Organic label makes food tast better, healthier

Halo effect – just labeling food makes it taste better, healthier

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110410130831.htm

Few persons care to study logic…

“Few persons care to study logic, because everybody conceives himself to be proficient enough in the art of reasoning already. But I observe that this satisfaction is limited to one’s own ratiocination, and does not extend to that of other men.”
–   Peirce, “The Fixation of Belief”, Popular Science Monthly 12 (November 1877), pp. 1-15.

How facts backfire

More on confirmation bias.  The more we know about it, it seems, the worse it gets.

Researchers discover a surprising threat to democracy: our brains

By Joe Keohane

July 11, 2010

More on confirmation bias

‘When presented with unwelcome scientific evidence, it seems, in a desperate attempt to retain some consistency in their world view, people would rather conclude that science in general is broken.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/03/confirmation-bias-scientific-evidence

If it’s easy to read, it’s easy to do, pretty, good, and true

Hyunjin Song and Norbert Schwarz describe some fascinating findings on how fluency affects judgement, choice and processing style

http://www.thepsychologist.org.uk/archive/archive_home.cfm?volumeID=23&editionID=185&ArticleID=1629

See also http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/01/31/easy__true/

You’re biased, I’m not

We’re biased to think that we are less prone to biases than others. 
http://psp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/3/369

Three studies suggest that individuals see the existence and operation of cognitive and motivational biases much more in others than in themselves. Study 1 provides evidence fromthree surveys that people rate themselves as less subject to various biases than the “average American,” classmates in a seminar, and fellow airport travelers. Data from the third survey further suggest that such claims arise from the interplay among availability biases and self-enhancement motives. Participants in one follow-up study who showed the better-than-average bias insisted that their self-assessments were accurate and objective even after reading a description of how they could have been affected by the relevant bias. Participants in a final study reported their peer’s self-serving attributions regarding test performance to be biased but their own similarly self-serving attributions to be free of bias. The relevance of these phenomena to naïve realism and to conflict, misunderstanding, and dispute resolution is discussed.

Brand Power

“We Japanese have a weakness for brands,” said Ryuko Nishimura, 43, a homemaker from Kuroishi, a three-hour drive away. “It makes the tuna taste two or three times more delicious.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/world/asia/20tuna.html

Design the decision process

From John Sviokla:

“In our world of information overload, every new choice is an effort — so companies need to give as much thought to the process of choice as to those choices and options themselves. For instance, Dan noticed that the Economist, at one time, showed three options for their potential subscribers: online-only for $59.00, print-only for $125.00, or online and print for $125.00. He designed an experiment, using his students, in which 84% chose the $125.00 for print and online, 0% chose print-only, and only 16% chose online-only. Any rational manager would say the $125.00 offer print-only offer was useless. But when Dan removed the $125.00 print-only offer, 68% of people bought the online product for $59.00 while only 32% shelled out for the $125.00 bundle! In other words, the higher-priced option was chosen less than half as often. By having the decoy of $125.00 for print-only, the customer could make an easy comparison to the other $125.00 offer in which they got online for “free.” Even something as simple as choosing a magazine has enough complexity in it that a decoy choice can radically change buyer behavior…Every manager should remember that in a world of excess choice, an easy place to differentiate is in the careful design of the decision process itself.”

Are “Great” Companies Just Lucky?

Mostly, yes. 

Are “Great” Companies Just Lucky?

Harvard Business Review April 2009

See also The Halo Effect

Wishful thinking

From Mormonism Unvailed by E.B. Howe (1834):

“There is nothing more curious than the connection between passion and credulity — and few things more humiliating and extraordinary, than the extent to which the latter may be carried, even in minds of no vulgar order, when under the immediate influence of any strong interest or excitement. It is also true that we have frequently to encounter a perverse incredulity and a callous insensibility to evidence, when we attempt to convince any one of what is contrary to his opinions, wishes or interests.”