Scarcity is the idea that things become more desirable when we perceive them to be more difficult to obtain if they are in short supply or available intermittently. Scarcity is a reliable way to move people to action, as when ideas or opportunities become scarcer, then they also become more desirable, and even those people who are less interested may be motivated to take greater notice. Scarcity can act as an indicator of quality which works in conjunction with the human interest in keeping options open and also the drive to avoid loss (loss aversion). This principle acts across a wide range of behaviours from sexual selection to negotiation strategies. Read more »
Observation is a fundamental skill for designers and researchers, requiring focus on hearing and seeing human behaviour, environments, events, artifacts and social interactions. Observational methods are often described in terms of their degree of formality and the level of structure designed into the observations and recording methods, as well as their intended use. Read more »
Cognitive dissonance is a feeling of discomfort on holding conflicting ideas, values, opinions, beliefs or emotions at the same time. This leads to a tendency to seek consistency by changing the importance or quality of one or more of the ideas, values, opinions, beliefs or emotions.The phrase ‘cognitive dissonance’ was first coined by Leon Festinger in 1956, inspired by his work studying a UFO cult, and which he later developed into a full theory in his book A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. This is one of the most influential theories in social psychology, and one of the most extensively researched. Read more »
Interference effects are the name given to the slowing of mental processing (with diminished accuracy) when there are competing mental processes. They occur when two or more perceptual or cognitive processes are in conflict, reflecting the multiple systems used by the brain to process information independently of one another. The outputs of these systems are communicated to working memory for interpretation when there are relevant goals. When they are congruent. interpretation is quick and performance is optimal, but when they are incongruent interference occurs and additional processing and time is needed to resolve the conflict, leading to a negative impact on performance. Read more »
The Cathedral effect describes the influence of the perceived height of a ceiling and human thinking, and is (at least in part) a priming effect. High ceilings are known to encourage abstract thinking (creativity) and low ceilings encourage concrete thinking (focus on detail). Most people prefer high ceilings to low ceilings, and the Cathedral effect demonstrates that the environment can impact our approach to problem solving (either enhancing or undermining ability, depending on the nature of the problem to be solved)
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The Law of Prägnanz is the tendency for all of us to interpret ambiguous images as simple and complete rather than as complex and incomplete. It is one of the key principles underlying Gestalt psychology and is also sometimes known as the law of good configuration, law of simplicity, law of pregnance, law of precision or law of good figure. Read more »
Average can be good (on average)
The Most Average Facial Appearance Effect (MAFA effect for short) is the tendency to prefer faces in which the eyes, nose, lips and other features are close to the average for a ‘population’, and that faces which deviate significantly from that average are considered less attractive. Population generally refers to a person’s frame of reference, which is usually based on the group in which they were born and brought up, while average refers to the arithmetic mean of form, size and position of specific features. Read more »
The brain science of marketing
In his recent book Brainfluence, Roger Dooley shares 100 tricks for persuading and convincing consumers based on a wide range of evidence from neuromarketing and many other fields such as psychology and behavioural economics. The examples are well documented and overall this is a much more practical, structured and sound guide to brain science of marketing than many other books (including notably Buyology which is less structured and poorly documented). Read more »
The ratio of nature
The golden ratio is the ratio between the elements of a form such that the sum of two elements are in the same ratio to the larger one, as are the larger and smaller elements to each other (see the rectangle below). This ratio approximates 1.618 (or 0.618; the two numbers are the reciprocals of each other) and is found throughout nature (for example in many seashells), art, architecture and also in the dimensions of the human body. It is also called the golden mean, golden number, golden section, golden proportion and divine proportion, and is closely linked to the Fibonacci Sequence (read more here) as the ratio of numbers in this sequence converges on the golden ratio.
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The circle of life
All products progress through a sequence of four stages of life, from introduction (birth) through to growth, maturity and finally decline and death. Firstly the product is envisioned and developed; after launching (if lucky) popularity will grow, although ultimately sales will plateau and finally decline. Each stage has specific implications and priorities for designers and marketers, as the demands will evolve and change over time. The classic work on product diffusion models is Diffusion of Innovations by Everett M. Rogers, which follows on from and builds on the original Bass model of product diffusion which continues to be the basis of most new product forecasting. Read more »
