Persuasion Articles of the Week

Photo "Slot Machines" by Rennett Stowe, Flickr, CC-By-2.0
Photo “Slot Machines” by Rennett Stowe, Flickr, CC-By-2.0

#confirmationbias #nazi #colors #morals #panic #calm #focus #probability #bodylanguage

The Nazi Mass Hysteria of 2017

People will see confirming evidence of their beliefs in the strangest of places, before they consider that their beliefs (or that “evidence”) might be incorrect. No one wants to be incorrect.

How Colors Affect Human Behavior

Colors influence our attitudes and behaviours.

Anatomy of a Moral Panic

A poorly-researched article causes people to freak out, this time about Amazon’s suggested items. What’s new?

These 16 Psychological Tricks Immediately Make You More Likeable

Smile, be friendly, act interested in others. Go make some friends already!

Stanford psychologist shares a surprising trick that will help you be more productive at work.

Stay calm to stay focused. Sounds like our plan!

The Media Has A Probability Problem

This article discusses Trump’s win of the 2016 election and how the media was blind to the data available. Our brains have a hard time understanding probability. So much depends on how the question is framed and what is left out of the equation. For myself, probability and the concept of “standard deviation” was never clearly explained — did you know that “standard deviation” isn’t really “standard” at all? That would have been nice to know in high school, perhaps I wouldn’t have been hung up on that confusing linguistic point.

8 Body Language Tricks that are Hard to Master

Always good to understand, and use, body language!