mind power part 2

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Unthinking

The surprising forces behind what we buy.

by Harry Beckwith

How To Tap the Power of Your Mind: Four Surprising Stories

How To Use Your Head: Four Surprising Stories

Published on May 25, 2011 by Harry Beckwith, J.D. in Unthinking

The Thinker, Rodin

Perhaps he thought himself thinner, too

These four events, exactly 19 years apart, actually occured. They tell us a lot.

In April 1993, the author/humorist Calvin Trillin arrived at the podium in a1940-era Minneapolis library to promote his newest book, Remembering Denny. When hebegan to read, people started to chuckle, and they continued until he closed hisbook. The humorist made them laugh.

Trillin was reading from his remembrance of his Yale classmate, Denny Hansen, whoseyoung life burned so brightly that Life magazine covered his college graduation, anda year later reported on his first year as a Rhodes Scholar in England.

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But Denny's All-American story ended in a Delaware garage in 1991, where local

police officers discovered Denny lying in the front seat of his running HondaAccord. The man that many of his fellow Yale students assumed one day would bePresident was dead from the carbon monoxide. His story was tragic, of course, and sowas Trillin's telling of that day in Minneapolis.

Yet the Minnesotans laughed.

Why? Because they expected that they would. Trillin was a humorist, after all.

With startling frequency, what we expect is what we get.

In 2006, Harvard Professor Ellen Langer solicited the help of 84 Boston hotelhousekeepers. Dr. Langer told the workers at four of the hotels that their workprovided good exercise and "met the guidelines for a healthy, active lifestyle." Tothe housekeepers at the other three hotels, Langer said nothing.

Four weeks later, she compared the two groups.

The women who hadn't heard about the health benefits of their work showed no changein weight, body fat, or blood pressure. The housekeepers who heard that their workwas good exercise, by contrast, lost an average of two pounds and 0.5 percent oftheir body fat--and experienced a 10 percent drop in their systolic blood pressure.

What the housekeepers expected is what they got.

Cheetos

What if they weren't cheese-colored?In 2008, Dr. Lysann Damisch asked some research subjects to see how many putts theycould make in ten tries. For half of the putts, her researchers handed the golfers aball that "turned out be the lucky one" in previous trials. In the other cases,researchers told participants that their ball was the one "everyone has used sofar."

What happened?

Participants putting the "lucky" ball made two more putts out of ten then they madeputting the ordinary ball.



UntitledWe experience what we expect to experience.

On April 2, The New York Times reported on a Cornell University discovery aboutCheetos without their flavorless artificial orange coloring: They don't tastecheesy. Kantha Shelke, a food chemist with the Institute of Food Technologists,reminded the Times reporters of previous tests in which tasteless yellow coloringwas added to vanilla pudding. How did the vanilla pudding taste to the tasters?

"Banana" and "lemon" were the most popular answers.

What if you add mango or lemon flavoring to white pudding? "Vanilla pudding," mosttesters report.

We taste what we expect to taste.

Consider what this suggests about advertising. Advertising is not designed simply tocoax us to buy; it's also designed to alter our experience. An expensive shampo endsall our Bad Hair Days, Coke tastes delicious, and Rogaine--including the controlsubstance in Rogaine tests--grows hair. Advertising is designed, in part, toincrease our satisfaction.

Now, do you want to change your experiences?

Do you want to lose weight, think more creatively, experience more joy--or perhapssink more putts?

These stories suggest a way:

Change what you think.

----

Harry Beckwith (Follow onTwitter)( website blog) has written five internationalbestselling books, advised 23 Fortune 200 companies on marketing, and speaks onmarketing and buyer psychology all over the world.

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Harry Beckwith



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Harry Beckwith, J.D., is the author of five books including Selling the Invisibleand What Clients Love.more...

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