Trade of the trick
In 2003, two finance researchers noticed a strange pattern in the world’s stock market prices. Between canada goose outlet store uk 1982 and 1997, prices across 26 of the world’s markets rose more on sunny days than on cloudy, rainy or snowy canada goose jacket outlet ones. Traders generally invest only after weighing a string of complex financial variables, yet somehow investors from Bangkok to Brussels were swayed by canada goose outlet jackets the weather.
We like to think that making important decisions is the result of careful contemplation and intelligence. But psychologists have uncovered a striking number of cues some as simple as sunshine that shape our thoughts, feelings and behaviors below the level of conscious awareness.
For example, if you’re struggling with a mental puzzle, watch a light bulb as it illuminates and you’ll be more likely to reach a solution. As a metaphor for insight, it actually leads us to insight. Other researchers canada goose coats on sale have shown canada goose that we’re more likely to behave honestly when we’re looking at a picture of https://www.fabulalitera.de a pair canada goose outlet uk of human eyes, gazing at ourselves in the mirror, or canada goose black friday sale when we’re bathed in a blue light. All three cues suggest that we’re being watched by ourselves, by other people or by the police, who identify themselves with blue lights in much of the world so we tend to avoid unethical or dishonest behaviors.
Even the color of our clothing matters; when Olympic canada goose black friday sale boxers and wrestlers are randomly drawn to wear red rather than blue uniforms, their chances of winning each bout rise from 45% to 55%.
Many of the most surprising of these effects emerge when we’re deciding how to spend and invest our money.
For instance, when we examined hundreds of stocks in the New York and American Exchange markets, my colleague Danny Oppenheimer and I found that stocks with simpler names outperformed their tongue twisting counterparts. If you’re going to christen a new canada goose outlet black friday company, it literally pays to choose easy to Canada Goose Online remember names like Barnings or Hillard. The simpler or more fluent the name, the more familiar and comfortable it felt, so, like a sunny day, a simple name dampened the riskiness of the gamble.
There’s plenty Canada Goose sale of evidence that the rest of us fall prey to similar biases. Canada Goose Jackets If you look at the names of some of the largest companies in the world, you’ll notice something that inspired founder George Eastman to name his camera company Kodak: They begin with a strong, decisive hard C or K. One analysis conducted in 1979 found that companies like Coca Cola, ConocoPhillips, Koch Industries and Costco made up 39 of the top 200 US companies, while a whopping canada goose outlet nyc 93 of those companies contained the sound somewhere in their names. The sound is one that conveys strength.
Much of the cheap canada goose time these tricks of the trade leave us poorer than we were before, but sometimes they also make the world a better place. Psychologists have shown, for example, that people are much more likely to donate to hurricane relief charities when the hurricanes canada goose coats share their first initials. According to these results, Kims and Kens are more likely to donate to Hurricane Katrina relief funds than to Hurricane Sandy funds, but Sams and Saras are more likely to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy. (We’re not sure exactly why people donate more to aid relief for hurricanes that share their initials, but one possibility is that they’re more likely to pay attention to a charitable appeal if it has a note of personal relevance.)
If you look at the US Census, you’ll notice that a cheap Canada Goose large proportion of male names canada goose outlet sale begin canada goose outlet canada with the letter J (names like James, John and Joseph), while canada goose outlet parka a similar canada goose outlet proportion of female names begin with the letter M (names like Mary, Maria and Margaret). Instead of choosing hurricane names randomly or by running through the alphabet as we do today and have done since the middle of the 20th century we could capitalize on this own letter bias by naming more hurricanes with M and J names and fewer with O and V names. By my calculation, hurricane aid might have increased by as much as $500 million over the past decade had we chosen names that resonated for as much of the population as possible.
From weather conditions to simple, strong and self canada goose outlet uk sale relevant names, we’re easily swayed to part with our money when the conditions are right. The trick is recognizing those conditions when they arise, and doing our best to avoid the temptation to overspend. Of course, the process of correcting for sunny weather and silver tongued names isn’t always easy, but it can’t hurt to think twice.