Saturday, August 25, 2012

To improve your creativity, what color should you glance at?

Want to spark your creativity? Try glancing at the color green.  About to do some proofreading? Peer at something red.  Preparing for a major test, or presentation, where brain performance is key?  A touch of blue might do.
 
Welcome to the emerging world of color psychology. 

According to new research out of the University of Munich, a glimpse of green appears to activate “the type of pure, open (mental) processing required to do well on creativity tasks” according to lead researcher Stephanie Lichtenfeld, who was quoted in Pacific Standard Magazine earlier this year.


The Pacific Standard article, authored by Tom Jenkins, explains that, across the board (that is, in a full range of experiments using both picture-based and word-based assessments of creativity) green outperformed white, gray, red and blue (talk about envy). But worry not for other members of the color wheel – they’ve had their day in the sunshine (see details, below).

For instance, Jenkins points out that recent studies have linked red to “sexual attractiveness, the perception of danger and adherence to strict standards.” And Jenkins cites a 2010 paper in which “teachers gave harsher grades when correcting papers using red ink.” 

Lichtenfeld and colleagues ran four experiments that demonstrated the power of green, first exposing subjects to a range of colors, then asking them to perform a series of tasks to demonstrate creativity (for example, participants were asked to draw as many objects as they could from a geometric shape).

More colorful findings: 

• Online auctions? A study in the Journal of Consumer Research, as reported in Science Daily, found that if you’re selling a product on eBay, use a red background. It will lead individuals to make higher bids in auctions, but lower offers in negotiations;

• Referee bias? In a 2008 report, Science Daily reported the following: “Psychologists Norbert Hagemann, Bernd Strauss and Jan Leibing from the University of Munster specifically found that referees tended to assign more points to tae kwon do competitors dressed in red than those dressed in blue.”

• First date?  No surprise, perhaps, but men are disproportionately attracted to women dressed in red (the hidden power behind lipstick?).  In one study, conducted by University of Rochester psychologists Andrew Elliot and Daniela Niesta, one set of participants was shown a photograph of a woman in a red shirt, while another group of participants was shown the same woman in a blue shirt. Men were asked how attracted they were to the woman and asked, among other questions: "Imagine that you are going on a date with this person and have $100 in your wallet. How much money would you be willing to spend on your date?" According to the Science Daily article, “under all of the conditions, the women shown framed by or wearing red were rated significantly more attractive and sexually desirable by men than the exact same women shown with other colors.”

• Memory? Proofreading? According to a 2009 report in Science Daily, a University of British Columbia study found that the color red enhances our attention to detail. According to the Science Daily article: “Red boosted performance on detail-oriented tasks such as memory retrieval and proofreading by as much as 31 per cent compared to blue.”

• In the gym? A study published last year in the Journal Emotion, and reported in Science Daily, found that when humans see red, their reactions become faster and more forceful (but the physical benefits are short-lived); and

• Buying toothpaste? Apparently, we’re attracted to certain products based on a combination of their background color and the associated message.  For example, Juliet Zhu from the Sauder School of Business (University of British Columbia), found that people were more receptive to a new, fictional brand of toothpaste that focused on negative messages such as "cavity prevention" when the background color was red, whereas people were more receptive to aspirational messages such as tooth whitening when the background color was presented in blue.

Friday, August 17, 2012

What’s the scientific cure for hangovers?

Finally!  A scientific cure for hangovers.  And no, it doesn’t involve drinking the next morning.  Unless it’s water, or juice (possibly, coffee).

In a brilliantly prepared two minute video (available on youtube.com), Mitchell Moffit and Gregory Medlock reveal what they call “The Scientific Cure for Hangovers,” and walk us through (rather quickly, I must say), what’s going on in your body and which remedies will ease the pain, physiologically speaking.  And at least one expert site (www.webmd.com) agrees: forget the pills. Disregard the hair-brained myths. Don’t bother with the burnt toast. Let science show you the way (or, more aptly, the way back).    

Some of their recommendations may surprise you (“hmmm, never heard of that”), others will be all too familiar. But their suggestions are indeed scientifically based and, encouragingly, are in sync with the most popular MD on TV - Dr. Oz.  

In no particularly order:

1. Carb up – Before you drink, carb up.  Eat a good deal of fatty foods and carbohydrates.  It gives the alcohol something to hold on to. 

2. H-too-oh – Before, during and after you drink, drink up. Water. Water. Water. It’s all about processing.  If you can go one-for-one (a full beer, wine or margharita, chased by a full glass of water), go for it. You might take a few more breaks, but your liver will love you in the morning.

3. Clear liquids – where possible, stick to clear liquids. According to Dr. Oz’s web site: “. . . the alcohol you drink should be the color of water.” This is because darker alcohols contain more congeners, which causes hangovers.  WebMD.com adds: “Red wine contains tannins, compounds that are known to trigger headaches on some people. Malt liquors, like whiskey, also tend to produce more severe hangovers. If you're worried about how you'll feel in the morning, the gentlest choices are beer and clear liquors, such as vodka and gin.”

