Category: brain
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100 Things You Should Know About People: #26 — Culture shapes our brains
My entire career I’ve been worried about the fact that most psychology research is conducted on 18-24 year old college students. What if the way 18-24 year old college students react, think, and behave is not the same as everyone else? We are drawing conclusions about PEOPLE in general, but only collecting data from a…
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100 Things You Should Know About People: #24 — You Are Most Affected By Brands and Logos When You Are Sad Or Scared
Here’s Scenario 1: You get together with your friends to watch your home team play a game on TV. They win! After an afternoon of fun and friendship you stop at a grocery store on your way home. You are in a good mood. Are you more or less likely to buy the usual cereal…
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100 Things You Should Know About People: #23 — You Are Hard-Wired For Imitation and Empathy
If you put your face right in front of a young baby and stick out your tongue, the baby will stick out his or her tongue too. This happens from a very young age (even as young as a one month old). So? What does this have to do with anything? It’s an example of…
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10 Best Posts of 2009
It’s that time of year — so here is my list of the 10 best posts from my blog in 2009. I chose the 10 that I believe have had the greatest impact/most thought provoking/most interest from my readers. #1: Dopamine Makes You Addicted to Seeking Information — I thought this was an interesting post…
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Book Review: John Medina's Brain Rules
Here’s a quick review of John Medina’s book, Brain Rules. First the video, and then below that I have a short text review. John Medina makes no mystery of the 12 Rules. He has them listed on the back cover of the book. At first glance they look a little simplistic: Exercise — Rule #1: …
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100 Things You Should Know About People: #20 — Your Attention Is Riveted By Pictures Of People
Second only to movement (animation, video), pictures of a human face capture attention in any medium, including websites. Pictures of a human face not only capture attention, but keep the attention on that part of the screen even when the picture goes away. We start young — With some creative experiments it has been proven…
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100 Things You Should Know About People: #17 — Your Unconscious Knows 1st
You are shopping for a new computer and the salesperson you are talking to is offering you what seems to be a good deal. And yet there is a part of you that feels uncomfortable and isn’t sure if this is the right computer, or the right deal, or the right store for you. If…
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100 Things You Should Know About People: #16 — The Ability To Delay Gratification Or Not Starts Young
You want to buy that Kindle, but you are thinking maybe you should wait for a while. Maybe you should see if the price comes down after the holiday shopping season, or maybe you should make sure that you have enough cash to pay all of your credit card bills before you spend money on…
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100 Things You Should Know About People: #13 — Want To Change a Habit? Use Fun, Surprise, and a Crowd
Have a habit that you want to change? Or maybe you are trying to change the behavior of people at work? Or you want to change the behavior of people coming to your blog or website? If you read any of the research on habits you will find that habits are hard to change. (I’ll…
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100 Things You Should Know About People: #11 — Why You Can't Resist Paying Attention to Food, Sex, or Danger
Have you ever wondered why traffic always slows when people are driving by an accident? Do you moan about the fact that people are attracted by the gruesome, and yet find that you glance over too as you drive by? Well, it’s not really your fault, you (and everybody else) can’t resist looking at scenes…
