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Case Studies

Case Studies 1635

1894 Times Horse-Manure Forecast Failure An accurate data-driven forecast missed the invention of the motor car Ep 72 1970s Attractiveness Halo Studies Attractive authors got higher essay ratings; attractive faces got better inferred personalities Ep 295 1987 Falling Cats Survivorship Bias Study Cats surviving high falls seemed less injured because the worst cases never reached a vet Ep 45 1994 Employment Interview Validity Meta-Analysis Job-related interviews were 22% worse than situational ones at picking hires Ep 203 2008 Negotiation Mirroring Settlement Study 62 students were paired off to negotiate with one another. Ep 116 2011 Gendered Job-Description Wording Study Agentic vs. communal wording shifted who applied to an identical job Ep 32 300-Pennies Door-to-Door Salesman Study A door-to-door salesman selling packs of note cards tested two ways of stating the same $3 price: stating it plainly ("$3"), or first say... Ep 235 65,000-Article Headline Sentiment Study Negative headlines got 63% higher click-through than positive ones Ep 55 A-ha 'Take On Me' Persistence Case A decade of iteration, not sudden inspiration, produced a chart-topping hit Ep 201 Abilene Effect Brexit Case Reading Brexit as a vote to preserve a rare option, not a settled rejection of the EU Ep 189 Above-Average-Citizen Labeling Voting Study (1980) A 1980 study arbitrarily labeled some participants as "above average citizens with an above-average probability of voting," while a compa... Ep 213 Abraham Sheeran Exercise Regret-Prompt Study Students were shown the statement "If I did not exercise at least six times in the next two weeks, then I would feel regret" (or not shown... Ep 94 ACTIVE Brain-Training No-Transfer Study 2,832 seniors' brain training never transferred beyond the exact trained task Ep 206 Ad Shadow-Effect Study A cast shadow behind a product made ads more clickable and buyable Ep 173 Adai Prostate-Surgery Deep-Question Case One opening deep question cut a surgeon's unnecessary-surgery rate 60% Ep 198 Adam Grant Lifeguard Stories Initiation Study Hearing rescue stories early raised new lifeguards' voluntary hours 43% Ep 179 Adidas Shower Gel and Male Deodorant Packaging Studies Packaging shape/grip signaled (or undermined) masculine-power positioning Ep 19 Adobe Churn-Reduction Case Authority, scarcity, and positive-priming script changes cut churn 8.84% Ep 163 Adrian North Ad-Music Congruence Recall Study Following his supermarket wine-and-music field study (see Supermarket Wine and Music Study), Adrian North created five dummy advertisemen... Ep 260 Advertising Expenditure and Life Satisfaction Study National ad spend increases were followed by declines in life satisfaction Ep 51 Agarwal McGill Product-Family Bottle Study Researchers tested two ways of displaying a set of bottled drinks (wine or beer): a traditional product line (all bottles the same height,... Ep 115 Age and Happiness-Type Shift Studies Younger people get excited happiness, older people calm contented happiness Ep 131 Ahluwalia Burnkrant Question-Framing Ad Study Question-framed ads rated 14% more positively than identical statements Ep 136, 182, 188, 206, 213 AI Deepfake Election and Fraud Cases Deepfakes already swung an election message and defrauded a bank of millions Ep 197 Airbnb Zeigarnik Unfinished-Journey Review-Prompt Case Rather than prompting guests to leave a review with a plain request ("please write a review"), Airbnb frames the ask as "one last thing t... Ep 243 Airline Miles Split-Incentive Case Frequent-flyer rewards go to the traveler, while the employer pays the fare Ep 155 Airport Security Line Vulnerability Study Offering (never-taken) money to skip a queue signaled vulnerability and won compliance Ep 12 Alcoa Keystone Habit Safety Campaign A CEO's safety-only focus cut injuries and raised income 500% Ep 17 Alcott Facebook-Quitting Wellbeing Study Paid Facebook deactivation raised wellbeing, yet nearly everyone went back anyway Ep 171 Alex Seamus Effort-Charity Incentive Study A small incentive worked better framed as a charity donation than as cash Ep 175 Alicke Gordon Rose 2013 Adult-Film Church-Bake-Sale Study Researchers Mark Alicke, Ellen Gordon, and David Rose gave participants a scenario in which a man rents an adult film, then later that sa... Ep 262 All Blacks Haka and Dunbar Choir-Endorphin Case The All Blacks, New Zealand's national rugby team, perform the Haka — a ceremonial Maori dance involving synchronized foot-stomping and... Ep 116 Amar Ariely Ray-Ban and Tea Brand-Placebo Studies (2011) Published as "Brand names act like marketing placebos." In the first experiment, all participants wore the same quality of sunglasses under... Ep 106, 302 Amazon Door-Desk and a16z Late-Fee Keystone Interventions Cheap desks and a $10/min late fine reinforced frugality/punctuality habits Ep 17 Amazon Pay-to-Quit Self-Selection Case Paying staff to quit lets the unhappy self-select out and the rest stay more committed Ep 175 Amazon Prime Cancellation Loss-Aversion Message A personalized "you'll lose these savings" message discourages cancellation Ep 49, 82 Amazon Prime Sunk-Cost Loyalty Case Amazon Prime (UK: £95/year or £8.99/month) markets its headline benefit as "free shipping" — despite the subscription itself costing a su... Ep 270 Amazon Prime Zero-Price Reciprocity Bet Free shipping's reciprocity effect made Prime customers spend 2x more Ep 24, 34, 69 Amazon Two-Way Door AWS Case AWS began as a low-stakes, reversible "two-way door" bet inside Amazon's infrastructure Ep 189 Ambady Thin-Slice Malpractice Tone-of-Voice Study Nalini Ambady played participants roughly 10-second audio clips of surgeons speaking with patients, deliberately garbled so no actual words... Ep 90 Ambady Thin-Slice Professor and Sales-Tone Studies Two further "thin-slicing" studies. Ep 90 Ambient Orb Energy-Use Study A red/green glowing orb cut peak household energy use 40% Ep 71 AMC Theatre Premium-Seat Framing Case A premium-seat "surcharge" drew backlash a "budget-seat discount" frame would have avoided Ep 175 Amway 'The Bug' Reciprocity Case Free-trial products left in homes helped build an $8.8 billion company Ep 207 Amy Cuddy Power-Pose Study A 42-person power-posing study reached 71 million views before failing to replicate Ep 195 Android Privacy-Settings Slider Rct A slider privacy interface beat Android's default at informed consent Ep 66 Angela Rayner Stamp Duty Hypocrisy Case UK Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner had previously called Boris Johnson "untrustworthy," referencing his handling of the Partygate sca... Ep 266 Angostura Bitters Oversized Label Case A printing mistake became a signature label that made the brand unmissable Ep 132 Ankiel Paralysis-by-Analysis Case A star pitcher's meltdown came from over-analyzing an automatic motor skill Ep 62 Anthropomorphic Cookie-Face Eating Study People ate more cookies decorated with a human face than identical plain-decorated ones Ep 115, 294 Anthropomorphic iPhone Ad-Language Study Participants viewed iPhone advertisements using either human-attribute language ("strong," "smart," "beautiful") or standard technical... Ep 115 Anticipatory-Dopamine Monkey Study A 2015 study monitored a monkey's dopamine levels while it viewed an image of a banana, then pressed a button to receive banana juice as ... Ep 240 Aperol Spritz Implied-Social-Proof Distinctiveness Case Aperol, created by Italian brothers Luigi and Silvio Barberi in 1919, was a modestly successful, lighter-strength (11%) Italian aperitif ... Ep 268 App Landing-Page Psychographic Redesign Case Personality-informed emojis/colors/punctuation raised conversion ~10% Ep 50 Apple 1983 Breakfast Ad Storytelling-Failure Case A year before its famous 1984 Macintosh ad, Apple used the same ad agency (Chiat/Day) to promote the Lisa — an even more expensive, genui... Ep 244 Apple 1984 Super Bowl Ad Curiosity-Gap Case Apple commissioned an ad, directed by Ridley Scott, to air during the 1984 Super Bowl, introducing the Macintosh. Ep 110, 217, 244 Apple Foxconn Cobalt Child-Labor Case Reported child labor and Foxconn conditions produced no iPhone sales dip Ep 170 Apple White iPod Headphones Distinctiveness Case When Apple launched the iPod, virtually every competing MP3 player shipped with black headphones — the industry-standard color at the time. Ep 249, 256 Applied CV Anonymization and Skill-Based Assessment Anonymized, randomized, chunked assessment reduced hiring bias Ep 32 Ariel Saville Placebo-Steroid Weightlifting Study (1972) Men who believed they'd taken steroids (a placebo) trained harder and gained more real strength Ep 289 Ariely Blond-Cheater Social-Contagion Study A planted cheater going unpunished pushed everyone else's cheating up sharply Ep 133 Ariely Box-Dragging Reciprocity Experiment An unpaid favor produced more effort than either a 50-cent or $5 payment Ep 69 Ariely Certificate Public-Praise Cheating Study A printed certificate for a cheated score raised confidence and further cheating Ep 133 Ariely Depletion Double-Cheat Study Depleted participants cheated 197% more when two routes to cheat were available Ep 133 Ariely Fancy-Container and Menu-Language Studies Three findings from Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational, cited together as evidence the subconscious ("gator brain") drives purchasing... Ep 90 Ariely Hershey Kiss vs Lindt Truffle Zero-Price Experiment Dropping a price to exactly zero flipped preference despite an unchanged price gap Ep 24, 213, 296 Ariely Mazar Amir Shredder-Condition Cheating Study Shredding the evidence made most participants inflate their score by about two Ep 133 Ariely Origami IKEA Effect Study Self-assembled origami was valued 5x higher than professionally-made equivalents Ep 13, 52 Ariely Pittsburgh-Sweatshirt Out-Group Cheating-Contagion Study Cheating spread far less when the visible cheater wore a rival school's sweatshirt Ep 133 Ariely Self-Deception Rubbed-Out-Answers Study People who cheated then genuinely believed the inflated score was their ability Ep 133 Ariely SSN Anchoring Champagne Bidding Study Random SSN digits shifted champagne bids despite nobody believing they would Ep 15, 111 Arizona Petrified Forest Negative Social Proof Study A "theft is common" sign tripled theft vs. a harm-only sign Ep 4, 28 Arkes Blumer 1985 Sunk-Cost Founding Studies Researcher Hal Arkes ran two studies establishing the sunk cost effect as a documented bias. Ep 270 Aronson 1988 Insulation Loss-Framing Study 404 homeowners received information encouraging them to insulate their homes, framed in one of two ways: a gain-framed version stating ho... Ep 213 Aronson Breast-Cancer Screening Loss-Aversion Study Elliot Aronson tested two messages encouraging women to book a breast cancer screening. Ep 240 Aronson Coffee-Spill Pratfall Study A coffee spill raised likability for a competent actor, lowered it for an incompetent one Ep 58, 174, 217, 264, 278 Aronson Mills Initiation-Severity Study Elliot Aronson and colleague Judson Mills had college women undergo either a severely embarrassing initiation ceremony or a mild one befo... Ep 211, 241 Asch Anagram-Solving Primacy Study A stooge solving anagrams fast early was judged to have solved more overall Ep 132 Asch and Shotton Trait-Order Impression Studies Identical traits in reverse order changed impressions in 1946 and again in a 2020s replication Ep 79, 253 Asch Line-Length Conformity Study Participants gave an obviously wrong line-length answer to match four confederates Ep 130, 291, 292 Ashraf Karlan Yin Philippines Commitment Savings Study (2006) A savings account that locked funds until a goal was met raised 12-month balances 81% Ep 291 Astronaut Space-Food Labeling Expectation Study (1960s) Two American researchers in the 1960s tested public perception of a chocolate-flavored health shake developed for astronauts (packed with... Ep 302 Asymmetrical Anchors Pricing Guidance The gap to the premium tier should be bigger than the gap to the budget tier Ep 156 Atkins Diet and London Marathon Water-Intoxication Case Two illustrations of Black-and-White Thinking (Binary Bias) applied to diet and hydration. Ep 225 Attribute and Context Framing Studies "90% fat-free" vs "10% fat" and newspaper-logo framing changed judgment of identical facts Ep 19 Audi Clown Proof Ad Campaign A control-themed ad drove sales 3x faster than the market, +£1.7bn value Ep 30 Audience Tuning Marijuana Speech Study Summarizing a neutral speech for a biased listener shifted the summarizer's own view Ep 80 Austin Flint 1863 Placebo Rheumatism Trial Physician Austin Flint ran an early controlled trial on rheumatism, giving one group of patients a real plant-extract-based treatment and... Ep 219 Australia URGENT Tax-Letter Stamp Case Australian residents were racking up millions of dollars in late-payment tax penalties. Ep 100 Australian Antibiotic Social-Proof-Graph Study The Australian government tested five different letters to reduce unnecessary antibiotic prescribing across 6,000 medical practices, rand... Ep 236 Avis We-Try-Harder Revival Campaign Admitting Avis is only number two generated $1.2M profit in a year Ep 58, 174 B-17 Bomber Crew Identity Fusion Case A WWII crew died together rather than break a no-abandonment pact Ep 73 Baba Shiv Blemished-Product Study Deliberately blemished products were preferred over flawless ones Ep 55 Back-Pain Ad Loss-Aversion Study An ad campaign tested a gain-framed message ("relief from back pain") against a loss-framed message ("avoid open back surgery") for the i... Ep 240 Balkan Anderson Barnum-Opener Survey Study Researchers approached passersby on the street with a clipboard survey request. Ep 96, 116 Ballot and Alphabetical-Order Real-World Primacy Studies Ballot position and alphabetical authorship shaped real elections and careers Ep 79 Ballot-Question Complexity Study (2011) Simpler ballot-question wording measurably raised correct, intended voting Ep 185 Banana-Peel Warning Cone Study A banana-shaped warning cone was 22x more effective than a standard one Ep 148 Bank Loan-Application Deadline Study A bank that funded nonprofit loan applications compared application volume when applicants were given an explicit deadline versus an... Ep 107 Bank of Italy to Visa Positioning Case A bank built for Sicilian fishermen repositioned in stages into Visa Ep 73 Banksy Shredding and Essentialism Artifact Cases Three real-world illustrations of Essentialism (Origin-Story Value Transfer), cited by Matt Johnson. Ep 257 Barber Loyalty Auto-Enrollment Study Auto-enrolling customers into a loyalty scheme raised 5-year LTV 29.5% Ep 168 Barbra Streisand Effect Case (2003) In 2003, Barbra Streisand attempted to have a photograph of her Malibu residence removed from a public coastal-erosion documentation... Ep 95 Bargh Chen Burrows Florida-Effect Walking-Speed Study (1996) Psychologist John Bargh and collaborators had NYU students (mostly aged 18-22) assemble four-word sentences from scrambled sets of five w... Ep 245 Bargh Chen Burrows Politeness-Priming Study (1996) From the same 1996 paper as the "Florida effect," researchers exposed participants to words associated with politeness ("respect," "honor... Ep 245 Barney the Swearing Parrot Distinctiveness Case Barney, a parrot at Warwickshire Wildlife Sanctuary donated by a lorry driver who had unwittingly taught him to swear at anyone in unifor... Ep 250 Barnum-Opener Free-Sample Email Study Researchers tried to get passersby to provide an email address in exchange for a free sample of an unfamiliar soft drink. Ep 96 Baron de Gauville Fence-Sitting Case A French Revolution noble was booed from the gallery for refusing to take a side Ep 73 Barrick Barasch Tamir 2022 Phubbing Study Researchers Emma Barrick, Alixandra Barasch, and Diana Tamir studied "phubbing" — phone snubbing, checking a phone during in-person conve... Ep 266 Bartlett War of the Ghosts Study British psychologist Frederick Bartlett asked British university students, unfamiliar with Native American culture, to read a Native Amer... Ep 232 Bartneck Robot Switch-Off Anthropomorphism Study (2007) Participants hesitated to switch off a pleading robotic cat, treating it as if it were sentient Ep 115, 294 Baseball Batting vs Fielding Ritual-Frequency Case Rituals cluster around baseball's uncertain 30%-success batting, not fielding Ep 200 Basketball Halftime One-Point-Behind Motivation Study Researchers studying basketball teams found that being slightly behind at halftime (specifically, one point) correlated with a better... Ep 107 Bateson Coffee Fund Watched-Eyes Study A picture of eyes nearly tripled honesty-box coffee contributions vs flowers Ep 135 Bay of Pigs Groupthink Case An aide opposed to the invasion was told the president had decided; don't push Ep 130 Becky Richards Nurse Vest Study "Do not interrupt" vests cut medication errors 41% Ep 14 Beer52 Exceptional-Benefit Subscription Case Beer52, the UK's most popular craft-beer subscription club, offers new customers a "free trial" of eight craft beers and two snacks, requ... Ep 243 Behavioral Scientist Single-Link Email Study Stripping an email to one link raised magazine sales 50% Ep 177 Behavioural Insights Team Pre-Habit Interventions HMRC first-year targeting and Home Office pre-expiry visa reminders (+20% cancellations) Ep 3 Beleza Gino Keenan Professor-Competence Study A T-shirt-and-beard professor was rated 14% more competent than a suited one Ep 148 Bell Labs Building-Design Innovation Comparison A plain and a fancy Bell Labs building produced roughly equal Nobel-level output Ep 146 Bellaiche Duke AI-Art Preference Study (2023) Researchers ran two related studies on how people perceive AI-generated versus human-generated visual art. Ep 257 Belle Gibson Cancer-Cure Hoax Case Australian wellness blogger Belle Gibson claimed to have been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer at 20, to have rejected chemotherapy a... Ep 224 Ben and Jerry's Rain-Triggered Ad Campaign Rain-triggered digital ads doubled banner-click volume Ep 29 Benedetti 2014 Altitude-Headache Nocebo Study Students warned about altitude headaches were 1.63x more likely to develop one, with measurable blood markers Ep 298 Bennedsen Firstborn-Gender CEO-Succession Study Researcher Morten Bennedsen wanted to know whether family-run companies perform worse when they promote a family member to CEO rather tha... Ep 219 Berger Packard Present-Tense Review Study "Is a good read" persuades more than "was a good read" across 250,000 reviews Ep 154 Bergman Rogers Auto-Enroll Texting Study Auto-enrolling parents beat opt-in sign-up, 93% vs 1% retention Ep 76, 109, 134 Bertini Wathieu Airline Bundle-Partitioning Study (2008) Itemizing a superior bundled component separately made it more salient and increased its value Ep 287 Bertrand Mullainathan Resume-Callback Discrimination Study Economists Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan built a bank of fictional resumes, classified as higher- or lower-quality based on ... Ep 219 Betty Crocker Add-an-Egg Case Adding effort (an egg) to a cake mix turned a flop into a success Ep 52, 143, 215, 279 Bickman Security-Guard Authority Study A security-guard uniform made strangers comply with odd, demanding requests Ep 207 Big Texan 72-Ounce Steak Challenge Anchor A free 72oz steak challenge combines the power of free with a portion/price anchor Ep 44 Binet and Field Long-Term Brand-Building Study Six months of brand-building beat equivalent short-term promotional spend Ep 37 Bing Crosby 'White Christmas' Expectation Study A third of listeners "heard" a song hidden in white noise that wasn't there Ep 196 BIT 2013 Investment-Banker Charitable-Giving Study The Behavioural Insights Team and the UK Government Cabinet Office tested different influence techniques for encouraging investment banke... Ep 265, 269 BIT Energy-Label Lifetime-Cost Reframing Study The Behavioural Insights Team ran an online experiment with several thousand participants, asking them to choose between two versions of ... Ep 249 BIT Essex Jobcentre Commitment Contract Study Job seekers who wrote specific commitments before their next meeting were 15-20% more likely to be off benefits Ep 291 BIT HMRC Tax Social-Norm and Insulation-Chunking Cases Two further Behavioural Insights Team examples from David Halpern's book *Inside the Nudge Unit*, cited briefly as evidence of the team's... Ep 226, 249, 268 BIT Make-It-Attractive Studies Post-it notes, vehicle photos, doctor titles, and reciprocity all raised BIT response rates Ep 7, 199, 240 BIT Make-It-Easy Studies Pension auto-enrollment (61%→83%) and an energy-tariff-switching app Ep 7, 56 BIT Make-It-Timely Studies A well-timed bailiff text doubled fines paid; signing forms first raised honesty 10% Ep 7, 195, 226 BIT Social-Incentive Gift-Sharing Study The Behavioural Insights Team tested employee productivity incentives ranging from quadrupling pay to removing incentives entirely,... Ep 105 BIT Terms-and-Conditions Redesign Study Reading-time disclosure and bullet summaries doubled genuine T&C engagement Ep 66 BIT University Financial-Assistance Letter Test More information cut applications; personal assistance raised them 8pp Ep 56 BIT-Berkeley 165-Trial Nudge Meta-Analysis An independent audit of 165 BIT trials found a robust 8.1% average improvement Ep 44, 144 Bitterly Presentation-Humor Status Study A single mild joke raised a presenter's perceived status by 37% Ep 145 Blanchfield Hardy Marcora Subliminal-Face Cycling Study (2014) 16ms subliminal happy-face flashes let cyclists ride ~12% longer and feel less exertion Ep 307 Blockbuster Late-Fee Penalty-Model Case A $40 late fee made Reed Hastings found Netflix around removing it Ep 155 Blue Book Route-Chunking and Volunteer-Hours Studies Chunking 25,000 streets into 320 routes; chunking hours into weekly units (+8%) Ep 128 Blunden Kristal 2025 Advice-vs-Feedback Study Researchers including Ariella Kristal (a former Columbia postdoc) ran two large studies asking a combined 806 people, working with real c... Ep 267 Bob Bob Ricard Champagne Button Case A one-press champagne button made it London's top champagne-selling restaurant Ep 76, 109 Boeing 737 MAX Unaccountability Case Boeing was historically an engineering-driven company, with aeronautical engineers in top leadership and finance operating as a support f... Ep 255 Boeing 787 Dreamliner Psychophysics Case Cabin design made a narrower plane feel wider and reduced jet lag Ep 63 Bohner Fresco Francesco Related-Weakness Restaurant Study A researcher at Bielefeld University in Germany (Gerd Bohner) recruited 133 participants and split them into three groups, each shown a d... Ep 264 Bohns Extreme-Compliance Studies (Library Book and Phone Handover) Two further Vanessa Bohns studies pushed the same face-to-face compliance research toward more extreme requests. Ep 81 Bohns Favor-Asking Underestimation Studies Vanessa Bohns has spent 15 years bringing participants into her lab and sending them out to ask strangers for things, tracking both their... Ep 81 Boiling Point One-Shot Distinctiveness Case *Boiling Point*, a British indie drama following a head chef (Stephen Graham) through a single chaotic night's service in a high-pressure... Ep 250 Bol.com Simple-Question Review-Request Case Bol.com, a Dutch e-commerce retailer generating roughly $8 billion in revenue, originally requested product reviews via an automated post... Ep 243 Bold/Underline Formatting Studies Bold and underlined text raised attention to that text but reduced it elsewhere Ep 185 Bolton Warlop Alba Inflation Price-Fairness Study (2003) 30% still judged a fully cost-justified price rise unfair unless the reason was made explicit Ep 287 Bonus-Time-vs-Helping Time-Affluence Study Helping someone beat even a genuine unearned 15-minute time windfall Ep 129 Booking.com Fake-Scarcity Backlash Case Regulator action over misleading "only 2 rooms left" claims shows the reputational cost of unrepresentative scarcity Ep 277 Boomerang 2016 Email-Length Meta-Study Email-scheduling company Boomerang analyzed roughly 40 million emails to find the relationship between message length and reply rate. Ep 218 Boothby Clark Bargh Shared-Chocolate Study 23 female undergraduates at Yale University tasted the same dark chocolate bar under two conditions: once while a second participant tast... Ep 241 Boothby Dining-Hall Observation Study People observe others 67% more than they think they're observed themselves Ep 80 Boots Webshop Filter-Reduction Case An