Author: Susan Weinschenk
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100 Things You Should Know About People: #40 — "You're Easily Influenced, but I'm not"
I have been doing a lot of public speaking about my book and the ideas of persuasion. Early in my talks I often discuss John Bargh’s research on how much we are influenced by factors that we are not aware of. Bargh had people unscramble sets of words to make sentences, for example, he would…
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Send Me To South By Southwest: Vote for my panel
I’ve submitted to speak at South By Southwest (SXSW) next spring. The talk I’ve submitted is: The Psychology of Web Design: Interactive Behavior Explained. SXSW has an interesting way of deciding who the speakers are — 30% of their decision is based on votes. So if you go to the description of my talk (click…
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100 Things You Should Know About People: #39 — Your Mind Wanders 30% of the Time
You are at work reading a report that one of your colleagues has written and you realize that you’ve just read the same sentence about three times. Instead of thinking about what you were reading, your mind wandered. Mind wandering is similar to, but not the same thing as daydreaming. Psychologists use daydreaming to refer…
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I'm Collecting Blog Feedback — Who are you and why are you here?
It’s been a while since I created a survey to collect some information from my blog readers; so here are a few questions for you. I would so appreciate it if you would take a moment to respond — you can either reply via a comment, or send me an email with your responses to weinschenk@gmail.com…
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100 Things You Should Know About People: #38 — Even The Illusion Of Progress Is Motivating
You are given a frequent buyer card for your local coffeeshop. Each time you buy a cup of coffee you get a stamp on your card. When the card is filled you get a free cup of coffee. Here are two different scenarios: Card A: The card has 10 boxes for the stamps, and when…
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100 Things You Should Know About People: #37 — People Assume It's You, Not The Situation
A man is walking down a busy city street on his way to an appointment, and he sees what looks like a college student drop a folder of papers. The papers scatter on the ground and the man glances over but keeps on walking. What do you think? Why didn’t the man stop to help…
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The 10 Most Important Secrets of Powerful Presenters
I am one of those people who loves giving speeches and presentations. From what I have heard, I’m in a minority. Many people dislike giving speeches, but I’ve always had a hard time understanding that. My delight in giving talks is probably tied up with my love of theatre, my desire to be the center…
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100 Things You Should Know About People: #36 — People are Inherently Lazy
Ok, I’ll admit it, I am exaggerating a little bit when I say people are inherently lazy. What I really mean is that people will do the least amount of work possible to get a task done. Is lazy another word for efficient? — Over eons of evolution humans have learned that they will survive…
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The Psychology of Being Without a Cell Phone
Two weeks ago my iphone was stolen (or I might have lost it — I’m still not sure). I’ve been fascinated by the psychology of what it felt like to not have a cell phone. Of course, there was a time when no one had cell phones — It’s hard to remember these days, but…
