Digital Psychology

The Rise of Influencer Avoidance

A lot has changed in the last twenty years. In 2004, MySpace made history as the first online networking site to acquire a total of a million monthly active users, a momentous milestone at the time. Read more →

Paint Me a Picture

By: Dr. James McFarland, People Scientist Over the last few years, an illuminating series of studies about false beliefs and misperceptions about the state of the world has been underway. In the first of these studies (known as “The Gapminder Misconception Study”) published back in 2017, the researchers discovered that misperceptions among the general population … Continued Read more →

Artificial Intelligence: Balancing New Technology with Human Empathy

By: Dr. James McFarland, People Scientist …One impulse from a vernal wood  May teach you more of man,  Of moral evil and of good,  Than all the sages can.  Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;  Our meddling intellect  Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things… -Excerpt from “Tables Turned” (William Wordsworth, 1798) Towards the end … 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 →

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 →

Why Shared Experiences Matter

There’s been much debate about the merits of reaching a large amount of people through mass marketing or reaching a specific segment of the population with targeted ads. Read more →

Why Advertising Rarely Goes Wrong

Marketers are often very conscious of the ways that their advertisements can backfire or “go wrong” in the eyes of their audiences. They often worry about insulting someone or someone taking their messaging the wrong way. Read more →

How to Change Beliefs

Recently, Amplified Intelligence did a study that looked at active attention for people consuming video based on platform. The research revealed that Instagram was the platform where people paid the most active attention, while people watching linear TV paid the least amount of active attention to the content. Read more →