online footwear retailer selling boots offered shoppers a wide range of product filters. Ep 240 Boris Johnson Partygate Hypocrisy Case During the UK's Covid-19 lockdowns, the government (led by Prime Minister Boris Johnson) told citizens that gatherings of more than two p... Ep 262 Bornstein D'Agostino Face-Preference Study Participants were briefly shown 20-30 photographs of unfamiliar faces. Ep 119 Bornstein Subliminal Face-Flash Persuasion Study (1987) Subliminally flashed faces were later liked more and found more persuasive, despite no conscious memory of exposure Ep 276 Boss Email-Response-Speed Likability Study A study set out to determine what made employees like their boss most: frequency of one-to-ones, amount of positive feedback, level of... Ep 107 Botox Rat Chewing-Control Stress Study Rats were injected with Botox to freeze their muscles and remove most physical control over their environment. Ep 98 Boy Scout Popcorn Commitment Anecdote A Boy Scout leader, a personal contact of Robert Cialdini's, described his troop's supermarket-entrance fundraising table, asking exiting... Ep 269 BPost Reason-Why Landing-Page Case BPost, Belgium's postal service, offers a mail-forwarding service for people moving house. Ep 240 Brain Games Standing Ovation Conformity Study An audience gave a standing ovation to a presentation of pure gibberish Ep 130 Brand Identity Framing Studies Coke/Pepsi and T-Mobile/Vodafone/O2 brand labels changed preference for identical products Ep 19, 39, 252 Brand Placebo Performance Studies Nike-branded golf clubs drove the ball measurably further, identical clubs Ep 39, 41, 106 Bransford Johnson Washing-Clothes Passage-Comprehension Study (1972) Researchers read participants a deliberately vague, ambiguous passage of instructions ("first arrange things into different groups depend... Ep 244 Brazil Bar Jogger Social-Proof Case Diners abandoned a restaurant to chase joggers with no idea why Ep 159 Bread Loaf Letter-Stamp Distinctiveness Study Participants were asked to select a loaf of bread from a set of otherwise identical loaves — except one loaf had a random letter of the a... Ep 250 Break Timing Performance Studies Courtroom leniency, hospital errors, and school results all track distance from a break Ep 21 Breakfast-Cereal Competition Commitment Case Steve Martin analyzes the classic structure of UK breakfast-cereal competitions from his own childhood, common across different brands: e... Ep 214 Brochet Wine-Color Sommelier Study Dyeing white wine red fooled 54 trained sommeliers into describing it as red Ep 41, 78, 236, 284, 302 Bromley Stanley Shotton Alliteration Study Alliterating proverbs were 7% more believable, 22% more memorable Ep 145, 190, 213, 220 Brooks Creativity-Mandate Suppression Study Telling people to "think creatively" produced fewer, worse ideas Ep 146 Brown Baer 2011 Home-Field Negotiation Study 20 minutes of prior room familiarity gave negotiators a measurable "resident" advantage Ep 297 Browne Swarbrick-Jones 6,700-Website A/B Test Study (2017) A landing-page welcome message ranked 6th of 29 tested conversion features across 6,700 sites Ep 276 Bryan Be-a-Voter Turnout Studies "Be a voter" raised turnout 10.9 points — five times a typical GOTV mailer Ep 154, 158 Bryan Cheater-Framing Coin-Flip Study "Don't be a cheater" eliminated cheating; "don't cheat" didn't Ep 154, 158 Bryan Helper-Framing Nursery Study "Be a helper" made preschoolers 75% more likely to help tidy up Ep 154, 158 Bschaden Tablecloth Soup-Taste Study (2020) Researchers served diners an identical bowl of plain tomato soup under two conditions: once on a table set with a white tablecloth, and o... Ep 260 Buckleys and Listerine Negative-Slogan Campaigns Decades-long slogans openly admitted the product tastes bad Ep 70 Bud Light Swear-Jar Ad Case A banned Bud Light ad used a swear jar to imply profanity without saying it Ep 184 Budd Rowe and Mamede Deliberate-Pause Studies A 3-second pause and a diagnosis-recheck step both measurably improved judgment Ep 196 Budweiser Puppy Love Super Bowl Ad The most-shared beer ad ever had zero measured impact on beer sales Ep 30 Buechel Li Mysterious-Consumption Studies (2022) People pick a mystery option 69-89% of the time when choices are "horizontal" (taste) but prefer certainty when "vertical" (quality) Ep 279 Buehler Griffin Ross Thesis Planning-Fallacy Study Students' actual thesis time (56 days) beat even their own stated worst case (35 days) Ep 45 Buell Visible-Food-Preparation Study (2014) Ryan Buell, studying what he calls "operational transparency" (letting customers see the work being done on their behalf — inspired partl... Ep 215 Buffett Family Shareholder-Letter Unity Case After Charlie Munger's death, Berkshire Hathaway shareholders pressed Warren Buffett for reassurance about the company's future without i... Ep 216 Build-A-Bear Effort-Premium Case Self-built teddy bears sell for 3-4x a pre-built equivalent Ep 52 Bumble Forbidden-Access Sign Campaign Bumble told students not to use its app, and downloads grew Ep 140, 271 Bundesliga Football-Kit Halo Study (2019) Fans of a successful season's team rated their unchanged, pre-designed kit 19% higher than relegated fans Ep 295 Bunsen Burger Minimal-Menu Case A two-item burger menu grew to eight restaurants across Ireland Ep 59 Burkeman Historical-Figures 3-4-Hour Routine Case Oliver Burkeman compiles a recurring pattern across eminent historical figures' daily working routines: Charles Darwin concentrated on hi... Ep 238 But You Are Free Compliance Studies Adding "but you are free to refuse" raised compliance from 10% to 48% Ep 140, 181, 187 Buzzsumo Influencer Marketing Case Study Reciprocity-based outreach to engaged niche influencers grew Buzzsumo to 100k users free Ep 12 Cabin Crew and Greek Siesta Sleep-Health Studies Chronic sleep disruption shrank brain regions; siesta loss raised heart-disease risk 37% Ep 126 Cacioppo fMRI Negative-Image Study Brain activity was consistently highest for negative images Ep 55 Cadbury Creme Egg Seasonal Scarcity Reversal Case Cadbury's Creme Eggs were originally sold only in the run-up to Easter. Ep 263 Cadbury Dairy Milk Rounded-Bar Taste Case Based on shape-sound symbolism research (see Köhler Kiki-Bouba Shape-Sound Study), Charles Spence predicted — in a talk at the Nudgestock... Ep 260 Caesar Army-Leadership Signaling Cases A cluster of leadership tactics Julius Caesar used to build his army's devotion. Ep 101 Caesar Pirate-Ransom Costly-Signal Case Aged 22, early in his career and not yet wealthy, Julius Caesar was captured by pirates while sailing home across the Aegean Sea after a... Ep 101 Caesar Winter-Bread Reframing Case During his winter campaign against Pompey in Greece, Caesar's army faced starvation; the only available food was a local root vegetable... Ep 101 Cafe Tables-Outside Costly Signaling Case Leaving tables outside signals a cafe is genuinely open and trading Ep 64, 191 Cafeteria Color-Coded Food Label Study Green/red food labels shifted consumption with no change to the food Ep 124 Café 'Regulars Wall' Social-Proof Case Rather than issuing pocket loyalty cards, a Sydney café stores hundreds of customer loyalty cards on a public chalkboard "regulars wall"... Ep 87 Caillebotte Impressionist Bequest Case A controversial 1894 will forced unloved Cézannes into a museum, making them beloved Ep 161, 167 Cain Loewenstein Moore Money-Jar Conflict-of-Interest Study Advisors paid for over-estimates gave estimates 25% higher than the control Ep 133 CalFresh Postcard-vs-Email Study A physical postcard reminder outperformed an equivalent email reminder Ep 185 California Organ Donation Second-Chance Campaign Waiving tickets for registered donors drove 110,000 new registrations in a month Ep 69 Cambridge Manipulation-Awareness Video Study Watching a video on manipulation tactics made people resist them Ep 152 Campus Vaccination Map Simplicity Case A map of the surgery, not a warning, finally got students vaccinated Ep 161 Canada Goose Coyote-Fur Ethics Case A decade of fur-cruelty protests never dented Canada Goose's revenue growth Ep 170 Canadian Happy-Unhappy Survey Framing Study A random 50/50 sample of Canadians (a population, per the episode, generally seen as happier than average) were asked either "are you... Ep 96 Cancer Badge Consistency Donation Study Wearing a cancer badge for a week raised later charity donations Ep 121 Cancer Research UK Blanked-Letters Obesity Ad "OB_S__Y is a cause of cancer" — the generation effect on billboards Ep 136, 162, 188 Candid Camera Elevator Conformity Study A man in a trench coat gradually turned to face the back of the elevator Ep 130 Canon Linda Taylor Church Gun-Violence Case Asking a divided congregation to explain their views found common ground Ep 74 Canva Hicks-Law Onboarding Case Rather than presenting new users with its full library of thousands of design templates at once, Canva asks a single categorizing questio... Ep 248 Cape Town Water Crisis Social-Norm Campaign Publicizing top water-savers cut usage 15-26% after fines alone failed Ep 71 Capitalism Framing Confirmation-Bias Study Viewers rated whichever video matched their politics as the well-researched one Ep 125 Capitol Crawl Disability-Rights Protest Case 60 disabled protestors crawled the Capitol steps; the ADA was signed shortly after Ep 139 Car Test-Drive and Apple Retail Endowment Study 88.6% of car buyers are influenced by a test drive's felt ownership Ep 52 Carlin Appel Microloan Similarity Study Borrowers chose a worse-value loan from a lender perceived as culturally similar Ep 196 Carlin List Authority-Donation Study Donations rose when tied to a named philanthropist rather than a faceless charity Ep 163 Carnegie Confident-vs-Doubtful Persuasion Study Doubtful persuasive appeals beat confident ones on polarizing topics Ep 174, 187 Carrefour Shrinkflation Labeling Case A French retailer labeled shelves warning shoppers which products had shrunk Ep 210 Carrots Taste-vs-Health Framing Study Choosing carrots by taste rather than health raised consumption 50% Ep 127 Carter Chambers Carbohydrate-Mouth-Rinse Studies (2004, 2009) Mouth-rinsing (not swallowing) a carb drink sped cyclists up via brain reward regions, not calories Ep 307 Carton 2014 Toy-Vision Vividness Study Researcher Andrew Carton and colleagues gave toy-making teams one of two vision statements to work from. Ep 265 Cassie Holmes Time-Scarcity Priming and Essay-Editing Study Priming time scarcity replicated the Good Samaritan study's reduced helping Ep 129 Castro Samuels Harmon Garden Vegetable Study (2013) Researchers gave chocolate-loving children and their families access to a small local garden, giving the children ownership over growing ... Ep 211 CDC Bathroom Handwashing Social-Proof Study A social-proof sign raised handwashing from 31% to 35.5% Ep 28 Cecilia Rouse Blind Orchestra Audition Study Blind auditions raised women selected for orchestras by 50% Ep 32 CEO Photo Competence Study CEO-photo competence ratings correctly tracked company profitability Ep 15 Challenger Disaster O-Ring Groupthink Case 1986 shuttle disaster and Sah's MBA teaching replication show engineers deferring to group votes despite private doubt Ep 274 Chamberlain-Hitler Munich Meeting Case A face-to-face meeting badly misjudged Hitler's character before WWII Ep 203 Chameleon Effect Mimicry Studies Two demonstrations of unconscious behavioral mimicry cited by Will Storr (the first, per his book, on page 80): Ep 246 Chan Leung 2018 Reverse-Psychology Jacket-Ad Study Researchers showed pairs of advertisements to 52 university students: a standard positive ad message ("buy this jacket") and a reverse-ps... Ep 220 Change Please Cost-Transparency Infographic Case Change Please, a coffee cart brand co-founded by Chris Baker that trains formerly homeless people as baristas, struggled early on to conv... Ep 239 Chaotic Good Manufactured-Fandom Case (2025-2026) At South by Southwest 2026, Billboard hosted a podcast in which Chaotic Good co-founders Jesse Coren and Andrew Spellman openly described... Ep 303 Charity Donation Ask-Order Anchoring Case Tim den Heijer describes testing two ways of presenting a range of suggested charity donation amounts: ascending order ("as little as €10... Ep 227 Charm Pricing Meta-Analysis and Chocolate Taste Study Identical chocolate at 79p was rated better-tasting than the same bar at 80p Ep 180 Charness Gneezy 2008 Gym-Payment Habit Study Paying gym-goers to attend 8 times (not just once) built more durable habits after payments stopped Ep 83, 299 Che Hogg Before-After Progression Study (2013) Researchers Che and Hogg showed hundreds of participants before-and-after image sequences for products like weight-loss programs, compari... Ep 212 Chernev Semantic-Anchoring Cheesecake-Salad Study (2011) Researcher Alexander Chernev asked participants to first imagine one food item, then estimate the calorie content of a second, contrastin... Ep 245 Cheskin Deodorant Packaging Perception Study Identical deodorant in different packaging caused some users to report rashes Ep 143 Cheskin McDonald's Restaurant Redesign Case Cheskin's redesign turned McDonald's burger stands into family restaurants Ep 143 Chewy Pet-Loss Condolences Reciprocity Case US online pet retailer Chewy sends unprompted, personalized condolences to customers who lose a pet — handwritten sympathy cards, some fe... Ep 269 Chicago Booth Financial Leaflet Beauty Study An attractive model on a mailer matched a 25% discount's effect on men Ep 11 Chikli CEO Fraud Impersonation Case A fraudster impersonating a CEO by phone extracted millions via wire transfer Ep 195 Children Dog-Fear Peer-Modeling Study Watching peer (not adult) children with dogs cured 67% of dog-fearful kids Ep 67 Chilean Bus Driver Incentive A-B Test Per-passenger pay made drivers faster but caused more accidents Ep 155 Chinese Factory Loss-Framed Bonus Study Workers who could lose a pre-paid bonus outperformed workers earning it normally Ep 175 Chinese Textile Factory Coin-Decal Study Golden-coin floor decals cut waste 20%, beating a failed cash incentive Ep 43 Choice Architecture Physical-Nudge Cases Two physical-environment nudges cited by Eva van den Broek and Tim den Heijer as examples of Choice Architecture (Salience & Placement) —... Ep 227 Choice-Blindness Face-Selection Consistency Study Participants confidently justified face "choices" they never actually made Ep 49 Chopsticks Popcorn Novelty-Eating Study Eating popcorn with chopsticks made people enjoy it more than eating normally Ep 131 Chou Halevy Galinsky Murnighan 2017 Goldilocks Contract Study Researchers hired real workers to perform real, measurable work and assigned them to one of three conditions: no contract (just told thei... Ep 267 Christensen Milkshake Study Milkshakes were "hired" to relieve commute boredom, not to taste better Ep 30 Christian Aid Envelope Strategies Study Ogilvy tested seven donation-envelope variants for Christian Aid's annual door-to-door drive; three are detailed here. Ep 86 Christmas Jumper Day Campaign An invented special day has raised Save the Children over £35 million since 2012 Ep 169 Churchill Skin-in-the-Game Career Case Trenches, prisons, the Sidney Street siege and 50 occasions of being shot at Ep 139 Cialdini $5 Gift vs $50 Payment Reciprocity Study A $5 unconditional gift beat a $50 payment offer 2:1 on survey completion Ep 12, 199 Cialdini Attorney Name-Pronounceability Study Harder-to-pronounce attorney names sat lower in law firm hierarchies Ep 134 Cialdini Banner-Ad Repeated-Exposure Study Participants read an online article with a banner ad for a camera displayed at the top. Ep 228, 276 Cialdini Beer/Mouthwash Superimposition Study Superimposing a brand on pleasant images raised feeling toward it for weeks Ep 209 Cialdini Blood-Donation Confirmation-Call Study Requiring a verbal "yes" raised donor follow-through from 70% to 82.4% Ep 127 Cialdini Cacioppo Bassett Miller 1978 Low-Ball 7am-Lecture Study Researchers called two samples of students to recruit them for a psychology study — an unappealing 7am lecture on thinking processes. Ep 82, 269 Cialdini California Energy Stated-vs-Revealed Preference Study Social proof ranked least important but was the only message that changed behavior Ep 53 Cialdini Colleague's Million-Dollar Anchor Joke A consultant, struggling with clients haggling his $75,000 project fee down 15%, stumbled on a fix: just before stating the price, he'd... Ep 92 Cialdini Dishonest-Leader Cheating-Conformity Study A leader who cheated openly made their group cheat 77% more than control Ep 130 Cialdini Door-in-the-Face Volunteering Study A refused extreme ask tripled agreement to the real, smaller ask Ep 91, 152 Cialdini Dream-Titan Sofa Distinctiveness Study Researchers at Northwestern University gave online participants information about two sofas from different manufacturers — nicknamed "Dre... Ep 250 Cialdini Free-Mint Tip Increase Study An unconditional free mint with the bill raised tips 23% Ep 35, 69, 137, 276, 286 Cialdini Hare Krishna Flower Reciprocity Study An unwanted free flower first raised airport donations substantially Ep 35 Cialdini Litter-Proportion Study (1990) Robert Cialdini's team varied how much litter was already visibly present on the ground in a public setting — testing conditions with one... Ep 256 Cialdini Million-Pounds B2B Anchoring Anecdote Robert Cialdini recounts a salesman closing a large B2B contract who opened by saying "well, this won't cost you a million pounds" before... Ep 235 Cialdini Principles A/B-Test Meta-Analysis (2017) Cialdini's principles topped 6,700 A/B tests for revenue-per-customer lift Ep 207 Cialdini Unity In-Group Favoritism Field Studies A cluster of real-world field findings cited by Robert Cialdini as evidence for Unity (Cialdini's Seventh Principle) — people extending f... Ep 216, 281 Cialdini Water-Conservation Trend-Framing Study A rising-trend minority framing cut real water use most; a static minority framing backfired Ep 281 Cirque du Soleil and Movie-Popcorn Stated-Preference Pricing Failures Surveyed willingness to pay badly underestimated real pricing headroom Ep 42 Citibank Cross-Cultural Persuasion Study Which Cialdini principle persuades most varies sharply by world region Ep 207 Climate-Change Fewer-Actions Study Offering 5 suggested actions produced more completed actions than offering 20 Ep 177 Clorox Long-Term-vs-Promotion Case Halting promotions dropped revenue short-term, then raised profit 3% QoQ Ep 37 Clown Doctors Coin-Cutout Anchoring Study A direct-mail donation envelope included a cardboard clown cutout with slots for donors to complete with coins. Ep 86 Co-op Legal Services Will-Giving Social Proof Script One social-proof question roughly doubled charity will-giving Ep 7 Coca-Cola Santa Christmas Branding Campaign Coca-Cola's ads created the modern, universal visual template for Santa Ep 120 Coca-Cola Share a Coke Reciprocity Case Coca-Cola's "Share a Coke" campaign prints individual names — and, in some markets, relationship categories like "mate," "friend," or "si... Ep 269 Coca-Cola Thirst Red-Perception Study Thirst sensitizes optic-nerve receptors for perceiving red Ep 29 Coca-Cola Vending-Machine Surcharge Framing Case A hot-day price rise backfired as a "surcharge" that a "discount" frame would have avoided Ep 175 Coffee Cup Name-Spelling Recycling Study Correctly-spelled name cups were more likely to be recycled Ep 9 College Seniors Time-Scarcity Happiness Study Students told their time was running out enjoyed their last weeks more Ep 131 Combining Ideas and Pivoting Cases Dylan, Motorola, Pfizer, and Wrigley all broke through by pivoting, not perfecting Ep 205 Commitment-Driven Compliance Field Studies Three further field demonstrations of Commitment & Consistency, cited by Steve Martin. Ep 214 Common-Ground Agreeing-Partner Brain Study Brains encode information more similarly when speaking with someone who already agrees Ep 187 Commuting and Happiness Studies Michael Norton and Elizabeth Dunn found that taking a job with a daily one-hour commute has a negative effect on happiness comparable in... Ep 117 Compare the Market Meerkat Campaign Breaking category convention lifted quotes 83% and awareness rank from 4th to 1st Ep 5, 20 Consistency Multi-Study Citation Cluster (2006-2016) Small prior commitments raised speaking, voting, health, and fidelity follow-through Ep 207 Constraint-Driven Creativity Cases Deliberately narrowing options freed up creativity for Soulages, Hanson, Buffett Ep 205 Continuous-Scroll Bounce-Rate Studies Switching to infinite scroll cut Time.com's bounce rate 15% Ep 142 Convenience Store and Retirement-Plan Choice-Overload Studies More snack variety and more retirement options both reduced uptake Ep 56 Convent Demonic-Possession Mass Hysteria Cases Restrictive convent life produced repeated outbreaks of "possession," even meowing nuns Ep 165 Convention-Breaking Brand Positioning Examples A dominatrix sales coach, a drunk UX tester, and vegan bacon trolling pork brands Ep 148 Conversational Cutlery Sales Framework Spoon, knife, fork — a three-step sales conversation that avoids reactance Ep 156 Copycat Suicide Media Contagion Cases Suicide rates rose measurably after high-profile media coverage Ep 25 Copyhackers Prezi Onboarding Email Rewrite A deliberately bare-bones email rewrite beat the control by 18-93% across metrics Ep 23 Cornell Experience-Purchase Conversation Study Researchers had pairs of strangers discuss purchases they'd each made specifically to increase their own happiness — some discussed... Ep 113 Cornell FOMO Social-Comparison Study Everyone believes they're less social than average — a logical impossibility Ep 80 Cornell Twitter Afternoon-Negativity Study Researchers analyzed 5 million tweets from 2.5 million users across 84 countries, tracking sentiment against time of day. Ep 107 Cornetto Chocolate-Tip Peak-End Case An accidental chocolate-base manufacturing glitch became the cone's most loved, deliberately-retained part Ep 286 Corporate Groupthink Failure Cases Enron, Kodak and Volkswagen leadership teams converging on bad decisions Ep 130 Corsodyl Shock-Tactic Negative-Ad Case Mouthwash brand Corsodyl ran a UK ad campaign built entirely around a negative, unsettling scenario: a woman dreams her teeth fall out in... Ep 233 Costa Coffee Coffee-Lover Social Proof Campaign Coffee-lover-targeted social proof lifted sales 5.5% Ep 4, 73 Costco Free-Sample Reciprocity Case Free in-store samples reliably lift purchases of that specific product Ep 172, 265, 269 Costco Loss-Leader Hot-Dog Reciprocity Case A $1.50 hot dog held since 1984 loses money but builds loyalty that pays it back Ep 172 Countdown vs Count-Up Sales Target Study Counting down to a target dramatically outperformed counting up to it Ep 31 Couple Relationship Ritual Study Couples with a private idiosyncratic ritual reported higher relationship satisfaction Ep 200 Couples Overconfidence Studies Both partners claim to do more chores; long tenure raised confidence and error alike Ep 125 Courtroom Hedging-Language Confidence Study Unhedged, confident courtroom speech read as more credible, same content Ep 164, 190 Cracker-Mirroring Subliminal Choice Study (2008) Participants watched a video ostensibly about advertising, featuring people discussing a series of ads. Ep 256 Credit-Card Debt and Spend-Underestimation Studies A study asked 30 people to estimate their monthly credit-card spending before viewing their actual bill. Ep 117 Cricket and Raven Status-Tracking Studies Crickets and ravens both track social status among their own kind Ep 125 Crum Langer Hotel-Maid Mindset Matters Study (2007) Told their work already counted as exercise, hotel maids lost weight and lowered blood pressure with no behavior change Ep 302 Cruz Leonhart Pizzuti Facebook Pronoun Study "Your" vs. neutral phrasing raised Facebook engagement across 4,124 posts Ep 122 Curad Superhero Plaster Kid-Targeting Case Targeting kids, not buyers, let Curad take share from Band-Aid Ep 63 Customer-Loyalty Reciprocity Retention Studies Unconditional gifts to loyal customers cut churn; generous downgrades during hardship kept customers who later spent more Ep 212 Cutting Cornell Impressionist-Art Familiarity Study A year of unwitting exposure reversed students' preference for famous paintings Ep 161, 167 Dai MLB Cross-League Trade Reset Study A full stats reset helped underperforming traded players but hurt those on a hot streak Ep 299 Daily Burn Hicks-Law Homepage Study Diet- and exercise-tracking website Daily Burn tested alternative homepage