The Psychology Trick You’re Probably Already Falling For…

In this video, we explore the intriguing concept of the “ego trap”—an influence technique that leverages the idea that people are more likely to agree when it affirms their positive qualities. We examine the recent study “Egotistic Trap as a Social Influence Technique” by Dolinski, Grzyb, and Kulesza (2023), which provides a detailed analysis of this approach.

The study highlights just how powerful this technique can be: In one experiment, 52.4% of participants agreed to take part in a survey when they were told it was aimed at intelligent people—a significant increase compared to 32.7% in the control group. In another experiment, the willingness to have cars inspected at official workshops rose from 56.7% to 71.7% when participants were told, “reasonable customers have their cars officially inspected.”  There’s also an alternative version of the ego trap that might be even more effective…

What makes people “successful” in life?

For decades, researchers have been trying to answer this question in numerous studies. In the process, they have indeed come across some personality traits that can be used to predict at least a large part of some people’s success (e.g., intelligence, self-control, conscientiousness, openness, extroversion, self-efficacy expectations, etc.). However, even when these “best” predictors are combined and statistically corrected for measurement error, a very large amount of variance remains unexplained in many studies.

Apparently, there is another major success factor that is drastically underestimated by many people. There is some evidence to suggest that this is the “chance” factor. And some researchers – such as today’s guest speaker Professor Dr. Christian Busch – are convinced that we can learn to make better use of the success factor of chance by adopting the right mindset. And so we can possibly turn a trivial coincidence into luck.

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Studies (small sample only):

Busch, C. (2020). The serendipity mindset: The art and science of creating good luck. Penguin.

Busch, C. (2022). Towards a Theory of Serendipity: A Systematic Review and Conceptualization. Journal of Management Studies.

Busch, C., & Barkema, H. (2022). Planned luck: How incubators can facilitate serendipity for nascent entrepreneurs through fostering network embeddedness. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 46(4), 884-919.

Busch, C., & Barkema, H. (2021). From necessity to opportunity: Scaling bricolage across resource‐constrained environments. Strategic Management Journal, 42(4), 741-773.

Duckworth, A. L., & Seligman, M. E. (2005). Self-discipline outdoes IQ in predicting academic performance of adolescents. Psychological science, 16(12), 939-944.

Moffitt, T. E., Arseneault, L., Belsky, D., Dickson, N., Hancox, R. J., Harrington, H., … & Caspi, A. (2011). A gradient of childhood self-control predicts health, wealth, and public safety. Proceedings of the national Academy of Sciences, 108(7), 2693-2698.

PLUTINO, A., BIONDO, A., & Rapisarda, A. (2018). Talent vs Luck: the role of randomness in success and failure.

Schmidt, F. L., Oh, I. S., & Shaffer, J. A. (2016). The validity and utility of selection methods in personnel psychology: Practical and theoretical implications of 100 years. Fox School of Business Research Paper, 1-74.

Strömbäck, C., Lind, T., Skagerlund, K., Västfjäll, D., & Tinghög, G. (2017). Does self-control predict financial behavior and financial well-being?. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, 14, 30-38.

Wiseman, R. (2004). The luck factor. Random House.

When employees experience discrimination, harassment or bullying in the workplace, it can lead to anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances and other health problems. Furthermore, it can also cause employees to lose confidence in their abilities and self-esteem, which affects their performance and engagement.

Aside from the individual impact, poor treatment in the workplace can also lead to a problematic work climate and high levels of employee turnover. Employees who have experienced workplace abuse often become internally disengaged and may feel compelled to leave the company.

But how big is the problem? How often do psychological and physical assaults take place in the workplace? A gigantic new meta-analysis (Dhanani et al., 2021) provides hard numbers, and the researchers even calculate the financial cost to our society…

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Studies (small sample only):

Cortina, L. M., Rabelo, V. C., & Holland, K. J. (2018). Beyond blaming the victim: Toward a more progressive understanding of workplace mistreatment. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 11(1), 81-100.

Dhanani, L. Y., LaPalme, M. L., & Joseph, D. L. (2021). How prevalent is workplace mistreatment? A meta‐analytic investigation. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 42(8), 1082-1098.

Han, S., Harold, C. M., Oh, I. S., Kim, J. K., & Agolli, A. (2022). A meta‐analysis integrating 20 years of workplace incivility research: Antecedents, consequences, and boundary conditions. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 43(3), 497-523.

