Some psychology links

Money and persuasion
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/persuade-me/201001/money-money-money-money-monnnn-eeey-and-persuasion

Money is a biasing elaboration moderator of great impact, easy to administer, and almost completely hidden. People do not quickly or intuitively recognize that money makes them feel independent, autonomous, and sufficient. It triggers a biased schema, profile, or template in their minds that causes them to evaluate following information and interaction differently. If you want people to make an independent, but biased evaluation of your arguments, prime them with money.

This ties nicely back to the persuasion literature that demonstrates many cues work best in prosocial (i.e. nonprofit) settings. As I've blogged and written before, many message tactics like FITD and DITF have been proven to work badly in a sales setting, but function easily and effectively in a prosocial way. The Island of Money effect illustrates why. IoM makes us self oriented.

Social contagion in human behavior and emotions
http://trueslant.com/daviddisalvo/2010/01/12/please-cover-your-mouth-blame-is-contagious/

David Disalvo at Brain Spin was an article on how blame can be contagious. He lists many studies on how any number of types of human behavior can be a contagion, ranging from fear and loathing, to obesity and even happiness.

Good looking staff are bad for business
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lifematters/stories/2010/2749023.htm

The title of the story speaks for itself, although I am unsure if this will be true for all scenarios, or just in some.

Looking Younger…. Looking Less Masculine?
http://psychologyofbeauty.wordpress.com/2009/12/29/looking-younger-looking-less-masculine/

Egan & Cordan (2008) digitally altered the faces of 17-year-old girls (n=10) to look either younger (morphed to appear similar to the prototype of 10-year-old girls – top row) or older (similar to the prototype of 20-year-old women – bottom row). Additionally, some stimuli were altered by adding digital make-up (right column). The authors had forensic interests and were exploring the effect of alcohol consumption on judgments of age and attractiveness. As a result, they did not report the specific data on attractiveness ratings alone, but, did conclude that faces that appear younger are found more attractive. Raters consisted of an equal number of adult women and men between the ages of 18-70.

Interesting studies in social psychology [Research]

These are some of the more interesting studies that caught my eye in 2009.

One dollar a day to prevent teen pregnancy
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104803094&ft=1&f=1007

The city of Greensboro, N.C., has experimented with a program designed for teenage mothers. To prevent these teens from having another child, the city offered each of them $1 a day for every day they were not pregnant. It turns out that the psychological power of that small daily payment is huge. A single dollar a day was enough to push the rate of teen pregnancy down, saving all the incredible costs — human and financial — that go with teen parenting.

Persuasion-wise, it reminds me of army recruiters in San Diego's streets during Comic-Coon. With clown make-up, and offering $1 bills. Only to get you to a meeting.

Naturally, once you take the bill you are psychologically committed.

This also reminded me of cult and "workshop" recruitment attempts. Who said these tools of persuasion can't be used for good?

Want to keep your wallet? Carry a baby picture
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article6681923.ece

What would you do if you found a wallet on the street? Leave it? Take it to a police station? Post it back to the owner? Keep it, even?

The answer, scientists have found, depends rather more on evolution than morality.

Smiling increases good samaritan behavior
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/01/03/smiling-increases-good-samaritan-behavior/

We tend to think that “good people tend to do good things.” But what if it wasn’t a person’s intrinsic “goodness” or personality that influenced their behavior, but something far simpler?

What if a simple smile could change a person’s behavior?