designs, comparing its original layout (25 clickable options) ... Ep 248 Dallas Mavericks Restriction-First Framing Study "Select tickets 30% off" beat "30% off select tickets," 8% higher CTR Ep 168 Dalton Audio Gorilla Replication Study Researcher Polly Dalton replicated the invisible gorilla study as an audio-only experiment, using binaural (3D-sounding) recording. Ep 222 Damisch Lucky-Golf-Ball Study (2010) Told a golf ball was "lucky," golfers sank 65% of putts vs 48% for a control group Ep 307 Dan Cable Wipro Best-Self Onboarding Study Identity-reflection induction raised retention 50%, CSAT 20% Ep 22 Danbury Trashers Congruent-Branding Case The Danbury Trashers, a minor-league ice hockey team bought by a mafia-connected trash-hauling businessman and run by his 17-year-old son... Ep 242 Daniel Howard 1990 Cookie-Seller Commitment Study Consumer researcher Daniel Howard called Dallas residents and asked them to allow a Hunger Relief Committee representative to visit their... Ep 269 Danish Municipal Tax Charm-Pricing Study Tax rates ending in 9 were statistically over-represented Ep 33 Danziger Levav Avnaim-Pesso Judicial Lunch-Timing Study (2011) Israeli parole rulings favored defendants ~65% right after judges' lunch breaks, declining to near 0% before the next break Ep 107, 276 Dark Horse SEO Detective-Board Case Dark Horse, a Manchester-based SEO and PPC agency, branded itself with a "detective board" aesthetic across its entire website and market... Ep 242 Darley and Batson Good Samaritan Priest Study Trainee priests in a rush helped 10% of the time vs. 63% when unhurried Ep 10, 20, 129, 258 Data Colada Gino Investigation Three researchers found fabricated data in four Francesca Gino papers Ep 141, 221 Dating-Happiness Question-Order Study Asking about dating before happiness cut reported life satisfaction fivefold Ep 196 Davis Bowers Memon Election-Debate 'Worm' Study (2011) Following the UK's 2010 general election debates (David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg), broadcasters had displayed a live "worm" — a ... Ep 256 De Beers Diamond Ring Anchoring Campaign Suggested spending benchmarks pulled real ring spending substantially upward Ep 8, 18, 120 De Bruyne Eurovision and Ice-Skating Recency Study Performing last raised scores in Eurovision and ice-skating judging Ep 79, 214 Deceptive-Avatar Pacing Study (2018) 11 athletes each completed three 5-kilometer cycling time trials chasing an on-screen avatar they were told represented their own baseline... Ep 307 Deepwater Horizon Blinkered-Scepticism Case Before the Deepwater Horizon oil rig's fatal 2010 explosion — which killed rig workers and caused the largest marine oil spill in history... Ep 224 Delaney Pay-Now vs Pay-Later Present-Bias Study 60% chose to pay £16 in a month rather than £13 now — a 23% monthly rate Ep 138 Delayed-Consumption Enjoyment Studies (Chocolate, Soda, Gifts) Three related studies on delaying consumption/reward. Ep 113 DeLosh Busemeyer McDaniel Arousal-Curve Study Researchers showed participants data on how consuming varying amounts of a substance affected physiological arousal, then asked them to p... Ep 225 Demo Diva Pink-Branding Negative-Space Case Demo Diva, a demolition company founded in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, painted all of its heavy machinery pink instead of the tr... Ep 242 Dempster Spaced-Repetition Meta-Analysis and Replications A 100+ study review and two replications confirm spaced beats grouped practice Ep 128 Dental Exam-Stress Wound-Healing Study Dental patients received an identical small puncture wound to the hard palate (roof of the mouth) either during exam season or during a... Ep 112 Dentist Signature Authority-Letter Study A letter signed by the dentist got 54% returns; by the secretary, 18% Ep 159, 233 Derren Brown Simon Pegg BMX Availability-Bias Demonstration Priming bike-adjacent words made Simon Pegg name a BMX bike as his dream gift unprompted Ep 272 Descriptive-Feedback Performance Research Research cited by Mindgym CEO Octavius Black on BBC Radio 4's Bottom Line found that only 52% of feedback given in workplaces actually... Ep 105 Deutsch Gerard 1955 Public-Private Commitment Study Researchers Morton Deutsch and Harold Gerard showed college students a series of lines and had them estimate lengths, under three commitm... Ep 269 Di Martino $50 Gain/Loss Gambling Study Reframing a certain outcome as a loss raised gambling from 43% to 61% Ep 20 Diana Tamir Concert-Phone-Recording Memory Study Filming an experience reduced how well it was later remembered Ep 39 Diehl Stroebe Brainstorming Study Working alone produced twice as many ideas as group brainstorming Ep 146 Disabled American Veterans Address-Labels Reciprocity Study The Disabled American Veterans Association's standard direct-mail fundraising letter produced an 18% response rate. Ep 269 Discretionary Time Inverted-U Happiness Study Both under 2 hours and over 5 hours of daily free time reduced happiness Ep 129 Dishoom Matka Dice-Roll Case London-based Indian restaurant chain Dishoom ends weekday meals (Monday–Friday, before 6pm) not simply with the bill but with the "matka" —... Ep 82 Disney Operation Undersea Transparency Case A 1954 behind-the-scenes TV special helped a low-budget film become a hit Ep 166 Disney Queue Wait-Time Overestimation Case Disney's displayed ride wait times consistently overestimate actual waits, ending queues on a positive note Ep 286 Disney Vault Classic-Movies Scarcity Case Periodically withdrawing classic films from sale drives recurring buying surges on re-release Ep 277, 300 Distinctive Names Gender-Judgment Study Famous names on a list distorted judgment of which gender was more numerous Ep 122 Dobelli Dating Choice-Overload Argument Limitless dating choice collapses decisions to one crude criterion Ep 153 Doctor vs Politician Messenger Study Health messages from a "doctor" were remembered more, even as a known actor Ep 28 Doll Quit-Before-35 Finding A little-publicized Doll finding: quitting smoking before 35 largely restores life expectancy Ep 179 Dominance Signaling Studies Height, voice pitch, and posture cues affect elections, doorways, salary, and dating Ep 11, 89, 135 Domino's and KFC Negative-Campaign Cases Owning a well-known flaw publicly built major, memorable campaigns Ep 55 Domino's Pizza Tracker Transparency Case Real-time order tracking (and a live webcam) raised satisfaction and reorders Ep 88, 166 Don't Mess With Texas Anti-Littering Campaign Reframing litter as an affront to state pride cut littering 70% Ep 140, 249 Don't-Tell-Me-How-Much-to-Tip Reactance Study A suggested tip line cut restaurant ratings 8% without raising tips Ep 156, 206, 236 DonorsChoose Handwritten Thank-You Letters Case A million handwritten student letters a year lifted repeat giving by ~$50 Ep 137 Doob and Gross Car Status Honking Study Drivers waited longer to honk at a high-status car Ep 11 Doorman Dormant-Fallacy Case Automating a doorman's "official" task destroyed the unmeasured value the role provided Ep 189 Dove Skin-vs-Hair Campaign Comparison The same creative approach succeeded for skin (relief) but bombed for hair (transformation) Ep 30 Doyen Florida-Effect Replication Failure Study (2012) Researchers Stéphane Doyen and colleagues published "Behavioral priming: It's all in the mind, but whose mind?" — a direct attempt to rep... Ep 245 Dr. Minor Oxford English Dictionary Halo-Effect Case Compiling the first Oxford English Dictionary, editor James Murray crowdsourced word definitions and historical citations via newspaper... Ep 89 Drachman deCarufel Insko Extra-Credit-Effect Study (1978) An evaluator known to need a favor was liked best for pure praise, true or not Ep 276 Drawn to the Gloss Product-Reflection Study A reflection on product photos raised attractiveness and buy intent Ep 157 DRC Plane Crash Crocodile Panic Case Passengers following each other's panic over a loose crocodile crashed the plane Ep 73 Drink-Driving Ban Ergodicity Case A driving ban can push a borderline drinker toward alcoholism via compounding risk Ep 64, 191 Driscoll Davis Lipetz Romeo-and-Juliet Effect Study (1972) Parental disapproval of 140 Colorado couples' relationships correlated with more reported love and marriage intent Ep 271, 300 Duckworth Grit West-Point Restriction-of-Range Case Angela Duckworth's bestselling *Grit* argues passion and perseverance ("grit"), not raw talent, predict long-term success. Ep 98, 225 Ducreine Red Painkiller Placebo Review Red-colored painkillers are rated more effective via the placebo effect Ep 10, 29 Duke Basketball Ticket Lottery Endowment Study Lottery winners wanted 14x more to give up an identical ticket Ep 52 Duke Habit Quantification Study Experience-sampling found 45% of daily behavior is habitual Ep 3 Duke Lard-Touch Disgust Transfer Study Touching lard before eating a cookie made the cookie taste worse Ep 28 Duke Peking Restaurant Menu Popularity Study Researchers from Duke University and Peking University tested labeling specific dishes on a restaurant chain's menu as the "most popular"... Ep 118, 213, 281 Dunn Phone-Away Dining Enjoyment Study Diners with phones out of sight enjoyed the meal more than those with phones out Ep 131 Duolingo Nonsensical-Sentence Distinctiveness Case Language-learning app Duolingo deliberately includes bizarre, unexpected sentences in its lessons (e.g. Ep 109 Dutch Bank Survey Maybe-Later Button Case A Dutch bank emailed customers asking for help improving its website, with a single button reading "yes, I want to help." Bas Wouters ant... Ep 240 Dutch Branded-Clothing Status-Perception Studies A visible logo alone raised mall-survey compliance from 13% to 52% Ep 39 Dutch Lottery Loyalty-Points Unsubscribe Case A Dutch lottery, trying to reduce customer unsubscribes, tested several loss-framed retention messages: "you will no longer enjoy the ben... Ep 240 Dutch Postcode Lottery Neighbor-Spending Study Non-winning neighbors of lottery winners bought more new cars Ep 196 Dutch Smokers Subtle-Messaging Study Dutch researchers tested anti-smoking messages on smokers: assertive messages stating smoking is dangerous and harmful, versus subtler... Ep 92 Dutch Survey Prepaid-Payment Reciprocity Study Paying before a dull survey beat paying after it, for identical money Ep 137, 199 Dutch Tax Blue-Envelope Handwritten-Note Study The Dutch tax service sent tax-return reminder letters in distinctive blue envelopes, each also carrying a handwritten-style note on the ... Ep 250 Dutch Train Cleanliness Perception Study A trial on Dutch train carriages compared passenger perception of journey time in cleaned versus uncleaned carriages, with no other change... Ep 84 Dutch Waiter Order-Repetition Tip Study A Dutch study compared waiters who repeated diners' orders back to them word-for-word against waiters who paraphrased the same orders in... Ep 103 Dutch Waiter Word-for-Word Repetition Tip Study Waiters taking food orders either simply confirmed the order normally or repeated it back to the customer word-for-word. Ep 116 Dutton Aron Shaky-Bridge Misattribution Study (1974) Researchers Donald Dutton and Arthur Aron had an attractive female researcher interview male participants individually, ostensibly about ... Ep 252 Dyson and Heinz Precision-in-Advertising Cases 5,127 prototypes and 57 varieties — precision built into brand identity Ep 138, 264 EA Origin Hyperbolic-Discounting Subscription Case £3/month felt cheaper than £20 upfront despite costing nearly double a year Ep 34 EasyJet Distinctive Orange Branding A category-first brand color contributed to standing out and growth (no quantified figure given) Ep 5 Economist Ad Generation-Effect Puzzle Case "I never read The Economist. Management trainee, aged 42" — the reader assembles the insult Ep 136 Economist Subscription Decoy Study A decoy print-only tier shifted 40-50% of sales to the pricier bundle Ep 34, 180 Ecosia Tree-Counter IKEA Effect Case Ecosia is a search engine that, like Google, is advertising-funded, but directs that ad revenue toward tree-planting instead of profit. Ep 239 Ecuador Seikinchi Growth-Chart Blanket Case In Andean Ecuador, ~300,000 children suffer chronic undernourishment yearly — an invisible problem, since stunted growth makes malnourished... Ep 99 Edison Light Bulb Gas-Lamp Mimicry Case Edison dimmed bulbs and added shades to mimic familiar gas lamps, easing adoption of the unfamiliar new technology Ep 276 El Al Baggage-Screener Skin-in-the-Game Case Whoever screens the luggage has to fly on that plane Ep 139 El Paso Zoo 'Quit Bugging Me' Campaign Naming a cockroach after your ex drove a record donation month, free Ep 72 Election-Speech Repetition Examples Memorable political rhetoric repeats one short phrase rather than varying its wording Ep 190 Electric-Shock Alone-in-a-Room Study Participants were left alone in an empty room with nothing to occupy them, but given access to a device that let them deliver a harmless,... Ep 237 Electronic Door-in-the-Face Donation Study A charity website for children injured by landmines tested the door-in-the-face technique online. Ep 91 Electronic Ink Report Effort Study Whichever report was said to take longer was rated the better report Ep 121, 197 Eleven Madison Park Cognac Bill-Timing Case A complimentary cognac bundled with the bill removed the awkward wait for the check Ep 286 Eleven Madison Park NYC Hot-Dog Hospitality Case A $2 hot dog, tailored to one table's own conversation, outshone tens of millions in wagyu and lobster Ep 286 Eleven Madison Park Ticketless Coat-Check Case Table-tracked coat check eliminated the ticket-retrieval wait at the meal's peak-end moment Ep 286 Elisha Otis Elevator-Pitch Case (1853) In 1853, American craftsman Elisha Otis needed to sell an expensive new elevator safety brake, at a time when elevators were widely feared... Ep 103 Elizabeth Bik Fraud-Detection Cases A forensic data scientist exposed widespread duplicated-image research fraud Ep 202 Emotional-vs-Rational Message-Position Study Feelings belong at the bottom of an ad, logic belongs at the top Ep 157 EMP 95-5 Rule Wine-Pairing Distinctiveness Case Guidara underspent on 9 of 10 wine pours to fund one spectacular, memorable pour Ep 284 EMP Champagne-Freezer Reciprocity Story Staff retrieved a couple's champagne from their home freezer unasked, founding Guidara's hospitality philosophy Ep 284 EMP Kitchen-Server Hiring Policy Every new hire started as a food runner, building shared knowledge and self-selecting for culture fit Ep 284 EMP Name-Greeting Anchoring Case Removing the podium and greeting guests by name reset the anchor for the whole meal Ep 284 EMP Ownership Program Beer Case Giving a junior staffer full ownership of the beer program made it best-in-America within a year Ep 284 EMP Parking-Meter Reciprocity Gesture Staff topped up diners' parking meters unasked — a near-zero-cost, highly memorable gesture Ep 284 EMP Sign-Language Water-Service Case Hand signals got water to the table before the greeting server had even left Ep 284 Endowment-Effect Monkey Trading Study Researchers gave a monkey peanut butter, then offered it a trade for juice; in a separate condition, monkeys were given juice first and... Ep 118 Energy-Drink 'Adventurous' Self-Labeling Reframe Study Researchers approached people in the street for a fictional energy-drink launch, asking for an email address to receive a free-sample... Ep 91 Enhanced Games Halo-Effect Marketing Case (2026) A drug-fueled sports event built to halo-sell supplements underdelivered and its stock fell 45% Ep 295 Enjoyable-Exercise-Choice Repetition Study Choosing an enjoyed exercise over an "effective" one raised reps 50% Ep 127 Environment-Change Creativity Studies A changed environment or a short walk boosted creativity for about six minutes after Ep 171 Environmental Trigger Priming Studies A flower shop and the word "Valentine" both primed more helpful behavior Ep 209 Epley Schroeder Stranger-Commute Happiness Study Commuters predicted misery talking to strangers but felt happier doing it Ep 208 Epley Self-vs-Other Motivation Study Students saw themselves as idealists and others as money-driven, and expected more for themselves Ep 125 Ericsson Berlin Violin 10,000-Hour Study The study Malcolm Gladwell's *Outliers* built its widely-popularized "10,000-hour rule" on studied violin students at the Berlin Academy ... Ep 97, 224 Ericsson Mobile Delay Stress Study Slow mobile page loads caused stress comparable to a horror movie Ep 16 Eskreis-Winkler Florida High-School Advice Study (2019) Students who gave study advice to a struggling 4th-grader improved their own grades and study time Ep 96, 299 Essex Food-Court Early-Lunch Poster Study A congested shopping-mall food court in Essex, UK, tested posters encouraging visitors to eat lunch earlier to spread out demand. Ep 256 Ethiopia-Mexico 1985 Reciprocity Case In 1985, Ethiopia — in the midst of a catastrophic famine, with its economy in ruins and thousands dying daily from starvation — sent a $... Ep 269 European TV-Watching Life-Satisfaction Study A survey of over 100,000 people across 32 European countries compared life satisfaction between people who watched more than 30 minutes of... Ep 117 Eurostar and Concorde Experience-Marketing Shift Case Both Eurostar and Concorde initially marketed themselves around a technical achievement — Eurostar promoted raw journey speed, Concorde... Ep 84 Everybody Lies Self-Report Discrepancy Studies 1950s and modern surveys both show large self-report inflation vs. real records Ep 54 Ex-Salesperson Trust and Social-Proof Anecdotes Two informal, non-academic sales anecdotes shared by Phill Agnew (not peer-reviewed studies — flagged as such on-air). Ep 92 Externally-Imposed Deadline Word-Game Study A deadline raised task completion but reduced task enjoyment Ep 122 Extraordinary Warranties Purchase-Intent Study A 10-year warranty raised hoodie purchase intent 34.8% Ep 168 Eyewitness Lineup Conformity Study 51% conformed to an incorrect group ID despite reliably choosing correctly alone Ep 25 FAA Power Nap Reframing Case Renaming "prophylactic naps" to "power naps" normalized cockpit napping worldwide Ep 126 Face Cream Jar Shape Field Accident An accidental jar-shape swap changed research results for identical cream Ep 19 Facebook 'I Voted' Button Social Proof Study A social-proof voting button raised US turnout by an est. 340,000 votes Ep 24, 216 Facebook and TripAdvisor Simplicity Study Simpler review and post language drove more engagement on both platforms Ep 185 Facebook Emotional Contagion Experiment Manipulated feeds shifted 500k+ users' own posted emotional tone Ep 165 Facebook Likes Personality-Prediction Study 300+ Facebook likes predicted personality more accurately than a spouse Ep 50 Facial-Tension Endurance Studies A cluster of studies linking facial muscle tension to perceived physical effort. Ep 307 Fagan Media-Preference Personality Survey Harmless media preferences predicted a specific, intimate viewing habit Ep 50 Fake Bank Guard ATM Scam Case Costumed fake guards collected cash deposits with a handwritten sign Ep 121 Falk Postcard Gift Donation Field Experiment Postcards enclosed with 9,846 charity letters raised responses 75% Ep 137, 172 Familiar Brand-Naming Cases Brands borrow trust from familiar names, from Ralph Lauren's Hampton to scams Ep 202 Familiar-Name Election Studies Ghost candidates and familiar surnames alone shifted real election votes Ep 202 Fast Food Physical-Presentation Willingness-to-Pay Study Physical presentation raised willingness to pay 60% over photo/text Ep 29 Fast Friends 36-Questions Procedure A 36-question turn-taking exercise turned 70% of stranger pairs into friends Ep 198 FBI Copycat-Crime Media-Contagion Cases FBI forensic experts analyzed sudden spikes in specific crime types over short periods — a wave of airport hijackings in the 1970s, and a... Ep 256 Febreze Reward Reframing Reformulating a scentless odor-remover into an air freshener saved the product Ep 17 Feeling Lucky Free-Gift Bundle Study Framing a bundled item as "free" nearly doubled sales for an identical offer Ep 168 Ferrier Imperfect-Product Preference Studies Rough cookies and messy chocolate-spread ads won preference; mold did not Ep 58, 70 Festinger Doomsday-Cult Confirmation Bias Study A cult grew more committed, not less, after its prophesied flood never came Ep 195 Field-Grown vs Meat-Free Framing Study (2018) The Behavioural Insights Team tested menu-naming for plant-based dishes with 727 British meat-eaters. Ep 249 Fiji Water Arsenic Cleveland Case Fiji Water's own arsenic tested higher than Cleveland tap water it mocked Ep 172 Filler-Word Status-Perception Study "Um/uh" made speakers seem less intelligent regardless of stated status Ep 164, 190 Financial Advisor Overconfidence Study Equally-accurate advisors: the more confident one was chosen 3-to-1 Ep 164 Financial Incentive Motivation Studies LSE meta-analysis and a child-art study both show cash rewards reduce motivation Ep 22 Find Your 5-7 Information Gap Case An unexplained number drew trade-show visitors to a dull insurance booth Ep 121 Fire-Extinguisher Location Habituation Study Workers rarely know their nearest fire extinguisher's location despite its size and color, via habituation Ep 297 First-Name Personalization No-Show Study First-name-only reminder texts reduced GP no-shows more than formal names Ep 9 First-Person Shooter Cognition Replication Case A 17-person, 3,500-citation cognition study has never replicated Ep 202 Fishbach Binary-Guess Learning Study A wrong guess is as informative as a right one, but people remember it less Ep 139 Fishbach Maimaran Healthy-Food-Labeling Study Telling toddlers a liked food was healthy reduced how much they ate Ep 124 Fishbach Tote-Bag Means-Aversion Study Bidders paid $11 less for a book bundled with an unwanted tote bag Ep 124 Fishbach Zhang Anagram Difficulty-Priming Study Expecting a task to be hard improved persistence on the identical task Ep 127 Fisher Keil Binary-Bias Eyewitness Study Psychologists Matthew Fisher and Frank Keil showed 150 students a series of eyewitness testimony statements that varied in stated confide... Ep 225 Fisher Tea-Tasting Null Hypothesis Case A dispute over milk-first tea led Ronald Fisher to invent the null hypothesis Ep 135 Fit20 Plateau Effect Study 15,000 people plateaued in strength gains after a year on a fixed routine Ep 201 Fitzsimons Apple-Logo Creativity Priming Study (2008) Researchers subliminally flashed participants either the Apple logo (associated with creativity) or the IBM logo (associated, per the res... Ep 245 Fitzsimons Brand-Loyalty Reactance Study Loyal customers rated an assertive "buy now" ad 20% less likeable Ep 140 Five Guys Menu-Specialization Growth Case Jerry Murrell and his four sons set up a burger restaurant in the mid-1980s after his sons chose starting a business over college. Ep 263, 301 Five Guys Starbucks Jack-of-All-Trades Case Specializing in one thing commands a premium a generalist competitor can't Ep 64, 191 Flat Iron Steak-Knife Ice-Cream Peak-End Case Free ice cream for returned steak knives at the door ends the visit on a high note Ep 286 Flattery and Compliment Studies (Salon, Retail, Computer) Three separate studies on flattery, cited together by Vanessa Bohns. Ep 92 Florida Precise Asking-Price House Sale Study Across 25,564 sales, precise asking prices sold closer to asking than round ones Ep 138, 180, 182 Food Dye Handwashing Stamp Study Illness-icon hand stamps raised factory handwashing over 60% Ep 28 Football Referee Home-Bias COVID Study Home-team referee bias vanished in empty, crowd-free COVID-era stadiums Ep 297 Forest Green Rovers Sustainability Differentiation Case A football club's climate-first identity drove premium sponsorships and 46% local attendance Ep 59 Foster 1976 Horn-Effect Teacher Study School teachers watched identical videos of a child's classroom behaviour, each told in advance that the child was either "emotionally... Ep 89 Foster Afternoon-Performance Alcohol-Equivalent Study Neurologist Russell Foster studied how task performance changes across the day. Ep 107 Fox News Dominion Libel Unaccountability Case Following the 2020 US presidential election, Fox News repeatedly broadcast claims that Dominion Voting Systems' voting machines had been ... Ep 255 Franchise Tax Board Messenger-Authority Study A tax-authority letter's perceived authority changed compliance more than its content Ep 185 Frank Flynn Reciprocity-Productivity Manager Study Frank Flynn analyzed middle-to-senior managers at a large