McCord, M. A., Joseph, D. L., Dhanani, L. Y., & Beus, J. M. (2018). A meta-analysis of sex and race differences in perceived workplace mistreatment. Journal of applied psychology, 103(2), 137.

Vranjes, I., & Lyubykh, Z. (2021). Workplace mistreatment: A review and agenda for research. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Business and Management.

Yao, J., Lim, S., Guo, C. Y., Ou, A. Y., & Ng, J. W. X. (2022). Experienced incivility in the workplace: A meta-analytical review of its construct validity and nomological network. Journal of Applied Psychology, 107(2), 193.

Zhou, Y., Mistry, T. G., Kim, W. G., & Cobanoglu, C. (2021). Workplace mistreatment in the hospitality and tourism industry: a systematic literature review and future research suggestions. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 49, 309-320.

By now, almost everyone has understood: We pay for the free use of services like Facebook, Tiktok, Google and Co. with our personal data. But what can the big tech companies do with this data? In a groundbreaking study researchers at Stanford University were able to provide a (somewhat creepy) answer: it is easy to predict the most important personality traits (including the Big Five: openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion and neuroticism) using only Facebook likes (Youyou et al., 2015).

The results of this study show that Facebook Likes are a valuable source for predicting personality traits and that machine learning models are capable of predicting these traits with high accuracy (Kosinski, Stillwell, & Graepel, 2013). However, there are also ethical concerns about privacy and the possibility that this technology could be abused (keyword: Cambridge Analytica).

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Studies (small sample only):

Kosinski, M., Stillwell, D., & Graepel, T. (2013). Private traits and attributes are predictable from digital records of human behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(15), 5802-5805.

Markovikj, D., Gievska, S., Kosinski, M., & Stillwell, D. (2013). Mining facebook data for predictive personality modeling. In Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 23-26).

Matz, S. C., Kosinski, M., Nave, G., & Stillwell, D. J. (2017). Psychological targeting as an effective approach to digital mass persuasion. Proceedings of the national academy of sciences, 114(48), 12714-12719.

Matz, S., Kosinski, M., Stillwell, D., & Nave, G. (2017). Psychological framing as an effective approach to real-life persuasive communication. ACR North American Advances.

Matz, S. C., Kosinski, M., Nave, G., & Stillwell, D. J. (2018). Reply to Eckles et al.: Facebook’s optimization algorithms are highly unlikely to explain the effects of psychological targeting. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(23), E5256-E5257.

Matz, S., & Kosinski, M. (2019). Using consumers’ digital footprints for more persuasive mass communication. NIM Marketing Intelligence Review, 11(2), 18-23.

Matz, S. C., Kosinski, M., Nave, G., & Stillwell, D. J. (2018). Reply to Sharp et al.: Psychological targeting produces robust effects. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(34), E7891-E7891.

Youyou, W., Kosinski, M., & Stillwell, D. (2015). Computer-based personality judgments are more accurate than those made by humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(4), 1036-1040.

No matter if we are in the supermarket or shopping online: Every day we are manipulated by strategies from sales and price psychology. Extensive research has shown how we are seduced into buying by different price presentations. Not only the well-known nine prices play a central role, but we are also influenced by the color and the relative size of the price presentation. As is so often the case, those who know the marketing strategies can more easily protect themselves from them.

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Studies (small sample only):

Coulter, K. S., & Coulter, R. A. (2005). Size does matter: The effects of magnitude representation congruency on price perceptions and purchase likelihood. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 15(1), 64-76.

Felser, G. (2015). Werbe-und Konsumentenpsychologie. Springer-Verlag: Berlin.

Puccinelli, N. M., Chandrashekaran, R., Grewal, D., & Suri, R. (2013). Are men seduced by red? The effect of red versus black prices on price perceptions. Journal of Retailing, 89(2), 115-125.

Schindler, R. M., & Kibarian, T. M. (1996). Increased consumer sales response though use of 99-ending prices. Journal of Retailing, 72(2), 187-199.

Thomas, M., & Morwitz, V. (2005). Penny wise and pound foolish: the left-digit effect in price cognition. Journal of Consumer Research, 32(1), 54-64.

