Browsing Category
Neuroeconomics
Decision making and the brain
Turkey-Induced Trust?
Just in time for the annual Thanksgiving turkey overdose, MIT Technology Review has run Tryptophan, Turkey, and Trust by Emily Singer. Tryptophan is the enzyme abundant in turkey that has been shown to cause drowsiness. Many credit…
When Everyone is Above Average
Would you be limiting yourself if you targeted advertising only at those who were above average in whatever characteristic related to your product (say, intelligence, good looks, athletic ability, perserverance, etc.)? In a word, NO.…
Penalty Pain: How to Make Your Customers Hate You
Neuromarketing readers are by now familiar with the idea of "buying pain" or "pain of paying" - when we buy something, the pain center in our brain can be activated. Work by Carnegie Mellon's George Loewenstein and others shows that this…
Trend: Neuroscience Infiltrates Society
As we understand more about the workings of the brain, neuroscience is starting to impact diverse areas of society. Over time, it will probably touch many more. This has been acknowledged by the Neurotechnology Industry Organization in…
Why Percentages Don’t Add Up
Which is scarier - undergoing a potentially fatal surgical procedure that has a 95% survival rate, or one that causes death in 1 out of 20 patients? If you are like most people, you would find the latter statistic far more worrisome, even…
Smiles Really DO Boost Sales
What's the first thing a manager teaches a new retail or food service employee? Maybe "Don't steal the cash!" is first, but right after that is, "Smile at the customer!" It turns out that this is probably even better advice than one…
Careers in Neuromarketing
Science Magazine has blessed neuromarketing and neuroeconomics by citing them as "interesting niche areas" in neuroscience research. Emma Hitt's article notes, "The subject areas that qualify as neuroscience are as far-reaching and as…
Emotional Design
At a conference presentation last week (see Neuromarketing in Montreal), I made the point that the most important frontier for neuromarketers may be product design. Why struggle to make ads more appealing when you could be making the…
Ignore Your Brain and Get Rich
The subtitle of Your Money & Your Brain by Jason Zweig (Simon & Schuster, 340pp) is How The New Science of Neuroeconomics Can Make You Rich. No doubt the publishers needed to spice up the cover a bit, because the book might have…
Legal Decision Making Center Funded
Decision making is emerging as a key area of neuroscience research. Neuroeconomics and neuromarketing are informed by brain scan data and other studies of how people make decisions, and now Vanderbilt University is the home for a major new…
