the stage with his sleeves rolled up and Michael O Leary of Ryanair only seems to wear a suit when he is watching his race horses run. Even the average SME CEO is more likely to wear an open neck than a tie. Informal is the new formal.

This move away from formality involves more than fashion sense. There is also a tendency to informalise names. We see it in politicians with Tony Blair or Chuck Hagel, in business with Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Brad Smith from Intuit, Larry Page at Google. It is not hip to be square or so it seems.

I recently came across some research which put me thinking about this. It is possible that formality is not completely dead. The research suggested that middle initials are associated with intellectual ability. A professor might be Michael D. Clark, while your local shopkeeper might be Michael Clark.

A publication in the European Journal of Social Psychology looked at seven studies and found that the display of middle initials increased positive evaluations of people's intellectual capacities and achievements. The people with the middle name were thought of as smarter and more likely to be serious professional achievers.

It seems that if you are looking for some credibility in a professional or academic setting, it’s possible that an initial might give you a boost. If you are considering writing few magazine articles or blog posts on serious topics why not throw in your middle initial and bask in the academic glow. If you want to add a bit of gravitas to the business card, put it in there too. In this case it is hip to be a little bit square and use that initial. You can still wear the tee-shirt.

Who is Trustworthy?

Who do you trust? Why? How much do you know about trust? It is worth thinking about. Trust shapes how we conduct our relationships, who we work with, many of the choices we make. Trust plays a part in big moments in our lives. It’s there when we sign a contract, make a large purchase or exchanging wedding vows.

So given the importance of trust, is there anything we can do to generate it? A study by researchers at Harvard Business School and Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania suggests that if you want people to see you as trustworthy, try apologising for situations outside of your control. This could be simply the weather or a delayed bus or a traffic jam.

The researchers had a male actor approach 65 strangers (30 women) at a train station on a rainy day to ask to borrow their mobile phone. Pretty big ask from a complete stranger, particularly given how we value our smart phones these days. Crucially, for half of them he preceded his request with the superfluous apology: "I'm sorry about the rain!" The other half of the time he just came straight out with his request: "Can I borrow your phone?" The superfluous apology made a real difference. Forty-seven per cent of strangers offered their phone when the actor apologised for the rain first, compared with just nine per cent when there was no apology. That is a big win for the fairly useless apology.

In a different angle, an often quoted study by Professor William Hampes in the Europe Journal ofPsychology looked at the relationship between humour and trust. It found that those who scored high on a test that measured their sense of humour for social purposes were considered more trustworthy. Humour and trust are key components of emotional intelligence and are associated with satisfying and healthy interpersonal relationships. Plenty of arguments have been defused by a well timed joke or a humorous explanation. It could also be that people who can tell a joke are a bit more likeable and therefore we are open to trusting them.

On the other side of the coin, if you are wondering who you can trust then go with your initial reaction. Research led by David DeSteno at Northeastern University suggests that when it comes to deciding whom to trust, our first impressions can be quite accurate. Trustworthiness is linked to specific kinds of non-verbal cues and we are hard-wired to pick up on these and recognise trustworthy people.

So if you need to earn trust with someone you have just met, try out these options. Crack a few jokes and find something to apologise about. It works, trust me.

Boring is not all bad

Barack Obama has a well reported practice of never wearing anything other than blue and gray suits. According to the president, “I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make too many decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.” This ties in with the idea ‘Don’t sweat the small stuff’.

A study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology has another take on this. The authors tested the idea that making many choices impairs subsequent self-control. The study used a limited-resource model of self-regulation and executive function to determine if decision making depletes the same resource used for self-control and active responding. In 4 laboratory studies, some participants made choices among consumer goods or college course options, whereas others thought about the same options without making choices.

Making choices led to reduced self-control (i.e., less physical stamina, reduced persistence in the face of failure, more procrastination, and less quality and quantity of arithmetic calculations). A field study then found that reduced self-control was predicted by shoppers' self-reported degree of previous active decision making. Further studies suggested that choosing takes a greater toll than just deliberating.