Thomas, M., Simon, D. H., & Kadiyali, V. (2007). Do consumers perceive precise prices to be lower than round prices? Evidence from laboratory and market data. Evidence from Laboratory and Market Data (September 2007). Johnson School at Cornell University Research Paper, (09-07).

Van Droogenbroeck, E., Van Hove, L., & Cordemans, S. (2018). Do red prices also work online?: An extension of Puccinelli et al.(2013). Color Research & Application, 43(1), 110-113.

Wu, C., & Cosguner, K. (2020). Profiting from the decoy effect: A case study of an online diamond retailer. Marketing Science, 39(5), 974-995.

Xiao, Q., Zeng, S., & Feldman, G. (2020). Revisiting the decoy effect: replication and extension of Ariely and Wallsten (1995) and Connolly, Reb, and Kausel (2013)‎. Comprehensive Results in Social Psychology, 4(2), 164-198.

Yang, S. S., Kimes, S. E., & Sessarego, M. M. (2009). Menu price presentation influences on consumer purchase behavior in restaurants. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 28(1), 157-160.

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Definition “psychology of pricing” – what is it? 

The psychology of pricing refers to the study of how people perceive and respond to different prices for goods and services. It involves understanding the psychological factors that influence people’s decisions to purchase or not purchase a product, as well as the ways in which prices can be used to influence people’s perceptions and behaviors.

One example of the psychology of pricing is the concept of “anchoring,” which refers to the tendency for people to rely on initial information as a reference point when making decisions. For example, if a person sees a product for sale at a high price, they may perceive it as being of higher quality or value, even if similar products are available at lower prices. This can lead people to pay more for a product than they otherwise might, simply because they are anchored to the initial high price.

Is personality irrelevant? – The Big Five and Career Success (Psychology, Personnel Selection, Business Psychology, Recruitment)

More than 100 years of research have impressively shown: Based on the Big Five personality factors, career success can be predicted surprisingly poorly on average (Schmidt, Oh & Shaffer, 2016). For example, a huge meta-analysis showed that the personality traits extroversion and emotional stability explain only 0.8% and 1.4% of the variance in job performance, respectively. By comparison, cognitive performance (intelligence) explained 42.5%!

So are personality traits really largely irrelevant at work? Get the answer in the video…

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Studies (small sample only):

Schmidt, F. L., Oh, I.-S., & Shaffer, J. A. (2016). The validity and utility of selection methods in personnel psychology: Practical and theoretical implications of 100 years of research findings. Working paper retrieved from www.researchgate.net. doi: 10.13140/RG.2.2.18843.26400

Van Aarde, N., Meiring, D., & Wiernik, B. M. (2017). The validity of the Big Five personality traits for job performance: Meta‐analyses of South African studies. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 25(3), 223-239.

Wilmot, M. P., & Ones, D. S. (2019). A century of research on conscientiousness at work. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(46), 23004-23010.

Wilmot, M. P., Wanberg, C. R., Kammeyer-Mueller, J. D., & Ones, D. S. (2019). Extraversion advantages at work: A quantitative review and synthesis of the meta-analytic evidence. Journal of Applied Psychology, 104(12), 1447.

Zell, E., & Lesick, T. L. (2022). Big five personality traits and performance: A quantitative synthesis of 50+ meta‐analyses. Journal of Personality, 90(4), 559-573.

How can you spot people who will be excellent in their job?

Take a look at the following list and try to assess which of the factors are most important:

– School grades

– Handwriting

– Extroversion

– Conscientiousness

– Integrity

– Intelligence

– Openness to new experiences

– References

The search for the “perfect employee” has occupied personnel selection research for more than 100 years. One of the most influential and largest meta-analyses (Schmidt et al, 2016) provides remarkable insights (see video). Nevertheless, many companies unfortunately still do not sufficiently take these findings into account. The consequences can be devastating….

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Studies (small selection only):

Dazzi, C., & Pedrabissi, L. (2009). Graphology and personality: an empirical study on validity of handwriting analysis. Psychological reports, 105(3_suppl), 1255-1268.

Huffcutt, A. I., Culbertson, S. S., & Weyhrauch, W. S. (2014). Moving forward indirectly: Reanalyzing the validity of employment interviews with indirect range restriction methodology. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 22(3), 297-309.

