Insights

Super Bowl Spot Awards

By: Dr. James McFarland, People Scientist After months of anticipation, Super Bowl LVII has come and gone. With the watercooler discussions of the big game’s highlights (or low points) starting to fade, now is the perfect time to bring up what everyone has secretly been wondering: which of the Super Bowl commercials this year were … Continued Read more →

Letting the Heart Decide

By: Dr. James McFarland, People Scientist It is no secret that emotional intuition plays a pivotal role in human behavior. As Social Psychologist Jonathan Haidt has explained in his work, the concept of “the emotional dog and its rational tail” provides a firm foundation for understanding why humans make the choices that they do. As … Continued Read more →

Can Too Much “Science” be Bad for Your Brand?

By: Dr. James McFarland, People Scientist The weight of scientific authority has long been a persuasive tool in marketing strategies. As an extremely social species, humans care a great deal about categorical authority, and in the modern world there are few more revered sources of authority than those affiliated with the theoretical concept of science. … Continued Read more →

Avoiding the Uncanny Valley

By: Dr. James McFarland, People Scientist When it comes to “humanness,” it turns out there is a fine line between appealing and appalling. Although rather than a line, research suggests the border separating the two feelings may be more of a valley. Typically, assigning human characteristics (e.g., body structure, expressions, emotions) to animals or non-living … Continued Read more →

The Power of Listening

By: Dr. James McFarland, People Scientist We all have our preferred way of gathering information from the world. Some of us read, many of us watch television or interact with social media, and some of us even prefer to take in our information via the structure of online or in-person meetings (remember those?). In all … Continued Read more →

Windows to the Soul?

A recent study published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin has uncovered a surprising result of what happens when attention is directed towards another person’s eyes. Read more →

The Importance of Gratitude

We have all been taught the importance of saying please and thank you, but did you know that a sincere expression of gratitude may also help your bottom line? Read more →

The Looking-Glass Effect

The term “Looking-Glass Self” was introduced by Charles H. Cooley in 1902 to describe how our self-identity is impacted by the people around us.1 According to the theory, how we see ourselves is deeply intertwined with our perception of how we think other people view us and our behaviors. Read more →

Experiencing Information

By: Dr. James McFarland, PhD, People Scientist From a neurological perspective, the memory of an event personally experienced in real-time, such as a game, concert, or award show, is “formatted” differently than one’s general knowledge of the event itself. To put this another way, learning information is not the same as experiencing information, and each … Continued Read more →

You’ve Changed…Or Is It Just Me?

A recent study published by the Public Library of Science (PLOS One) is probing the question of personality. Specifically, did the COVID-19 crisis alter our unique predispositions toward thinking, feeling, and behaving in certain ways? Read more →

Out of Sight, Never in Mind

In the late 1950s, subliminal messaging became a mainstream sensation practically overnight when Vance Packard claimed that imperceptibly flashing the words “eat popcorn” or “drink Coca-Cola” across movie theater screens resulted in an 18-50% sales increase of those items. Read more →