Articles (page 12)
- What is the halo effect?
The halo effect is one good impression colouring judgments nobody checked. It was named from army ratings in 1920, caught in a marking system, turned on company studies, and handled with procedure.
- What is the bandwagon effect?
The phrase has three owners: an economist's demand curve, the pollster's survey experiment and the music-download study. What each one measured is not the same thing.
- Does Effort Justification Hold Up
Jonah Berger's Contagious treats hard-to-get access as a way to make people value and discuss a place. The experiments behind effort justification are split, and the cleaner result concerns work…
- What is the sunk cost fallacy?
Money already spent should not steer the next choice, and in a 1982 theatre field experiment it did. A definition, the evidence and the size of the effect.
- Do Weak Ties Find You Your Next Job
Granovetter's claim that acquaintances carry job news has become standard networking advice. A large LinkedIn experiment supports it, with a peak at moderately weak ties, and a Facebook study points…
- Does Precommitment Really Work
A popular self-help book backs precommitment with a smoking trial and a figure of 52 per cent. The paper, and two field experiments beside it, show that the device works for the people who take it…
- Why Do MPG Figures Mislead Car Buyers
The fuel economy figure on a label counts distance per gallon, and fuel saved does not rise in step with it. A 2008 experiment, a federal label rule and an economist's estimate show what that…
- Why Do Celebrity Objects Sell for More
Buyers pay more for objects a well-liked owner touched, and less for those a despised owner touched. Laboratory buyers, estate-auction bidders and young children show the same pull toward the…
- Do Psychology Findings Hold Everywhere
Two bodies of work answer the question in different ways. Perception and bargaining differ by population, while the experimental effects tested in 36 countries varied little between more and less…