telecoms organization, comparing two groups who both proactively helped... Ep 105 Frank Luntz Death-Tax vs Estate-Tax Framing Case Republican strategist Frank Luntz tested public reaction to the same US inheritance tax under two names, using a dial-testing apparatus... Ep 91 Fred Bronner Mood and Ad Recall Study Reader mood predicted ad recall (56% vs 36%) better than any demographic segment Ep 10 Frederick the Great Potato Scarcity Campaign A king manufactured scarcity to make potatoes desirable during a famine Ep 8, 76, 101 Free-Shipping-Subscription Study Paid shipping subscribers spent 32% more revenue per customer after a year Ep 168 Free-Trial Length and Feature-Access Studies Full-feature short trials converted better than long trials or feature-limited free tiers Ep 212 Freedman 1965 Robot-Toy Threat-Severity Study A severe threat not to touch a toy caused more rule-breaking (67%) than a mild one (29%) Ep 300 Freiburg Vauban Car-Free District Case The Vauban district of Freiburg, Germany adopted a long-term policy roughly two decades ago of moving residential parking out of sight,... Ep 84 French Card-Counter Betting-Pattern Study 125,000 simulated hands identifying the bet-spread signature of a card counter Ep 132 French Epicurean Menu-Language Study A French research team tested restaurant menu language, comparing plain descriptive labels ("roasted tomato") against sensory, "epicurean"... Ep 304 French Mcdonalds Once-a-Week Report Case A "don't visit more than weekly" health report may have raised visit frequency Ep 63 French Retail Mimicry Sales Study A study of French retail salespeople had half of them mimic customers' facial expressions and nonverbal behavior when approached for help;... Ep 103 French Waitress Tea-or-Coffee Timing Study (2010) Waitresses asked restaurant patrons if they wanted dessert; when refused, the waitress then asked if they wanted tea or coffee instead —... Ep 91 Freshdesk Dummy-Ticket Teach-by-Doing Case Freshdesk, a customer-support software tool, onboards new users by having them open a fake ("dummy") support ticket immediately after sig... Ep 248 Freud Avatar Self-Persuasion Study Self-generated advice, even role-playing Freud, outperformed advice received Ep 205 Friedman Rahman 2011 Gift-Matching Reciprocity Study Researchers Hershey Friedman and Anisul Rahman studied a fast-food restaurant, comparing customer spending across three greeting conditio... Ep 269 Fujita Abstract-vs-Concrete Goal Motivation Study "Why"-primed participants invested more effort in their own goals than "how"-primed ones Ep 124 Gable Hopper Schouler Active-Engagement Creativity Study 90% of physicists' and writers' best ideas came from active work, not incubation Ep 205 Galinsky Convention-Speech and Manifesto Visual-Language Election Study Adam Galinsky and colleagues coded every US presidential nomination convention speech by the Democratic and Republican nominees since Wor... Ep 265 Galinsky Maddux Perspective-Taking Negotiation Study (2008) Researchers simulated sales negotiations for participants with no sales experience, split into three groups: a control told simply to sell... Ep 103 Galinsky Negotiation Regret Studies Negotiators prompted to identify a regret about their first offer prepared harder and did better next time Ep 93 Gallus 2017 Wikipedia Symbolic-Badge Study A private, costless digital badge raised new Wikipedia editors' retention and activity substantially Ep 305 Gambling Wheel Regret Study (2004) Participants chose one of two computerized roulette-style wheels to spin for money. Ep 93 Garment Factory RFID Monitoring Study Monitoring helped simple repetitive tasks but hurt complex ones Ep 45 Gatwick Drone-Sighting Expectation Case (2018) 180 drone sightings shut down an airport for days despite zero verified radar/photo evidence Ep 298 Gatwick Yangtze River Sound-Corridor Case Gatwick Airport, working with HSBC, redesigned a long walkway passengers use to reach their gates — replacing a sterile, silent corridor... Ep 84 Gelman Heyman Carrot-Eater Identity Study Even 5-year-olds infer "a carrot eater" is a more fixed trait than "eats carrots" Ep 154, 158 Gendall 95-Ending Kettle Study (1998) Above ~$50, a .95-ending price outsold an identical .99-ending price Ep 283 General Mills Flour Coupon Loyalty Program Case A 1920s Minneapolis flour maker's coupons became one of the first loyalty programs Ep 137 Georgia HPV Vaccine SMS Reservation Trial Cervical cancer is the third-leading cause of female cancer death in Georgia, and over 95% of cases are caused by HPV. Ep 247 Gerald Ratner Ratners Jewellers Speech Case Calling his own products "crap" with no redeeming strength cost Ratner £500M Ep 174 Gerber Green Larimer Voter Social-Pressure Study (2006) Showing households their neighbors' voting records raised turnout 27%, far more than a civic-duty appeal Ep 109, 293 German Christmas Eve Assignment Commitment Study (1997) Specifying when/where to do a dull task more than doubled completion versus a vague intention Ep 291 German Course Choice-Overload Study Adding options made people 26% less likely to buy a language course at all Ep 153 German House-Move Satisfaction Study (1991-2007) Researchers tracked thousands of German residents from 1991 to 2007 who moved house specifically because they disliked something about... Ep 117 German Renewable Energy Opt-Out Study 7% opted in to pricier renewable energy; 70% stayed in when it was the default Ep 134 Germany Talks Europe Talks Cross-Partisan Project Pairing opposing-view readers for real conversation grew to 16,000+ participants Ep 74 Gersick Punctuated-Equilibrium Team Study Skeptical that Bruce Tuckman's "forming, storming, norming, performing" model matched her own executive experience, researcher Connie Ger... Ep 259 Gibson Schrader Sleep and Wages Study An extra hour of sleep opportunity raised wages 4-5% Ep 126 Gift Aid Charity Letter Redesign Study Asking donors what they wanted cut donations 30%; better paper raised them 10% Ep 46 Gift vs Donation Framing Studies Asking for a "gift" rather than a "donation" raised giving 25.1% across six experiments Ep 137 Gigerenzer 9/11 Driving-Death Estimate Post-9/11 shift from flying to driving caused an estimated 1,595 extra US road deaths Ep 272 Gigerenzer Expert Fast-Decision Studies A cluster of studies showing genuine experts, unlike novices, make *better* decisions faster, and worse ones the longer they deliberate. Ep 229 Gigerenzer Musk-Bezos Hiring Heuristics Rather than weighing many factors, Elon Musk reportedly hired early Tesla staff using a single question — "tell me about the most difficu... Ep 231 Gigerenzer Recognition-Heuristic City-Population Study Knowing less let German students beat Americans at a US geography question Ep 153 Gigerenzer Two-Interviewers Dilution Study Gerd Gigerenzer describes consulting for Boston Consulting Group, which — like most companies — ran hiring on a "more is better" assumpti... Ep 231 Gillette Gum-Flavor Conformity Study The second friend in a pair conformed to the first's gum flavor choice Ep 130 Gilovich Boothby Embarrassing-Clothing Studies Embarrassing clothing is over-noticed; ordinary clothing is under-noticed Ep 80 Gino Academic-Dress Citation-Correlation Study The most-cited academics dressed the most scruffily, breaking convention Ep 148 Gino Bow-Tie Deliberate-Mistake Study A deliberate red bow tie raised status 70%; an accidental one lowered it 5% Ep 148 Gino Coin-Flip Creativity Study The "dishonesty boosts creativity" paper Data Colada found fabricated Ep 141, 221 Gino Dirty-Essay Cleansing-Product Study 20 fake "Harvard" entries drove the disputed dirty-essay/soap-appeal effect Ep 141, 221 Gino Honesty-Pledge-Placement Study The confirmed-fabricated study behind "sign the pledge at the top, not bottom" Ep 141, 221 Gino Networking-Mindset Study Numeric ratings didn't match participants' own words — evidence of tampering Ep 141, 221 Gino Plagiarism Allegations Separate from the Data Colada data-fabrication findings, a Montreal-based postdoctoral researcher (transcribed in Episode 221 as "Erin Ac... Ep 221 Gino v. Harvard and Data Colada Lawsuit Gino sued Harvard and Data Colada for $25M; a judge dismissed the defamation claims but let her breach-of-contract claim proceed Ep 221 Ginzberg 1936 Charm-Pricing Catalogue Study The first psychological-pricing study found genuinely mixed results Ep 57 Gladka Zemla Krakow Gum-Tipping Replication (2016) A free-gum-with-the-bill gift raised Krakow restaurant tips from 10.5% to 14.1% Ep 276 Gneezy Gas-Card vs Cash-Discount Car Study A tangible gas card beat a larger cash discount at driving car purchases Ep 175, 180 Gneezy Rustichini Daycare Fine Study A $3 late fee doubled late pickups by reframing lateness as a fair price Ep 155, 162 Goal-Gradient Acceleration Studies Rats, shoppers, raters, and proofreaders all speed up near a goal, not before Ep 201 Goalkeeper Penalty-Dive Social-Norm Study Standing still saves more penalties than diving, but goalies dive anyway Ep 152, 256 Godin Airbnb-Paris Minimum-Viable-Market Exercise Godin's live exercise: a free niche guide as the seed of a $1,000 business Ep 150 Godin First-10 Distribution Rule Find 10 people who need it; if they don't spread it, it isn't good enough Ep 150 Godin Purple Cow Milk-Carton Distribution Case A book mailed inside milk cartons spread by sitting visibly on desks Ep 150 Goldsmith Cho Dhar Guilt-Priming Candy Study (2012) Researchers exposed participants to guilt-associated words ("guilty," "remorse," "sin") before measuring their reported likelihood of pur... Ep 245 Goldstein Hotel Towel Reciprocity-Framing Study "We already donated" outsold "we'll donate if you do" for towel reuse Ep 2, 137, 199, 284 Goldstein Hotel Towel Social Proof Study Descriptive social-proof messaging raised towel reuse 26%, 33% when room-specific Ep 4, 67, 178, 281 Gonzalez Rule-of-100 Discount-Framing Study Show % off under 100%, show the absolute amount once past 100% or over $100 Ep 180 Goo Pudding Brand Agency-Pitch Case An agency won a pitch by finding common ground with the client before proposing anything Ep 187 Good Luck Margarine Taste-Swap Study Cheskin's butter/margarine label swap reversed taste ratings Ep 1, 100 Goodhart's Law Review-Gaming Case Online review platforms (Google reviews, Trustpilot) were designed to help customers find genuinely good businesses based on other custom... Ep 255 Google 41-Shades-of-Blue A/B Test Testing 40+ shades of blue is estimated to add $200M in annual Google revenue Ep 24 Google Flu Trends Overfitting Failure Starting in the mid-2000s, Google built "Google Flu Trends," attempting to predict flu outbreaks faster than public health agencies by an... Ep 229 Google HQ Canteen Layout Replication Google's 2012 canteen redesign raised salad +20%, water vs. soda +47% Ep 20, 134 Google Parks Media Negative-Compliance Coverage Case Media over-covered non-compliance 18x more than compliance during lockdown Ep 28 Google Search-Results Hicks-Law Case Google tested tripling the number of search results displayed per page, from 10 to 30, reasoning that users who said they wanted more res... Ep 248 Google vs Ask Jeeves Competitive-Alternative Case Google's real competitor was not bothering to search at all, not Ask Jeeves Ep 48 Goreville Daily-Framing Mobile-Contract Study "$1 a day" beat "$30 a month" for the same cheap mobile contract Ep 180 Gosling Living-Room Personality-Judgment Study 15 minutes in someone's living room accurately reveals their personality Ep 29, 50 Gottman Marriage-Prediction Thin-Slicing Study A single conversation predicts divorce with 95% accuracy Ep 29 Gourmet Chocolate Choice-Overload Study 6 chocolates beat 30 for satisfaction and choosing chocolate over cash Ep 56 Gourville 1998 Pennies-a-Day Charity Founding Study Harvard researcher John Gourville tested whether reframing a charity's annual donation ask into a smaller daily figure changes willingnes... Ep 270 Gourville Soman 1998 Gym Payment-Frequency Study Researchers John Gourville and Dilip Soman studied 200 members of a Colorado gym who paid their membership on one of four schedules: annu... Ep 270 GP Appointment Self-Written Commitment Study Patients writing their own appointment time cut no-shows 18% Ep 9 GPS Blind-Trust Disaster Cases Drivers who followed sat-nav off a bridge, over a cliff, and 1,450km off route Ep 134 Graf Slamecka Generation Effect Study Words with a missing letter were recalled about 15% better than complete words Ep 136, 162 Grand Bank Building Costly-Signal Case Tom Goodwin describes the classic form of a historic British high-street bank branch — a grand stone building with Doric columns, a marbl... Ep 228 Grant Brooks How-vs-Will Self-Talk Study (2010) Participants were given 10 anagrams to solve. Ep 103 Graves iPod-Speaker and Lottery-Card Observations Two field observations by consumer psychologist Philip Graves, each illustrating unconscious triggers driving purchases that shoppers the... Ep 252 Gray Charitable-Donation Endurance Study (2010) Choosing to donate a dollar let participants hold a weight out 20% longer Ep 307 Green Necklace Children's Ritual Study A scripted ritual raised children's attachment to their color and their group Ep 200 Gregari Facebook Rollout Depression-Correlation Study Depressive episodes rose ~80% as Facebook opened campus by campus, then to the public Ep 171 Greta School-Strike and Zero-Carbon Boat Case Real personal cost (striking, a 2-month boat trip) made Greta's message more credible Ep 122 GSK Pill Color-Change Nocebo Case (2007) In 2007, pharmaceutical company GSK moved production of a thyroid medication to a new factory, requiring a reformulated binding/bulking... Ep 302 Guardian Ad-Recall Eye-Tracking Study A journalist recalled just 1% of ads he was eye-tracked looking at Ep 36 Guatemala Tax Social-Norm Letter Study "64.5% of Guatemalans pay on time" raised tax compliance, replicating the UK finding Ep 144 Gucci-Chanel Luxury Retailer Halo Study A lab study predicted big revenue gains for an unknown brand shopfronted next to Gucci/Chanel Ep 161 Guinness Good Things Come to Those Who Wait Campaign Creative director Walter Campbell turned Guinness's two-minute pour time from a hidden flaw into the "good things come to those who wait" slogan. Ep 264 Gumroad Charm Pricing Analysis 99-cent pricing converted 51% better than round pricing on real e-commerce data Ep 6 Haifa University Puppy-Photo EMG Habituation Study Physiological pleasure at puppy photos faded with repetition, even as stated liking held Ep 171 Haire Nescafe Shopping-List Study Women called instant-coffee buyers lazy, then blamed the taste instead Ep 143 Hall Johansson Moral-Survey Choice-Blindness Study Half of participants defended a moral opinion that was secretly swapped to its opposite Ep 159 Halo Effect Political Endorsement Cases Oprah and Taylor Swift endorsements moved voters despite no political expertise Ep 12, 197 Hand-Holding and Wound-Healing Relationship Studies Holding a loved one's hand dulls pain; happy marriages heal wounds faster Ep 208 Handlebars Theatre Messenger-Effect Donation Study A theatre company tested four otherwise-identical donation-request videos, varying only the messenger: (A) a child audience... Ep 86 Handwriting and Gender-Name Halo Effect Studies Identical scripts scored higher in neat handwriting and under a man's name Ep 135 Handwritten Thank-You Note Retailer Study A handwritten note roughly doubled customers' future spend ($25.97 to $52.07) Ep 109, 137, 168 Hans Brinker Budget Hotel Self-Deprecating Ads Case Full-page ads openly mocking the hotel's own low quality Ep 70 Hard Ketones Abandoned-Cart Free Seltzer Case A free $10 can to abandoned carts, against a $3,000 subscriber lifetime value Ep 137 Harry Potter First-Chapter Curiosity-Rewrite Case Rowling rewrote her opening chapter ~15 times, stripping information to maximize reader curiosity Ep 279 Harvard Cost-Transparency Purchase-Intent Studies Showing a wallet's cost breakdown raised its sales 22% Ep 149, 166, 239 Harvard Speed-Dating Deep-Question Study Deep questions and follow-ups, not question volume, made speed dates succeed Ep 198 Harvard Study of Adult Development Overview An 86-year study finds relationship quality predicts happiness best Ep 208 HatHunter and Restaurant Consistency Cases A staged small commitment raised app downloads and cut restaurant no-shows Ep 207, 240 Havana Syndrome Case Unexplained diplomat symptoms since 2015, likely mass psychogenic illness Ep 165 Have a Word Bystander-Misogyny Campaign Ogilvy's anti-misogyny campaign targeted bystanders, reaching 307 million people Ep 193 Hawthorne Works Lighting Productivity Studies Productivity rose whether lighting went up, down, or stayed the same — observation was the cause Ep 45 HBR Cafeteria Chef-Visibility Study Seeing chefs cook raised food satisfaction 17.3% for identical food Ep 40 HBR Manager Feedback and Competence Studies Negative-only feedback disengages teams; competent managers raise satisfaction Ep 22 Head and Shoulders Variant-Reduction Case Cutting shampoo variants from 26 to 15 raised sales 10% Ep 153 Heath Ice-Water Pain-Bonding Study Researchers had pairs of strangers perform a shared physically uncomfortable task — submerging their hands together in tubs of ice water ... Ep 211 Heimbach Jacoby Zeigarnik Ad-Interruption Study (1972) Unfinished TV ads got 34% higher immediate recall and 52% higher 2-day brand recall than completed ads Ep 102, 275 HelloFresh Effort-and-Surprise Growth Case IKEA-effect assembly plus embraced meal-surprise drove growth from €2M to €6B, later traded for choice-certainty Ep 279 Helpful/Adventurous Compliance-Priming Studies Asking "are you helpful/adventurous?" first nearly tripled compliance Ep 163, 178, 209 Helping-vs-Self-Time-Use Time-Affluence Study Helping others for 30 minutes felt more time-affluent than self-care for 30 minutes Ep 129 Henestrosa 2022 AI-Authorship Machine-Heuristic Study Researchers ran three experiments testing how readers perceive news articles depending on believed authorship. Ep 220 Hershfield Shu Benartzi 2020 Acorns Daily-Framing Study Framing an identical savings goal as "$5/day" roughly tripled signups vs. weekly/monthly framing Ep 305 Hey Jude vs Alarm Clock Extrinsic-Regret Study Most chose paid alarm-clock listening over a song, then regretted it Ep 127 Hiking Boots Minor-Negative-Info Study Boots described with a few minor negatives outsold an all-positive listing Ep 103, 123 Hinge Designed to Be Deleted Positioning Case A tagline built the entire competitive gap into one sentence Ep 76 Hoff Rucker Galinsky 2025 Status-Insecurity Credit-Sharing Study Researchers ran a series of studies manipulating "status insecurity" — whether people felt secure or insecure in their standing — then me... Ep 267 Hogeheide Teacher-Feedback Ordering Study Ending feedback on a positive note felt more pleasant than ending on a negative one Ep 68 Holderman Julius Book-Title Testing Case (1920s-30s) Mail-order publisher Holderman Julius sold more than 200 million books across nearly 2,000 titles (five cents each) during the 1920s-30s,... Ep 108 Holmes Etkin Activity-Variety Happiness Study Varied activities across a week raised happiness; too much variety at once backfired Ep 131, 162 Homonoff NYC Plastic Bag Tax vs Bonus Study A 5-cent tax cut bag use 42%; an identical 5-cent bonus changed nothing Ep 25 Hopkins Immigrant Fact-Correction Studies Cited via Poles Apart. Ep 109 Hopkins Immigrant-Numbers Correction Studies Correcting inflated immigrant-population estimates fixed knowledge, not attitudes Ep 74, 183 Hopkins Leather-Book and Lottery-Ticket Endowment Cases The personalized leather-bound book (1923). Ep 233 Hopkins Sewing-Machine Free-Trial Case Claude Hopkins describes an electric sewing-machine motor manufacturer struggling to sell via conventional advertising. Ep 233 Hornstein Positive-Note Wallet-Return Study A wallet-return note with a positive tone got 40% return vs 12% for a negative-tone note Ep 288 Horton Galinsky Name-Repetition Studies Researcher Blaine Horton, prompted by an observation from a classroom entrepreneurship-pitch exercise, tested whether simply repeating a ... Ep 265 Hospital Hand-Washing Status Gamification Study A hospital struggled to get intensive-care staff to comply with a hand-hygiene protocol (washing hands within 30 seconds of entering or l... Ep 246 Hotjar Landing-Page Nudge-Stack Test Combining cognitive-load, social-proof, and anchoring nudges raised signups 23% Ep 65 Hotjar Product-Page Framing Ab Test Benefit-led copy over technical copy raised conversion 2.32% Ep 65 Hotjar Scarcity Waitlist-Referral Case Invitation-only waitlist access drove Hotjar's early viral growth Ep 31 Hourly-Wage Time-Money Tradeoff Study A national survey asked Americans whether they'd trade additional free time for additional money, comparing those paid hourly against those... Ep 117 Housefly Effect Default Cases A cluster of default-effect examples cited by Eva van den Broek and Tim den Heijer, illustrating Default Effect (Opt-Out vs Opt-In). Ep 227 Houston Airport Long-Walk Complaint-Reduction Case Houston Airport received complaints about long waits at the baggage carousel. Ep 84 Hoxby School-District Rivers Instrumental-Variable Study Economist Caroline Hoxby wanted to know whether school-district competition (many small, separate districts) improves educational outcome... Ep 219 Huang Wang 2023 AI-Persuasion Meta-Analysis A meta-analysis combining 120 studies and roughly 53,000 participants, incorporating the Henestrosa 2022 AI-Authorship Machine-Heuristic ... Ep 220 HubSpot Contact-Based Pricing Case Charging by contact volume, and Nespresso's per-cup pricing, both outgrew flat fees Ep 147 HubSpot Free Stock-Photography 10x-Value Case Free stock photos worth 10x the alternative brought HubSpot its first users Ep 147 HubSpot Inbound-Marketing Positioning Case "Different, not better" positioning took 5-7 years but built a $100M category Ep 147 HubSpot Website Rewrite A BDA-researched rewrite nearly doubled site-wide conversions Ep 27, 46 Hungry Brain-Scanner Bidding Study Hungry participants bid more for food items in an fMRI scanner Ep 30 Hungry Eye-Tracking Goal-Priming Study Hungry participants looked more at food signage with no conscious awareness Ep 29 Huron Mice Habituation-Dishabituation Music Study Hit songs repeat just enough to build fluency, then break pattern to avoid boredom Ep 190 Hyogo University Soup-Color Study Identical soup dyed red was rated hearty; dyed blue, disgusting Ep 41 Hyperbolic Discounting Early Study Most subjects chose $15 now over $100 in three years Ep 27 Iain Banks Wasp Factory Mixed-Reviews Case Printing scathing alongside glowing reviews on a book cover built reader trust Ep 174 IKEA Ice-Cream Peak-End Case The end of a typical IKEA shopping trip involves several unpleasant steps in sequence: locating and retrieving flat-pack furniture from t... Ep 227 Illusion of Explanatory Depth Original Study Explaining how a toilet works reveals people understand it far less than assumed Ep 74 Illusory Superiority Survey Stats Louis Grenier cites two survey findings illustrating "illusory superiority" — the widespread tendency to rate oneself better than average... Ep 235 Impossible Burger Health-Halo Study Belief the burger was healthier barely moved even after seeing nutrition facts Ep 41 India Soap-Chalk Handwashing Case In small-town rural India, children already had a strong habit of washing their hands (before eating, after playing, after the toilet) —... Ep 99 Indian Sales Team Loss-Framed Bonus Case Handing out the bonus upfront and framing failure as losing it doubled goal-hitting Ep 65 Individual-vs-Group Customer-Story Follow-Up Study A single customer's story outsold the identical story told about a group Ep 40 Influence at Work Compliance Field Experiments Social-proof messaging raised HMRC tax recovery £5.6bn and cut transit fare evasion Ep 4, 7, 67, 186, 281 ING and Skin+Me Norm-Framing Cases Two contrasting real-world applications of descriptive social-norm messaging, cited by Philip Graves and Phill Agnew. Ep 256 ING Direct Costly Signaling Launch Campaign Large-format posters hit annual growth targets in 8 weeks Ep 26 Innocent Smoothie Ingredient-Order Priming Case When smoothie company Innocent was developing a fruit-and-vegetable juice, Philip Graves's consultancy tested packaging that listed the s... Ep 253 Instagram Bourbon Fogg Model Pivot Case Kevin Systrom's first app, Bourbon, was a Foursquare-style location check-in app that also supported photo/video posting and a points