research – Page 2 – The Team W Blog

July 17, 2013July 17, 2013

Red Or Blue?: Research On Screen Color That May Surprise You

How does color affect our behavior when we are doing things online? Does it make a difference what the color background is? Does it depend on what we are reading or doing? Can you affect people’s decisions and behavior by changing the background color of a particular page or screen?

Research by Ravi Mehta and Rui Juliet Zhu from the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia looks at these questions. In a fairly comprehensive set of different studies Mehta and Zhu found some interesting color effects. I describe the six studies below (but if you can’t wait for the punchline skip down to the “take-aways” section).

STUDY 1

In the first study people were first given anagrams to solve. Some of the anagrams used “avoidance” words, for example ‘prevent’, some of the words were “approach” words, for example ‘adventure’, and some were “neutral”, for example, ‘computer’. Sometimes the words were on a red background and sometimes on a blue background. People solved the avoidance words faster when they were on a red background (compared to blue or neutral) and they solved the approach words faster when they were on a blue background (compared to red or neutral).

The second task in this study had people read brand descriptions and then rate each brand on a scale from 1 to 7. Some of the brand descriptions had a message of a negative outcome you would want to avoid – for example a toothpaste that would prevent cavities. Others had messages of approach – for example a toothpaste that whitens your teeth. When the brands were on a blue background people preferred brands that were described with the approach or positive description. When the brands were on a red background people preferred the brands that had avoidance messages.

STUDY 2

In the second study people were given a “detailed” task — memorizing words. They were given 36 words to memorize in 2 minutes. Then they were asked to recall the words 20 minutes later. For some people the background screen was red, others blue and others neutral. People who did the task with the red screen remembered more words correctly than people with the blue or neutral background. People with the blue background would remember as many words as red, but several of the remembered words were actually false (i.e., they were not in the set of words originally memorized).

In the second part of study 2 people completed a “creative” task – they were asked to come up with as many creative uses for a brick as they could in 1 minute. A panel of judges rated how creative the list was. Some of the people worked on a red screen, others blue, and others neutral. The color didn’t affect how many ideas people came up with, but people working with a blue screen had more creative solutions than those in the red or neutral.

STUDY 3

In Study 3 people were asked to read sets of names or addresses which were either identical or were slightly different. It was a proofreading task. The participants had to decide whether one name and address matched another. Some people did the task on a blue screen, others on red and others on a neutral color. The participants were also asked afterwards whether they were focusing on avoiding mistakes or going quickly. People working with a red screen were more accurate on the task than people working on a blue or neutral screen. People working on a red screen also were more likely to report that they were trying to avoid mistakes.

STUDY 4

In Study 4 people were given a sheet of paper with drawings of different parts. They were asked to use any five parts and use them to design a toy that someone age 5 to 11 would play with. The parts were printed in either red or blue. Judges (using black and white copies of the design) then rated the designs based on originality and novelty (creativity) vs. practicality and appropriateness (attention to detail). Red toys were judged to be more practical and appropriate than blue. Blue toys were judged to be more original and novel.

STUDY 5

In study 5 people were shown ads for a camera on a computer screen. The ad was presented with a background color of either red or blue. In some versions of the ad there were pictures that showed product details of the camera, for example the lens. Other versions included visuals that were not about the camera, for example, a road sign, or a map, which would use creative thinking to connect the camera to a road trip. Participants rated the ads for their appeal and effectiveness. When the screen was red people rated the ad more highly when it included the specific product detail visuals. When the screen was blue then people rated the ad more favorably when the visuals were more conceptual.

STUDY 6

In study 6 people were given tasks in black font on a white background screen. They were told that one of the tasks required detailed and careful processing of information and that another would require creative, imaginative and “out of the box” thinking. They were asked to select which color, red or blue, they thought would enhance their performance on each task. People picked blue for BOTH tasks, i.e., they believed that blue would enhance their performance no matter what the task.

Here are my take-aways from this research:

If you are using a negative or fear message it will be more impactful if you use the color red. If you are using a positive message then use blue.
If you want people to do a detail-oriented task use a red background. If you want them to be creative use a blue background.
If you are highlighting detailed features of a product your message will be more persuasive if you use a red background. If you are highlighting concepts of how to use the product then the message will be more persuasive with a blue background.
People prefer blue backgrounds over red, even though red might make them get a task done more quickly. They are not aware of the effects that the colors are having.

IMPORTANT NOTE: These studies were all done in North America. There are cultural effects of color, so these results may NOT hold in different parts of the world.

