The renowned British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead recognized this inescapable quality of modern life when he asserted that civilization advances by extending the number of operations we can perf...
The noted archaeologist Richard Leakey ascribes the essence of what makes us human to the reciprocity system: We are human because our ancestors learned to share their food and their skills in an hono...
The idea of potential loss plays a large role in human decision making. In fact, people seem to be more motivated by the thought of losing something than by the thought of gaining something of equal v...
Social scientists have determined that we accept inner responsibility for a behavior when we think we have chosen to perform it in the absence of strong outside pressures. A large reward is one such e...
So by my lights, the number one rule for salespeople is to show customers that you genuinely like them. There’s a wise adage that fits this logic well: people don’t care how much you know until they k...
Our best evidence of what people truly feel and believe comes less from their words than from their deeds.
One final tip before you get started: Set a goal and write it down. Whatever the goal, the important thing is that you set it, so you’ve got something for which to aim—and that you write it down. Ther...
Once we have made a choice or taken a stand, we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment. Those pressures will cause us to respond in ways that j...
Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it.2
Jsou to lidé, kteří mají skrytou vadu osobnosti – nízké sebepojetí. Hluboko uvnitř je pocit, že jejich osoba má malou cenu, a to je nutí vyhledávat prestiž ne prostřednictvím vytváření nebo vylepšován...
It is much more profitable for salespeople to present the expensive item first, not only because to fail to do so will lose the influence of the contrast principle; to fail to do so will also cause th...
In general, when we are unsure of ourselves, when the situation is unclear or ambiguous, when uncertainty reigns, we are most likely to look to and accept the actions of others as correct.
In general, here is how it works: The teacher stands in front of the class and asks a question. Six to ten children strain in their seats and wave their hands in the teacher’s face, eager to be called...
In Korea, the product was a brand of Chinese communism; in the United States, it might be a brand of cuticle remover. The
If we want them to buy a box of expensive chocolates, we can first arrange for them to write down a number that’s much larger than the price of the chocolates. If we want them to choose a bottle of Fr...
Freedoms once granted will not be relinquished without a fight. The
Exodus 23:8–And thou shalt take no gift; for a gift blindeth them that have sight and perverteth the words of the righteous.
Dear Mother and Dad: Since I left for college I have been remiss in writing and I am sorry for my thoughtlessness in not having written before. I will bring you up to date now, but before you read on,...
Compared to the customers who got only the standard sales appeal, those who were also told about the future scarcity of beef bought more than twice as much.
As the stimuli saturating our lives continue to grow more intricate and variable, we will have to depend increasingly on our shortcuts to handle them all.