psychology – Jonathan Frei

Give people time to act honestly

Jonathan Frei — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 11:02:08 +0000

The Economist explores the psychology of morality by reporting on a dice rolling experiment:

The researchers had no way of knowing what numbers participants actually rolled, of course. But they knew, statistically, that the average roll, if people reported honestly, should have been 3.5. This gave them a baseline from which to calculate participants’ honesty. Those forced to enter their results within 20 seconds, the researchers found, reported a mean roll of 4.6. Those who were not under any time pressure reported a mean roll of 3.9. Both groups lied, then. But those who had had more time for reflection lied less.

The experiment suggests that people who are rushed and don’t take the time to think are more likely to lie and cheat than those who have time to think about their actions rationally.

Jonathan Frei — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 12:00:05 +0000

Flow

Death by brainstorming

Jonathan Frei — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:00:06 +0000

Gathering opinions from everyone in the room is still in vogue, but creative work is still best done in solitude. Susan Cain of The New York times explores the role of Groupthink in the workplace and how best to combat its negative effects.

Solitude is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement come from an oddly gregarious place. Most of us now work in teams, in offices without walls, for managers who prize people skills above all. Lone geniuses are out. Collaboration is in.

Groupthink can be damaging to teams and small groups when there is pressure and bias to conform to the groups expectations or fear of judgement for expressing fringe ideas. However, there are exceptions.

The one important exception to this dismal record is electronic brainstorming, where large groups outperform individuals; and the larger the group the better. The protection of the screen mitigates many problems of group work. This is why the Internet has yielded such wondrous collective creations.

Open source software and crowd sourced information gathers all the best ideas and then lets the best of the best bubble to the surface.

The Psychology of Social Commerce

Jonathan Frei — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 14:38:41 +0000

Tab Juice, a social e-commerce platform, has an interesting infographic on some of the psychological influences that go on in the minds of online shoppers.

When you combine the power of the mind and the force of social shopping, you have a mighty confabulation of social rules and subconscious needs. Together, these things play into the psychology of social commerce. Psychologists have defined six universal heuristics or learning methods that have been seen in shoppers and are now being seen in social commerce.

These are interesting factors to keep in mind when building commercial websites as well as when you’re shopping on them. It’s important to be aware of the mental influences on your decisions.

via Top Rank Blog