What do you think? Are you willing to use red?

And if you like to read the research:

Ravi Mehta and Rui (Juliet) Zhu. Blue or Red? Exploring the Effect of Color on Cognitive Task Performances. Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, 2053 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2, Canada. www.sciencexpress.org / 5 February 2009 / Page 1 / 10.1126/science.1169144

April 22, 2013December 16, 2014

How To Get People To Do Stuff #6: Hot drinks, soft pillows & heavy objects

Do you think you’d make different decisions if you were holding something heavy in your hand than holding nothing? Or if you were holding a cup of hot coffee instead of a cold drink? Sounds unlikely, but it’s true: Here’s a video about “haptic sensations.” Or, if you prefer, you can read the summary text after the video.

Joshua Ackerman and John Bargh (2010) conducted research where they had candidates for job interviews hand in their resume one of three ways. One candidate handed in her resume on regular printer paper. Another candidate handed in her resume on regular printer paper, but had it clipped to a light clipboard. A third candidate handed in her resume on regular printer paper, but had it clipped to a heavy clipboard. Then they had interviewers rate which candidates were the best for the job. The interviewers gave higher ratings to candidates whose resume they were reading while the interviewer was holding a heavy clipboard.

Holding a heavy object while looking at a resume makes a job candidate appear more important. In fact, any idea you’re considering while holding something heavy (for instance, a book) you will deem to be more important. The metaphor of an idea being “weighty” has a physical corollary.

There are two terms that are used for this. Sometimes it’s called “haptic sensation” and sometimes you will find it referred to as “embodied cognition.” We are very influenced by the meaning that our sense of touch perceives.

You may be surprised to find out all the ways that these haptic sensations affect our perceptions and judgments. Besides the effect for a heavy object, people also react to these other haptic sensations:

• When people touch a rough object during a social interaction, for instance, if they’re sitting on a chair with coarse wool upholstery, they rate the interaction more difficult than if they touch a soft object.

• When people touch a hard object, they rate a negotiation as more rigid than if they touch a soft object.

• When people hold a warm cup (for example, a warm cup of coffee), they judge the person they’re interacting with to have a warmer personality than if they’re holding a cup of cold liquid.

You can use these haptic sensations to get people to do stuff. If you want people to have easier interactions with others, then you might want to have soft furniture, not hard chairs, in your conference room, and use a soft fabric covering for them rather than a scratchy tweed. If you have an important client coming to your office, and you want her to feel warmly about you, get her a cup of hot coffee or tea in a mug that will transmit the heat before you start.

Ackerman, Joshua M., Christopher Nocera, and John Bargh. 2010. “Incidental haptic sensations influence social judgments and decisions.” Science. 328 (5986): 1712-1715. DOI: 10.1126/science.1189993

January 11, 2013January 11, 2013

How To Get People To Do Stuff: #4 — Does Money Make You Mean?

The mention of money, or seeing money changes how people behave and interact with each other. Watch the video and find out how:

Kathleen Vohs, a Professor of Marketing at the University of Minnesota has researched the effect that money has on people. She doesn’t even use actual money. It turns out that just the concept of money changes behavior.

Dr. Vohs concludes that the concept of money leads people to behave self-sufficiently. If you want people to be self-sufficient, then prime them with the idea of, or pictures of, money. If you want people to be collaborative and help others, then avoid the mention of, or pictures of, money.

For more information check out:

Kathleen D. Vohs, et al.
The Psychological Consequences of Money
Science 314, 1154 (2006)

and my new book (when it comes out in March 2013 — available for pre-order now at Amazon) How To Get People To Do Stuff

What do you think? Is money a good incentive to get people to do things or work harder?

November 30, 2012February 23, 2015

How To Get People To Do Stuff: #3 — A Hard-To-Read Font Will Activate Logical Thinking

I am taking a chance here, because I know that the subject of fonts is always controversial, and if I say that you should use fonts that are hard to read I’ll be blasted by many of my readers! But I have to share this fascinating research on how mental processing changes in some surprising ways when people read text that is in a hard to read font vs. an easy to read font. Below is the video.

For more information check out:

Daniel Kahneman’s book Thinking Fast And Slow

and my new book (when it comes out in March 2013 — available for pre-order now at Amazon) How To Get People To Do Stuff

In a previous video on confirmation bias I talk about Daniel Kahneman’s idea of System 1 (quick, intuitive) thinking vs. System 2 thinking (slow, logical, analytical). Kahneman’s research shows that when a font is easy to read then System 1 thinking does its usual thing — makes quick decisions, which are not always accurate. When a font is harder to read, System 1 gives up and System 2 takes over. Which means that people will think harder and more analytically when a font is hard to read. I’m NOT suggesting you intentionally make fonts hard to read in the text you have at websites and in other places, but these findings do make me pause and think about whether we are all inadvertently or purposely encouraging people not to think about what they are reading.

