Best Way - Use of Psychology by a Commercial Artist | eHow.com »

(via spiciba)

The connection between psychology and commercial artists has been studied for over a century. In 1895, a popular advertising journal noted that “Probably when we are more enlightened, the advertisement writer, like the teacher, will study psychology. For, however diverse their occupations may at first sight appear, the advertisement writer and the teacher have one great object in common—-to influence the human mind.” Today, the commercial artist uses psychology in several ways.

Transferred Associations

1. Commercial artists can use psychology to create image associations. According to Judith Williamson, author of “Decoding Images,” the associations people have with one image in a piece can be transferred to a second image present in the piece. Williamson discusses the example of an advertisement for a tire in which a car is pictured sitting on top of a jetty. Williamson notes that the jetty is tough and strong, and it withstands water and erosion. Consequently, we assume these qualities are true of the tire as well. In other words, we transfer the associations we have with one image to a second image.

Neuropsychology

2. Commercial artists can use neuropsychology to make their pieces more effective. According to neuroscientist Marco Iacoboni, successful commercial advertising depends on whether the ad creates activity in the parts of the brain concerned with reward and empathy. Iacoboni conducted an experiment measuring the brain activity of individuals watching Super Bowl advertisements in order to determine what images activated various parts of the brain. If commercial artists can better understand what parts of the brain are activated based on certain colors and images, they may be able to design more effective pieces.

Gestalt Theory

3. Commercial artists can use Gestalt theory to make their pieces more effective and pleasing to the eye. Gestalt theory originated in Germany in the early 1920s. The theory focuses on visual perception and how the brain relates individual parts to a whole structure. There are three principles of Gestalt theory that commercial artists often use: closure, continuance and proximity. The closure principle states that the mind will supply the missing pieces in a composition. Continuation is the idea that the eye will continue to another object when it is compelled to move in a certain direction. A simple example of this would be an arrow pointing at an apple. Your eye would stare at the arrow and naturally move toward the apple. The third principle of proximity states that when separate objects are close together they are perceived as a group, whereas if far apart, they are perceived as separate objects.

If Time Flew, You Had Fun: Scientific American Podcast »

As we all know, time flies when you’re having fun. But according to a study in the journal Psychological Science, the reverse is just as true: we enjoy ourselves more when we think time passes quickly. 

Time is a tough thing to keep track of. Sometimes it zooms, other times it drags. And psychologists got to wondering, as psychologists often do: how does that make you feel? 

So they asked people to take a 10-minute test. And then they pulled a fast one: For half the volunteers, they called “time’s up” when only five minutes had passed. The other half had to labor for 20 minutes before their 10-minute test was done. The result? Compared with the folks for whom time stood still, the finished-in-five team said they had more fun.

—Karen Hopkin

[The above text is an exact transcript of the audio in the podcast.]

The Chameleon Effect | PsyBlog »

Does mimicking other people’s body language really make them like us?

Self-help books, persuasion manuals and glossy magazine articles often advise that mimicking body language can increase how much others like us. But is it really true that mimicry causes others to like us, or is mimicry just a by-product of successful social interactions?

Although it had long been suspected that copying other people’s body language increases liking, the effect wasn’t tested rigorously until Chartrand and Bargh (1999) carried out a series of experiments. They asked three related question:

1. Do people automatically mimic others, even strangers?
2. Does mimicry increase liking?
3. Do high-perspective-takers exhibit the chameleon effect more?

(And, fourthly, what does all this have to do with hypnotism? On which, more later.)

Do people automatically mimic others, even strangers?

The set-up: Testing what they call ‘the chameleon effect’, in their first study 78 participants were sat down to have a chat with an experimental insider or ‘confederate’ who had been told to vary their mannerisms in systematic ways. Some did more smiling, others more face touching and still others more foot waggling.

Result: Yes, participants did naturally copy the confederate (who they’d only just met) as measured by face touching, foot waggling and smiling. Face touching only went up 20%, but rate of foot waggling went up by an impressive 50% when participants were inspired by another foot waggler.

Does mimicry increase liking?

In the second experiment Chartrand and Bargh wanted to see if all this foot waggling and face touching has any actual use, or whether it is just a by-product of social interactions.

The set-up: 78 participants were sent into a room to chat with a stranger (another experimental confederate) about a photograph. With some participants the confederate mimicked their body language, with others not. Afterwards participants were asked how much they liked the confederate and rated the smoothness of the interaction, both on a scale of 1 to 9.

Result: Mimicry did indeed work to increase liking. When their body language was copied, participants gave the confederate an average mark of 6.62 for liking (and 6.76 for smoothness). When they weren’t being mimicked participants gave the confederate an average of 5.91 for liking (and 6.02 for smoothness). Not a huge difference you might say, but still a measurable effect for a change in behaviour so subtle most people didn’t even notice it.

Do high-perspective-takers exhibit the chameleon effect more?

Since we’re all different, some people will naturally engage in mimicry more than others. But what kinds of psychological dispositions might affect this? Chartrand and Bargh looked at perspective-taking: the degree to which people naturally take others’ perspectives.

The set-up: Fifty-five students filled out a perspective-taking questionnaire, along with a measure of empathy, then they were sat opposite an experimental confederate, doing the same old face rubbing and food waggling routine from before.

Results: Participants who were high in perspective-taking increased their face-rubbing by about 30% and foot waggling by about 50% compared with the low-perspective-takers. Differences between people in empathic concern, however, had no effect on mimicry suggesting it was the cognitive component of perspective-taking that was important in encouraging mimicry rather than the emotional.

Hypnosis and the chameleon effect

So the ‘chameleon effect’, far from being the preserve of cold-blooded reptiles, is actually a warm response facilitating social interactions. This experiment suggests most of us do it automatically to varying degrees and, just as the glossy magazine advice goes, it does encourage other people to like us.

But what’s this connection between social mimicry and hypnotism that I mentioned at the top? Well, one influential theory of hypnosis says that in the hypnotic state the conscious will is weakened so that suggestions from the hypnotist are carried out automatically (Hilgard, 1965).

This is actually an extreme version of what happens when we mimic other people’s body language. In some senses, when two people are really getting along, their feet-waggling and face-touching in perfect harmony, it’s like they’ve hypnotised each other.

I find research on this particular phenomenon insanely fascinating because, unlike the (seeming) majority of psychological research, I’ve been able to do little experiments and test this out a bit in my own life and see effects. In a lot (if not the strong majority) of psychological experiments, the effect sizes are tiny and essentially, these effects are true across a large random sample of people - so you wouldn’t necessarily be able to demonstrate them in your own life all that easily. But, along with some of the memory and learning/conditioning research that I feel I’ve been able to apply and try with a surprising amount of success, I can see the chameleon effect. I can see it in people that seem to adapt to others’ personality in subtle ways - picking up the occasional mannerisms, etc.

Obviously there are a number of confounding effects, but it’s interesting to see that this can go too far - if it’s too obvious, it appears fake and the other person likes the chameleon less. But try smiling when the other person smiles and see what happens… I swear the other person feels we’re more connected, more “in sync” with each other. When I’ve tried to do this on purpose, one person even told me how I was an awesome listener! It’s similar to ideas behind active listening and summarizing another person’s argument or thoughts rather than offering your own opinion.

Maybe it’s just the focus on ourselves that we like, but even knowing this and occasionally wondering if the other person is doing this doesn’t necessarily decrease how connected you might feel to the other person or reduce this effect…