Years ago, I got a chance to listen to a keynote by Jonah Berger, Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. During his talk, Berger asked the audience the following question: Which of these three product gets the most word of mouth buzz? The audience was almost evenly split among…
I’m tired. The reason is pretty simple: I haven’t been sleeping 8 hours a night. I know better too – I wrote an article which quoted research showing that only 2.5% of people really need less than 7 hours of sleep every night. Everyone else needs 8 or more hours. Unfortunately, I haven’t been following…
Thanks to Seinfeld, we know that double-dipping is bad for us. But what about the five-second rule? Conventional wisdom suggests it’s safe to eat food dropped on the floor – as long as you pick it up in less than five seconds. Presumably that’s not long enough for the food to get contaminated. In 2003,…
What’s the luckiest number? A variety of surveys have shown that most people choose 7. Lucky number seven. Why seven? A few years ago, I wrote an article which had a few theories on what makes seven special: There are seven openings in the head: the ears, eyes, nostrils and mouth Physiologically and biblically speaking,…
Long before Mr. Ed, the talking horse, Clever Hans was a horse who apparently could understand human language and answer mathematical questions. In the late 1800s, a German high school mathematics instructor named Wilhelm Von Osten believed humans had underestimated animal intelligence and that animals could learn to read or count. Von Osten’s initial attempts…
A few years ago I read psychologist Walter Mischel’s book, “The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control,” which provides recommendations on how to substantially increase your ability to control your impulses, including: Create good habits Visualize long-term consequences Disassociate from situations so they are less personal This strategy even managed to teach self-control to Sesame Street’s Cookie…
If you asked 1000 people if they were open or closed-minded, my guess is that more than 90% would claim to be open minded. But are they really open-minded? Nobody wants to admit they are closed-minded. In fact, it likely doesn’t even occur to a closed-minded person that they are closed-minded. This blind spot makes…
People are obsessed with goals. You could fill a large library with books describing how to create and accomplish goals. But they don’t seem to be effective: Only 1/3 of people who make New Year’s resolutions keep them for longer than a few days. More than 70% of the people who set goals for themselves…
With a little more couch time than normal this flu season, I binge-watched some new TV series and rewatched some classics. After seeing George Costanza double-dip a chip during a wake, I started to wonder – is it really “like putting your whole mouth right in the dip!” Here’s the scene from a 1993 episode…
“Human beings aren’t designed to expend energy continuously. Rather, we’re meant to pulse between spending and recovering energy.” – Tony Schwartz (source) In the late 1950’s, researchers William Dement and Nathaniel Kleitman documented that humans sleep in 90-minute cycles – from light to deep sleep and back to light sleep again. Professor Kleitman later discovered…