How is that some tele callers sell more than others? Economist Michael Housman wanted to find out. He collected performance data of over 30,000 tele callers across multiple industries. He compared the superstar performers with the average ones to study what made them spectacular. He couldn’t find one parameter that defined the difference among them. […]
John Gourville, professor of marketing at Harvard, says: Many innovations fail coz consumers irrationally overvalue the old while companies irrationally overvalue the new! Put differently, user habits are a competitive advantage for the brands that have habituated them. Any new brand that attempts to change the customer routine will find it difficult to do so. […]
If you wish to be on a diet, go on a diet with words first! Say you want to avoid pizza or other junk food that is offered. You tend to use the word ‘can’t’, right? ‘The pizza looks delicious, but I can’t have it coz I am trying to eat healthy’. Yet, you wonder […]
Would copying help? In an exam, yes, as long as you don’t get caught. It life, it works too. If you do it without making it look obvious. Imitation, as they say, is the best form of flattery. In psychology, imitating someone is called Mirroring. Also called Isopraxism, Mirroring, is a neurobehaviour we display in […]
Does an apple a day really keep the doctor away? There is enough evidence to the contrary. Yet why do we continue to believe it? Blame it on the rhyming nature of the aphorism! When sentences are spoken rhymingly, it ‘enhances processing fluency’, say linguists and cognitive scientists. Rhymes sound nice, are easily understood and, […]
Spoken words of a person carries far less weight compared to his body language. In the scope of human evolution, language is a relatively recent addition and invention. Humans had been interacting well before languages were found and formed and were communicating through nonverbal modes. In fact, nonverbal communication is hardwired into our brains, much […]
‘The Tonight Show’, hosted by Johnny Carson, ran on American television for 30 years. While most of the episodes were downright hilarious, some were controversial and a few taught life’s hidden truths! Once Carson was interviewing a girl scout who had set the record for selling the most cookies. He asked her the secret of […]
If you haven’t started saving for your retirement, have you ever wondered why you have not? It’s coz, deep inside, you would rather spend money on yourself rather than having it to give it to a stranger even if that stranger happens to be an older you! Hal Hershfield, a social psychologist at New York […]
You have that one colleague or acquaintance who doesn’t like you. He or she disagrees with you about everything. He or she despises you every time. At times you wish you could kill that person. Right? Relax. There is another way. A simpler way. No, not killing him or her but to kill his or […]
Circa 2002. Cognitive psychologist Nobel Kahneman is awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics. So, what’s the big deal given that the prize is given every year to someone? He was the first psychologist to win the coveted prize! The inherent value in his research was the proof that decisions are not ruled by logic but […]