Word: schwarze
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Billions of people may speak this digital lingo - and plenty of scientists have tried to study it. Most recently, psychologists Jesse Chandler and Norbert Schwarz came at it in a new way. In a study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, they explored the effect that finger gestures have not on the people at whom they're aimed, but on the bird-flippers and thumbs-uppers themselves. (Learn how to use your emotions to get through the recession...
...test this, Chandler and Schwarz recruited a group of 58 students and told them they were studying the link between muscle movements and reading comprehension - a link that, in fact, does not exist. The subjects were asked to read a passage about a fictional character named Donald who withheld his rent from his landlord because repairs were not made to his home. The details of the story were left ambiguous enough that Donald could easily be perceived as a justifiably aggrieved tenant - or merely a jerk. While they read, different students were asked to extend either the index finger...
...what psychologists couldn't determine for sure is why we're so drawn to brevity. Is it nothing more than laziness - why master Salvatore when Sal will do? - or is something else involved? To study that, University of Michigan psychologists Norbert Schwarz and Hyunjin Song devised a test. (Read "Are Direct-to-Consumer Drug Ads Doomed...
...Schwarz and Song then repeated the study with a new group of students and a new group of words. This time, the subjects were told that the invented names belonged not to food additives but to amusement-park rides - something for which an element of danger is often part of the appeal. The results were similar: a ride with a name like the Chunta was perceived to be a less dangerous choice than one named the Vaiveahtoishi. But the Vaiveahtoishi was also described as likely to be more exciting. The lesson for marketers is obvious. (Read "Getting Closer...
...research does suggest that when you start out with a complicated name, you have a steeper hill to climb, and that goes for abbreviations and initials too - something that Wall Street, which sells what may now be the most dangerous products around, might want to keep in mind. Schwarz cites a 2006 study in which investigators found that on the first day of trading, newly issued stocks with simple ticker symbols like KAR sold better than those with less pleasing ones, like RDO. "While the authors did not argue about risk perception," he says, "I believe risk may be underlying...