Author: Susan Weinschenk
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The Next 100 Things You Need To Know About People: #118 — You Can’t Trust Memories
How accurate are memories? Did you see the movie Inside Out? In the movie memories are stored as round colored balls. And the balls can be retrieved and played back. This seems intuitively right. You think back to when you were last at a family gathering or an annual work celebration. You run the event…
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The Next 100 Things You Need To Know About People: #117 — Why People Spend More When They Use A Credit Card
Budget and financial counselors often advise people to withdraw cash each week and use it to pay for daily and weekly expenses rather than putting purchases on a credit card. The theory is that if you see the money leaving your wallet, you’ll spend less. The theory is correct, as several research studies have shown. But…
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The Next 100 Things You Need To Know About People: #116 — Everyone Can Be Creative
Creativity isn’t a trait that some people have and others don’t. Before I explain why that’s true, let me first define what I mean by creativity. If one hundred people looked at the same abstract painting by Jackson Pollock, many of them might say, “Oh, that artist is really creative,” but not everyone. If one…
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The Best Psychology Books You Should Read
Every few years I update my list of favorite psychology books and it’s that time again. It turns out that this is my most popular blog post. There are a lot of people searching on Google for “Best Psychology Books”. So here’s my latest list. Let me know if you have some favorites that you…
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The Next 100 Things You Need To Know About People: #115 — Emotions Are Contagious
One time when in Chicago I went to an improv theater performance. I’d had a busy week, and it was fairly late at night. I was tired and not that excited to be there. In fact, I’d been thinking of not going at all. As the room began to fill up before the performance started,…
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The Next 100 Things You Need To Know About People: #114 — Great Stories Release Brain Chemicals
George Lucas and the Hero’s Journey — In 1975 George Lucas had written two drafts of Star Wars, but the story had not yet “come together”. He then re-read a 1949 book by Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Lucas had read the book first in college, and now he re-read it. He decided to…
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The Next 100 Things You Need To Know About People: #113 — Some Gestures Are More Natural Than Others
Tell a friend about the last time you went to visit a family member, and you’ll notice that you’re moving your hands and arms while telling the story. Your body is gesturing without you even thinking about it. It’s often thought that people gesture while they talk to convey information. Although that’s true, the latest theory…
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Reserve Your Speaking/Interview Slot Now
We’re putting together our speaking and interview calendar for the rest of 2016 and early 2017. In addition to yours truly (the brain lady), we’ve got another person for you to consider to speak at your event or interview for your blog or podcast — my colleague, Guthrie. Guthrie is a behavioral economist with a degree…
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The Next 100 Things You Need To Know About People: #112 — More nouns = more clicks
If you’ve ever had to name a button on a website, app, or landing page, then you’ve probably had the moment where you’re going back and forth between options. Do I name the button “Sign up” or “Register”? Do I use “Donate Now” or “Be a Donor”? Is there a way to word requests, or buttons that encourages people…
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The Next 100 Things You Need To Know About People: #111 — When People Feel Connected, They Work Harder
Gregory Walton is a professor at Stanford who has studied the important effects of belonging on behavior. In one of his experiments, Walton (2012) found that when college students believed they shared a birthday with another student, they were more motivated to complete a task with that student and performed better on the task than…
