Persuasion Articles of the Week

Image "Newspapers B&W (3)" by Jon S, Flickr, CC-By-2.0
Image “Newspapers B&W (3)” by Jon S, Flickr, CC-By-2.0

Did A Billionaire Harvest Big Data From Facebook To ‘Hijack’ Democracy?

Targeted ads can be hugely influential. Widespread massive campaigns can sway whole segments of society. Persuasion works, and there is little defense.

The psychological effects of growing up with an extremely common name

“[P]eople find familiar, easy-to-pronounce names to be likable and trustworthy” because the simple names reduce our cognitive load, leading to acceptance and liking. Common names also prime us to think of others we’ve met with that same name, which usually have positive associations.

The happiness of the Danes

Remember, people can be programmed. If we’re programmed to stive for success, we’ll generally get there — but the ride will have swings between happiness and stress, success and failures. By shooting for average, Danish people are rarely disappointed, and they’re rarely overstressed.

Japanese Skills in Mindfulness

Americans are always thinking about what’s next. Zen permeates Japanese life and teaches us to be in the moment. It’s a matter of the programming inputs and how we process them.

The 11 Powerful Habits of Truly Happy People

Looks like this week, we’re all about Happiness. This article is a great collection of tweeks and tunings we can make to our daily lives to program ourselves for more happiness.