Stats and Curiosities. Harvard Business Review
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perceive pain as a form of punishment, they respond by feeling entitled to indulge themselves, particularly if they believe the pain was unfairly inflicted, the researchers say.
a task looks lighter when help is promised
People who were asked to guess the weight of a box of potatoes gave an estimate that was 10% less if they were told they’d get help lifting it, according to a team led by Adam Doerrfeld of Rutgers University. When participants were told they’d have to lift the box solo, they correctly guessed it weighed 10.5 pounds, on average. When they were informed that another person would help them, they guessed 9.4 pounds. Our perceptions are shaped not only by what we can do by ourselves but by what we believe we can do with others’ help, the researchers say.
a glimpse of green makes people more creative
Research participants who got a two-second glimpse of a green rectangle completed a subsequent task of imagining various ways to use a tin can with about 20% more creativity than those who had seen a white rectangle, says a team led by Stephanie Lichtenfeld of the University of Munich in Germany. It’s unclear why green, as opposed to red, blue, or gray, would stimulate creativity, though the researchers point out that green has strong associations with growth in many cultures.
red makes you push for a better deal …
When an online negotiable-price vacation package was presented against a blue background, research subjects made a “best offer” of $712, on average, but they went only as high as $684 when the background was red. Rajesh Bagchi of Virginia Tech and Amar Cheema of the University of Virginia say red induces aggression, so it heightened participants’ competitiveness with the seller and increased their determination to get a good deal. Red has the opposite effect in auctions, where greater aggression makes people willing to pay more in order to best other bidders, the researchers say.
… and makes male diners tip more
Male diners give bigger and more frequent tips to waitresses wearing red T-shirts than to those wearing black, white, blue, green, or yellow, according to Nicolas Guéguen and Céline Jacob of the Université de Bretagne-Sud in France. There’s no such effect from female customers, however, a finding that aligns with research suggesting that red increases women’s attractiveness to men. The study was conducted in France, where tips are generally included in the bill and additional tipping is considered optional. 40.7% of male diners in the study provided additional tips to waitresses, compared with 33.1% of females.
single ceos, wishing to seem attractive, take bigger risks
Companies run by unmarried CEOs appear to invest more aggressively and take greater risks—their investment level is 10% higher, on average, and their stock-return volatility is 3% greater than other firms’, say Nikolai L. Roussanov of The Wharton School and Pavel G. Savor of the University of Pennsylvania. The numbers are consistent with evidence that single men take on greater risk than their married peers in hopes of being more attractive to potential mates, the researchers say.
do you think of time as proceeding left to right or right to left?
Research participants viewed a weight-loss ad more favorably (scoring it 4.64 on a 7-point scale) when a “before” picture was placed on the left and an “after” picture was placed on the right, in comparison with when the picture locations were reversed (3.39 on the same scale), say doctoral candidate Boyoun (Grace) Chae and JoAndrea Hoegg of the University of British Columbia. That’s because the participants, who grew up using left-to-right languages such as English, conceptualize time as proceeding from left to right. The effect is reversed among people from cultures that read right to left, even if those cultures read numbers from left to right, the researchers say.
anti-atheist bias is based on distrust of nonbelievers
In a series of psychological experiments conducted in Vancouver, Canada, participants revealed that they considered atheists to be less trustworthy than a number of groups often considered to be outliers, including Muslims, gay men, and feminists, and only as trustworthy as rapists, according to a team led by Will M. Gervais of the University of British Columbia. The lack of trust in atheists may reflect people’s assumption that individuals tend to behave more ethically if they believe they are being monitored by a higher power, the researchers suggest.
prospective students like elite colleges better on cloudy days
A 1-standard-deviation increase in cloud cover on the day of a prospective student’s visit to an elite university was associated with a 9-percentage-point increase in the probability that the student would enroll, says Uri Simonsohn of The Wharton School. In a study of 1,284 prospective students, Simonsohn found evidence that cloudy weather makes academic activities more appealing and increases the desirability of attending an academically challenging institution.
when you feel cold, you like romance movies better
Because being physically cold makes people crave psychological warmth, it also increases their preference for romance movies, according to a series of studies by Jiewen Hong of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Yacheng Sun of the University of Colorado. For example, undergraduates were willing to pay about $1.60 (US) more to see a romance movie when the ambient temperature was about 13 degrees (Fahrenheit) colder. The effect didn’t apply to action movies, thrillers, or comedies.
reading irrelevant information hurts your ability to think
Research participants who had read useless information about future negotiation partners were 46% less likely to identify important issues in the negotiation than people who had been told nothing, suggesting that irrelevant information hampers clear thinking, say Scott S. Wiltermuth of the University of Southern California and Margaret A. Neale of Stanford. Moreover, statements such as “This person prefers a certain amount of change and variety and becomes dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations” tended to be rated as advantageous, indicating that the participants were unable to perceive the uselessness of the information they were given, the researchers say.
thoughts about time’s monetary value inhibit pleasure
Research subjects who had been asked to calculate their recent hourly wages were less happy (scoring an average of 63 on a scale of 100) while listening to “The Flower Duet” from the opera Lakme, by Leo Delibes, than those who hadn’t been prompted to think about their wages (70 on the same scale), say Sanford E. DeVoe and Julian House of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.