sys... Ep 243 Instant-Choice Primacy Studies Salesperson photos, bubblegum, and tent listings all favored whichever came first Ep 79 Insurance Company Share-on-LinkedIn Button Case An insurance company's landing page offered a single call-to-action button: "create your insurance package." Bas Wouters and his team add... Ep 240 Investing-Domestically Control Study 84% of investors preferred domestic stocks, believing (wrongly) they controlled the outcome more Ep 187 Investment-Banking CRM Niche Positioning Case Niching against Siebel into investment banking grew revenue $2M→$70-80M Ep 48 Investor Endowment-Effect Studies Investors and IPO lottery winners hold owned stock far longer than rational Ep 52 Invisible Gorilla Radiologist Study A gorilla 48x too big for a lung scan went unnoticed by 83% of radiologists Ep 159 Iowa Staged-Crime Eyewitness-Misidentification Study Psychologists at the University of Iowa staged a live mock theft in front of unsuspecting student participants, who had no advance warnin... Ep 252 IPA Fire-Alarm Clock-Change Campaign (2014) A 2014 UK fire-safety advertising campaign, rather than simply telling people to test their smoke alarms, deliberately linked the message... Ep 83, 99 iPad and Melatonin Suppression Studies Reading on an iPad before bed suppressed melatonin over 50% vs. a printed book Ep 126 Iraq Most-Wanted Playing-Cards Mere-Exposure Case (2003) During the 2003 Iraq War, US forces needed ordinary soldiers to memorize the faces of roughly 52 senior members of Saddam Hussein's regime,... Ep 119 Israeli Judges Parole Decision-Fatigue Study Parole rulings before lunch/end of day were harsher due to decision fatigue Ep 53 Israeli Lockdown Amygdala-Growth Study A study conducted during COVID-19 lockdowns in Israel found that extended time spent confined indoors was associated with measurable grow... Ep 241 Italian CV Photo Attractiveness Study An attractive photo raised CV callbacks over 20% Ep 11, 135 Iyengar Bing Nursery Lego Choice Study Toddlers given many toys sat and stared; given one, they played happily Ep 153 Iyengar Jam Choice Study 24 jam flavors converted at 3%; 6 flavors converted at 30% Ep 8, 146, 162, 180 J.C. Daycoff Location-Personalized Broadband Ad Study A location-specific ad beat a generic nationwide version by 14% awareness Ep 9 James Lind Scurvy Citrus RCT Scurvy killed an estimated 2 million sailors between the 1500s and 1800s, with 16th-century voyage captains routinely expecting to lose h... Ep 219 James Stania Hacker News Book Launch Case A niche-audience site launch beat the publisher's own announcement 2x Ep 36 Jamie Shovlin Lustfaust Hoax Case An artist's entirely fictional band fooled genuine music-scene experts Ep 195 Japan Station Arrival-Jingles Case Japanese train stations each play a unique arrival jingle, specially composed to reflect the character or heritage of that station's... Ep 84 Jay Clouse The Lab Membership Case A capped 200-person community built on give-first reciprocity and surprise gifts Ep 137 JCPenney Fair-and-Square Pricing Failure Removing charm pricing on customer request cost $985M in lost revenue Ep 57 Jeff Gothelf Content-Giveaway Career Case Giving away nearly all content free still sold over 10,000 books Ep 35 Jennifer Lawrence 2013 Oscar-Stumble Pratfall Case A stumble on the way to accept her Oscar shifted polite applause into a full standing ovation Ep 278 Jetstar 'Don't Fly Jetstar' Reactance Campaign Telling customers not to fly/scan/book drove 5x engagement via reactance and negativity bias Ep 271 Jewelry Store Ticket-Price Reframing Case Reframing product descriptions more than doubled average ticket price Ep 65 JFK Center Gift-Shop Diffuse Theft Case $150k a year lost not to one thief but to every volunteer taking a little Ep 133 JFK Cuban Missile Crisis Reciprocity Case A secret compromise, not public defiance, actually resolved the missile crisis Ep 199 JFK Moon Speech Case JFK's 1962 Rice University speech as a case study in persuasive rhetoric Ep 183 Jim Cramer Bear Stearns Illusion-of-Validity Case (2008) Cramer confidently told a viewer Bear Stearns was fine days before its collapse Ep 278 Jo Sylvester CV-Weakness Hiring Study Job applicants disclosing a real weakness were more likely to be hired than those hiding it Ep 161 Job Dweck Walton 2010 Willpower-Mindset Study Ego depletion appeared only in people who believed willpower is a limited resource Ep 298 Job-Posting Applicant-Count Social-Proof Study Showing 50 (vs 5) prior applicants raised CV submissions 138% Ep 167 Jobcentre Commitment Job-Seeking Study Writing down weekly job-search commitments got people off benefits faster Ep 7 Jobs MacBook Air Envelope Demonstration Jobs pulled the MacBook Air from an envelope instead of citing its thickness Ep 145 Jobs Reframing Innovation Cases Cases where Steve Jobs reframed a seemingly ordinary or impossible engineering problem in a way that motivated his team to find a better ... Ep 95, 110, 217 Joe and the Juice Concentrated-Market Exposure Strategy Concentrating stores in 4 cities built exposure against much larger rivals Ep 39 Joe Girard 'I Like You' Card Reciprocity Case Joe Girard, recognized by Guinness World Records as history's best-performing car salesperson (13,001 cars sold, 1963-1978), sent every... Ep 118 Joel Real-vs-Fictional Dating-Profile Study Relationships researcher Samantha Joel had single, heterosexual participants review a set of dating profiles and pick their least-favorite... Ep 81 John Acquisti Loewenstein Privacy-Assurance Paradox Study (2011) Strong confidentiality assurances made people disclose sensitive info less, not more Ep 306 John Cunningham 'Cat's Eyes' WWII Costly-Signaling Case RAF night-fighter pilot John Cunningham's squadron shot down twice as many enemy aircraft during the Blitz as any other night-fighter... Ep 114 John How-Bad-Are-You Playful-Disclosure Study One of Leslie John's earliest studies as a doctoral student. Ep 306 John Sensitive-Question Revealer-Preference Studies People trust and prefer someone who admits something unflattering over someone who withholds an answer Ep 306 Jordan Sommers Bloom Rand 2017 False-Signaling Hypocrisy Study Researchers Jillian Jordan, Roseanna Sommers, Paul Bloom, and David Rand told participants about a fictional character, Becky, who is on ... Ep 262, 266 Joshua Bell Subway Busking Context Study A world-famous violinist busking anonymously earned just $32 in 45 minutes Ep 47, 222 Jostmann Lakens Schubert Heavy-Clipboard Study (2009) Researchers had recruiters evaluate identical job applicant resumes attached to either a heavy clipboard or a lighter clipboard. Ep 211 Journalist Newsletter Halving-Words Study Cutting a newsletter's words in half in 30 minutes doubled its click-through rate Ep 177 Judah Motorway Handwashing Message Study Disgust worked for men, risk info for women, social proof for both Ep 43 Jurassic Park Bone-Crunch Sound-Reveal Case Learning a scary sound was a snapped waffle cone stripped it of all fear Ep 176 Jury Conformity Verdict Study A third of jurors privately disagreed with the verdict they voted for in public Ep 196 Justin Kan Twitch Transparency Case An 8-month, 24/7 livestreamed life launched Twitch, sold for $970M Ep 166 Kahneman 9/11 Attention Study 9/11's rated historical importance doubled and fell back with news coverage Ep 209 Kahneman Boardroom Risk-Pooling Case Division heads declined a favorable bet individually that the pooled-risk CEO wanted taken Ep 189 Kahneman Coffee-Mug Buyer-Seller Study Owners demanded $7.12 for a mug buyers offered only $2.87 for Ep 52, 139 Kahneman Day-Reconstruction Activity-Enjoyment Study Socializing rated as the most enjoyable of 16 daily activities among 900 women Ep 129 Kahneman Deaton Income-Happiness Plateau Study (2010) Nobel laureate economists Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton surveyed a large national sample of Americans on income and reported day-to-day... Ep 113 Kahneman Fredrickson Cold-Water Ending Study (1993) Participants preferred a longer, more painful trial that ended less unpleasantly Ep 111, 217, 286 Kahneman Israeli Army Interview Redesign Scoring six fixed traits beat free-form interviews at predicting performance Ep 203 Kahneman Israeli Army Structured Interview Study Structured scoring beat gut-instinct interviews for predicting good soldiers Ep 32 Kahneman Mug-vs-Chocolate Trading Study Only 10% traded a randomly-given item, not the ~50% rational choice would predict Ep 52 Kahneman Redelmeier Colonoscopy Peak-End Study A milder-ending, longer colonoscopy was rated 10% less painful overall Ep 68 Kahneman Tversky Founding Anchoring Studies Two of the founding demonstrations of anchoring from Kahneman and Tversky's original research program, cited via Philip Graves. Ep 253, 287 Kantar Millward Brown Message Count Recall Study Two messages in a slogan vs. one cut recall by 35% Ep 16, 37, 122 Kantar WARC Distinctiveness Attention Study Research from Kantar and WARC examined how brands' visual and messaging choices cluster around shared category norms, and measured the ef... Ep 250 Kaplan Gimbel Harris Political-Belief Amygdala Study Neuroscientists Jonas Kaplan, Sarah Gimbel, and Sam Harris placed participants in an MRI scanner and identified each person's strongly-he... Ep 224 Kaptchuk Open-Label Placebo IBS Study IBS patients told their pills were inert placebos still improved as much as on real medication Ep 289 Karen Ruggiero Fabricated Discrimination-Attribution Study A prestigious-journal study on status and discrimination attribution was fabricated Ep 195 Karremans Subliminal Iced-Tea Thirst Study Subliminal iced-tea ads only worked on people already made thirsty Ep 143 Kasumovic 2024 AI-Marketing Benchmark Survey Influencer Marketing Hub surveyed 1,290 marketers about AI's role in their work. Ep 220 Katz's Deli Tip-Jar Anchoring Case Katz's Deli arranges its tip jar with bills stacked by denomination in a visible gradient — tens at the top, fives in the middle, singles... Ep 87 Kaur Kremer Mullainathan Self-Imposed-Target Study Over 11 months, 124 Indian data-entry workers, paid per field entered (typically 0.03 rupees per field), were offered a choice: keep the ... Ep 227 Keizer Lindenberg Steg 2008 Spreading-of-Disorder Study Researcher Kees Keizer identified an alleyway used heavily for bike parking, with no bin present. Ep 268 Kennedy Used-Car Nixon Ad Case "Would you buy a used car from this man?" let voters reach the conclusion themselves Ep 140, 288, 290 Kentucky Army Cold-Room Habituation Study Soldiers shivered less each day in a cold room while core body temperature stayed constant Ep 171 Kettle and Fire SparkToro Audience-Research Case Audience-overlap data replaced a small, biased post-purchase survey Ep 36 KFC 'Chips for a Dollar' Message Testing Study The winning message, out of ~100 tested, added a scarcity purchase limit Ep 26, 188 KFC Australia Secret Menu Campaign (2020) An unpublicized, clue-seeded secret menu reached 300M+ people and lifted app downloads 111% Ep 275 KFC Build-Your-Own-Bucket Minority Rule Case A customizable bucket accommodates the pickiest family member, not the average one Ep 64 KFC Double Down Scarcity Case A novel bunless sandwich released only ~2 weeks a year sold a million units in a month at launch Ep 113, 277 KFC FCK Crisis-Management Campaign KFC's 2018 chicken-shortage apology ad rearranged its own logo to spell "FCK" Ep 184 KFC Secret-Recipe Information-Gap Case 80+ years of secrecy theater around "11 herbs and spices" keeps curiosity, not the recipe itself, driving attention Ep 275 KFC Twitter 'Eleven Herbs' Unfollow Stunt (2017) KFC unfollowed 35,000 fans and refollowed 11 (Spice Girls + men named Herb) with no explanation for 2 months Ep 275 KFC What The Cluck Banned Ad Case A 2019 KFC ad using a near-swear pun was banned, generating free press coverage Ep 184 Khan Dhar Volunteering-Jeans Licensing Study (2006) Choosing to volunteer first made students 107% more likely to pick indulgent jeans over a utilitarian vacuum Ep 280 Killingsworth Gilbert Mind-Wandering Happiness Study We are not thinking about what we're doing 47% of the time, and are less happy for it Ep 131 Kim Kramer Novel-Discount-Framing Study (2006) Whichever discount frame was culturally novel (save X% vs pay Y%) drew more attention Ep 287 Kim Novemsky Dhar Chewing-Gum Noticeable-Difference Study (2013) A trivial price difference between two similar options raised purchase rate from 46% to 77% Ep 283 Kinetic Ad Exposure Frequency VR Study VR testing found optimal ad exposure is 10-12 views, not the assumed 7-8 Ep 15 Kiss Simovits Hungarian Election Bandwagon Study Hungarian voters shifted toward whichever candidate polling showed clearly ahead Ep 196 Kitty Genovese Bystander Effect Case 38 witnesses heard a 1964 murder; none called police, founding the bystander effect Ep 10 Kivetz Urminsky Hsiang Cafe Coffee-Stamp Study (2006) Researchers Ran Kivetz, Oleg Urminsky, and Yuhuang Hsiang partnered with a New York cafe to test reward-card framing. Ep 248 Klarna Pennies-a-Day BNPL Case Klarna, a buy-now-pay-later service, lets online retailers offer shoppers the option to split a purchase into several smaller installment... Ep 270 KLM Schiphol Squirrel-Shredding Case In 1999, a consignment of roughly 400 ground squirrels (imported as exotic pets) arrived at KLM's cargo facility at Schiphol Airport, Ams... Ep 255 Kocher Wilcox Golf Putter Assembly Study (2022) Researchers gave amateur golfers identical high-quality putters, requiring one group to assemble the grip and adjust the putter's positio... Ep 211 Kolaris Discrete-Events Music Study 4×4min vs 8×2min songs changed perceived duration of the same 16 minutes Ep 1, 260 Kong Lee Super Bowl Ad Recall Study Earlier Super Bowl ad slots got higher recall at an identical $5M price Ep 79 Koschate-Fischer Umbro Country-of-Origin Study (2012) Identical shoes labeled "UK-made" fetched £81 vs £61 for "South Korea-made" Ep 285 Koskie Locander Cool-Brands Uniqueness-Premium Study (2023) Consumers paid more for "cool" brands specifically because owning them felt more unique Ep 278 Kotzberg Cartoon Negotiation Study A humanizing cartoon sent first in email negotiations improved outcomes Ep 2 Kraft 2016 Mac and Cheese Stealth Reformulation Case Kraft's mac and cheese — a major cultural fixture in North America, especially Canada — contained artificial preservatives and synthetic ... Ep 263 Krishnan Biswas Netemeyer Concrete-Comparison Study (2006) Naming a specific competitor in a price comparison outperformed a vague "seen elsewhere" claim Ep 287 Kross Distanced Self-Talk fMRI Study Third-person self-talk showed measurably less emotional brain activity than "I" language Ep 61 Kross Fly-on-the-Wall Immersed vs Distanced Study Replaying a memory as an outside observer produced calmer, less raw language Ep 61 Kross Nature Exposure and Attention Restoration Studies Tree views, green space, and nature walks improve recovery, stress, and attention Ep 61 Kross Social-Rejection Physical-Pain fMRI Study Social rejection activated the same brain regions as physical pain Ep 62 Kruger 2004 Poem Effort-Heuristic Study Researcher Justin Kruger and colleagues recruited 138 participants and split them into two groups. Ep 264 Kruger Wirtz Miller 2005 First-Instinct-Fallacy Study Researchers analyzed over 1,500 University of Illinois psychology exam answers where students had changed an initial answer, and separately... Ep 94, 109 Ku and Suk Zero-Dollars vs Free Study "Zero dollars" beat "free" across ten experiments in four countries Ep 180 Kumar Epley Gratitude Letter Study Gratitude-letter recipients felt better and less awkward than senders predicted Ep 80 Kunda Jane In-Group Trivia Study Identical trivia performance was praised for a teammate, dismissed for a rival Ep 73 Kunz Christmas Card Reciprocity Study Unsolicited Christmas cards to 600 strangers drew hundreds of replies Ep 2, 137 Köhler Kiki-Bouba Shape-Sound Study In 1929, German psychologist Wolfgang Köhler showed Spanish-speaking residents of Tenerife two abstract shapes — one spiky and jagged, on... Ep 260 LA Off-License Wine Price-Increase Study Raising cheap wine's price from 79¢ to 99¢ sold it out in a week Ep 42 Lacoste Brand-Dilution and Recovery Case Discount distribution collapsed margins; premium repositioning drove +800% sales Ep 37 Lady Gaga Meat-Dress Status Signal Case The meat dress read as a deliberate status signal, not attention-seeking Ep 148 Lafayette Rhyme-as-Reason Study Rhyming sayings were rated 22% more accurate than non-rhyming equivalents Ep 5 Lamborghini Honk-Deference Observation Observational research on driver behavior found that cars stuck behind a Lamborghini at a green traffic light are less likely to honk than... Ep 106 Langer Believing-Is-Seeing Visual-Acuity Studies Unconscious associations (an upside-down chart, a "fighter pilot" identity) measurably improved eyesight Ep 298 Langer Rodin Nursing-Home Control Study Psychologists Judith Rodin and Ellen Langer ran a randomized field experiment across two floors of a Connecticut nursing home, each with ... Ep 237, 297 Last-Chocolate Recency Ranking Study Participants were given a sequence of chocolates that all tasted identical, and told which one was their last chocolate of the sequence. Ep 217 Latané Clapping-Shouting Social-Loafing Study Individual volume fell as the group grew from one to six, and rose when it shrank Ep 130, 258 Latané Darley Smoke-Filled-Room Study Psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley had participants fill out a questionnaire in a waiting room, either alone or alongside several ... Ep 256 Laughing-Track Conformity Humor Study The same joke rated funny alone, then not funny at all with a laugh track added Ep 167 Laundry Detergent Technical-Language Study (2023) Plain-language product descriptions outsold technical-jargon versions Ep 185 Laurent Clark 2019 Meat-Eating Hypocrisy-Judgment Study Researchers Sean Laurent and Brittany Clark gave participants a story: a woman thinks meat-eating "might be" wrong, but isn't sure how sh... Ep 262 LBJ Daisy Political Ad Case A never-name-the-opponent negative ad avoided reactance and won a landslide Ep 120 Lecamwasam Ray Chaudhuri AI-Music Preference Study (2025) Researchers played participants two pieces of calm instrumental music without disclosing their origin, then asked which they preferred. Ep 257 Lee and Seidel Scarcity Willingness-to-Pay Study Scarcity language raised willingness to pay for an identical watch by 50% Ep 25 Lee Frederick Ariely 2006 MIT Brew Beer Study Researchers Leonard Lee, Shane Frederick, and Dan Ariely had 388 bar patrons taste two drinks: a regular Budweiser, and an altered versio... Ep 263 Leeds University Confident-Walker Study 5% of a room walking with purpose determined the other 95%'s direction Ep 165 Left-Right Price-Position Study Researchers tested how the left-to-right ordering of pricing plans on a page affects perceived price, based on people's unconscious assoc... Ep 212 Lehmann Penalty-Shootout Overthinking Case In the 2006 World Cup quarter-final penalty shootout between Germany and Argentina (Berlin, 75,000 spectators, sudden-death knockout), Ge... Ep 229 Leicester Gym Music Distraction Study Unusual gym music reduced time-estimation accuracy Ep 1 Leigh Caldwell Birthday-Digit Wine Anchoring Study A random birthday-digit anchor raised wine bids by 25% Ep 33 Leo Burnett Shotton HSBC-Blanks Study (2020) Blanking out a brand name in an ad raised recall 14% versus spelling it out in full Ep 188, 234 Leonardelli 2019 MESOs Negotiation Study Researchers ran a series of negotiation studies (part of a program spanning dozens of experiments over several years) testing whether mak... Ep 267 Lepper Greene Nisbett Overjustification Crayon Study (1973) Children promised a reward for drawing drew less afterward than children never promised one Ep 288 Levy Markle Cerf Dating-Similarity Study Researchers Levy, Markle, and Cerf analyzed 421 million potential romantic matches from an online dating site to identify what best predi... Ep 246 Lichtenstein Beer-Menu Price-Order Study Listing beers most-expensive-first raised average spend 4% over eight weeks Ep 138 Lieberman Tarantula Affect-Labeling Study (2012) Verbally naming fear of a live tarantula reduced anxiety on re-exposure a week later Ep 306 Life Event Brand-Switching Survey Life events made respondents 2-3x more likely to switch brands Ep 3, 83, 249 Liking Gap Conversation Studies People consistently underestimate how much a conversation partner liked them Ep 80, 109 Liking Name-Similarity Studies A shared name or initial nearly doubled purchases and survey responses Ep 207 Liljenquist Galinsky 2007 Advice-Seeking Study Researchers Katie Liljenquist and Adam Galinsky studied the effect of strategically asking an adversary or subordinate for advice, rather... Ep 267 Limited-Quantity vs Limited-Time Promotion Study Sold out blames the brand; expired-in-time blames the customer's own timing Ep 157 Lindgaard Dudek 2002 Website-Attractiveness Study Participants rated the visual appeal of a set of websites, then separately tested each site's actual usability (navigating to specific... Ep 89 LinkedIn Investment Study Complete profiles made users 7x more likely to respond to re-engagement triggers Ep 13, 52 Listerine Halitosis Invention Campaign Marketing the "problem" of bad breath grew earnings from $100k to $8M Ep 120 Litterbug and Tosser Anti-Littering Campaigns "Don't be a tosser" cut littering 40% by naming an identity people reject Ep 154 Little Mosque on the Prairie Prejudice-Reduction Study A sitcom about ordinary Muslim life reduced prejudice for 3+ months Ep 123 Liu 2023 Technical-Language Purchase-Intent Study Researchers tested whether technical, jargon-heavy product descriptions affect purchase intent compared to descriptions of the same produ... Ep 265 Locked-Door Exception Reciprocity Case Making an exception to a closing-time rule builds loyalty; rigid enforcement kills it Ep 64, 191 Loewenstein Grid-Squares Curiosity Study Partial image reveals kept people clicking well past the required minimum Ep 123 Loftus Lost-in-the-Mall Study Elizabeth Loftus and research assistant Jacqueline Pickrell recruited a trusted family member to supply several true stories from each pa... Ep 232 Loftus Own Mother's-Death Misremembering Case When Elizabeth Loftus was 14, her mother drowned in a swimming pool. Ep 232 Loftus Slate Fake-News Memory Study Elizabeth Loftus's team, working with online magazine Slate, showed over 5,000 volunteers a mix of genuine news stories (with real accomp... Ep 232 Loftus Smashed-vs-Collided Study One verb changed estimated crash speed by over 28% for the same video Ep 121, 232 Loftus Stop-Sign Misinformation Study Elizabeth Loftus showed participants a slide sequence depicting a red car (a Datsun) stopping at an intersection marked with a stop sign. Ep 232 London 4% Pre-Trip Planning Study A study of Londoners' travel behaviour asked whether people actively considered which transport mode to use before setting out on a given... Ep 84 London Perfume Price-Doubling Study Doubling perfume's price from £40 to £80 raised purchase intent 33%→78% Ep 42 London Taxi Driver Hippocampus Study Working cabbies show an enlarged hippocampus from completing the Knowledge Ep 128 London Underground Tube Map Color-Bias Case A visually bolder tube line is used more, independent of the route itself Ep 63, 191 Loom Meeting-Replacement Positioning Case Positioning against "a 30-minute meeting," not video tools, drove 1.2M daily users Ep 47 Lord Ross Leeper Confirmation-Bias Study Death-penalty evidence was read as supporting whatever side participants already held Ep 183, 187 Loss Aversion in Investing Kahneman's investor-churn finding and Buffett's decade-long index-fund bet Ep 25 Loss-Framed Teacher Bonus Study A bonus paid upfront then clawed back outperformed the same bonus earned normally Ep 175, 227 Lottery Winner Hedonic Adaptation Study The average lottery winner is back to baseline happiness within four years Ep 131 Loyalty Card Endowed Progress Study 10-stamp card with 2 pre-punched completed far more than an 8-stamp card Ep 16, 18, 69 Lu Gal 2011 Advice-vs-Opinion Unity Study Online survey participants across the United States were shown a description of a fictional fast-food-casual restaurant concept called "S... Ep 216, 235, 297 Lucas Nordgren Creativity Cliff Study 66% more, and better-rated, ideas came in a task's final five minutes Ep 201 Lucas Thanksgiving-Idea Persistence Study Everyone predicted round one's ideas would