Name-letter effect in psychology

 

Something in common? 2023

The name-letter effect refers to people's preference for letters in their names. Consumers prefer brands that share their initials. 

People in groups who share initials, perform better (Polman et al., 2013).

Pehlham et al. (2002) found that people's initials predicted career choices.

Across a wide range of basic, everyday attitude topics (animals, foods, leisure activities, and national groups), no evidence of a generalized name letter effect emerged in four studies, either between or within individuals. On the other hand, Studies 3 and 4 replicated the basic name letter effect, with respondents exhibiting preferences for their name initial letters, both between and within individuals, suggesting that our procedures were powerful enough to detect preferences based on name letter similarity. Moreover, a significant generalized name letter effect was demonstrated for brand names in Study 4, with participants showing a preference for brand name products starting with their name initials as opposed to brands that did not. This effect was relatively small, as one would expect for an implicit source of attitudes, but highly reliable (p < .01). (Hodson & Olson, 2005)

References

Hodson, G., & Olson, J. M. (2005). Testing the generality of the name letter effect: name initials and everyday attitudes. Personality & social psychology bulletin, 31(8), 1099–1111. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167205274895

Nuttin, J. M. (1985). Narcissism beyond Gestalt and awareness: The name letter effect. European Journal of Social Psychology, 15(3), 353–361. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2420150309

Pelham, B. W., Mirenberg, M. C., & Jones, J. T. (2002). Why Susie sells seashells by the seashore: Implicit egotism and major life decisions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 469-487

Polman E, Pollmann MMH, Poehlman TA (2013) The Name-Letter-Effect in Groups: Sharing Initials with Group Members Increases the Quality of Group Work. PLoS ONE 8(11): e79039. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0079039

Geoffrey W. Sutton, PhD is Emeritus Professor of Psychology. He retired from a clinical practice and was credentialed in clinical neuropsychology and psychopharmacology. His website is  www.suttong.com

 

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