Kahneman: You just have to make sure that the right
picture is hanging above the cash box. If a pair of eyes is looking back
at them from the wall, people will contribute twice as much as they do
when the picture shows flowers. People who feel observed behave more
morally.
SPIEGEL: And this also works if we don’t even pay attention to the photo on the wall?
Kahneman: All the more if you don’t notice it. The
phenomenon is called “priming”: We aren’t aware that we have perceived a
certain stimulus, but it can be proved that we still respond to it.
SPIEGEL: People in advertising will like that.
Kahneman: Of course, that’s where priming is in
widespread use. An attractive woman in an ad automatically directs your
attention to the name of the product. When you encounter it in the shop
later on, it will already seem familiar to you. […] When it looks
familiar, it looks good. There is a very good evolutionary explanation
for that: If I encounter something many times, and it hasn’t eaten me
yet, then I’m safe. Familiarity is a safety signal. That’s why we like
what we know.
[…]
Psychologists distinguish between a “System 1″ and a “System 2,”
which control our actions. System 1 represents what we may call
intuition. It tirelessly provides us with quick impressions, intentions
and feelings. System 2, on the other hand, represents reason,
self-control and intelligence.
SPIEGEL: In other words, our conscious self?
Kahneman: Yes. System 2 is the one who believes that
it’s making the decisions. But in reality, most of the time, System 1
is acting on its own, without your being aware of it. It’s System 1 that
decides whether you like a person, which thoughts or associations come
to mind, and what you feel about something. All of this happens
automatically. You can’t help it, and yet you often base your decisions
on it.
SPIEGEL: And this System 1 never sleeps?
Kahneman: That’s right. System 1 can never be
switched off. You can’t stop it from doing its thing. System 2, on the
other hand, is lazy and only becomes active when necessary. Slow,
deliberate thinking is hard work. It consumes chemical resources in the
brain, and people usually don’t like that. It’s accompanied by physical
arousal, increasing heart rate and blood pressure, activated sweat
glands and dilated pupils …
SPIEGEL: … which you discovered as a useful tool for your research.
Kahneman: Yes. The pupil normally fluctuates in
size, mostly depending on incoming light. But, when you give someone a
mental task, it widens and remains surprisingly stable — a strange
circumstance that proved to be very useful to us. In fact, the pupils
reflect the extent of mental effort in an incredibly precise way. I have
never done any work in which the measurement is so precise.
image added by me
via:The New Shelton wet/dry
No comments:
Post a Comment