Ok, let’s hear it! I know you will all want to weigh in on this one!

October 4, 2012November 20, 2012

How To Get People To Do Stuff: #1 — Use Nouns Instead Of Verbs

This blog post is the first of a new series called “How To Get People To Do Stuff”. It features nuggets from the book I am writing by the same name due out in March of 2013.

I’m also starting a new format of doing video blogs. So first is the video, and then below it is the text that I talk about in the video.

Let me know what you think about the new topic series and whether you like the video format!

Here’s the research:

Walton, Gregory and Banaji, Mahzarin, Being what you say: the effect of essentialist linguistic labels on preferences, Social Cognition, Vol. 22, No. 2, 2004, pp. 193-213.

In a survey about voting, Gregory Walton at Stanford sometimes asked “How important is it to you to be a voter in tomorrow’s election?” versus “How important is it to you to vote in tomorrow’s election?”

The first sentence was phrased so that the emphasis was on the noun, “voter”. The second sentence emphasized “to vote”. Did the wording make a difference?

11% more voted — When the the noun (be a voter) was used instead of the verb (to vote), 11% more people actually voted the following day. Why would nouns affect behavior more than verbs?

Needing to belong — I had always learned that using direct verbs resulted in more action. But if using a noun invokes group identity, that will trump a direct verb. People have a strong need to feel that they belong. People identify themselves in terms of the groups they belong to and this sense of group can deeply affect their behavior. You can stimulate group identity just by the way you have people talk about themselves or the way you phrase a question. For example, research shows that if people say “I am a chocolate eater” versus “I eat chocolate a lot” it will affect how strong their preference is for chocolate. “Eater” is a noun. “Eat” is a verb.

When you are trying to get people to do stuff try using nouns rather than verbs. Invoke a sense of belonging to a group and it is much more likely that people will comply with your request.

What do you think? Have you tried nouns instead of verbs?

April 13, 2012

Top 10 Things Every Presenter Needs To Know About People: #4 – People "read" your body positions instantly and unconsciously

Woman with a tilted head — Tilting your head can be perceived as a sign of submission

Not too long ago I spoke at a conference with a line-up of great presenters. One man I had been looking forward to hearing got up to speak. He is well-known in his field, but I had never seen him speak. His talk was very good, but I couldn’t concentrate on it because throughout the entire talk he did a small movement over and over. He would step forward with one foot and then step back with the other, like a little dance, over and over. It was a form of fidgeting, and it was very distracting.

The research in psychology over the last 15 years makes it clear that people process information unconsciously and make very quick (1 second or less), unconscious decisions about other people.

People respond to your body language before you start talking — The way you walk and stand, your facial expressions, and your eye contact (or lack of it) communicate whether you are nervous, confident, excited, and more. Decide what impression you want to convey, and then think about how your body language is conveying it. Here are a couple of things to keep in mind:

Make sure that your walk to the front of the room shows confidence — Stand up tall with good posture, take your time, don’t rush, don’t fidget with anything while you walk. Plant your feet firmly on each step. If you are the presenter, then you are the leader. Your audience wants a strong leader. If you walk confidently, your audience will be inspired to “follow you” into the presentation.

Before you begin to talk, “set” your body — Stop, face the audience, stand firmly with even weight on both feet, look at the audience, smile a little bit, take a deep breath, and then begin. It will seem like too much time has passed without talking, but it will not appear that way to the audience.

If you face people directly you convey authority and confidence — Standing at an angle says that you and the audience are collaborating.

Don’t have any barriers between you and the audience—don’t use a lectern, and move tables out of the way if possible. People need to see your body in order to trust you

Keep your head straight — When you are talking one-on-one with someone, tilting your head conveys that you are interested in them or what they are saying, but it can also be a sign of submission. Since you want to convey authority and confidence during your presentation, you should avoid tilting your head.

Stand with balanced weight — Standing firmly with your weight evenly balanced on both legs and your head straight says you are sure and confident. Putting weight on only one foot or leaning against something like a table, chair, or lectern undermines your confidence and authority.

Don’t fidget –– Fidgeting takes many forms. Some people rattle keys in their pockets or tap their feet or fingers. Fidgeting conveys that you are nervous, bored, or impatient.

