Mozart effect in psychology

The Mozart effect refers to a finding that listening to music temporarily influenced performance on an experimental task.

The evidence did not support a general improvement in abilities caused by listening to Mozart or other music.

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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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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Negativity effect in psychology

The negativity effect in psychology is an expectancy effect characterized by perceived negative experiences occurring as expected. The negativity effect is a cognitive bias which is also called a negative bias.

Negativity effects are linked to unhappiness, pessimism, and feeling stressed.

Rozin & Royzman (2001) reviewed research supporting the presence of a negativity bias in humans and animals. They proposed that the negativity bias was evident in four ways. Following is a quote from the 2001 article describing the four components.

...(a) negative potency (negative entities are stronger than the equivalent positive entities), (b) steeper negative gradients (the negativity of negative events grows more rapidly with approach to them in space or time than does the positivity of positive events, (c) negativity dominance (combinations of negative and positive entities yield evaluations that are more negative than the algebraic sum of individual subjective valences would predict), and (d) negative differentiation (negative entities are more varied, yield more complex conceptual representations, and engage a wider response repertoire).

    (Rozin & Royzman, 2001)

Reference

Rozin, P., & Royzman, E. B. (2001). Negativity Bias, Negativity Dominance, and Contagion. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5(4), 296-320. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327957PSPR0504_2

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

 

See Geoffrey Sutton’s books on   AMAZON       or  GOOGLE STORE

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Nocebo effect in psychology

Image by Geoffrey Sutton with Bing AI

A nocebo effect is an expectancy effect characterized by actual negative effects based on expected negative effects of a treatment or procedure. A nocebo effect is the opposite of a placebo effect.

Examples of the Nocebo Effect

A person who focuses on the negative side-effects of a medication or vaccine may experience the expected negative effects.

A partner who believes couple therapy will fail finds the experience fails to help their relationship.

Research quote

The term nocebo (“I shall harm”) was introduced in contraposition to the term placebo (“I shall please”) by a number authors in order to distinguish the pleasing from the noxious effects of placebo (Kennedy, 1961, Kissel and Barrucand, 1964, Hahn, 1985, Hahn, 1997). If the positive psychosocial context, which is typical of the placebo effect, is reversed, the nocebo effect can be studied. Therefore, it is important to stress that the study of the nocebo effect relates to the negative psychosocial context surrounding the treatment, and its neurobiological investigation is the analysis of the effects of this negative context on the patient's brain and body. As for the placebo effect, the nocebo effect follows the administration of an inert substance, along with the suggestion that the subject will get worse. However, the term nocebo-related effect can also be used whenever symptom worsening follows negative expectations without the administration of any inert substance (Benedetti et al., 2007b, Benedetti, 2008). (Enck et al., 2008).

Reference

Enck, P., Benedetti, F. & Schedlowski, M. (2008). New insights into the placebo and nocebo responses. Neuron. 59(2). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2008.06.030

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

 

See Geoffrey Sutton’s books on   AMAZON       or  GOOGLE STORE

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Novelty effect in psychology

 

The novelty effect is a psychological phenomenon characterized by attention to a new stimulus or new characteristics of a stimulus. A new event or object may garner considerable interest at first but the level of interest soon fades.

Depending on the novelty and other aspects of the stimulus, the effects may be either positive or negative. People may enjoy a new technology, game, TV show, or book. In contrast, something new can be threatening and cause considerable distress like a new disease or some new technology that doesn't work properly.

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

 

See Geoffrey Sutton’s books on   AMAZON       or  GOOGLE STORE

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Numerosity adaptation effect

 

The numerosity adaptation effect is a finding that human brains quickly perceive the number of items in a visual display, which influences the perception of the number of items in later displays.

Quote

Evidence exists for a nonverbal capacity for the apprehension of number, in humans [1] (including infants [2, 3]) and in other primates [4, 5, 6]. Here, we show that perceived numerosity is susceptible to adaptation, like primary visual properties of a scene, such as color, contrast, size, and speed. (Burr & Ross, 2008)

Reference

Burr, D. & Ross, J. (2008). A visual sense of number. Current Biology, 18(6). doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2008.02.052

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

 

See Geoffrey Sutton’s books on   AMAZON       or  GOOGLE STORE

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Dr. Sutton’s posts are for educational purposes only. See a licensed mental health provider for diagnoses, treatment, and consultation.

Observer expectancy effect in psychology

worker observation

 The observer expectancy effect in psychology refers to the finding that the presence of an observer influences the behavior of those being observed. In a research setting, the observer effect may be called the experimenter expectancy effect.

In research methods courses, psychology students learn to guard against unintentionally influencing the participants in a study.

A correction for expectancy effects is double-blind research, which means the participants and those researchers carrying out the study do not know which group of people are in a control group or experimental group.

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

 

See Geoffrey Sutton’s books on   AMAZON       or  GOOGLE STORE

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Dr. Sutton’s posts are for educational purposes only. See a licensed mental health provider for diagnoses, treatment, and consultation.

Outgroup homogeneity effect in psychology

 

Ingroup-Outgroup 2023
Geoffrey W Sutton & Bing AI

The outgroup homogeneity effect is a cognitive bias based on the finding that people in a group view outsiders as all alike in one or more characteristics.

Examples

Members of a political party view other party members as individuals with various characteristics but view people outside the party as having the same opinions, social values, or some other characteristic.

Members of a congregation view other members as being diverse in contrast to those outside whom the members see as all alike.

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

 

See Geoffrey Sutton’s books on   AMAZON       or  GOOGLE STORE

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Dr. Sutton’s posts are for educational purposes only. See a licensed mental health provider for diagnoses, treatment, and consultation.

