People with easy to pronounce names win friends and favour

Published: February 9, 2012

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Having a simple, easy-to-pronounce name is more likely to win you friends and favour in the workplace, a study by Dr Simon Laham at the University of Melbourne and Dr Adam Alter at New York University Stern School of Business, has found.

In the first study of its kind, and published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, researchers analysed how the pronunciation of names can influence impression formation and decision-making.  In particular, they demonstrated “the name pronunciation effect,” which occurs when people with easy–to-pronounce names are evaluated more positively than those with difficult-to-pronounce names.

The study revealed that:

  • People with more pronounceable names were more likely to be favoured for political office and job promotions
  • Political candidates with easy-to-pronounce names were more likely to win a race than those without, based on a mock ballot study
  • Attorneys with more pronounceable names rose more quickly to superior positions in their firm hierarchies, based on a field study of 500 first and last names of US lawyers

Lead author, Dr Simon Laham said subtle biases that we are not aware of affect our decisions and choices. “Research findings revealed that the effect is not due merely to the length of a name or how foreign-sounding or unusual it is, but rather how easy it is to pronounce,” he said.

Dr Adam Alter who conducted the law firm analysis said this effect probably also exists in other industries and in many everyday contexts. “People simply aren’t aware of the subtle impact that names can have on their judgments,” Dr Alter said.

Dr Laham said the results had important implications for the management of bias and discrimination in our society.

“It’s important to appreciate the subtle biases that shape our choices and judgments about others.  Such an appreciation may help us de-bias our thinking, leading to fairer, more objective treatment of others,” he said.

Researchers conducted studies both in lab settings and in a natural environment using a range of names from Anglo, Asian, and Western and Eastern European backgrounds.

This research builds on Dr Alter’s earlier work, which suggests that financial stocks with simpler names tend to outperform similar stocks with complex names immediately after they appear on the market.

 

Source: University of Melbourne

The Dark Path to Antisocial Personality Disorder

Published: February 9, 2012
Psycho Path

Image: by Chris Inside Flickr

With no lab tests to guide the clinician, psychiatric diagnostics is challenging and controversial. Antisocial personality disorder is defined as “a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood,” according to the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) of the American Psychiatric Association.

DSM-IV provides formal diagnostic criteria for every psychiatric disorder. This process may be guided by rating scales that measure the traits and features associated with a personality disorder. But, until now, no one has studied the dimensional structure associated with the DSM antisocial personality disorder criteria.

Dr. Kenneth Kendler of Virginia Commonwealth University and colleagues examined questionnaire and genetic data from adult twins. They found that the DSM-IV criteria do not reflect a single dimension of liability but rather are influenced by two dimensions of genetic risk reflecting aggressive-disregard and disinhibition.

“When psychiatrists, as clinicians or researchers, think about our psychiatric disorders, we tend to think of them as one thing – one kind of disorder – a reflection of one underlying dimension of liability,” said Dr. Kendler. “This is also true of genetics researchers. We tend to want to identify and then detect ‘the’ risk genes underlying disorder X or Y.”

Kendler added, “What is most interesting about the results of this paper is that they falsify this inherent and rather deeply held assumption. Genetic risk factors for antisocial personality disorder are not one thing. Rather, the disorder, as conceptualized by DSM-IV, reflects two distinct genetic dimensions of risk.” [continue reading…]

Older Drivers Can be Trained to Avoid Car Crashes

Published: February 8, 2012
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istockphoto

Why are older drivers, especially those over 70, involved in crashes primarily at intersections? You may tend to attribute this to cognitive or physical decline, such as slower reaction time or poor sight. These factors are undoubtedly part of the problem; however new research by some University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers have come up with another explanation – older drivers acquire bad habits, and those habits can be unlearned. “The effectiveness of our training program indicates that at least a major part of older drivers’ problems can be remediated,” says psychologist Alexander Pollatsek, who authored the article with Mathew R. E. Romoser, and Donald L. Fisher after analyzing two earlier studies. “A large percentage of not attending [to the hazards at intersections] is due to some strategy or mindset they’ve gotten into, rather than some problem with the brain,” he continues. “It’s a software problem, not a hardware problem.” The findings appear in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

In the first study, older drivers (over 70) were compared with younger experienced drivers (25 to 55) who were both navigating an actual vehicle through a simulated world projected on displays outside the vehicle. Drivers approached three different intersections and had to turn. In one, a hill across the main street intersection obscured a possibly approaching car. In the others—turning from a side street onto a main street or vice-versa—trees and curves blocked views of other oncoming cars. The older drivers scanned the danger zone (the region from which a plausible threat could emerge) less often and for significantly shorter times both while approaching and completing the turn —compromising safety. [continue reading…]

Twitter is harder to resist than cigarettes and alcohol, study finds

Published: February 3, 2012

twitter screenshotToday’s Guardian reports that tweeting or checking emails may be harder to resist than cigarettes and alcohol, according to researchers who tried to measure how well people could resist their desires.

They even claim that while sleep and sex may be stronger urges, people are more likely to give in to longings or cravings to use social and other media.They even claim that while sleep and sex may be stronger urges, people are more likely to give in to longings or cravings to use social and other media.

A team headed by Wilhelm Hofmann of Chicago University’s Booth Business School say their experiment, using BlackBerrys, to gauge the willpower of 205 people aged between 18 and 85 in and around the German city of Würtzburg is the first to monitor such responses “in the wild” outside a laboratory.

The results will soon be published in the journal Psychological Science. Read the full story in The Guardian

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