Word: familiarity
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...ultimately, says Casey, Senator Kennedy's relationship with Catholicism is one familiar to many American Catholics. "He went through a period of alienation from the Church," says Casey. "But he came back on his own terms. He made a form of peace with the Church. That should give hope to lots of Catholic Democrats that they might find a way to stay in the fold...
Researchers who are familiar with the drug were just as stunned. "No one would ever take this to sleep. No one would ever take this drug for insomnia," says Paul E. Wischmeyer, professor of anesthesiology at the University of Colorado, who co-authored a major 2007 study on propofol abuse. "Never, ever. It would be like using a shotgun to kill a small mouse...
Wood wanted more data, so she conducted the experiment again, with a few changes. This time, she reversed the order: she asked how much change 222 undergraduates at two universities were undergoing before asking them to choose between familiar and unfamiliar products - a much longer list this time, including "your regular brand" of deodorant vs. "a new one that looks interesting" at the same price, a free download from a band you know vs. one from a recommended band you don't and orange juice vs. "mandarin guava juice...
...girlfriend, and suddenly you find that a lot of your old habits - Simpsons reruns after work, burritos from the same place every night, Sunday mornings in bed with the newspaper - feel too feeble for your emboldened new self. Or, as Wood writes - rather poetically for a marketing professor - "the familiar threads of everyday life stitch our habits into place." Unstitch the threads, and you undo the habits...
...overthink. In her fifth experiment, Wood found that when research subjects are prompted to "STOP and THINK CAREFULLY" about a choice - she literally put those commands in capitals in the instructions - people were more likely to opt for their old, familiar choices. The lesson? Don't think, don't look, just leap...