Don’t Get Labelled
“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” William Shakespeare
Wouldn’t it be nice if we got a warning like this every time we were unconsciously influenced by things around us? That’s the aim of this hack. It’s not about how you control your brain, but how outside influences control it.
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Sticks and Stones May Break Your Bones, but Words Can Control Your Language, and how it is used as a very powerful effect on us.
I’ve often thought that when visiting websites, we more readily “accept cookies” because of the language used. Cookies collect data on the sites we use and also if you are buying something, your credit card details. Until the Internet came along, the only association with the term “cookies” was biscuits – and who doesn’t like biscuits?
I’m sure that the previous positive association has an effect. Imagine how differently we’d feel if every time we went to a site and the message popped up, “Do you accept shadowing?”.
Of course, the word “cookies” wasn’t called this to be less sinister; it actually derives from UNIX objects called “magic cookies”. Imagine if they used that. Who could refuse the offer of magic cookies?
These are just my thoughts, but there are very real and scary examples of language having a strong effect on people’s decisions.
“Language and how it is used as a very powerful effect on us.”
In an experiment, people were shown a simulated accident and then asked about the speed the cars were going when the accident happened.
When asked what speed the cars were going when they “hit” each other, the average was 34 mph.
When asked what speed the cars were going when they “smashed” into each other, the average speed was 41 mph.
People were influenced not just by what they saw, but by the language the questioner used.
They were also asked if there was broken glass at the accident. When the question was asked with the word “hit” 14% said there was when it was asked with “smashed” 32% said it was. In fact, there was no broken glass at all. Even just the fact that the question was asked, made people believe there was broken glass.
What’s in a Name?
When I was growing up there were no famous people called Neil, so when my namesake Neil Armstrong came to fame you can imagine my excitement. He wasn’t just the first man on the moon he was the first “Neil” on the moon.
That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for Neils.
But this attraction to any link to our own name isn’t something we grow out of, it’s just something we become less conscious of.
People are also unconsciously more likely to choose a road to live on that starts with the same letter as their name starts with. People are even more likely to do a job that has some connection to their name.
It sounds like a joke but two urology experts, A.J. Splatt, and D. Weedon have written a paper on the problem of painful urination in the British Journal of Urology.
The former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales was Igor Judge. A man called Justice Laws, better known as the Right Honorable Justice Laws, is a Lord Justice of Appeal.
Another unconscious way a name affects our actions is where your name comes in the alphabet. This harks back to our school days, when people with N–Z names habitually wait behind people with A–M names, so making them more impatient. In my days it was surnamed and now it’s Christian names, but the principle’s the same.
“People are even more likely to do a job that has some connection to their name.”
Researchers found that N to Z’ers was quicker to respond to limited opportunities because they so often had to wait their turn.
When a limited number of free basketball tickets were offered to a group of graduate students, the further down the list they were, the quicker they were to respond.
In another study, the researchers found that Ph.D. students with later letter names were quicker to post their job-search materials online than students with earlier letter names.
Even in business, the sound of a company’s name can have a powerful effect. A study in 1979 found that 38 of the top two hundred US brand names began with the dominant sounds K or C, and as many as ninety-three of them contained the ‘k’ sound somewhere in their names.
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