Listen to this PodcastMore 60-Second Mind
A wobbly chair is more than just annoying. Believe it or not, it can influence your values, or beliefs about others.
Past studies have shown a link between physical objects and our emotions. Carry a cold drink at a party and you’re likely to consider other guests cold and offputting. Hold a warm drink, and you tend to perceive those same people as warm and welcoming.
In a new study, subjects sat either on wobbly chairs or stable chairs. While seated, they were asked to gauge the stability of several celebrity relationships, for example, Jay-Z and Beyonce.
Subjects in wobbly chairs judged the celebs to be more likely to break apart, while those who sat on a solid chair felt the celebrity relationships were also solid and more likely to remain intact. The study is in the journal Psychological Science.
The participants were also asked to prioritize what traits they admire in a romantic partner—things like being trustworthy, reliable or adventurous.
And those perched on wobbly chairs valued stable traits—like reliability—highest. While those in sturdy chairs were less interested in stability, presumably because they felt like they were already firmly grounded.
—Christie NIcholson
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
See what we're tweeting about
6 Comments
Add Commentha hah a ha ha a ha ha ha...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's not April yet! Nice try though.
@promytius
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis particular priming effect is quite small and I suspect has not yet been replicated. (As far as I know, the study has yet to be published, or I would quote the name of the paper here.) The study likely came to the attention of SciAm when a writer from the Economist wrote an article called "Tall, Dark and Stable" about the upcoming paper by Dr. Joanne Wood and her graduate students David Kille and Amanda Forest.
http://www.economist.com/node/21558553
Priming in general has been very well researched and exerts powerful but often unnoticed effects over our behavior. The contents of your short-term memory can alter your likelihood of speaking or even acting on related concepts when tested a short time later.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priming_(psychology)
When published, the paper in question should appear in this search:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Wood%20JV%5BAuthor%5D
The Economist article was much more informative, as was your excellent perspective - thanks!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps you could enlighten me on why (except for the cost and convenience considerations for academic researchers) such research should be conducted on a subject population consisting of "47 romantically unattached [volunteer] undergraduate students." Wouldn't such a inherently select group of subjects potentially skew results that should be intended to apply to the general population?
I had an idea of some of the subject group's specific characteristics from the sample question: "...were asked to gauge the stability of several celebrity relationships, for example, Jay-Z and Beyonce..."
BTW, I can give the author a pass due to the restricted 60 second format, but then why should Scientific American be so inflexible - why not a 90 second podcast when appropriate?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@jtdwyer
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI suspect that the subject population was chosen because you can experiment on psychology undergrads for free. Students are often required to participate in experiments to get credit for their psychology class.
The result is that the study of psychology is often, especially in institutions with low funding, the study of young, well-educated Americans and Europeans. (This is not a universal problem. Many researchers do make creative use of payments, existing databases, and hiking out into the jungle to obtain a more diverse pool of participants.)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20550733
http://neuroanthropology.net/2010/07/10/we-agree-its-weird-but-is-it-weird-enough/
The bias problem is well-recognized. It's unfortunate, but it by no means automatically invalidates the science. Studying American undergrads' psychology can still tell you many important things about human psychology, provided you watch carefully for limitations. (It's similar to the way that C. elegans genetics can tell us many important things about human genetics.)
Unfortunately, there is a second problem at work. Scientists hope (or expect, if they're naive) that when they publish a journal article, anyone who is interested enough to report on it will also read the study, describe the methods, and include all the caveats and concerns attached to the conclusion. Reporters, on the other hand, are overworked, underpaid, and trying very hard not to get replaced by an unpaid intern or someone in India. Often, they just don't have time for nuance. Then there's headline writers, which are another beast entirely...
Very well put. Unfortunately, the net result is that these little science reports in the lay media (including SA) tend to presume and imply that results of all studies generally apply the entire human population, when other subgroups (i.e., the elderly, U.S. Marines, mothers, or Cambodians) might respond differently to similar tests.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this