Video yourself, evaluate, and learn new habits — It’s not easy to change habits such as how you stand, move your head, or fidget. Video yourself presenting and then pick one thing to try and change. Work on it every time you present. Keep recording yourself. When you’ve mastered one of your unconscious movement habits, go on to a new one.

It takes work to change these automatic ways of standing and moving, but with persistence you can convey a more powerful and polished demeanor when you present. You can’t ignore that people react unconsciously. You’ve got to accept it and then work to portray the image and impression that will best get your message across.

What do you think? Have you been able to change some of your body language for the better?

Experiences vs. Possessions: You Are What You've Done, Not What You Own

Picture of the beach — A walk on the beach is an experience you will use to define who you are.

In the last few years psychology research (e.g. Carter & Gilovich, 2010) has proven what many of us have long suspected: that experiences (vacations, events with friends, etc) make people happier than buying and owning stuff (computers, clothes, etc). But more recent research by the same duo (Carter & Gilovich, 2012) shows that the experience vs. possession difference goes further than they thought.

Why are experiences more important? — In their newest reserach Carter and Gilovich wanted to find out why we value experiences over possessions. Their theory was that people use experiences to define their sense of self more than they use possessions. This proved to be true. People in their study talked about their experiences more than possessions when they told their “life stories”. When talking about purchases and possessions they were more likely to feel that a purchase was an indicator of who they were if they described it in terms of their experience with the possession rather than the physical quality of the item itself.

Experiences give more info — The value of experiences to understand went beyond themselves. Participants in the study felt that knowing what another person had experienced would give them more information and insight into who they really are than knowing what they bought.

Experience = more satisfaction — And lastly, the researchers conclude that it is because people cling to the memory of important experiences that makes them more satisfied with experiences compared to possessions.

Thinking about the results of this research the following ideas come to mind:

If you are marketing a product, put emphasis on what experiences you will have with it rather than what it will look like/feel like/ be like to own it.
If you are collecting purchasing info about target clients (as has been in the news lately with questions about privacy) you’d be better off to know what people’s purchases imply about the experiences they are having rather than just inferring from the data what they own.
The user experience of a product is more important than we think. It’s not just the idea that the product should be easy to use/ interesting. The EXPERIENCE part of user experience is not just a fancy word to use. People remember and evaluate, and even cherish experiences, even with technology.
Customers may resonate more with a brand if they can get a sense of what the organization has DONE, not just what products or services they sell.

What do you think? What are the implications that we define sense of self through experience more than possessions?

And if you like to read the research:

Carter, Travis J.;Gilovich, Thomas

I Am What I Do, Not What I Have: The Differential Centrality of Experiential and Material Purchases to the Self.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Feb 27 , 2012, doi: 10.1037/a0027407

Carter, Travis J.; Gilovich, Thomas. The relative relativity of material and experiential purchases. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2010; 98 (1): 146 DOI:10.1037/a0017145

December 20, 2011

The Science of Happiness, Part 3: What commuting, graduate degrees and being single have in common

Chart of the dowjones and happiness — Correlation Between the Dow Jones and Happiness

WARNING: The following discussion is about the correlation between happiness and many other factors. But it’s just correlation. The factors below are correlated with happiness, but that does not mean they CAUSE happiness. “Correlation does not imply causation”.

Now that I’ve posted the warning, I can talk about some of the interesting correlations between happiness and other things. Such as:

Extroverts are happier than introverts.
Optimists are happier than pessimists
Married people are happier than single people
People who attend religious services regularly are happier than people who do not
People who have a college degree are happier than people who do not have a college degree BUT
People with advanced degrees are LESS happy than people with just a bachelor’s degree
People who have sex are happier than people who don’t have sex
People who are busy are happier than people who say they have too little to do
People are happier the older they get
The more someone commutes the LESS happy they are — in fact commuting is one of the largest sources of stress and unhappiness there is. The length of the commute is directly connected to happiness. The more minutes of commuting = more unhappiness.
People are happier when they feel they can predict what is happening — hence the chart above that shows that when the Dow Jones dropped unexpectedly, happiness dropped, but when people realized that it was going to be a bumpy ride then it stopped affecting their happiness
People are happier when they live in close proximity to happy people (not just in your house, but including the neighborhood).

I have a Ph.D., but I work out of my house. Maybe the two cancel each other out?

What do you think about these correlations?

Here’s the references:

Eric Weiner, The Geography of Bliss, Twelve, 2008.