be best; round two's were more original Ep 146 Luxi Shen Variable-Reward Task-Completion Study 70% finished a task for an unpredictable reward vs 43% for a larger certain one Ep 179 Lyubomirsky Regret-Writing Wellbeing Study Participants wrote about, or talked into a recorder about, negative experiences (like regrets) in a positive framing for 15 minutes a day;... Ep 94 MAAATE Say-Mate Campaign Case A single elongated word gave men a low-stakes way to call out misogyny Ep 193 Mac-and-Cheese Habituation Study Daily mac and cheese lost its appeal fast; weekly mac and cheese stayed fully enjoyed Ep 171, 218 Mac-and-Cheese Portion-Size Blindness Study Participants finished meals regardless of portion size and didn't notice the change Ep 43 Macaque Status-Viewing Study Monkeys paid (in foregone juice) to view higher-status monkeys Ep 121 Mackie Worth Asuncion In-Group Message-Credibility Study (1990) An identical speech was rated more persuasive when attributed to a domain-credible source Ep 285 Macy's Till-Driven Charm-Pricing Origin 9-ending prices began as an 1879 till-theft-prevention mechanism Ep 57 Madoff Ponzi Consistency Study Suspiciously smooth, consistent returns fooled professional investment managers Ep 202 Magic Castle Hotel Popsicle Hotline Case One manufactured peak moment drove a mediocre hotel's top ranking Ep 68 Maier University Co-Development Halo Study (2023) "Co-developed with university researchers" framing raised willingness to pay 65% Ep 285 Majer Trötschel Galinsky Loschelder 2020 Offer-vs-Request Study Researchers recruited participants to negotiate the sale of stocks and randomly assigned them to phrase their opening anchor as either a ... Ep 267 Mallinson Hatemi Sandusky-Scandal Conformity Study (2018) A third of participants changed their stated opinion on a sensitive scandal under group disagreement Ep 303 Man United Fan Jogger-Helping Study 92% helped a fellow-fan jogger; only 30% helped a rival-team jogger Ep 73 Manager Sleep Deprivation Employee Contagion Study A manager's bad sleep predicted their rudeness and spread disengagement to the team Ep 126 Mandel and Johnson Money-Priming Sofa Study A money-primed background raised sofa purchase intent from 36% to 56% Ep 42 Mandela Fouilon Afrikaans-Mimicry Case In October 1993, with South Africa on the brink of civil war, Nelson Mandela secretly met retired general Constand Viljoen ("Fouilon" in ... Ep 246 Mappiness Outdoor Happiness Study Over a million smartphone responses: Britons are happier outdoors, whatever the weather Ep 131 Marathon and Frequent-Flyer Goal-Number Studies Round-number thresholds shaped marathon finishes and flight-booking behavior Ep 124, 248 Markman Blackjack Regret Study Anticipating future stakes made blackjack players more attentive to strategy regrets Ep 93 Markowitz 1-Over-N Portfolio Heuristic Nobel laureate Harry Markowitz won his Nobel Prize in economics partly for the "mean-variance portfolio" — a mathematically optimal metho... Ep 229 Marmite End-Marmite-Neglect Campaign Admitting Marmite goes unused drove a 14% sales increase, £37M Ep 58, 174 Marriage Five-to-One Compliment-Ratio Research Decades of marriage research have examined the ratio of positive to negative remarks spouses make about each other, finding successful,... Ep 105 Marriage Happiness Peak-and-Decline Study Happiness climbs for two years to the wedding day, then returns to baseline Ep 131, 171 Marshmallow Ritual Self-Control Study Framing a sequence as a ritual, not practice, improved children's self-control Ep 200 Marshmallow-Test Generational-Improvement Study In 2019, researchers at the University of California asked 260 trained developmental psychologists whether children today would perform... Ep 112 Martin Caffeinated-Drink Persuasion Study A caffeinated drink made arguments on either side of a debate more persuasive Ep 199 Martin Mackin McDonald's Balloon Reciprocity Study Gifting balloons to kids before, not after, a visit raised the family bill 25% Ep 199, 214, 269 Martin Real-Estate-Agent Authority Messenger Study Naming an agent's "20 years experience" raised valuations 20% and sales 20% Ep 163 Marvel Post-Credit-Scene Zeigarnik Case Every MCU film ends unresolved, sustaining appetite across 31 films Ep 142 Matthew Walker Nap and Sleep-Cued Memory Studies A nap raised fact retention 20%; sleep-played sound cues boosted item recall Ep 126 Maya Shankar VA Benefits Endowment-Effect Case Framing a benefit as already-owned (endowment effect) raised email open rates 9% Ep 186 Mazis Settle Leslie Phosphate-Detergent Ban Study (1973) Mothers rated a now-banned detergent as better than before, purely because it was banned Ep 300 McCormick Meijen Marcora Self-Talk Endurance Study (2018) Published in The Sport Psychologist ("Effects of a motivational self-talk intervention for endurance athletes completing an ultramarathon"... Ep 307 McDonald's Healthy-Item Licensing Case In the early 2000s, McDonald's began promoting healthier menu additions — salads and bottled spring water — alongside its traditional fas... Ep 227 McDonald's Original Menu-Reduction Case Cutting 27 menu items to 3 core ones doubled sales, then doubled again Ep 72 McDonald's Touchscreen Two-Burger-Order Case Ordering screens removed social embarrassment, and unusual orders followed Ep 179, 218 McGill Positive-vs-Negative News Study Stated preference for positive news; actual behavior favored negative articles Ep 55 McGlone Tofighbakhsh Rhyme-as-Reason Study Rhyming proverbs rated 17% more believable than identical non-rhyming ones Ep 145, 188, 190 McKinsey 2015 Diversity-Performance Study Top-quartile diverse companies had 15-35% better financial returns Ep 32 Meehl Clinical vs Actuarial Judgment Study A simple algorithm beat interviewing counselors at predicting student grades Ep 203 Meir Alumni-Donation Messenger Study Alumni-solicited university donations beat non-alumni-solicited ones Ep 163 Meltzoff Baby Imitation Conformity Study 18-month-olds copied the adult's intended action, not the failed one they saw Ep 130 Memmert Eye-Tracking Gorilla Study Sports scientist Daniel Memmert ran a version of the invisible gorilla experiment while tracking participants' eye movements with an eye ... Ep 222 Memory Athlete and Expert Chunking Cases A cluster of expert-memory demonstrations, all attributed by Charan Ranganath to structured chunking rather than raw memory capacity — se... Ep 230 Merckelbach White-Christmas Auditory-Expectation Study (2001) A third of participants "heard" a song in white noise that was never actually played Ep 298 Mere Exposure Effect Original Study Repeated exposure to meaningless symbols raised liking and mood Ep 15 Mere Exposure in Investing and Academic Judgment Two applications of familiarity bias outside advertising. Ep 119 Merger Ritual-Clash Picture-Description Study Incompatible group "shorthand" rituals explain why mergers so often clash Ep 200 Messi Pre-Game Pause Case Messi's slow first minutes calm nerves and build a strategic read of the game Ep 201 Meta Cicero Diplomacy AI Case An AI built to play Diplomacy convinced six human players it was human Ep 197 Meta Deny-Debate-Do Return-to-Office Case Meta went from permanent remote work to a 3-day mandate in under 2 years Ep 152, 210 Mexico City License-Plate Driving Ban Backfire A quick-fix driving ban led residents to buy second cars, worsening pollution Ep 46 Michelin Guide Charging-for-Quality Signal Case Michelin's restaurant guide launched as a free giveaway from the tire company, updated yearly at Michelin's own expense to drive tire sales... Ep 106 Michelle Remembers Satanic-Panic Case A 1980 "recovered memory" book sparked the Satanic Panic moral scare, later discredited Ep 232 Michigan BMW Car-Happiness Study Students predicted how much pleasure they'd get from driving cars ranging from cheap models to a BMW, consistently predicting the BMW would... Ep 117 Michigan Professors Movie-Leaving Sunk-Cost Study 126 University of Michigan professors across departments were interviewed by phone and tested on their knowledge of heuristics and biases... Ep 109 Microsoft Weekend Email Spillover Study 1 hour of weekend boss email creates 15 min of work per recipient Ep 22 Mike Adams Grandmother-Death Excuse Study Grandmothers are 19x more likely to "die" before a final exam Ep 133 Mike Todd Manufactured Queue Social Proof Case A slow cashier manufactured a queue that then sold out the show itself Ep 67 Milan Boutique Familiarity Status Study Boutique staff rated a casually-dressed shopper higher status; the public rated the opposite Ep 148 Milgram Obedience Experiment Participants administered believed-dangerous shocks under a scientist's instruction Ep 28, 81, 159, 196, 274 Milgram Sky-Staring Social-Proof Study Researchers staring at nothing on a street made passers-by stop and stare too Ep 159 Military Veteran Candidate Voter-Preference Studies US candidates with military service consistently poll better Ep 139 Milkman Duckworth Patel Flu-Vaccine Reservation Study "A dose has been reserved for you" raised flu-shot uptake 4.6 points Ep 118, 159, 247 Milkman Minson Volpp 2014 Gym-Audiobook Temptation-Bundling Study Restricting a captivating audiobook to gym-only listening raised weekly workouts 55% Ep 305 Milkman Moving-Home Life-Change Study (1994) A 1994 study examined how often successful life changes — career shifts, starting new diets, and similar — coincided with a house move. Ep 249 Milkman Vaccination Write-Down-Date Study Writing down a specific date/time to get vaccinated raised uptake 13% among 3,300 employees Ep 291 Miller Kahn Descriptive-Color-Name Study "Cherry red" beat "dark red" for identical sweaters on satisfaction and purchase intent Ep 149 Miller Magic Number Seven Study Working memory holds about seven items — a rough ceiling for choice sets Ep 153, 230, 248 Milliman Supermarket and Restaurant Tempo Studies Slow music raised supermarket spend ~33% and restaurant dwell time/bar spend Ep 1, 260 Millward Brown Distinctiveness Price-Premium Study Shoppers paid $22 more for brands perceived as meaningfully different Ep 59 Milne Orbell Sheeran 2002 Implementation-Intentions Exercise Study Researcher Sarah Milne recruited 248 participants and randomly assigned them to one of three groups to test what actually converts intent... Ep 83, 268 Milward-Brown Message-Dilution Study Researchers at Milward Brown tested how memorable an advertising message was when presented alone versus alongside two, three, or four... Ep 108 Mindgym CEO Confirmation-Bias Performance Study Analysis of hundreds of companies' stock-market performance following a change of CEO found a consistent pattern: performance improves... Ep 105 Mirroring Tip and Settlement-Rate Studies Repeating back a customer's or counterpart's last words raised tips and settlement rates Ep 182 Miss Universe 1997 Goldilocks-Disclosure Case At the 1997 Miss Universe final, the three remaining finalists (Miss Venezuela, Miss Trinidad and Tobago, and Miss USA) were each asked the... Ep 306 MIT Balsamic-Beer Expectation Study (2006) Vinegar-laced beer was preferred blind, but preference dropped 29 points once tasters knew beforehand Ep 302 MIT Charm Pricing Clothing Mailer Study $39 outsold cheaper $34 clothing price by 23% Ep 19, 57 MIT Room-Assignment Puzzle Complexity Study Researchers designed room-assignment puzzles (assigning a set number of students to dorm rooms under a set of constraints) at varying lev... Ep 258 Mita Dermer Knight Reversed-Facial-Image Study (1977) People prefer their mirror-reversed photo; friends/family prefer the true image — each favors what they're used to seeing Ep 276 Mochon Choice-Count Purchase-Intent Study Offering a second DVD-player option nearly quadrupled purchase intent Ep 140, 153, 156 Moldridge Business-Forecasting Inaccuracy Study 52% of 300,000 real business forecasts were worse than predicting no change Ep 60 Molson Canadian 'The Rant' Identity Ad Case After slipping from the number-one to number-two beer brand in Canada, Molson ran an ad — later nicknamed "The Rant" — featuring an ordin... Ep 246 Monnier and Thomas Amazon Unit-Count Pricing Study Shoppers paid 49% more for a precise item count than an overall weight Ep 138 Monnier Thomas Cookie-Visualization Study Researchers Monnier and Thomas showed participants ads for cookies described either in easily-visualizable units (3 pieces of cookies) or... Ep 233 Montes Wulf Navalta VO2 Max Expectation Study (2018) False positive performance feedback raised measured VO2 max scores by roughly 7% Ep 298 Morales Supermarket-Disorganization Effort Study Disorganized shelving (perceived low effort) reduced purchase likelihood Ep 169 Moreland and Beach Classroom Mere Exposure Study Women attending class 15 times were rated far more attractive than those seen 0 times Ep 23, 228, 235 Moriarty Beach Radio Theft Study A prior "watch my things" request made bystanders 4.75x more likely to intervene Ep 121, 186 Morrison 2012 Social-Regret Intensity Study Researchers compared how deeply people felt regrets across different life domains (career, health, romance, social relationships, etc.). Ep 94 Moscow Metro Gendered-Announcement Case The Moscow Metro uses a male voice for station announcements on trains heading toward the city centre, and a female voice for trains... Ep 84 Mouthwash Burn-Sensation Efficacy Study Participants were given two mouthwashes to compare — one causing a noticeable burning sensation, the other pleasant-tasting — with no act... Ep 211 Moz '$1 First Month' Scarcity Hack Backfire A successful scarcity hack drove years of elevated churn and reputational harm Ep 37 Moz Blogging Flywheel Case Years of consistent blogging made each post reach ~100x further by 2009 Ep 37 Mozart Effect Debunking Case A debunked claim that Mozart raises IQ still shaped government policy Ep 206 Mr A Nocebo Overdose Case A patient's overdose symptoms from inert placebo pills resolved within 15 minutes of learning they were fake Ep 289 MS Paint 'Graphic Designer Wanted' Billboard Case A company struggling to hire a graphic designer through normal job-board postings bought a large, expensive street billboard — but... Ep 100 Muchnik Aral Taylor Social-Influence-Bias Study (2013) A single fake upvote raised a comment's odds of further upvotes 32%, compounding rather than self-correcting Ep 303 Mukherjee Smith Burton Pre-Order Gift-vs-Discount Study (2021) A free pre-order gift generated roughly twice as many pre-orders as an equivalent discount Ep 284 Mullainathan AI-vs-Judges Bail Study An AI given case data alone out-predicted judges' face-to-face bail decisions Ep 203 Mumbai Glass and School Tray Waste-Reduction Studies Half-glasses and tray removal cut water and food waste by removing capacity Ep 71 Murdoch Serial-Position List-Recall Study Recall probability depended on list position across list lengths 10-40 Ep 79 My Quit Buddy Smoking Cessation App A nudge-packed quit-smoking app hit 500k downloads and 8x the cold-turkey quit rate Ep 24 Nadal Sturridge Pre-Performance Ritual Case Elite athletes' pre-performance rituals reduce stress via a sense of control Ep 61 Nancy Harhut New Yorker Cartoon Reactivation Campaign Nancy Harhut's agency was hired to re-engage financial advisors who had stopped selling a client's investment product over a year earlier,... Ep 118 Nancy Harhut Retirement-Savings Message Test Nancy Harhut's agency tested three message variants encouraging employees to enroll in or increase contributions to a workplace retirement... Ep 118 Nancy Harhut Voluntary-Benefits Social-Proof Campaign Nancy Harhut's agency ran a campaign encouraging employees to purchase voluntary workplace insurance (accident, cancer coverage — paid... Ep 118 National Academic Press Hardcover-Decoy Study A pricey hardcover decoy raised paperback sales 16.2% Ep 180 NatSAL Sexual Partner Count Survey Discrepancy Self-reported partner-count averages were logically impossible Ep 26 NBA Hot Hand Reanalysis A 30-year "no hot hand" finding was itself a statistical error — the hot hand is real Ep 75 Negev University Pedestrian-Button Jaywalking Study Manhattan's pedestrian crossing buttons were left physically in place after the city switched to centrally-computer-controlled traffic... Ep 88 Negotiation Pause Study A 3-12 second pause before responding produced better negotiated outcomes Ep 201 Neil Patel Spinning Wheel Email Variable Reward A prize-wheel email raised conversion from ~0.5% to ~3% Ep 18 Neisser Harsch Challenger Explosion Flashbulb-Memory Study The day after the Space Shuttle *Challenger* exploded shortly after takeoff (January 28, 1986), psychologists Ulrich Neisser and Nicole H... Ep 222 NEJM Asthma Placebo-Inhaler Comparison Study Placebo treatments matched a real inhaler on subjective relief but not on objective lung function Ep 289 Nelissen Meijers Tilburg Luxury-Shirt Compliance Study (2011) Shoppers were 79% more likely to comply with a survey request from someone wearing a designer logo Ep 277 Nescafe Gold Blend Couple Cliffhanger Campaign (1987-1993) A 12-ad cliffhanger romance series drew 17M UK viewers for its finale and topped the singles chart Ep 275 Netherlands Credit-Card-Surcharge Framing Study 74% called a card surcharge bad; only 49% called an equal cash discount bad Ep 175 Nevill Balmer Williams Referee Crowd-Noise Study Referees who could hear crowd noise gave 15% fewer fouls against the home team Ep 196 New Year Resolution Intrinsic-Motivation Study Intrinsic enjoyment, not stated importance, predicted resolution follow-through Ep 127 New Yorker Brainwriting Meta-Study Individual-first ideation roughly doubled creativity vs. traditional brainstorming Ep 22 Newspaper Subscription Options Reduction Study Cutting subscription tiers from 120 to 8 raised sales nearly 5% Ep 24, 180 Newton South Sea Bubble Social Proof Case Isaac Newton lost a fortune following his social circle into a stock bubble Ep 67 NHS COVID-Vaccine Text Six-Principles Case One 19-word NHS text stacked all six of Cialdini's influence principles Ep 159 NHS Organ-Donor Reciprocity-Message Study (2018) A reciprocity-framed message beat a predicted-winner social-norms message for organ-donor registration Ep 293 Nicholson Compeau Sethi Salesperson Likability-Trust Study (2001) Likability of a sales rep strongly predicted how trustworthy 238 buyers judged them, independent of track record Ep 276 Nick Clegg Implicit Memory Study Voters misremembered always knowing a candidate after one ad exposure Ep 15 Nicolau Hotel-Review Halo Study (2020) A hotel's unrelated-attribute ratings bleed into its (unchanging) location rating across 35M reviews Ep 295 Nightingale Farid AI-Face Trustworthiness Study (2022) Researchers Sophie Nightingale and Hany Farid showed 315 participants 128 face images, a mix of real photographs and AI-synthesized faces... Ep 261 NIH Grant-Proposal Complexity Paradox Case Simpler-written NIH grant proposals scored better despite reviewers' expert status Ep 185 Nike Running Shoe Injury Study Expensive shoes correlated with more injuries, yet Nike revenue nearly doubled Ep 31 Nike, Malibu, and Novotel Scent-Marketing Cases Shoe, coconut, and coffee scents each measurably lifted matching sales Ep 152, 253, 260 Nine-Ender Life Decisions Study Ages ending in 9 correlate with major life decisions across claimed and observed datasets Ep 3, 249 Nintendo Brain Training Marketing Case Nintendo combined five persuasion techniques to sell an unsupported claim Ep 206 Nisbett Wilson Pantyhose Serial-Position Study (1977) Psychologists Timothy Wilson and Richard Nisbett asked participants to evaluate four pairs of tights (pantyhose) presented one at a time ... Ep 251, 252 Nisbett Wilson Warm-Cold Instructor Halo Study (1977) The same instructor's identical appearance was rated more or less appealing based on warm vs. cold behavior Ep 295 Nobel Laureates Intuition-Analysis Study Researchers interviewed 17 Nobel laureates across physics, chemistry, medicine, and economics about how they arrived at their prize-winni... Ep 229 Nomadic Yogurt and Huel Anchoring/Dilution Case Nomadic Dairy launched "Yogurt Plus," an immune-support-blend yogurt in an unfamiliar product category, needing to communicate scientific... Ep 99 Non-Alcoholic Drink End-of-Aisle Placement End-of-aisle placement lifted sales 52-114% with no discount Ep 5 Northwestern 111,000-Review Rating-Sweet-Spot Study 4.2-4.5 star products outsold "perfect" 5-star ones Ep 58 Norton Buell Labour Illusion Studies Visibly showing search effort made identical results feel more relevant and valuable Ep 84, 86, 88, 135, 139 Norton Developmental IKEA-Effect Study Researchers studied 64 children aged three to six, giving each child a foam toy monster. Ep 215 Norton, Mochon and Ariely Lego Build IKEA Effect Study Self-built Lego, free-form or to spec, was valued far above pre-built Lego Ep 31, 52, 211, 215 Nosek 100-Studies Replication Project Only ~36% of 100 replicated psychology studies held up Ep 75, 245 Nude and GrubClub Concrete Eco-Messaging Case Two "change brands" cited by Chris Baker use concrete, visualizable language rather than abstract sustainability claims. Ep 239 Nudge Listener Self-Rating Overconfidence Survey 100 listeners rated themselves well above average on intelligence, honesty, cooking Ep 125 Nudge Podcast 300 TV Ads Behavioral Science Audit Phill Agnew watched 300 British TV ads spanning roughly 20 years (sourced from an ad archive), logging which behavioral-science principle... Ep 213 Nudge Podcast Anti-Marketing Reddit Ad Test "5 reasons NOT to listen" beat a conventional benefits ad by 391% CTR Ep 70, 161, 271 Nudge Podcast Barnum-Question Reddit Ad Test Phill Agnew ran two identical Reddit ads (same image, five-star review snippets, targeting UK/US marketing subreddits) promoting the Nudge... Ep 96 Nudge Podcast Billboard Mere-Exposure Test An ad superimposed on a billboard raised stated listening intent 90% Ep 101, 167 Nudge Podcast Boston Stranger Experiment A host's own awkward-then-uplifting chat with a stranger in Boston Ep 208 Nudge Podcast Brain-Training Self-Experiment Five days of brain training "improved" chess despite no real transfer Ep 206 Nudge Podcast Capital-Cities Memorization Test Spaced repetition plus association memorized 202 capitals in ~4 hours Ep 128 Nudge Podcast Change-Blindness Self-Experiments Only 2 of 12 Bolton shoppers noticed a 5.5%-shrunk loaf of bread Ep 210 Nudge Podcast Deep-Question Conversation Experiment Deep, looped-back questions roughly doubled a self-rated conversation score Ep 198 Nudge Podcast Email Subject-Line Social-Proof Tests A mismatched social-proof group backfired; a matched one doubled click rate Ep 67, 75 Nudge Podcast Fabricated-Studies Demonstration Three studies deliberately invented live to demonstrate truth and confirmation bias Ep 195 Nudge Podcast Five-Marketing-Principles Test Series Phill Agnew ran five of his own low-cost tests alongside Nancy Harhut's five marketing principles. Ep 118 Nudge Podcast Fresh-Start Monday Survey Test "In the new week" doubled stated listening intent over "next Monday" Ep 161 Nudge Podcast Fresh-Start Podcast-Listening Survey Test (2022) Phill Agnew recruited 100 Google Surveys participants who had stated they don't currently listen to podcasts, and tested two invitations to... Ep 83 Nudge Podcast Generation-Effect Promotion Tests An obscured-word promo post got 13% more clicks than average Ep 136 Nudge Podcast GeoGuessr Viral-Video Experiment Phill Agnew tested whether visibly showcasing effort could help a YouTube video go viral, using input bias. Ep 211 Nudge Podcast Guernica Three-Hour Staring Experiment Following an exercise recommended by Harvard art historian Jennifer Roberts (who assigns it to her own students), Phill Agnew stared cont... Ep 237 Nudge Podcast Handwritten-Note Review Experiment Inspired by Michael Norton's IKEA-effect research and Rory Sutherland's handwritten-letter anecdote, Phill Agnew tested handwritten versu... Ep 215 Nudge Podcast Herd-Mentality Ad Test "UK's most popular" + "300,000 smart people" raised an ad's usual 19% lift to 33% Ep 165 Nudge Podcast House-Buying Endowment Anecdote Phill Agnew describes bidding on his first home: after a second viewing, he began mentally imagining living in the house — slow Sunday mo... Ep 247 Nudge Podcast Inbound AI-Copy Quiz Experiment Phill Agnew took the top-of-the-fold headline copy from four Inbound Conference sponsors' websites — Webflow ("more than a website builde... Ep 220 Nudge Podcast Influencer Reciprocity Experiment Giving favors first got 8 of 10 influencers to promote a podcast episode Ep 199 Nudge