Tag: sway

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Nuclear Waste, Altruism, Pleasure, and the Brain

In Switzerland, the government wanted to use nuclear plants to power the country, but they needed a place to dump all the waste. A study was done in the little town which was being considered. When asked, 50.8% of the people agreed to put themselves at risk for the common good of the nation. To see if they could shrink the number of those against the proposal, they offered $2,175 per person per year to the townspeople. Surprisingly, this had the opposite affect. This time only 24.6% agreed. When the deal was sweetened to $6,525 per person per year, only one person changed his answer. What??? This doesn’t make sense.

Will you do this for free? Sure. We can do that.

How ’bout if I give you lots of cash? No, I don’t think so. Would more $ help persuade you? Nope.

So what happened?

Ultimately, it goes back to the brain. (There is physiological evidence for what I’m about to say. Check Chapter 7 of “Sway” by Ori and Rom Brafman) When only the altruistic part of the brain was stimulated, people were agreeable. But when $$ is offered, the pleasure part of the brain is also stimulated. Because of it’s power and the amount it is exercised, (how often we use it) it takes more to stimulate the pleasure center of the brain. It needs more powerful drugs to make it excited than the altruistic part.

In the experiment, somehow $6,525 didn’t seem like enough compensation to truly stimulate the pleasure part of the brain, but the altruistic part was satisfied with doing it for the common good of the people. Although normal reasoning might lead one to offer financial incentives as motivation, it appears that this might not always be the best option. One might be better off evaluating the offer for how much it might stimulate the pleasure center as opposed to the altruistic part of our brains to make a better decision about whether to offer the incentive or not.

I’m not sure if this says more about our physiology (the way God made our brains) or about the parts of the brain that we choose to exercise. If she had been tested, would Mother Theresa’s “pleasure center” beat her “altruism center?” Could the “altruism center” be exercised enough to outperform the “pleasure center?”

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The Love Bridge

Capilano Canyon Susension Bridge

Here’s another cool psychology experiment I read about in “Sway” by Ori and Rom Brafman:

The Love Bridge:

Capilano Canyon (near Vancouver, Canada) can be crossed on a rope suspension bridge (built in 1889) which spans 450 feet at 230 feet above the surface of the ground. There is also a solid wood bridge 10 feet off the ground further down the canyon.

The suspension bridge sways underneath your feet when strong winds blow through, but unsuspecting hikers were also swayed by it’s power.

For the experiment, a female research assistant was told to approach men (one at a time) between the ages of 18-35 as they stepped off the end of each bridge. She was supposed to follow a scripted story with each man. She was to tell them that she was a psychology student conducting a study on the affects of exposure to scenic attractions on creative expression. She would then ask each man to fill out a short survey. When he finished, she would offer to tell him about the study later when they had a bit more time. She was then instructed to tear off a corner of the survey paper, write down her name/phone number and hand it to them. Most of the men happily accepted the number and hiked on down the trail.

The team also sent a male student with the same instructions. Not surprisingly, he was repeatedly turned down and many men wouldn’t even fill out the survey. Over the following few days, there were only 3 curious hikers who called him up. The female student received many calls.

Now here’s the interesting part. Of the 16 men who crossed the small wooden secure bridge, only 2 called her. However, half of the 18 men who crossed the suspension bridge called.

Hmm. . . now what made the difference? Most likely, the feelings which developed during the rope bridge crossing affected their perceptions of her. Their heightened anxiety/adrenaline simulated the same sort of feelings that you get when you have a crush. Their emotional state impacted their decisions and their perceptions. She represented the safety and security they needed as she greeted them on solid ground. For the men on the other bridge, well. . .they didn’t have the same needs/emotions.

Emotions Matter. When you’ve got to make an important decision. Make it at a wise time. Don’t make big decisions right after periods of heightened anxiety or adrenaline.

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Expectations Matter – A Pretty Face

A pretty face makes more of a difference than you might think. See what you think of this:

51 women signed up for a study on communication. They would speak to an unknown man on the phone and chit chat about the weather, hobbies, etc. The women knew nothing of it, but the men who would make the calls were given a biographical profile and a picture of the women they would be calling. Well. . . that’s what they thought. The profiles were accurate, but the photos were fake. They were specially selected photos: some were of extremely beautiful women while the other half were photos of more ordinary women. After seeing the bios and photos, but before making the phone call, the men were asked to fill out an impression questionnaire.

Not surprisingly, the men who had photos of beautiful women believed they would speak to women who were sociable, poised, humorous, and socially adept. The men who had photos of more ordinary women expected to speak to unsociable, awkward, serious, and socially inept. They had made their “diagnosis” and set their expectations before even speaking to the women.

During their conversations, the men had a hard time seeing the women in any other way. They naturally noticed the characteristics which supported their original assessments and ignored (or didn’t notice) the characteristics which deviated from their perceptions. Their bias’ were brought into the conversations.