Fowler, J. H.; Christakis, N. A (3 January 2009). “Dynamic Spread of Happiness in a Large Social Network: Longitudinal Analysis Over 20 Years in the Framingham Heart Study” (PDF). British Medical Journal 337 (768): a2338. doi:10.1136/bmj.a2338. PMC 2600606. PMID 19056788.

Graham, Carol, Soumya Chattopadhyay, and Mario Picon (2010), “Does the Dow Get You Down? Happiness and the U.S. Economic Crisis”, mimeo, The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, January.

July 20, 2011

7 Tips To Get A Team To Implement Your Recommendations: Tip #5

This is the 5th in a 7-part series on how to get a team to implement your recommendations. Tip #1 was: Hide Your Top 3 Recommendations. Tip #2 was Say “You”, “They”, “Customers”, “Users”, or “Research”. Don’t say “I”. Tip #3 was Give Them A Presentation, Don’t Send Them A Report. Tip #4 was Use The Word “Because” And Give A Reason. Now for Tip #5. The context is that you want to see your recommendations implemented. How can you present them to a team so that they will be acted on and not dismissed?

Tip #5: Add research or statistics to bolster your recommendations — Research tells us that people make decisions based on a variety of unconscious reasons, but they like to have a rational, logical, fact-based reason to justify their decision. Including research or statistics with your recommendations makes it easier for people to say “yes”. It’s not enough to cite vague numbers without supporting evidence. You need to provide an actual source for your citation.

For example, if I say, “Research shows that people can only remember 3-4 items”, that is not as strong as saying: “You’ve probably heard that people can remember 7 plus or minus 2 items (5-9), but that number is not accurate. Separate research studies, for instance those by Baddeley and more by Cowan, show that the number is really 3-4 not 5-9”. Then you want to provide the actual research paper citation. (Of course I’m going to recommend my book, 100 Things Every Designer Needs To Know About People, as a great source for research citations about design!). If you are going to quote statistics make sure of the number and provide a source for the data.

Using your own data, for example, data from user research you conducted is also a great idea. If you have direct quotes and/or video clips from actual users/customers, that is the most powerful and persuasive.

What do you think? Have you been citing research and sources with your recommendations?

July 16, 2011

7 Tips To Get A Team To Implement Your Recommendations: Tip #4

This is the 4th in a 7-part series on how to get a team to implement your recommendations. Tip #1 was: Hide Your Top 3 Recommendations. Tip #2 was Say “You”, “They”, “Customers”, “Users”, or “Research”. Don’t say “I”. Tip #3 was Give Them A Presentation, Don’t Send Them A Report. Now for Tip #4. The context is that you want to see your recommendations implemented. How can you present them to a team so that they will be acted on and not dismissed?

Tip #4: Use the word “Because”, and give a reason. Have you heard of the “Because” study? In 1978 three researchers (see reference below), conducted a research study. Ellen Langer, Arthur Blank and Benzion Chanowitz used a busy copy machine at on a college campus (remember that this is in the 1970’s — there weren’t computers and printers. People did a lot more copying back then). The researchers tried out three different, carefully worded requests to break in line:

“Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the xerox machine?”
“Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the xerox machine, because I have to make copies?”
“Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the xerox machine, because I’m in a rush?”

Here are the results:

“Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the xerox machine?” [60% compliance]
“Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the xerox machine, because I have to make copies?”[93% compliance]
“Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the xerox machine, because I’m in a rush?” [94% compliance]

Using the word “because” and giving a reason resulted in significantly more compliance. This was true even when the reason was not very compelling (“because I have to make copies). The researchers hypothesize that people go on “automatic” behavior or “mindlessness” as a form of a heuristic, or short-cut. And hearing the word “because” followed by a reason (no matter how lame the reason is), causes us to comply.

(Two interesting side notes here — if the request was large (copying 20 pages rather than 5), then only the real reason, “I’m in a rush” resulted in compliance. And Elizabeth Langer, who was one of the researchers in this study as a grad student, later went on to study mindlessness and mindfulness in her career, becoming famous for her research on reversing the effects of aging with mindfulness — See the book Counterclockwise).

What this all boils down to is this: When the stakes are low people will engage in automatic behavior. If you want a team to implement your recommendations, then a) make as small a request/recommendation as you can, and b) use the word because and give a reason as to why you want the change to be implemented.

What do you think? Have you tried this technique?

And if you want to read the original research:

Langer, E., Blank, A., & Chanowitz, B. (1978). The mindlessness of Ostensibly Thoughtful Action: The Role of “Placebic” Information in Interpersonal Interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36(6), 635-642.