Podcast Input Bias Reddit Ad Test Highlighting hours of effort behind an ad raised click-through 45% Ep 88, 114, 121, 161, 188, 211 Nudge Podcast Input-Bias Media-Rating Experiment Phill Agnew interviewed four podcast listeners, playing each the same three pieces of content (a short piece of music, a radio ad, and a ... Ep 211 Nudge Podcast International Podcast Day Email Test A special-day-framed course discount doubled click rate over a plain one Ep 169, 186 Nudge Podcast Juxtaposition Story-Engagement Test Phill Agnew wrote two near-identical story blurbs and showed each to a separate group of 100 Americans, asking whether they'd keep reading. Ep 114 Nudge Podcast Kopi Luwak Curiosity Ad Recall Test Phill Agnew challenged Louis Grenier to create a static, single-image ad for a coffee brand, optimized purely for recall rather than purc... Ep 242 Nudge Podcast LinkedIn Ad Reciprocity Carousel Test Giving away 4 tips instead of 1 raised CTR 23% and signup rate 29% Ep 69, 269 Nudge Podcast Logo Halo Effect Test Placing the logo beside famous shows nearly tripled stated willingness to listen Ep 89, 135, 217 Nudge Podcast Loss-Aversion Inactive-Subscriber Test Loss-framed subject lines re-engaged inactive subscribers at roughly double the rate Ep 186 Nudge Podcast Loss-Aversion Podcast-Promotion Email Test "Don't miss this one" outperformed a neutral subject line 17% to 9% open rate Ep 186 Nudge Podcast Marketing-Course Reciprocity Email Test Reciprocity applied to 1,039 faceless subscribers produced just 6 sales Ep 199 Nudge Podcast Mourinho Information Gap Test Withholding whether a guest appeared raised opens 7%, listens 41% Ep 121, 186 Nudge Podcast Obama Authority Bias Test Name-checking Obama underperformed a plain curiosity-driven subject line Ep 121 Nudge Podcast Own Peak-End Running Experiment Ending runs on an easy note made objectively harder runs feel easier Ep 68 Nudge Podcast Pre-Suasion Curiosity Experiment A "are you curious" pre-suasion question cut podcast refusals from 4 to 1 Ep 209 Nudge Podcast Production-Enjoyment Email Test An enjoyment-framed email produced 6x the sales of an identical control Ep 204 Nudge Podcast Question-Framing Reddit Ad Test Rephrasing a Reddit ad as a question made it 15% more effective Ep 136, 178, 182, 188, 213 Nudge Podcast Reading-the-Mind-in-the-Eyes Self-Test Prompted by Colin Fisher's explanation of social sensitivity, Phill Agnew took the "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" test live on the show —... Ep 259 Nudge Podcast Reddit Ad Social-Proof Image Test Adding review/download-count social proof to an ad image raised CTR 9% Ep 67, 152, 159, 161 Nudge Podcast Reserved-For-You Email Test Inspired by the "reserved for you" framing's success in Georgia HPV Vaccine SMS Reservation Trial and the Milkman Duckworth Patel Flu-Vac... Ep 247 Nudge Podcast Review Consistency Test Reminding subscribers of their tenure nearly doubled review requests Ep 121, 186 Nudge Podcast Scarcity Email Test A scarcity-framed subject line raised Nudge's own email open rate from 55.4% to 63.8% Ep 186 Nudge Podcast Social-Proof Downloads-Count Email Test Citing a download-count figure roughly doubled click rate on Nudge's own email Ep 186 Nudge Podcast Social-Proof Email Subject-Line Test Inspired by Bas Wouters's three criteria for effective social-proof copy — label the audience the way they want to be perceived, name the... Ep 240 Nudge Podcast Surprise-Reward Cafe Review Case Phill Agnew describes a cafe table sign reading "do you want to receive a surprise?" that instructed customers to scan a QR code, leave a... Ep 240 Nudge Podcast This-Word Subject-Line Test Inspired by Bas Wouters's own "this"-word headline test, Phill Agnew tested two subject lines for a newsletter about the decoy effect: a ... Ep 243 Nudge Podcast TikTok Curiosity-Gap A/B Test Withheld-hook TikTok videos got 10x the views of ones stating the point upfront Ep 161 Nudge Podcast TikTok Curiosity-Gap Test Phill Agnew created 16 TikTok videos promoting the Nudge podcast: 9 opened with a curiosity-gap cliffhanger line (e.g. Ep 102 Nudge Podcast Time-Framing Survey Test A validated time-framing nudge failed on a cold, untargeted audience Ep 121 Nudge Podcast Tuvalu-Capital Forgetting Demo Phill Agnew told listeners a single obscure fact mid-episode — the capital of Tuvalu is Funafuti — as a live demonstration of Charan Rang... Ep 230 Nudge Podcast Unity Email Subject-Line Experiment Phill Agnew emailed 96 members of his "Nudgers" listener-helper group, split 48/48, each asking the recipient to watch a short video and ... Ep 216 Nudge Podcast Wrong-Link Email Mistake Experiment A deliberate "wrong link" mistake, then correction, raised signups 125% Ep 70 Nudge Podcast's Own Facebook vs Overcast Ad Test Targeted podcast ads nearly doubled Facebook ads' engagement for the same spend Ep 36 Numberless Scale Weight-Loss App Case A numberless, trend-based scale sustained weight loss better than a numeric one Ep 65 Nunes Boatwright Incidental Price-Anchor Study (2004) An unrelated $80 vs $20 T-shirt price shifted willingness to pay for a nearby CD Ep 287 Nunes Park Pet-Shop Freebie-vs-Discount Study (2003) A $2 discount had no effect on dog-food sales; an equivalent $2 freebie did Ep 283 Nurofen Branded-Painkiller Placebo Study (2016) Branded ibuprofen relieved pain better and with fewer side effects than an identical generic pill Ep 106, 302 Nurse Aspartame Dosage-Compliance Study 95% of nurses gave a double-dose drug order from an unverified phone "doctor" Ep 121, 163, 196 Nursery Forbidden-Toy Reactance Study Researchers studied two groups of young children at a California nursery school. Ep 99, 254 NY Bus Driver Pay-Frequency Study A New York State bus authority, facing costly accidents, near-misses, and insurance claims from drivers following too closely, wanted dri... Ep 214 NYC Court-Date Text Reminder Study Text reminders raised court attendance 30% to 38%, keeping 780 people out of jail Ep 91, 134 NYC Taxi Tip Anchor Study Preset tip buttons more than doubled average NYC cab tips Ep 29 NYT Negative Book-Review Sales Study A 2010 analysis of New York Times book reviews compared sales outcomes following positive versus negative published reviews, specifically... Ep 233 NYU Earnings-Call Afternoon-Negativity Study Researchers analyzed transcripts of 26,000 US public-company quarterly earnings calls from 2,100 companies over 6.5 years, measuring the... Ep 107 NYU Restaurant-Review First-Mover Conformity Study A fake glowing first review raised later reviews 32% and final rating 25% Ep 165, 187 O'Neill Gendered Swearing-Perception Survey Both genders judged women more harshly than men for identical swearing Ep 38 O2 VR Store Point-of-Sale Study VR testing diagnosed why an in-store display was confusing shoppers Ep 15 Oatly Health-Framing Rebrand Case Oatly's oat-milk product emerged from a Swedish university in the mid-1990s, but sold poorly for years while its packaging emphasized hea... Ep 239 Obama 'Hey' Curiosity Email Case The 2012 Obama campaign's one-word "Hey" subject line became its top-performing email Ep 116, 186 Ocado Green Delivery-Slot Icon Case A green van icon on efficient delivery slots cut emissions with no discount Ep 86, 134 Octopus Energy 'Don't Switch Yet' Honesty-Signal Case (2022) During the 2022 UK energy-price crisis, Octopus Energy emailed prospective switchers who were considering moving to Octopus, telling them... Ep 87 Octopus Energy Constantine Logo-Mascot Case A distinctive pink octopus mascot, redesigned friendlier over time, helped drive £12bn revenue growth Ep 294 Octopus Energy Flowers and Electric-Blankets Reciprocity Case Unsolicited flowers and 40,000 free electric blankets during the 2022 energy crisis Ep 296 Octopus Energy Hold-Music IKEA-Effect Case Hold music defaults to a customer's age-14 chart-topper, selectable by the customer themselves Ep 296 Octopus Energy Pink Friday and Free-Electricity-Hour Case Surprise-gift week instead of a discount, plus genuinely free electricity hours during renewable oversupply Ep 296 Octopus Energy Wheel-of-Fortune Meter-Reading Case A variable-reward spin for submitting meter readings, with consolation trivia facts for "losing" spins Ep 82, 296 Oettingen Fantasizing-vs-Planning Studies Fantasizing about success reduced job applications sent and weight actually lost Ep 127 Ogilvy Zoom Fridays Social-Norm Case A designated Zoom day drove real adoption where mere access hadn't Ep 63 Ohn Basil 1994 Campus Donation Unity Study Research assistants approached students in high-traffic areas of a large Hawaii university campus, asking them to donate to a student cha... Ep 216, 246, 281 OJ Simpson Glove Rhyme Verdict Case (1995) During OJ Simpson's 1995 murder trial, a bloodstained glove central to the prosecution's case notably failed to fit on Simpson's hand in... Ep 116 Olay Total FX Price-Quality Test The higher of three tested prices outsold the cheapest one Ep 27 Olive-Taste Exposure Study 15 repeat servings made children genuinely like disliked olives Ep 167, 190 Olympic Medal Facial-Expression Counterfactual Study Dan Pink cites roughly 30 years of accumulated research analyzing facial expressions of athletes on Olympic medal podiums, rating visible... Ep 94 Online Gambling Deposit-Limit Anchor Case A £100,000 top anchor pulled up self-set gambling deposit limits Ep 66 Online Social-Proof Wording Studies "71 purchased" beat "71 viewed" for tripling an online sales lift Ep 207, 240 Open Plan Office Productivity Study Moving to open-plan raised disruptions and stress, cut productivity Ep 14, 21 OPOWER Energy Bill Social-Norm Study Neighbor-comparison smiley/frown feedback cut energy use 2%, sticky over time Ep 71, 249 Oppenheimer Needless-Complexity Study Simplified academic writing made its authors seem 13% more intelligent Ep 145 Opposing Torture Social-Proof Study (2012) 80% reversed a moral stance after being told peers held it Ep 207 Organ Donation Opt-Out Country Comparison Study Opt-out countries reach ~100% donor consent vs. 4-17% in opt-in countries Ep 20, 134, 144 Osborne Coleman Outdoor Billboard Recall Study Researchers Osborne and Coleman surveyed 517 adults in a mid-sized southeastern US city who regularly (at least weekly) drove a specific ... Ep 222 Oslo Rhyming-Slogan Trust Study Rhyming slogans were rated 22% more trustworthy than non-rhyming ones Ep 145, 213 OSS Simple Sabotage Field Manual A 1944 sabotage manual told enemies to hold meetings and form committees Ep 146 Oxford MSG-Labeling fMRI Study (2008) Describing an identical MSG solution as "rich and delicious" vs. clinically raised brain reward activity Ep 302 Oxford Rugby Mimicry Sprint Study Oxford University rugby players completed standard sprint tests either after a synchronized, mimicked warm-up (matching each other's... Ep 116 P.T. Barnum Mere-Exposure and Controversy Marketing Case P.T. Ep 119 Padova Trento 49km/h Speed-Sign Nine-Ender Study (2021) A 1km/h nominal speed-limit cut (50→49) produced a disproportionately larger real slowdown Ep 283 Palau Pledge Passport Commitment Case A signed passport-stamp pledge commits tourists to environmental behavior Ep 127 Palestinian Mass Hysteria Case (1983) A single ill schoolgirl's symptoms spread to 943 Palestinians and Israeli soldiers Ep 165 Panasonic Microwave Goldilocks Case A new premium tier pulled buyers up from the cheapest tier, not into it Ep 34 Panic Buying Media Contagion Case 2020 panic-buying spending spikes tracked a surge in media coverage, not direct observation Ep 25 Pariedaf Eagleman Distinct-Image Duration Study A single distinct image among identical ones was judged to last 12% longer Ep 148, 284 Parkinson's Law and the Labor-Saving Device Paradox Work expands to fill the time available; labor-saving devices don't reduce total effort Ep 237 Patagonia 'Don't Buy This Jacket' Campaign A Black Friday anti-ad stood out by breaking every other retailer's message Ep 76, 220, 271 Patagonia Corporate-Vest Order-Decline Case Patagonia's corporate-branded fleece vests became a popular Silicon Valley/finance-industry status item. Ep 114 Patagonia Values Imagery Campaign Values-driven photography (forest vs. dam) builds fast visitor connection Ep 16 Patall Cooper Wynn Homework-Choice Ownership Study (2010) Researchers gave one group of high school students a choice over which homework assignments to complete; a second group was simply told w... Ep 247 Patch Houseplants Positioning Case Positioning for plant-lovers who kill plants beat generic houseplant marketing Ep 72 Patrick Fagan Just Do Stuff Year-Long Experiment Case Patrick Fagan spent a year completing one new experience every week — including acupuncture, day-trading, a cuddle workshop, a Just Stop ... Ep 241 Pattern Health Virgil the Turtle Case A virtual pet turtle drove medication-adherence behavior Ep 65 Pausing and Assent Persuasion Studies Deliberate pauses raised likability by prompting listener assent Ep 164, 190 Peloton One-Minute Commitment Case Peloton's app prompts users at the start of a session to commit to just one minute of exercise — a deliberately tiny, nearly effortless ask. Ep 269 Peloton Price-Doubling Veblen Case Doubling the bike's price fixed a "this must be cheaply made" perception problem Ep 175 Penguin Nightlight vs Cash-Prize Promotion Case A $15 penguin nightlight drew 5x more entries than a $1,000+ cash-value prize Ep 63 Pennebaker Authoritarian-Sign Graffiti Study A shouty "DO NOT GRAFFITI!!" sign produced twice as much graffiti as a polite one Ep 140 Pennebaker Expressive-Writing Health Studies A body of research beginning with Pennebaker and Beall's 1986 study (Journal of Abnormal Psychology, "Confronting a traumatic event"),... Ep 306 Pension Contribution Interface Friction Case Cheque-and-post pension friction, not attitude, explains low voluntary top-ups Ep 179 Pepsi Challenge Blind-Taste Case (1970s-90s) Pepsi ran a public single-blind taste test at shopping centers across the US, having passersby taste unmarked cups of Pepsi and Coca-Cola... Ep 106 Pepsodent Toothpaste Habit Campaign Engineered cue-routine-reward ad raised toothpaste adoption 7%→65% in a decade Ep 17, 99, 120 Period-Pause Eye-Tracking Study Eye-tracking showed readers barely pause at full stops in dense text Ep 185 Perrier Origin-Story Branding Case A $5M origin-story campaign recouped over $500M in sales Ep 40 Peters Ceci Journal Resubmission Halo Study Journals rejected 8 of 9 papers they had already published, under unknown names Ep 135 Peters Wallop Weidel Ad Memorability Eye-Tracking Study The most memorable ads combined originality with familiarity Ep 23 Peterson Sold-Out vs Unavailable Label Study "Sold out" produced less disappointment than "out of stock" or "unavailable" Ep 281 Petrol-Station Negotiation Interest-Focus Study Participants negotiated the sale of a petrol station under one of three instructions: a control group told simply to get a good deal; a... Ep 116 Pfeffer Intermediary Self-Promotion Study Third-party praise before a call transfer raised appointments 20%, contracts 15% Ep 11, 18 Phineas Gage Frontal Lobe Injury Case Frontal lobe damage turned a diligent worker into a prolific swearer Ep 38 Picasso Cubist Meaning-Disclosure Study Explaining a Cubist painting's meaning dramatically raised its rating Ep 166, 244 Pick Sweeney Heineken Curiosity-Slogan Study Researchers showed 60 undergraduate students 10 fictitious advertising slogans for Heineken, without telling participants they'd later be... Ep 233, 254 Pickering and Garrod Interactive Alignment Study Conversation partners' speech unconsciously converged within minutes Ep 53 Pineapple Juice and Dementia Myth-Repetition Study An unsupported health myth spread and gained believers through repetition alone Ep 190 Pixar Brain Trust Meetings (Ed Catmull) Reviewers name problems but never prescribe solutions, preserving creator ownership Ep 22 Pixar Creative Brain Trust Case Pixar deliberately mixes experts, outsiders, and a dissenting "black sheep" Ep 205 Pizza Topping and Luxury Car Feature Subtract-vs-Add Framing Study Starting from "everything" and subtracting yields more toppings/features chosen than adding Ep 20 Placebo Chemotherapy Side-Effect Study 30% of placebo chemo patients showed real side effects like hair loss Ep 29 Plassmann Wine Price fMRI Study Telling drinkers wine cost 8x more genuinely raised measured brain enjoyment Ep 19, 253, 289 Poland Doctor-Recommendation Vaccine Uptake Study A panel study on doctor-recommended vaccines likely won't scale to a national campaign Ep 144 Poland Recycling Neighbor-Comparison Study "Your neighbor recycles more than you" beat environmental and economic appeals Ep 63 Poland Tasting-Booth Multi-Tactic Reader Letter A reader recognized reciprocity, commitment, and scarcity tactics in sequence at a tasting booth yet still bought Ep 277 Poland Tax-Compliance Mega-Study Deterrence worked best for parents, public-good framing for rural areas; norms flopped Ep 144 Political Donor Paragraph-Deletion Study Arbitrarily deleted paragraphs, rated less coherent, still raised donations 16% Ep 177 Pope and Schweitzer PGA Putting Loss-Aversion Study Golfers made 3.7% more equivalent-distance putts for par than birdie Ep 56 Pope Francis Prototypical-Leadership Case Pope Benedict XVI was a comparatively divisive, distant figure. Ep 246 Portland Biketown New-Mover Cycling Case The Behavioural Insights Team worked with Portland, Oregon's Biketown cycle-share scheme on a marketing leaflet: a short message introduc... Ep 249 Positivity Ratio Fabricated-Precision Case A "2.9013" thriving ratio came from a nonsensical fluid-dynamics model Ep 202 Post-Credit Scene Peak-End Cases Film post-credit sequences (Bond, Muppets, Animal House) apply the peak-end rule to audience memory Ep 286 Postcard-to-Billboard Consistency Study A small prior commitment made a large lawn-billboard ask 4x more successful Ep 9 Poster-Ranking Reactance Study Students ranked 10 posters by attractiveness, told they'd get to keep one as a reward. Ep 95 Powell Smith 2012 Student-Court Plagiarism Schadenfreude Study Researchers Caitlin Powell and Richard Smith showed participants scenarios about two students: one who simply belonged to a social club, ... Ep 262 Powerball Ticket-Trade Regret Thought Experiment A thought experiment (grounded, per Pink, in real laboratory results): you buy a $1 lottery ticket; a stranger offers to swap their own... Ep 94 Prasad Saddam 9-11 Fact-Resistance Study 98% kept a false belief even after seeing direct contradicting evidence Ep 74 Pratto Negative-Trait Memory Study People remembered negative personality traits twice as often as positive ones Ep 206, 233 Precise vs Round Real-Estate Anchor Studies Precise asking prices sold higher and anchored negotiation more tightly than round prices, even for experts Ep 287 Precise-Discount Consumer Psychology Study (2023) A precise discount beat a larger, rounder one by 18% in purchase intent Ep 202 Precise-Price Car-Negotiation Study Researchers reviewed real second-hand car price negotiations, comparing those that opened with a precise asking price (e.g. Ep 236 Precise-Unit Framing Studies "52 weeks" reads as more credible than the identical "one year" Ep 149 Presenter's Paradox Hotel Bundling Study Adding weaker benefits to a strong pitch lowered willingness to pay Ep 149 Pret a Manger Colleague-Gift Bonus Case Staff work harder for a bonus they must pass to a colleague than one they keep Ep 175 Pret a Manger Random-Reward Loyalty Case Randomized weekly staff giveaways beat a predictable loyalty punch-card Ep 172 Primacy Effect Boundary-Condition Studies Distraction or deliberation before recall/choice erased the primacy effect Ep 79 Prime Energy Drink Scarcity Rise-and-Fall Case Deliberate undersupply drove resale prices 10x; once widely available, UK revenue fell 71% in a year Ep 277 Pringles WTF and Barbie Color Reveal Curiosity Cases Two product-design applications of the curiosity gap, cited via Sam Tatum's Evolutionary Ideas. Ep 102 Prius-Decal Willingness-to-Pay Study A controlled study presented participants with otherwise-identical Toyota Prius listings, toggling a range of features — including whether... Ep 106 Product Speed and Pain Threshold Studies An 8ms Google delay cost 10M searches; a 1s Walmart delay cost 2% of purchases Ep 13 Progress-Framing Look-Back-vs-Forward Studies New/uncertain people motivated by progress made; committed people by progress left Ep 124 Pronin Illusion of Asymmetric Insight Study People read strangers' word choices as meaningful but dismiss their own Ep 203 Pronin Student Tutoring Time-Commitment Study Students committed 27 minutes for this term but 85 minutes for next term Ep 138, 178 Prussian Iron-Jewelry Status-Signal Case (1813) During Prussia's 1813 uprising against Napoleonic occupation, the royal family asked citizens to donate gold and silver jewelry to fund the... Ep 106 Pulling Back the Curtain Company Tour Study Company tours raised word-of-mouth intention 84% and purchase intention 32% Ep 108, 111, 135, 161, 166, 215 Purdue Pharma OxyContin Marketing Campaign Purdue Pharma — bought by Sackler brothers Raymond and Mortimer in 1952 as a small drug manufacturer, then rebuilt around prescription pa... Ep 236 Purdue University Book Age-Restriction Reactance Study An arbitrary "adults only" novel restriction raised interest even among readers already over the stated age Ep 271, 300 Purple Wi-Fi Terms-and-Conditions Stunt Case 22,000 people agreed to bizarre T&Cs terms without reading them for free Wi-Fi Ep 185 Putler Egg-Price Elasticity Study A 10% price rise cut egg demand 7.8%; an equal cut only raised it 3.3% Ep 52 Queen Elizabeth I Tilbury Speech Pratfall Case Naming a "weakness" then a strength produced one of history's most celebrated speeches Ep 174 Question-Framing vs Command Persuasion Study (1980s) Researchers in the 1980s presented senior students with an argument (for example, about climate change's effects on Arizona deserts) in o... Ep 254 Quoidbach Chocolate-Break Hedonic Adaptation Study A week off chocolate made the next piece taste better Ep 117, 131, 304 QWERTY Dvořák Keyboard Norm Case The QWERTY keyboard layout, now the near-universal default, wasn't designed for typing speed or efficiency — its letter arrangement arose... Ep 259 Racetrack Gambler Post-Bet Confidence Study Bettors grew more confident in their horse immediately after placing a bet Ep 9 Rackham 102-Negotiations Behavior Study Neil Rackham directly observed 48 professional negotiators — union representatives, managers, and contract negotiators — across 102 real ... Ep 223 Radiologist and Surgical-Kit Beneficiary-Contact Studies Meeting who your work affects raised diligence and cut errors 15% Ep 193 Raffia Alpert Range-Estimation Overconfidence Study Free to pick any range, participants were still wrong 40% of the time Ep 125 Raghubir Glass Height Perceived Volume Study Taller glasses made identical drink volumes feel like better value Ep 19 Raghunathan Healthy-vs-Unhealthy Lassi Taste Study A lassi believed "unhealthy" was rated 55% tastier than the same drink called "healthy" Ep 143, 236, 239, 263 Rai Sharif Chang Milkman Duckworth 2023 Crisis Text Line Subgoal Study Reframing a 200-hour annual volunteering goal into weekly/biweekly sub-goals raised volunteering ~8% Ep 305 Rain Dance Uncertainty-Control Case Cross-cultural rain dances function as communal reaffirmation under stress Ep 200 Rajecki 1974 Chick Prenatal-Exposure Study Chicks that heard music before hatching migrated toward it after birth — mere exposure in a non-human species Ep 119, 297 Ramadan Rilla Food-Waste Calendar Case A children's 30-day sticker calendar cut family Ramadan food waste 67% Ep 163 Rand Paul NSF Precision Case An absurdly precise dollar figure helped argue for a much larger budget cut Ep 202 Randy Olson Wedding-Guest-Count Divorce Study (2014) More wedding guests correlates with lower divorce rates — public commitment strengthens follow-through Ep 291 Ranganath Lockdown Time-Perception Poll While teaching remotely during COVID lockdowns, Charan Ranganath polled his own class of roughly 150-180 students with two questions, day... Ep 230 Rankings.io High-Price Positioning Publicly posting a $15k/month minimum price doubled average deal size Ep 27 Rao Chen Discount-Stacking Study "20% off, then 25% more" felt better than an equal single 40% discount Ep 180 Razran Luncheon Technique Study (1930s-40s) Political statements rated while eating a free lunch got higher approval, an early mood-transfer/liking demo Ep 276 Read Van Leeuwen Snack-Choice