There are a few lessons in this. Like Barak Obama, try to focus your limited patience and executive function on the stuff that matters. Spending time at the deli counter figuring out what sandwich to have is not a great idea if you have to go back to the office and make some complex or important decisions on how to manage scarce company resources.

If you are a retailer, you could provide a variety of choices and have customers making decisions just for the sake of it. This may lower their self control and get them to spend a little more freely.

 If you are a consumer and have just made a load of decisions e.g. where to park, whether to buy on credit or pay cash or whether to take out an after sales contract or not, be wary of your self control. It could be on the slide and you may be about to buy something you don’t really need.

If you see some guy in work wearing the same suits everyday and eating the same boring lunch, he could be the go to guy for some of those big decisions or someone to trust with that big marketing budget where self control could be tested. 

Mood for thought

There is a radio station in Ireland that kicks off its afternoon drive time program with the presenter waffling on about a daily ‘happiness index’. I always thought this was a bit bland and a gimmick. After all, who keeps or compiles this happiness index and how could it possibly mean anything?

I then read something which put me thinking. Researchers at the University of Manchester and Indiana University have put some science behind this idea of  ‘sentiment tracking’.

They looked at how global emotion and mood, as measured via something like Twitter, could predict stock market activity. They investigated whether measurements of collective mood states derived from large scale Twitter feeds, correlated to the value of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) over time. They analyzed the text content of daily Twitter feeds by two mood tracking tools, OpinionFinder that measures positive vs. negative mood and Google-Profile of Mood States (GPOMS)

Their results indicated that the accuracy of DJIA predictions can be significantly improved by the inclusion of specific public mood dimensions. If you want to predict closing prices on the Dow Jones, have an eye on the Twitter feed.

This raises some interesting questions about how we look at social media data or activity. It may justify a more qualitative approach. When it comes to social media marketing, we may need to look at how our followers feel, rather than just counting them. 

This type of index should make us stop and think about how we interpret the holy grail of Big Data. Does this happiness index change with the weather?, with a regions sporting success? and if so does that affect stock markets or consumer spending? Which is cause and which is effect? Plenty for the self proclaimed big data scientists to ponder there. 

Photos, your Good Side

So, spent time in the past going through your photos, wondering which one to put on your social media profile, which one to put on your CV or which wedding portrait to hang on the wall? Choosing is not easy, but here is something that may help.

Your best photo or portrait may be the one showing your left cheek, according to a study by Kelsey Blackburn and James Schirillo from Wake Forest University in the US. Their work shows that images of the left side of the face are perceived and rated as more pleasant than pictures of the right side of the face, possibly due to the fact that we present a greater intensity of emotion on the left side of our face.

We are always judging human emotions using facial expressions. Our highly specialised facial muscles are capable of expressing many unique emotions. A quick glance can tell if someone is happy or sad. Good actors have a range of facial expressions for almost every emotion.

Research suggests that the left side of the face is more intense and active during emotional expression. It is also striking that Western artists' portraits predominantly present subjects' left profile. The Blackburn and Schirillo study investigated whether there are differences in the perception of the left and right sides of the face in real-life photographs of individuals. They go on to explain: "Our results suggest that posers' left cheeks tend to exhibit a greater intensity of emotion, which observers find more aesthetically pleasing. Our findings provide support for a number of concepts – the notions of lateralized emotion and right hemispheric dominance with the right side of the brain controlling the left side of the face during emotional expression."

Participants were asked to rate the pleasantness of both sides of male and female faces on gray-scale photographs. They found a strong preference for left-sided portraits, regardless of whether the pictures were originally taken of the left side, or mirror-reversed. The left side of the face was rated as more aesthetically pleasing for both male and female posers.

So if you are picking a photo for your on-line profile, or using a picture of a staff member in a poster, or using models to advertise clothes or a beauty product, keep to the left sided photos. It is your good side.