Neurological Correlates

Superbowl ad brain scan

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Should consumer behavior research consider human biological  and evolutionary roots?
Yes, according to Prof. Saad, who is now likely to be banished from the Faculty Lounge in the business building to the one in the biology building for potentially forcing scores of marketing majors to wake up for those 7:45 evolutionary biology labs. Prof. Saad’s recent [...]

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When you have money, life is good. When you want money, life could be better. Here’s the abstract from Vohs et al (HT Neuroscientifically Challenged who has a great analysis of the whole paper):
ABSTRACT—Money plays a significant role in people’s lives, and yet little experimental attention has been given to the psychological underpinnings of [...]

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I lurve experiments where oxytocin is squirted up people’s noses. Oxytocin-up-the-nose affects your ability to recognize people you’ve seen before — and, according to two new reports, this effect is most pronounced if you see them displaying the same emotion that you first saw them displaying. Happy memories are the strongest. So, don’t be [...]

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In the Western world, we love to anthropomorphize our dogs. There was a New Yorker cartoon, at the dawn of the internet age, where a dog was clicking away at a keyboard, remarking to another little dog, “On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” As they say in Washington, if you want a friend, [...]

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“Dopamine Futures” original art by Swivelchair
(all rights, if any totally waived, copy it all you want).
If you compare a screen shot of on-line gambling with a screen shot of on-line stock trading, they look very similar. That is probably because humans are hard wired for rewards — if you hunt and are successful, [...]

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Neuromarketing Blog is a blog (affiliated with NeuroscienceMarketing.com) that I try to catch once or twice a week. Professional, polished and clear, its a quick way to scan the neuromarketing up-to-the-minute news.
I’m in the biopharma business, and sometimes deal with marketing or sales folks — so strictly speaking, marketing is not my line [...]

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There are lots of studies as to why people purchase luxury goods, but these are mostly directed at individuals in isolation. What about group behavior?

Manhattan, Harlem, Lenox Ave.
Ray Fisman, an economist, has an interesting article in Slate about why African-Americans (and other ethnic minorities) in the US spend disproportionately on status-seeking items. As quoted in [...]

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This is off topic, but not really.
Here’s what I just read, a post from Silicon Alley’s Michael Learmonth, interviewing a person knowledgeable about internet advert buyers. Here’s the news: there’s not as much pent-up demand, big buyers are sidelined (like Countrywide), likely slower growth, what with the economy, and don’t be looking for [...]

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Little American Brown Weasel
The Top Two Inches has an interesting blog post about dating, called, “Dating — Don’t Do It“. Interesting read, and it got me thinking about trust.
Trust is first built in one part of the brain, and then your brain comes to a fork in the road: the “unconditional” trust brain area [...]

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The Clinton Neurons, Quian Quiroga et al., “Invariant visual representation by single neurons in the human brain,” Nature 435: 1102-1107 (2005)
Neurodemocracy, you gotta love it. Branding, celebrity and politics — all evoke neurological responses in primitive brain areas. How can the candidates best position themselves to have the best neurological response in swing [...]

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Li, Xinxin and Hitt, Lorin M., “Self Selection and Information Role of Online Product Reviews” . Information Systems Research, Forthcoming Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1019641Early on-line reviews can make or break a product. This paper says that marketing can target early adopters who are likely to yield positive early reviews –
. . .Our analysis suggests that [...]

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“. . .Overall, prosocial motivation is linked to (a) Agreeableness as a dimension of personality, (b) proximal prosocial cognition and motives, and (c) helping behavior across a range of situations and victims. In persons low in prosocial motivation, when costs of helping are high, efforts to induce empathy situationally can undermine prosocial behavior. . . “

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Screenshots of (top) on-line gaming, and (bottom) on-line stock trading

J Gambl Stud. 2007 Mar 30; [Epub ahead of print]

Dopamine Genes and Pathological Gambling in Discordant Sib-Pairs.
Sabbatini da Silva Lobo D, Vallada HP, Knight J, Martins SS, Tavares H, Gentil V, Kennedy JL.
Laboratory of Medical Investigation (LIM-23)—Psychopharmacology, Department and Institute of Psychiatry, [...]

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