{"id":215,"date":"2006-02-12T15:22:00","date_gmt":"2006-02-12T20:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=215"},"modified":"2006-02-12T15:22:00","modified_gmt":"2006-02-12T20:22:00","slug":"you-think-you-know-what-you-think-think-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=215","title":{"rendered":"You think you know what you think? Think again"},"content":{"rendered":"

From one of my favorite online newsletters, Good Morning Silicon Valley:
Oh, that conscious mind is a cocky one, all right — so confident of its well-reasoned opinions and resistance to outside influence. Fact is, for the most part, we’ve got no idea why we really do what we do, as research continues to remind us.<\/p>\n

Take, for instance, the findings of a team from Columbia University seeking a way to predict what songs will be popular. Using the Net to study behavior on a mass scale, they got 14,000 teenagers to use a rating system and downloading ability to create an artificial Top 40 out of a group of songs from unknown bands. They found a couple of interesting things. First, the most popular songs were not always the songs that people thought were the best. “The very best songs never do terribly but they can only do OK,” sociologist Duncan Watts, who directed the study, said. “The very worst songs never do brilliantly but they can also do OK.” They also found that people’s preferences change once they know what other people like. “The popular things become more popular and the less-popular things get less popular,” Watts said. “What makes social influence difficult to understand is that we are often unaware of it,” he said. “We always think we are voting without preferences. We don’t think we like bad songs. We actually persuade ourselves that we think it’s good and that we would think it was good even if our friends didn’t like it.”<\/p>\n

And the heck of it is, tapping into the unconscious doesn’t have to be rocket science. Researchers from the University of Leicester did a little experiment with a display of French and German wines in a supermarket. On alternate days, the store played French, then German music in the background, and sure enough, on French music days 77 percent of the wine sold was French, on German music days 73 percent was German. Now, we are not talking subtle here — this was cafe accordion versus an oompah band — but at the end of the checkout line, only one of 44 shoppers mentioned the musical influence, and 86 percent were sure it played no role in their choice.<\/p>\n

Humbling, and always worth remembering, how easily we can be played.<\/span>
From: http:\/\/blogs.siliconvalley.com\/gmsv\/2006\/02\/you_think_you_k.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From one of my favorite online newsletters, Good Morning Silicon Valley:Oh, that conscious mind is a cocky one, all right — so confident of its well-reasoned opinions and resistance to outside influence. Fact is, for the most part, we’ve got no idea why we really do what we do, as research continues to remind us. … Continue reading “You think you know what you think? Think again”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-post"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgY3e-3t","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":807,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=807","url_meta":{"origin":215,"position":0},"title":"Cold air, false history, and privilege","author":"Jorah","date":"December 20, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019m not sure I have the skills or knowledge to turn this into a decent blog post, but I keep finding myself mulling over these ideas so I figured I\u2019d write them down, trying to clarify my thinking. During the summer of 2015 I was reading the news about the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophizing"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophizing","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=59"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":73,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=73","url_meta":{"origin":215,"position":1},"title":"Orlando Bloom is the new young James Bond! – The Times of India","author":"Jorah","date":"July 28, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Orlando Bloom is the new young James Bond! - The Times of India: LONDON: British actor Orlando Bloom actor has been signed by Miramax to play young James Bond in his new movie which is based on the college days of this widely popular secret agent. There were rumours floating\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Post"","block_context":{"text":"Post","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=30"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1026,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=1026","url_meta":{"origin":215,"position":2},"title":"Out of the gloaming","author":"Jorah","date":"May 30, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I am still moving along on my \"11 mittens in 2011\" project,\u00a0albeit\u00a0slowly. My most recent FO is a pair I'm calling \"Gloaming,*\" and made from a very, very popular mitten pattern called Bella's Mittens. \u00a0I'm planning to send these off to the Great Frozen North of central New Hampshire. This\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Knitting"","block_context":{"text":"Knitting","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=85"},"img":{"alt_text":"Bella's Mittens","src":"https:\/\/jorahlavin.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/05\/bellas-mittens-1.jpg?w=350&h=200&crop=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1009,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=1009","url_meta":{"origin":215,"position":3},"title":"2010 in review","author":"Jorah","date":"January 2, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I got this amusing site stats summary from Wordpress this morning... it's a happy thing that I hadn't been imagining that this site gets lots of traffic. Still... something to surpass in 2011. =========== The statistics helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Post"","block_context":{"text":"Post","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=30"},"img":{"alt_text":"Healthy blog!","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/s0.wp.com\/i\/annual-recap\/meter-healthy3.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":791,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=791","url_meta":{"origin":215,"position":4},"title":"A rant against simply wishing the world would change","author":"Jorah","date":"October 4, 2015","format":"aside","excerpt":" Just a reminder: posting heart-wrenching meme images and videos can raise awareness of your social concerns, but without a clear set of goals, a plan, hard work (like years of effort), money, compatriots, people with political savvy, more hard work, and (quite possibly) essentially dedicating your life to the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Philosophizing"","block_context":{"text":"Philosophizing","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=59"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1078,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=1078","url_meta":{"origin":215,"position":5},"title":"Do we need a ‘Bill of Responsibilities’?","author":"Jorah","date":"November 17, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"It's popular in America to say that we support our troops. I agree! But I don't think it's nearly enough to say 'thanks for your service' or to buy a meal for a veteran or active duty service member. I think we might need a \"Bill of Responsibilities for Citizens\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Social commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Social commentary","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=46"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}