4. Beer before Liquor? Moffit-Medlock recommend: “If you’re drinking beer, drink it before liquor.”

5. Did someone say breakfast? The next morning, eat some eeggs, and perhaps some bananas and fruit juice (eggs will soak up liver toxins, bananas will recoup lost electrolytes, fruit juices will rebuild your vitamin supply). Dr. Oz’s web site explains: “If you wake up with a hangover, Dr. Oz says to eat something – especially eggs. ‘Eggs are effective because the eggs, in their yolk, have something called N-acetyl-cysteine,’ he says. ‘What it really is, is a way of giving your body antioxidants, and those antioxidants are critically important to your liver that's going to battle right now trying to cleanse all the junk that's left over.’ ”

6. Aspirin – the next morning, take aspirin, not Tylenol (Tylenol can interfere with liver function and your liver is already working overtime). 

So, before heading to bed, avoid the pasta and the painkillers (better to take them when you wake up). And, in the morning, push aside the Bloody Mary*. Stick with science. Go for steak or pizza before your first martini, and eggs in the AM.  And keep pouring down the H2O.  It’s your best shot. 

* From webmd.com: “More alcohol in the morning does nothing but postpone a hangover. The worst symptoms hit when blood-alcohol levels drop to zero. If you have a screwdriver at breakfast, this moment will just come later in the day.”

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Friday, August 3, 2012

Are smart people more prone to thinking errors?

We begin with two simple questions, drawn from a study which examines how people think.  Here goes:

·         Question #1: A bat and ball cost a dollar and ten cents. The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? (take a second, we have time)

·         Question #2: In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake?

The answers . . . appear below*. And while you ponder, consider this:

As humans, we like to think of ourselves as rational beings, capable of digesting and processing information and emerging with a sound, reasonable answer, or decision.  But decades of research has substantiated that, when it comes to thinking, we aren’t rational at all.  Instead, we take mental shortcuts (as when answering questions one and two) and exhibit a range of biases that lead us astray. 

A recent study sought to learn whether smart people are less prone to such biases, that is, whether intelligence provides some kind of a buffer against bias.  Their conclusion? Apparently not. Said the study authors: “. . . cognitive ability provides no inoculation at all from the bias blind spot.” Ah, the bias blind spot**.  Yes, we all have one – it’s when we think that biased thinking is more prevalent in others than in ourselves.

And here’s the crazy part – the smarter you are, the larger your bias blind spot. The findings come from a recent study conducted by Richard West and Russell Meserve of James Madison University, and Keith Stanovich of the University of Toronto.  And, they maintain, self-awareness and introspection don’t appear to help – that is, no matter how self-aware you are, and how introspective you are, you’re still prone to exhibit these common mental biases (an unnerving conclusion, to be sure).

What kind of biases are we talking about? (that even smart people suffer from):

·         The Planning Fallacy – the tendency to underestimate how long it will take a complete a task;

·         Framing Effect – this effect explains why a food item labeled “98% fat free” is more desirable than one labeled “contains 2% fat”;

·         Myside Bias – this is the tendency to ignore evidence when you already have an opinion on a subject;

·         Anchoring Bias – a quick story best illustrates this type of bias, courtesy of Jonah Lehrer, in an article he crafted for The New Yorker: “Subjects were first asked if the tallest redwood tree in the world was more than X feet, with X ranging from eighty-five to a thousand feet. Then the students were asked to estimate the height of the tallest redwood tree in the world. Students exposed to a small ‘anchor’—like eighty-five feet—guessed, on average, that the tallest tree in the world was only a hundred and eighteen feet. Given an anchor of a thousand feet, their estimates increased seven-fold”;

·         Base-Rate Neglect – this is when we ignore probabilities and focus too much on the specific situation; and

·         Outcome Bias – this type of bias shows up when we judge the quality of a decision on how the decision worked out.

So let’s recap: we are all prone to various biases, and being smart doesn’t seem to mitigate them (in some cases, it actually hurts). And neither self-awareness nor introspection appear to weaken these biases.  What’s a human to do?  (thinking . . . thinking )   

* answer #1: the ball costs 5 cents. And if you missed it, don’t feel too badly. Reportedly, 50% of students at Harvard, Princeton and MIT also gave the incorrect answer. Answer #2: 47 days

** in his article, Lehrer points to one theory on why the bias blind spot exists: “One provocative hypothesis is that the bias blind spot arises because of a mismatch between how we evaluate others and how we evaluate ourselves. When considering the irrational choices of a stranger, for instance, we are forced to rely on behavioral information; we see their biases from the outside, which allows us to glimpse their systematic thinking errors. However, when assessing our own bad choices, we tend to engage in elaborate introspection. We scrutinize our motivations and search for relevant reasons; we lament our mistakes to therapists and ruminate on the beliefs that led us astray.”