Quirky Human Behavior
May 14th, 2007 | by Neal Levene |
An interesting article from Boing Boing talks about quirks in the human decision making process. The article is based on an upcoming book by Richard Wiseman called Quirkology: How We Discover the Big Truths in Small Things
New Scientist had listed several of the author’s studies discussed in the book. In one study people who smiled found cartoons more funny than people who frowned.
The results revealed that people experience the emotion associated with their expressions. Those with a forced smile felt happier, and found the cartoons funnier than those who were forced to frown…
In another study:
They asked people to rate how they would feel about wearing a nice, soft, blue jumper that had been freshly laundered - but previously worn by someone else. As they varied the fictitious previous wearers of the jumper, it became clear how strongly people follow the age-old belief in magical contagion.
[The author is English, so we are talking about a sweater here.]
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the volunteers were unhappiest about wearing the jumper if they were told it had previously belonged to a serial killer. On the whole they would rather have worn a sweater that had been dropped in dog faeces and not washed - raising genuine health concerns - than a laundered sweater that had been worn by a mass murderer.
Even in the 21st century, we are far from being the rational creatures that we like to think we are, as a final part of the experiment made dismayingly clear. When asked to imagine that the laundered sweater had been worn by someone who had contracted HIV through a blood transfusion, most people once again said they wouldn’t wear it.
Source: Boing Boing
These kind of irrational decision making traits raise interesting challenges for those of us who are trying to improve decision making. I find the whole topic interesting. I look forward to reading the book.
Link to New Scientist Article, Link to Richard Wiseman’s Web Page, Link to Boing Boing Article.
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2 Responses to “Quirky Human Behavior”
By Nathan on May 14, 2007 | Reply
So how do you create a method for better decision making if people base their decisions off illogical reasons? If you provide a decision maker with a dashboard that clearly shows his office needs to be shut down… what’s to say he’ll follow the concrete, data based information rather than a guy feeling that says to keep it open regardless of the losses.
By TMac on Aug 14, 2007 | Reply
I’m not sure if I’d call that quirky, or ignorant. It seems that no matter how far we think we’ve advanced as a society, the general population bases decisions on emotions or prejeduce.