Overjustification effect in psychology

Big Rewards

The overjustification effect is a finding that the pursuit of a desirable goal decreases when an external incentive is presented to encourage the effort.

The decrease in effort or motivation appears to be caused by the intrusion of the external incentive.

Comment

Some online explanations may be confusing external incentives with rewards and reinforcers when they do not consider the perspective of the person pursuing the goal. An external stimulus that produces a decrease in behavior is not a reinforcer because, by definition, a reinforcer strengthens behavior. The fact that a person thinks they are rewarding or reinforcing another's person's behavior does not mean they are providing a reward or reinforcer. If behavior decreases, following the presentation of something thought to be an incentive then it obviously was not an incentive (or reward or reinforcer).

Research quote from Lepper et al. (1973).

A field experiment was conducted with children to test the "overjustification" hypothesis suggested by self-perception theory—the proposition that a person's intrinsic interest in an activity may be decreased by inducing him to engage in that activity as an explicit means to some extrinsic goal.

Reference

Lepper, M. R., Greene, D., & Nisbett, R. E. (1973). Undermining children's intrinsic interest with extrinsic reward: A test of the "overjustification" hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 28(1), 129–137. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0035519

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

 

See Geoffrey Sutton’s books on   AMAZON       or  GOOGLE STORE

Follow on    FACEBOOK   Geoff W. Sutton    

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Dr. Sutton’s posts are for educational purposes only. See a licensed mental health provider for diagnoses, treatment, and consultation.

Peltzman effect in psychology

The Peltzman effect refers to Peltzman's finding of risk compensation behavior that reduces the effects of (or worsens the outcomes following) mandates or policies designed to make a situation safer or better.

The effect is named for Samuel Peltzman of the University of Chicago. The concept has been applied to healthcare regulations.

Read more



Prasad, V., & Jena, A. B. (2014). The Peltzman effect and compensatory markers in medicine. Healthcare (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 2(3), 170–172. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hjdsi.2014.05.002

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

 

See Geoffrey Sutton’s books on   AMAZON       or  GOOGLE STORE

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Pluralistic ignorance effect in psychology

What are they thinking? 2023
Geoffrey W. Sutton & Bing AI

The pluralistic ignorance effect is a psychological phenomenon characterized by almost all people in a group privately disagree with what seems to be the view of the group. Each person, or most people, in the group holds a mistaken belief that everyone else has a different belief or opinion.

The individuals in the group are ignorant of the true beliefs or opinions of the others. They have reached a false conclusion.

In cases of injustice or wrongdoing, the consequences can be harmful if people do not challenge dangerous ideas.

Here is a quote from a paper by Dale Miller (2023).



Pluralistic ignorance is a situation where the plurality (group) is ignorant of (misperceives) itself-its beliefs, perceptions, and practices. The group experiencing pluralistic ignorance is not actually ignorant in the sense of lacking knowledge of where it stands but is rather mistaken as to where it stands (O'Gorman, 1986). A more descriptive, if less catchy, term might be collective misperception (Grant, O'Neil, and Stephens, 2009; Miller & Prentice, 1994). Despite being a common citation for pluralistic ignorance, Allport's 1924 Social Psychology did not mention the term; that awaited his 1931 book with his student, Daniel Katz (Katz and Allport, 1931). What Allport did discuss in his earlier tome was the "illusion of universality of opinions." He traced this "illusion", which he later renamed pluralistic ignorance, to two facts: 1) social life depends on individuals having knowledge of their peers' habitual feelings and practices, and 2) individuals must infer this knowledge from limited and thus potentially misleading information.

Read more in Miller's article.

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

 

See Geoffrey Sutton’s books on   AMAZON       or  GOOGLE STORE

Follow on    FACEBOOK   Geoff W. Sutton    

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You can read many published articles at no charge:

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Dr. Sutton’s posts are for educational purposes only. See a licensed mental health provider for diagnoses, treatment, and consultation.

Positivity effect in psychology

 

Good Memories 2023

The positivity effect describes a repeated finding that people recall positive information over negative information as they age. 

For a review of the theory associated with the effect, see Reed and Carstensen (2012).

Reference

Reed, A. E., & Carstensen, L. L. (2012). The theory behind the age-related positivity effect. Frontiers in Psychology, 3, Article 339. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00339

Also, see ScienceDirect for a summary of recent studies.

Positivity Effect - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics

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

 

See Geoffrey Sutton’s books on   AMAZON       or  GOOGLE STORE

Follow on    FACEBOOK   Geoff W. Sutton    

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Dr. Sutton’s posts are for educational purposes only. See a licensed mental health provider for diagnoses, treatment, and consultation.

Pratfall effect in psychology

Going to Work 2023

The pratfall effect is a finding that a person's likeability can change after they make a mistake. The effect depends on the perceived level of competence of the person making a mistake.

The pratfall effect is attributed to  psychological scientists, Elliot Aronson and his team (1966).

A quote from the abstract:

"An experiment was performed which demonstrated that the attractiveness of a superior person is enhanced if he commits a clumsy blunder; the same blunder tends to decrease the attractiveness of a mediocre person. "

If the effect is reliable, it suggests people may relate better to highly competent people who make a minor mistake. It's not likely to help people who have not established their credibility.

Reference

Aronson, E., Willerman, B., & Floyd, J. (1966). The effect of a pratfall on increasing interpersonal attractiveness. Psychonomic Science, 4(6), 227–228. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03342263

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

 

See Geoffrey Sutton’s books on   AMAZON       or  GOOGLE STORE

Follow on    FACEBOOK   Geoff W. Sutton    

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You can read many published articles at no charge:

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Dr. Sutton’s posts are for educational purposes only. See a licensed mental health provider for diagnoses, treatment, and consultation.