Attracted To Attractive: NFL Quarterbacks with the Looks Make More Money

Gad Saad, a Professor of Marketing at Concordia University recently discovered a possible link between male athleticism and good looks.

The theoretical link works as follows: “Male athleticism is likely correlated with morphological features judged to be attractive in a man (e.g., facial features that are more masculinized due to greater exposure to testosterone). If so, the more athletic a given individual, the more physically attractive he might actually be” (psychology today). This directly applies Cialdini’s social psych principal of liking. In essence, more attractive individuals are more liked—it’s as simple and as sad as that. As a result of their attractiveness and liking factor, people feel more committed to them, and because people are more committed, they spend invest more time in them, so these athletes likely get more attention and have a much greater fan base. We can only assume the psychological affects of a large fan base has upon performance. It is a domino effect, starting with looks and ending in what we would argue a better performance. How do you think the attention that these players receive from the public psychologically effects their performance on the field? We would argue that their confidence levels sky-rockets, their self-efficacy is enhanced and they may be subscribing to a self-fulfilling prophecy. “They” think I will win, therefore “I” think I will win, therefore I do.

Not to mention, the salary that the attractive athletes make compared to what society would deem as the less attractive is remarkable. The better looking you are, the more you make. What does this say about our society and what we value? What are the psychological effects this has on us as we play the part of both observers and often unconscious supporters of favoring physical attractiveness?

We would argue that we are playing a game of our own–and losing. Girls, we are talking to you. See below for social proof.

Boo! Creepy T.V.

Halloween had just passed! Did everyone get enough of the creepiness and spookiness? If not, here’s some greed news for you: T.V. shows are increasingly incorporating spooky themes into their shows. And not to say, spiraling down a grimmer and darker path. A recent AdAge article presents its weekly chart on the top T.V. shows and the results reflect the above pattern. Read the article here: http://adage.com/article/trending-topics/tv-creepy-grim-grimm/230755/

We’ve decided to label the shows that are “dark/fantasy/crime” and “creepy” directly on the chart to clearly delineate the trend!

GetGle Top TV Shows Oct 24-30 (source: AdAge)

Out of the 10 listed shows, 5 are dark/fantasy/crime themed, 3 are just “creepy” and only 2 are comedic.  Looking specifically in the dark/fantasy/crime group, NBC’s “Grimm” and ABC’s “Once Upon a Time” have both garnered an impressive number of views in only their first week of debuting. As for the “creepy” ones, “The Walking Dead” scores majorly with its second place on the chart. For those who missed out on the show, here’s an official trailer for its second season:

So what is it that attracts the audience to what is supposedly to be repulsive, gloomy, and feared? Narrative psychology. Theodore R. Sarbin (1986) had proposed narrative psychology as a viewpoint or a stance within psychology that is interested in the “storied nature of human conduct”. As a result, researches have been done to delve into how human beings deal with experience by constructing stories and listening to the stories of others.

Researchers have found that the human brain has a natural affinity for narrative construction. People tend to remember facts more accurately if they encounter them in a story rather than in a list, studies find; and they rate legal arguments as more convincing when built into narrative tales rather than on legal precedent.

Of course, these show’s popularity could be affected not only by the fact that they are gruesome and tell interesting stories, but also by Social Proof—one means we use to determine what is correct is to find out what other people think is correct. These shows got some good reviews in the beginning or some people began to like them and spread the word to their friends! When a show is popular, it must be good, right?

Two examples that demonstrate social proof are canned laughter and betting on horses. In studies, people laugh more when canned laughter is inserted into a sitcom or other television show than when it is not. A well-known professional gambler had placed 100 dollars on a horse at the beginning of a race that was almost certain to lose (it even had a broken leg!). Others saw that he bet on this horse and then bet on it as well. This man then discreetly put a much larger sum of money down on the race horse he suspected would actually win, causing him to win big!

What is YOUR reason for watching these “creepy” shows?

Shopping: Be Smart; Resist the Urge

We came across this article titled: 7 Shopping Secrets Retailers Won’t Tell You by Naomi Mannino (http://financiallyfit.yahoo.com/finance/article-113560-11114-3-7-shopping-secrets-retailers-wont-tell-you?ywaad=ad0035&nc). The article highlights the work of Paco Underhill, author of “Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping,” who has tracked hundreds of thousands of shoppers to study how they shop.