Hurtz, G. M., & Donovan, J. J. (2000). Personality and job performance: the Big Five revisited. Journal of applied psychology, 85(6), 869.

Kausel, E. E., Culbertson, S. S., & Madrid, H. P. (2016). Overconfidence in personnel selection: When and why unstructured interview information can hurt hiring decisions. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 137, 27-44.

Neter, E., & Ben-Shakhar, G. (1989). The predictive validity of graphological inferences: A meta-analytic approach. Personality and Individual differences, 10(7), 737-745.

Schmidt, Frank L. and Oh, In-Sue and Shaffer, Jonathan A., The Validity and Utility of Selection Methods in Personnel Psychology: Practical and Theoretical Implications of 100 Years of Research Findings (October 17, 2016). Fox School of Business Research Paper. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2853669

Zell, E., & Lesick, T. L. (2022). Big five personality traits and performance: A quantitative synthesis of 50+ meta-analyses. Journal of Personality, 90(4), 559-573.

Almost everybody gets this wrong…

How much does it cost to charge your smartphone from 0% to 100% every day for a whole year?

Leaders play an outstanding role in companies and organizations. While an incompetent boss can spoil the pleasure of working (and sometimes even more), an inspiring boss can contribute to work being perceived as meaningful and fulfilling. All the more important is the question: Can good leadership behavior be trained?

To answer this question, a gigantic meta-analysis evaluated 335 studies with over 26,000 subjects (Lacerenza et al., 2017). The researchers were able to show not only that good leadership behavior can indeed be trained, but also what is particularly important in leadership training….

These research findings are of great importance for decisions in the field of industrial and organizational psychology, business psychology, personnel psychology, and leadership psychology.

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Studies (small sample only):

Collins, D. B., & Holton, E. F. (2001). The effectiveness of managerial leadership development programs: A meta-analysis of studies from 1982 to 2001. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 15, 217-248. http:// dx.doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.1099

Day, D. V. (2000). Leadership development: a review in context. The Leadership Quarterly, 11, 581-613. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S10489843(00)00061-8.

Lacerenza, C. N., Reyes, D. L., Marlow, S. L., Joseph, D. L., & Salas, E. (2017). Leadership training design, delivery, and implementation: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(12), 1686.

Nerdinger, F. W. (2014). Work motivation and job satisfaction. In Industrial and organizational psychology (pp. 419-440). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Nerdinger, F. W. (2014). Leadership of employees. In Industrial and organizational psychology (pp. 83-102). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Nerdinger, F. W., Antoni, C., Bamberg, E., Blickle, G., Felfe, J., & Göritz, A. (2016). Industrial and organizational psychology A & O. Journal of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 60(1).

Do 9-ending prices really work?

Are people really so stupid that they perceive a price of 99.99 euros as so much cheaper than a price of 100 euros? And do 99-ending prices really lead to more sales and profits? These questions have been studied for many years by researchers in the field of business psychology (or price psychology).

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Studies (only a small selection):

Anderson, E. T., & Simester, D. I. (2003). Effects of $9 price endings on retail sales: Evidence from field experiments. Quantitative marketing and Economics, 1(1), 93-110.

Asamoah, E. S., & Chovancová, M. (2011). The influence of price endings on consumer behaviour: An application of the psychology of perception. Acta Universitatis agriculturae et silviculturae mendelianae Brunensis.

Bizer, G. Y., & Schindler, R. M. (2005). Direct evidence of ending-digit drop-off in price information processing. Psychology & Marketing, 22(10), 771-783.

Bray, J. P., & Harris, C. (2006). The effect of 9-ending prices on retail sales: A quantitative UK based field study. Journal of Marketing Management, 22(5-6), 601-617.

Felser, G. (2015). Advertising and consumer psychology. Springer Verlag.

Felser, G. (2013). Consumer psychology. Kohlhammer Verlag.

Parsa, H. G., & Njite, D. (2009). Psychology of pricing: A review and suggestions. Handbook of Hospitality Marketing Management, 375-402.

Schindler, R. M., & Kibarian, T. M. (1996). Increased consumer sales response though use of 99-ending prices. Journal of Retailing, 72(2), 187-199.

Schindler, R. M., & Kibarian, T. M. (2001). Image communicated by the use of 99 endings in advertised prices. Journal of Advertising, 30(4), 95-99.