Here’s where it gets interesting. The researchers recorded the phone conversations and took the men’s side of the conversation out. A third group of people who knew nothing of the study or it’s participants, were then asked to listen to the recordings of the women. Listening only to the women, this group was asked to fill out the same impression questionnaire that the men filled out earlier. They rated the women the same way the men did. They based their impressions off the voice of a one-sided conversation while the men had based their impressions off of a fake photo.

The expectations of the men not only influenced their perceptions of the women, but also influenced the subtle nuances of the conversations. The men were unconsciously sending out “beautiful” cues. The women subconsciously picked up on the “beautiful” opinions that the men had of them and they reacted similarly. Being thought of as beautiful, made the women believe they were beautiful and they acted as such. The third party group could hear the beauty in their voices because these women believed they were beautiful. Although some were actually very average in appearance, they were still seen as beautiful based upon the confidence and beauty in their voices.

Expectations matter. They change our own perceptions. They change others. They change the world.

Expectations matter.

PS – This experiment is described in the book Sway by Ori and Rom Brafman.

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Expectations Matter – Soldiers Command Potential

105 soldiers were participating in a 15 week commander training program in Israel. A psychologist informed the training officers who would be leading the program that they had assembled comprehensive information about each of the soldiers. Each soldier had been classified into one of 3 potential “Command Potential” categories: 1.) High Potential, 2.) Regular Potential, or 3.) Unknown – due to insufficient information. The soldiers were placed into these categories through a series of psychological tests, sociometric data from the previous course, and previous officer ratings. The training officers were requested to learn the names of each soldier who would be in his command and his “CP” rating before the program started. When the program began, the soldiers were divided into groups with even numbers of high, regular, and unknown CP soldiers.

After the 15 week program ended, the officers confirmed that those soldiers who were placed in the highest “CP” category were in fact the ones who had performed the best.

Here’s the catch. The “CP” (command potential) ratings were not actually assigned based upon any data at all. They were actually selected at random.

Those soldiers who were seen as having high potential ultimately lived up to the expectations of their commanding officers. When the officers were told about the random selections, they argued with the psychologists and defended their position – they truly believed that there must have been actual data used to reach those conclusions.

Expectations matter.

I wonder how many of the “regular CP” or “unknown CP” soldiers actually had a lot of potential too? I wonder what effect lower expectations have upon someone?

PS – This example was also from the book “Sway” by Ori and Rom Brafman. If you like this kind of stuff, you should check it out.

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Expectations Matter – Two Words

Expectations Matter. Part 1 – Two words matter. (This will be a short series of posts.)

Check out this psychological test!

A professor doesn’t show up to teach one day @ MIT. The students are told there will be a substitute and they are each given a short bio describing their sub. It reads:

“Mr. ___________ is a graduate student in the department of economics and social science here at MIT. He has had 3 semesters of teaching experience in psychology at another college. This is his 1st semester teaching this class. He is 26 yrs old, a veteran, and married. People who know him consider him to be a very warm person, industrious, critical, practical, and determined.”

Now, here’s the catch. Although they believed that everyone was reading the same bio, only half of the class got this bio. The other half got the same bio with two different words. The words “very warm” were replaced with “rather cold.” The last line of the 2nd one read, “People who know him consider him to be a rather cold person, industrious, critical, practical, and determined.”

After sitting in and viewing the exact same teacher under the exact same circumstances, the students were given a short questionnaire about the sub. By their responses, you’d think they had experienced two completely different classes with two different teachers. The students who got the “warm” bio, loved him. Their descriptions were: good-natured, considerate of others, informal, sociable, popular, humorous, and humane. The 2nd group with the “cold” bio described him as: self-centered, formal, unsociable, irritable, humorless, and ruthless.

Two words have the power to change our perceptions and possibly destroy a relationship before it even begins.

Expectations matter.

The example above is from the book “Sway” by Ori and Rom Brafman. I will be using a few more of their examples throughout this short series of posts. You should check out their book. It’s great stuff!

They call this effect the “diagnosis sway.” Once someone has “diagnosed” another person, it’s very difficult for them to let go of their perception and they will view every interaction with them through this lens. This is what happened to the students. The bios gave them a pre-determined diagnosis and so they viewed everything about the substitute through this lens – picking up subtle nuances and perceptions which would support their diagnosis. This is why first impressions are so important. Once someone has diagnosed you, they will see only those characteristics which will support their first impression diagnosis.

I wanted to write this series of posts because we’ve been talking about expectations in my teacher’s alternative certification classes. Teachers can be “swayed” or have the wrong expectations of a student for many reasons. At the beginning of the year a teacher may be tempted to talk to the students previous teachers to find out what he/she is like, but I’d say they should refrain. A student should have the opportunity to “start over” each year. The new teacher should be willing to “draw their own conclusions” without the influence of others.

“Stand and Deliver” is one of the great movies about teaching. This is the teacher hero’s secret. He has higher expectations of his students. He has not diagnosed them as average or incapable, but instead he sees the possibilities within them and encourages them. Expectations matter.