In summary, the article mentions seven key points:

1. The ‘Magic’ of the Display – Displays are often used to hint at the “source” of products, when, oftentimes, displays are not even correlated with the products true source.

2. When BOGO and 2-Fer Deals Are Good – Oftentimes, stores use “Buy one get one free” offers to get you to purchase a product. The truth is, stores only used these offers in order to try to increase their overall sales dollars, so you are spending much more often than you have originally planned.

3. Don’t Turn Right When Entering the Store – Most people are right-handed and right oriented, so most people turn right when they enter a store. This means that the most attractive displays and most expensive items are conveniently placed on your right.

4. Why Clearance Items are in the Back– All the expensive items happen to be on route on your way to the back.

5. Why the Clearance Area is Messy – People like neat. People like categories. People like labels. When these are not found in the clearance section, people find relief in finding it in the non-clearance section.

6. Beware the Small Stuff Around the Register – This one’s self-exploratory.

7. Be Selective when Shopping with Friends – Danger comes in numbers.

And then we found 5 psychological factors that retailers use that contribute to these shopping secrets.

1. Problem recognition – Retailers are all about problem solving; they cater to what they believe your last mood was in order to provide a solution.

2. Triggered memory – Oftentimes, displays are built to trigger memories of recent problems.

3. Emotion (feeling of thriftiness, feeling of satisfaction) – The clearance section, displays, and ambiance of stores are built around evoking emotion. Retailers understand your perception of certain scenes and build it into their store ambiance. The same goes with promotional sales.

4. Group Polarization – Groups do funky things. When people get together, they are subject to group polarization, which involves agreeing with and being influenced to come up with a consensus by other members of the group. This is particularly evident with the rise of social media and having Facebook friends that “like” particular products.

5. Like – Liking ties into consistency. When you are with friends, and you say you like a product and don’t buy it, you look inconsistent, which doesn’t contribute to your being liked.

Now, you must realize that we are all subject to these psychological factors, but there are ways of avoiding it. Mostly, being aware that retailers know your weaknesses and tailor to them is the best thing. Come prepared to shop, with a list, and with a given amount of cash.

We leave you with a video to help you save money overall in these tough economic times:

Supermarkets and Priming

Have you ever wondered why flowers are always located at the front of a supermarket? Why there are bakeries located in grocery stores, and why there just seems to be an unnecessary amount of ice located throughout the store? Why are we more likely to pick up a product that’s located on a middle shelf? And how come your small child is always able to reach the cookies and fruit snacks, making your life all the more difficult?

These are just a few of the questions answered in the articles, “How Whole Foods ‘Primes’ You to Shop” http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/113511/how-whole-foods-primes-you-shop-fastco and “Supermarket Strategies” http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/food/supermarket-strategies-359780.

According to the authors, none of the above mentioned experiences are accidental. In fact, every time that we step into a supermarket, we, as consumers, are being manipulated by all sorts of techniques to make us spend more than we had planned to. In fact, according to Consumer Expert Paco Underhill, “Two-thirds of what we buy in the supermarket we had no intention of buying”. So why do we buy it? We’re primed to.

Priming is defined as the implicit memory effect in which exposure to a stimulus influences response to another stimulus. When we are primed, an unconscious form of our memory is activated. What does this mean when I’m shopping? Well, it means that if you see flowers when you first enter the store, for example, you’re likely to think (without even realizing it) about freshness. It makes sense- flowers are fresh, they smell nice, they look nice, and most of us have positive associations with flowers. If this is the very first thing a consumer notices when entering a grocery store, then he or she will be primed to think of freshness during his or her shopping experience. If that consumer encountered manure at the beginning of his or her shopping trip, that person would be primed in a very different (and likely negative) way.

Put simply, the goal of priming is to influence the person-in this case the consumer- to start thinking about the stimulus- in this case the product- in a certain way. Since our memory is very dependent on contextual factors, priming helps put the product in context for us, leading us to activate various parts of our implicit memory.

We then evaluate the stimulus based on these contextual factors. This of course leads us to act based on our evaluation. Will you buy those apples? That all depends- did you know that the average apple sold in a supermarket in the U.S. is fourteen months old? Or did you walk into the store, view the fresh flowers, think about freshness, and see water lightly sprinkled on the apples?

Are you curious about those questions we asked at the beginning? I think we’ve kept you waiting long enough.

