Persuasion on The Findings Report

The Pitch

Tue, 30 Jan 2018 00:00:00 -0800

Every day, we are inundated with persuasion attempts. Buy this. Share this. Try this. Like this. The lists goes on and on. With each attempt we add to our collective wisdom about tactics used to make us do things. That wisdom is known in the academic world as persuasion knowledge. In this episode of The Findings Report podcast, we delve into persuasion knowledge and discover ways to reduce its negative effects. We also meet with a research team that has discovered instances in which it can actually help you sell.

Experts, Shmexperts

Sun, 06 Aug 2017 07:10:00 -0700

Imagine that you’re at a party and that you suddenly feel very ill. A doctor at the party, whom you don’t know, tells you with absolute certainty that you have swallowed poison and must get to a hospital immediately to have your stomach pumped. Next to this doctor is one of your dearest childhood friends who swears that she encountered the same situation last week and that you’re merely having an allergic reaction to a nasty seasonal pollen. She says you’ll be fine in a few hours after you get some rest and drink a cider vinegar tonic.

Acts of Curation

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 13:29:00 -0800

His response was nearly instantaneous and a little off-putting. My friend knows art. He teaches it. He writes about it. And he occasionally curates it. So it was surprising when he burst into laughter when I asked what he thought about the growing brand curation trend?

After the snickering subsided he explained that much of the “curation” fodder was absurd. It was, in his mind, a marketer’s Frankenstein—a morph of an ancient word into a buzzword.

Why trolls troll

Sat, 12 Nov 2016 11:06:00 -0800

Protests in major American cities. A nonstop tsunami of stories stacked at the top of every media outlet. The outcome of the 2016 presidential election refuses to be ignored. Nowhere more so than on social media. Both Twitter and Facebook posted record-breaking traffic gains. Use of the platforms may not have been the only surge. Many users are saying that they have experienced increased clashes with friends and family over the outcome of the election. A sizable number are confessing to blocking and unfriending people, or dropping off social media platforms altogether. A recent NPR story went so far as to claim that social media may have ruined the election because of the vitriol it created between “friends.”