This idea, popularised by Malcolm Gladwell, is right in suggesting that expertise doesn’t come overnight. But it’s based on one specific example (elite violinists) and isn’t a universal rule. Separate studies have shown that the number of hours to reach master status in chess ranges from 728 hours to 16,120 – meaning some players need 22x more practice hours than others to reach the same skill level.
Psychology & Science
Brand users are 3 times more likely to remember ads than non users. In other words, market leaders (with more users) have an inherent advantage when it comes to getting noticed.
ADHD diagnoses in America spike by 14% on Halloween, compared to the ten weekdays before or after that. Why? The children are examined on the day they get to wear a fun costume and collect bucketloads of candy – suggesting doctors often mistake simple excitement for ADHD.
If you’ve ever picked up a Bang and Olufsen remote you’ll know they’re surprisingly heavy. But that’s nothing to do with function – it’s designed to exploit our assumption that heavier things are better quality.
The legal system is just one domain in which our looks determine our outcome: judges fine unattractive criminals more than attractive ones.
Many of the principles in Behavioural Science directly contradict one another.
– Are we more likely to remember the first word on a list (primacy) or the last word on a list (recency)?
– Do we prefer trying a new restaurant for dinner (novelty) or sticking with our local favourite (status quo)?
– Does repeatedly hearing a false statement make us believe it (illusory truth effect) or reject it (backfire effect)?
Optimising for weight-loss can bring health problems of its own: people who are underweight face the same elevated mortality risk as those who are morbidly obese.
A brand is rated more favourably by those who buy it than those who don’t – simply because those who buy it have more direct experience with it. So when you’re looking at brand attributes (e.g. “it’s high quality) it’s vital to control for market share, otherwise the biggest brands will always do best.
Actually, bulls are colourblind to red, so it’s not the bullfighter’s cape that makes them angry – it’s the movement of the cape.
Consider these two statements about lung cancer outcomes. 1) The one-month survival rate is 90%. 2) There is 10% mortality in the first month. Although the information is identical, surgery is much more popular in the former frame (84% of physicians chose it) than in the latter (where 50% favoured radiation).
After watching a video of a car crash, people estimate the cars to be going much faster (40 mph) when they’re asked about the cars ‘smashing’ into each other, versus ‘hitting’ each other (34 mph). One simple word has a big impact on our memory.
The danger of car collisions isn’t linear. You’re very unlikely to die when going at less than 20 miles per hour. But at 30 miles per hour, about one in five pedestrians will not survive. And at 40 miles per hour, half will not survive.
In 2005, BP ran a PR campaign which popularised the idea of carbon footprint – a way of portraying climate change as a result of individual actions, rather than the activities of fossil fuel companies.
Neutering dogs is considered normal, but it’s seen as barbaric when done to humans.
Want to be a CEO? It helps to be tall. In the U.S, 14.5% of men are 6ft or taller. Among CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, 58% are 6ft or taller (4x increase).