– Bakeries are located in stores to cause you to salivate and make you hungry

– Ice is located around the store to an excessive degree because it helps consumers think about purity and freshness

– Items placed in the middle shelves are right on our eye-level, called “the bulls-eye zone”, and are typically the best-sellers and most profitable products

– Kids’ “bulls-eye zone” is different than adults’, and that’s why their favorite products are located on the lower shelves. How hard is it to say no to a smiling kid already holding his favorite box of cookies? Pretty difficult, and that’s what supermarkets are banking on.

Now that we’re all aware that our minds are manipulated by marketers each time we enter a supermarket, do you think you’ll be less susceptible to the effects of priming? Will the flowers seem less fresh? Will the baked good not cause you to salivate? Or are these processes simply out of our control?

Priming and human memory systems. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/247/4940/301.abstract

Perception without awareness: perspectives from cognitive psychology.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027700001268

The effects of Contextual priming in print advertisements.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/2626813

Interpersonal Relationships at Work

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=3439056&page=2

I think just about everyone would agree that life is better in the company of friends, but is a company better in the presence of these relationships? It is a debate that is hard to tackle. However, we have wrestled through the positive and negative aspects of interpersonal relationships in the work place and then applied our understanding of social psychological principles to objectively come to an understanding greater than a snap judgment or an emotional appeal.

As the article points out, an individual who has a best friend at work is seven times more likely to be engaged at work and eighty-eight percent more likely to be satisfied with their lives! That’s huge. One’s personal life and work life and not mutually exclusive. In fact, they very much depend on one another. That is, if there is an area of concern in someone’s personal life it is more than likely it will carry over to his or her professional life and vice versa. Therefore, an eighty-eight percent satisfaction rating when individuals have a buddy at work is highly influential on any company.

Not to mention, people who have a close friendship at work are fifty percent more satisfied with their job then those that don’t.  It is easy to see Cialdini’s theory of liking here. We tend to like our best friends and therefore are more likely to help them in any way. In the work place, this is effective for work performance and creates a system of support throughout the corporation. The more you care about one another, the more you care about the quality of work. This care, when appropriately applied to the work environment builds a group-dynamic and capitalizes on the idea of unity and cohesiveness. This inclusive culture emphasizes a sense of belonging and team dynamic. When individuals see themselves as part of a group, they are more likely to associate positive feelings with the company. This applied concept of in-group bias demonstrates the benefits or being part of such a collective culture. Furthermore, a form of harmony is reached when individuals are able to line their own goals with the goals of the group. For these reasons, it is important to have a collaborative work environment that values relationships among employees.

However, to be fair, there are downsides to interpersonal relationships. Take a look at this equation for example: two best friends + one promotion = resentment. It is natural to be disappointed after not receiving a promotion, but trying to sound convincing when congratulating your best friend gets tricky. It is also difficult to handle when a friendship ends and the work relationship doesn’t. If two friends/co-workers are fighting this is detrimental to workplace morale. See below example:

On the flip-side, friends also have a tendency to have each other’s back which doesn’t always bode well for the employer (friendship camouflage). We suggest enforcing ratings and employee reviews as a solution to this type of behavior. It forces the employee to remain individually accountable. Also, supervisors need to be extra careful if they act as a superior to their friend. Employee favoritism and bias is an easy trap to fall victim to here. Training sessions for upper and lower level employees must be in place to alleviate this potential.

Lastly, the things you share with your friends are not necessarily the same things you would share with your co-workers. It is difficult to maintain a professional image when sharing stories of your bedroom rendezvous. Her “friend” and coworker, Linda Tripp, taught Monica Lewinsky this lesson. Although this is an extreme example, gossip in the workplace is a common occurrence. It is important for the company to enforce communication skill workshops as well as correctly identify the root causes of gossip so the workplace is affected minimally.

In the end, the benefits of interpersonal relationships outweigh the downsides. It is true that socialization does not equal productivity, but self-esteem promotes productivity, as does a support system as mentioned previously. We support interpersonal relationships, but that doesn’t mean this conversation is over. A local psychologist, Ken Siegel remarked, “True friendships can’t exist when there are issues such as money and status at play.” What do you think? Are these friendships authentic? Also, the article highlighted that managers and employees aren’t as aligned when it comes to just how beneficial it is to have buddies on the job: 22% of employees said befriending co-workers has a “very positive” impact on productivity, while only 2% of managers felt as strongly”. Why do you think there is such a discrepancy between employers and employees?