Projection-Bias Study A week-ahead healthy-snack choice was reliably less healthy in the actual moment, regardless of hunger state predicted Ep 280 Reagan 1980 'Better Off' Question Case Ahead of the 1980 US election, amid an economic downturn, Ronald Reagan closed a campaign message not with a declarative statement ("the... Ep 116 Real-Estate-Agent Labour Illusion Study An identical apartment list rated 36% higher when said to take nine hours by hand Ep 88, 114, 139, 161 Rectal Earache Medical Deference Case Nobody questioned a misread abbreviation because it came from a doctor Ep 11, 236 Recycling Sticker Foot-in-Door Donation Case Katelyn Bourgoin describes a charity campaign, believed to be about recycling, cited in Rory Sutherland's Alchemy: residents were first... Ep 82 Red Bull Vodka Confidence Study Believing a drink had Red Bull raised reported intoxication/confidence, all drinks identical Ep 41, 106 Red Dead Redemption 2 Horse-Detail Signaling Case Ahead of Red Dead Redemption 2's 2018 launch, Rockstar's marketing team knew most potential buyers wouldn't watch hours of gameplay footage... Ep 87 Reed Loewenstein Kalyanaraman Highbrow-Lowbrow Movie Study (1999) Choosing a film a week ahead skewed highbrow; choosing same-day skewed lowbrow Ep 291 Reflection Product-Attractiveness Studies Glossy product images raised attractiveness 17-32%, except for risky product categories Ep 173 Regan Coke and Raffle Ticket Study A free Coke first led to 5x more raffle tickets bought later Ep 2, 69, 137, 269 Relationship-Quality Mortality Studies Stronger social networks predicted lower mortality across many countries Ep 208 Republican Climate-Donation Patriotism Study Framing climate donations as patriotic raised Republican giving to climate causes Ep 187 Richard Chataway Call Center Consultancy Interventions Loss-frame scripting and a tested welfare program raised wellbeing 12%, retention 80% Ep 24 Richard Saunders Psychic-Prediction Failure Study Two decades of major world events, never once predicted by a psychic Ep 202 Richter Conditioned-Hope Rat-Swimming Study (1957) Conditioning rats to expect rescue raised survival-swimming time from 15 minutes to 60 hours Ep 289 Right-Hand Product-Position Ad Study A right-positioned peeler on a billboard tripled loyalty sign-ups Ep 173 Rime Negative-Experience Talk-Compulsion Studies People compulsively keep discussing negative experiences even when prompted otherwise Ep 62 Ringelmann Rope-Pulling Social-Loafing Study Each man pulled a rope less hard as part of a team than alone Ep 130, 258 Ritual-Marketing Ad Campaigns Oreo, Stella Artois, and Guinness ads turn plain consumption into ritual Ep 200 Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn eBay Significant Objects Study Invented backstories raised cheap objects' resale value 80x on eBay Ep 40, 244 Rock Around the Clock Exposure-Driven Hit Songs Case Three flop songs became huge hits after one lucky burst of exposure each Ep 167 Rock the Vote Reader-Perspective Study Writing from the reader's perspective, not the sender's, raised registration rates Ep 185 Rock-Paper-Scissors Win-Stay Study (2014) Chinese researchers had 360 students play rock-paper-scissors against each other 300 times each, recording which hand each player chose... Ep 83 Rodin Woman-in-Distress Bystander Study Men alone helped 70% of the time; men with a stranger helped only 40% Ep 36 Roediger Karpicke Testing-Effect Foreign-Word Study Cognitive psychologists Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke had students memorize foreign-language word pairs using one of two methods: r... Ep 234 Roediger McDermott DRM False-Memory Word-List Study Researchers read participants a list of words all closely associated with a single unstated concept — for example: fear, temper, hatred, ... Ep 232 Rolls-Royce New-Car-Smell Case Rolls-Royce owners in the UK who sent their cars for servicing or repair frequently reported the car came back feeling "brand new" — even... Ep 260 Romanian Orphanage Deprivation Studies Social deprivation, not physical neglect, caused largely irreversible brain effects Ep 78 Ronald McDonald House Halo-Awareness Case Ronald McDonald House, a charity supporting families of hospitalized children, is globally recognized — 95% awareness in one survey —... Ep 89 Rose Anagram Regret-Induction Study Participants solved anagrams, then were asked to reflect on and articulate what they regretted about their performance, before attempting... Ep 93 Rosser Reeves 'Springtime' Blind-Beggar Sign Case 1950s ad executive Rosser Reeves (who coined "unique selling proposition") encountered a blind beggar in Central Park whose cardboard sign... Ep 114 Rosset 2008 Intentionality Bias Study Psychologist Evelyn Rosset's study "It's No Accident: Our Bias for Intentional Explanations" (Psychological Science, 2008) had participan... Ep 218 Rossmo Pollock Wrongful-Conviction Confirmation-Bias Study US prisoners have collectively spent an estimated 30,000 years imprisoned for crimes they were later exonerated of. Ep 224 Roswell Repetition-Belief Study Repeating a false alien-landing claim three times over two weeks made people believe it Ep 171 Roth Robbert Straus 2015 Sunk-Cost Meta-Analysis Researchers Steffen Roth, Thomas Robbert, and Lucas Straus conducted a meta-analysis of 98 separate studies testing the sunk cost effect ... Ep 270 Rubinstein Yee Left-Digit Jam-Jar Study (2020) A jam jar at $2.99 was rated 15% cheaper than at $3.00 Ep 283 Rudiger Pohl 2004 Election-Exposure Study Rudiger Pohl conducted a statistical analysis of election voting patterns, examining the relationship between how much media exposure a... Ep 119 Ryan Cohen Eye-Tracking Change-Detection Study Researchers Jennifer Ryan and Neil Cohen used eye-tracking to record participants' eye movements as they repeatedly viewed a series of ph... Ep 250 Ryan Should-vs-Could Motivation Study (1982) "You could do X" produced more motivation than "you should do X," which reads as a command and triggers reactance Ep 271 Ryanair Cheap-Congruent-Branding Case Deliberately unpolished ads and jokes about no toilets reinforce Ryanair's "cheap" positioning Ep 172 Sah Loewenstein Cain Clinical-Trial Disclosure Study (2019) Disclosing a doctor's referral-fee conflict decreased trust but increased pressure to comply Ep 274 Sah Loewenstein Cain Ferry-Lottery Disclosure Study (2013) Disclosing a stranger's bonus interest in a worse lottery choice doubled uptake to 42% despite lower trust Ep 274 Sahni Email Name-Personalization Study (2018) Name-personalized email subject lines lifted opens 20%, leads 31%, and cut unsubscribes 17% Ep 280 Sainsbury's and BrandView Charm-Pricing Avoidance Study Sainsbury's used 9-endings in just 1.5% of prices, well below random chance Ep 57 Sainsbury's and Stoptober Habit-Disruption Campaigns Gorilla-suit habit-awareness campaign and Stoptober's social-proof + deadline combo Ep 3 Sainsbury's Smart Shop Confirmation-Bias Campaign A "be a smart cookie" campaign beat rational messaging, 13% above download forecast Ep 163 Salt Bae Scarcity Luxury-Restaurant Case Turkish chef Nusret Gökçe ("Salt Bae"), known for a viral salt-sprinkling gesture, opened a London restaurant charging extreme prices — a... Ep 117 San Francisco Donation Anchor Study "Someone already offered $400" more than doubled average charity donations Ep 178, 213 Santos Precise-Request Panhandling Study Asking for 17 cents beat asking for a quarter by breaking the passer-by's script Ep 138, 180, 182 Sarah Moore Profanity Review Study Profanity in 300,000 reviews made them read as more believable and likable Ep 119, 161, 176, 184, 218 Save the Children Anchoring-Backfire Study A high donation anchor raised gift size but discouraged some donors entirely Ep 144 Scent Marketing Melon and Dunkin Donuts Cases Two scent-marketing demonstrations cited via Charles Spence's *Sensehacking*. Ep 260 Schindler $20/$25 Charm-Pricing Study A $19.99/$24.99 gap felt much bigger than an identical $20/$25 gap Ep 33 Schindler Precise-Claim Believability Study A 47% claim was rated more believable and accurate than a round 50% claim Ep 138, 182, 213, 233 Scholl Hands-Free Phone Inattentional-Blindness Study Brian Scholl and his students at Yale used a variant of the invisible gorilla task to test whether a hands-free phone conversation — leav... Ep 222 School-Board Brevity Email Study A 49-word email beat a 127-word one nearly 2:1, despite 93% predicting the opposite Ep 177, 218, 233, 301 Schroeder 2007 Daily-Decisions Premature-Death Study A pie chart showing daily decisions as the largest cause of premature death redirected Milkman's career Ep 299 Schultz Schettino Contrasting-Leadership Crisis Cases Two real-world captains, each facing a sudden hole torn in their vessel. Ep 265 Schulz Emotion-Rating Relationship-Stability Study Untrained raters predicted 5-year couple breakups with 85% accuracy Ep 208 Schulz Empathetic-Effort Couples Study (2012) Perceived effort to understand mattered more than actually being accurate Ep 208 Science-Class Scientist-Framing Gender Study "Be scientists" raised boys' interest in science class but lowered girls' Ep 154 Scottish Nurses Control-Fatigue Study 100 nurses at a Scottish teaching hospital wore heart-rate monitors through their shifts and were prompted every 90 minutes to rate their... Ep 112 Search Engine Manipulation Effect Studies A candidate's search-result rank can shift swing voters up to 20% Ep 152 See Unit-Asking Ukraine Donation Study Behavioral economist Christopher See tested two ways of soliciting charitable donations for Ukrainian aid: asking donors directly for a c... Ep 214 Self-Chosen Lottery Ticket Endowment Study Self-chosen lottery numbers sold back for $8.67 vs $1.96 for pre-filled tickets Ep 139, 178, 247 Self-Control Longitudinal Development Study Self-control growth from ages 12-16 predicted happier relationships at 35 Ep 127 Seligman Rat Tumor-Control Study Rats were injected with a cancerous tumor carrying a 50% lethality rate, then placed in cages delivering 15 electric shocks per day. Ep 98 Serena Williams Wimbledon Placebo-Statistic Case (2015) A fabricated "80% win rate at net" stat changed her play until it became roughly true Ep 289 Serendipity 3 Extreme-Price Anchor Case A $214 grilled cheese anchors a $39 burger into looking reasonable Ep 172 Serwe Frings Wimbledon Recognition-Heuristic Study Ahead of a real Wimbledon men's singles tournament (128 players, 127 matches to predict), researchers compared several data-driven predic... Ep 229 Sevilla Townsend Space-to-Product Study More white space around a product nearly doubled sales in testing Ep 157, 173 Shadow-Heaviness Perception Study A strong shadow implied heaviness, helping bulk products and hurting portable ones Ep 173 Shakespeare Character-Information-Withholding Case Removing Hamlet's explained backstory was Shakespeare's real breakthrough Ep 123 Shapiro Logo-Placement Novelty Study Moving a familiar logo to an unusual spot raised brand preference 20% Ep 142 Shark-Cartilage Myth-Exposure Study Repeating a known-false health myth made people start believing it Ep 167 Sharman End-of-Life-Decision Memory Study Australian psychologist Stephanie Sharman and colleagues interviewed adults about their preferences for life-sustaining medical treatment... Ep 222 Sharot Documentary Memory-Conformity Study 70% conformed to a fabricated group answer; half kept the false memory for good Ep 165 Sharot Fasting-Londoners Food-Conformity Study 20% of hungry participants chose a food they'd said they disliked, once told it was popular Ep 165 Shaw Porter False-Crime-Memory Study Following the same basic design as the Loftus Lost-in-the-Mall Study — a trusted family member supplies real childhood events, researcher... Ep 232 Sheer and Sagarin Mild-Swear Persuasion Study Even mild swears like "damn" raised message conviction and memorability Ep 38, 184 Shen Fishbach Hsee 2015 Uncertain-Reward Study A worse-expected-value uncertain reward drove 70% task completion versus 43% for a certain reward Ep 83, 296 Sherif Autokinetic Effect Conformity Study Individuals adopted a group's judgment on an ambiguous, non-existent phenomenon Ep 25, 259 Sherman Volunteer-Prediction Consistency Study Predicting you'd volunteer raised real volunteering 700% Ep 207, 269 Shit London Guinness Negativity-Following Case A negativity-themed Instagram account has 10x the official brand account's following Ep 70 Shop Direct Scarcity and Social Proof Messaging Popularity/scarcity point-of-sale messages lifted conversion 2.7% (£14m) Ep 4 Shotton Aaron 2022 Sierra Nevada Per-Unit Pricing Study A per-bottle price breakdown ($1.58) made a 12-pack of beer seem better value than showing only the $18.99 total. Ep 270 Shotton and McLean Attribution Estimation Study People wrongly predict personality (not time pressure) determines helping behavior Ep 10 Shotton Beer-Label Distinctiveness Study A beer bottle that broke from its group's style was rated 5% higher Ep 148, 294 Shotton Charm Pricing Prevalence Decline Study Charm pricing fell from 30-60% of prices in 2003 to just 8% today Ep 33 Shotton Charm Pricing Survey .99-ending prices rated good value 9% more often than slightly higher round prices Ep 6 Shotton Coffee Blind-Tasting Joke Study Self-described coffee aficionados largely couldn't tell barista from instant Ep 136 Shotton Fast-Food Brand Recall Study The odd-one-out brand among 12 logos was remembered 4x more often Ep 76, 161, 217, 268, 294 Shotton Film Scarcity Study A stated closing date raised intent to watch a film by 36% Ep 8 Shotton Movie-Release Scarcity Study Naming a movie's last airing date made people 36% more likely to watch Ep 142 Shotton NHS GiveBlood Regional Targeting Campaign Regionally-tailored blood-donation ads improved cost per donation by 10% Ep 9, 10 Shotton O'Neill Black Sheep Vodka Effort Study Richard Shotton and Michael O'Neill showed 278 people an image of a beautifully designed fictional vodka bottle, "Black Sheep Vodka" (des... Ep 264 Shotton Payment Timeframe Framing Study The same cost shown daily was rated a "great deal" 5x more often than shown annually Ep 6, 180, 270 Shotton Pub Beer Social Proof Study A "best selling beer" sign doubled sales Ep 4, 217 Shotton Regional Energy-Tariff Targeting Study Regional framing more than doubled perceived value of an identical offer Ep 36 Shotton Trahan Brand Recall Generation-Effect Study 415-person replication: 92% brand recall generating vs 81% reading Ep 136, 162, 272 Should vs Could Creativity Study Asking what you "could" do beat "should" for creative problem-solving Ep 154 Sideways Merlot-Pinot-Noir Wine Sales Case A movie character's fictional wine snobbery shifted real US wine sales Ep 165 Silicon Valley Magic Number Activation Threshold Cases Slack's 2,000 messages, Facebook's 7 friends, Twitter's 30 follows predict retention Ep 49 Simester Card vs Cash Bidding Study Card-paying bidders bid roughly double what cash bidders offered Ep 6, 117 Simons Chabris Invisible Gorilla Basketball Study Dan Simons and Christopher Chabris, then running the study as a class project, showed participants a video of six people passing basketba... Ep 222 Simons Henderson Barr Illusory-Truth Study One prior reading raised a claim's believability rating for at least a month Ep 202, 236 Simons Levine Door-Swap Change-Blindness Study (1998) Half of passers-by didn't notice mid-conversation they'd swapped speakers Ep 210 Sinatra Paid-Screamer Fandom Case (1944) In 1944, Frank Sinatra's publicist George Evans auditioned young women specifically for scream volume, then paid the loudest $5 each (about... Ep 303 Sinek Start With Why Critique Case Simon Sinek's bestselling *Start With Why* argues that successful organizations, non-profits, and people share a clearly defined driving ... Ep 225 Singapore Taxi-Driver Walking Incentive Study Tying a step incentive to a genuinely painful lease cost beat an equal cash bonus Ep 175 Single-Goal Fixation Business-Decline Cases Three examples, cited by Dan Davies, of organizations damaging their core purpose by over-optimizing for a single measurable goal. Ep 255 Skinner Pigeon Superstition Study Pigeons fed on a random schedule invented their own private rituals anyway Ep 200 Skinner Pigeon Variable Reward Study Pigeons pecked more once rewards became unpredictable rather than guaranteed Ep 13 Skippy Peanut Butter Dimple Shrinkflation Case A 10% quiet volume cut raised revenue 10% with no price change Ep 42 Skittles Pride Black-and-White Packaging Campaign Monochrome Pride packaging sold out, hit a 3-month goal in 2 weeks Ep 18 Sky TV Daily-Cost Reframing Case "60p a day" convinced a holdout to buy Sky TV where "£17/month" hadn't Ep 64, 191 Slack Distraction-Free Workplace Culture Case Culture, not technology, is why Slack's own office isn't plagued by distraction Ep 14 Sleep Deprivation and Dishonesty Studies Under-slept employees lied more; one sleepless night doubled false confessions Ep 126 Sleep-Dependent Motor-Skill Consolidation Study A night's sleep improved a motor skill 20% in speed, 35% in accuracy; wakefulness didn't Ep 126 Slime-Mold Tokyo-Rail-Network Efficiency Study Researchers placed a blob of slime mold — a simple organism resembling a moving mass with no brain — at the entrance of a maze with food at... Ep 304 Slot-Machine Social-Dominance Anthropomorphism Study Gamblers were shown one of two otherwise-identical slot machines: a plain design, or a near-identical design with subtle facial features... Ep 115 Slovic Identifiable-Victim Donation Studies Donations fell as the number of people shown in need rose Ep 40, 76 Small-Fee and Question-Order Framing Studies Fee wording, question order, and party endorsement all flipped identical-fact agreement Ep 121 Small-Wins Weight-Loss Habit Study Small habit changes produced 2x the weight loss of one drastic change Ep 49 Smartphone Face-Down Memory Impairment Study An untouched, face-down phone's mere presence cut memory-task performance 11% Ep 66 SNCF Giant-Smartphone Departure-Board Case French train stations suffered crowding beneath departure-announcement screens, as travelers habitually clustered underneath them out of... Ep 100 Snickers 'You're Not You When You're Hungry' Trigger-Moment Campaign Snickers' "you're not you when you're hungry" campaign, showing exaggerated personality changes (irritability, weakness, hostility) cured... Ep 268 Snickers Ice Cream Anchor Study An implausible "18 bars" anchor still nearly doubled average purchases Ep 29, 188 Snoo Crib Effort-Backlash Case The Snoo is a high-tech crib that senses an infant's distress and automatically adjusts its rocking motion to help the baby (and, by exte... Ep 215 Snowbird One-Star-Review Ad A ski resort advertised its own genuine one-star review Ep 58, 161 Social Fitness and Regrets Study Elderly regrets centered overwhelmingly on neglected relationships Ep 208 Social Selling Cues Product View-Sales Count Study Showing "1,560 viewed this" raised buying intent 56% Ep 157, 162, 166, 249 Solar-Panel Visibility Social-Proof Study Seeing a neighbor's solar panels predicted a household's own adoption, independent of other factors Ep 297 Sold-Out Proportion Purchase-Behavior Study 10-30% of options marked sold out lifts sales; more than that backfires Ep 157 Song and Massage Pause-Enjoyment Studies Pausing a song or massage raised total enjoyment despite 99% predicting the opposite Ep 113, 171, 263 Sonos Life-Event Ad Targeting Campaign Targeting any life event (not a persona) lifted purchase intent 37%, search 424%, recall 52% Ep 3 Sony Walkman Bottled-Water Costly-Signal Case Sealing an MP3 player inside a water bottle proved it was waterproof Ep 151 Sound-Power Perception Cases Several demonstrations that a product's sound level directly shapes perceived speed, power, and effectiveness, independent of its actual ... Ep 260 Soviet Glass Factory Metric-Gaming Case Paying by weight made glass too thick; by area, too thin to survive shipping Ep 155 Space Cadets TV Conformity Hoax Case Three members of the public were convinced they had flown into space from Ipswich Ep 130 Sparkman Walton Dynamic Social Proof Study A "growing trend" framing beat a "static majority" framing of the same statistic Ep 76, 249 Special-Day Themed Promotion Studies Tying a discount to an invented "special day" nearly doubled email clicks Ep 169, 186 Specificity vs Vague Value-Proposition Study (2011) A 2011 study compared consumer response to specific versus vague product descriptions across multiple experiments, including a bundled-of... Ep 212 Specsavers Jumbled-Slogan Case Specsavers deliberately jumbled its own slogan to force active reader engagement Ep 188, 272 Spence Wang Cork vs Screw-Cap Wine Study Identical Malbec rated 10% better when the drinker opened the cork themselves Ep 136, 253, 300 Sport Club Recife Organ Donation Campaign Brazilian football club Sport Club Recife, known for its especially passionate fanbase, ran an organ-donation campaign built around fan i... Ep 244 Spotify Discover-Weekly Accidental-Mix Case A bug that mixed new and familiar songs made the playlist more popular Ep 142 Standing 10,000-Photograph Memory Study Participants were shown 10,000 photographs, one at a time. Ep 108 Stanford Airbnb AI-Detection Heuristic Study Researchers created a set of Airbnb-style listings, some with AI-generated images, reviews, and descriptions, others human-created, and a... Ep 257 Stanford Brain-Scanner Shopping-Pain Study Participants shopped from inside a brain scanner, viewing desirable products (e.g. Ep 117 Stanford Lemonade Time-vs-Money Framing Study "Spend a little time" outsold "spend a little money" framing at a lemonade stand Ep 121 Stanford Marshmallow Experiment and Failed Replication A 10x larger, more diverse replication found no delay-gratification/success link Ep 44 Stanford Prison Experiment Students given guard authority escalated to abusive behavior within days Ep 196 Stanford UC Davis Hollywood Pitch-Collaboration Study Researchers accompanied film producers into real Hollywood pitch meetings, recording and analyzing the pitches to identify what... Ep 116 Stanford UCSB First-Date Question-Asking Study Daters who asked more questions got better first impressions, more second dates Ep 163 Stanley Shotton Friendly-Owner Tax-Perception Study A friendly restaurant owner was judged 37% more likely to pay taxes on time than a sullen one Ep 276 Stapel Utrecht Train Station Fabrication Case A famous Science paper on littering and racial bias was entirely fabricated Ep 195 Star Wars Blindsight Novelty-Familiarity Case Star Wars combined a familiar hero's-journey template with a wholly new setting Ep 142 Starbucks App Channel-Loyalty Case Rory Sutherland cites Starbucks's mobile ordering app as a further example of interface change driving behavior change independent of sta... Ep 218 Starbucks Effect Name-Calling Bakery Study (2024) Bakery customers called by name were 37.5% more likely to recommend the shop than those called by order number Ep 280 Starbucks Nespresso Red Bull Premium-Pricing Cases Three brands won share by charging more, not less, than competitors Ep 172 Starbucks Order-Ahead Queue Wait-Time Case Waiting to order feels wasted; waiting for preparation feels like added value Ep 64, 191 Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte Scarcity Case Starbucks' Pumpkin Spice Latte, launched roughly 20 years ago, is a billion-dollar-a-year seller with a distinctive, powerful flavor. Ep 263 Start With No Yes-Momentum Negotiation Study Jim Camp's case that chasing early "yes" answers backfires versus allowing "no" Ep 181 Status Signal Compliance Studies Suit/logo status signals raised jaywalking-following, survey, and price compliance Ep 11, 89, 106 Staw 1975 Random-Feedback Narrative Study Organizational psychologist Barry Staw divided students into groups and gave every group identical fictitious financial data for a fictio... Ep 224, 259 Stephen Bradbury Olympic Pratfall Case The slowest skater in the field won gold by embracing his disadvantage Ep 70 Stern Fire-Alarm Story-Memory Study Psychologist Daniel Stern brought child participants into a room; during the session, a (staged) fire alarm went off and the children... Ep 108 Steve Jobs 'Sugar Water' Sculley Recruitment Case Steve Jobs wanted PepsiCo president John Sculley to leave his senior, secure role to run the four-year-old Apple. Ep 91 Steve Jobs Anchoring Tactics Cases A cluster of Anchoring & Contrast Effect applications across Steve Jobs's career, beyond the separately documented Steve Jobs iPad Price-... Ep 85, 110, 111, 217 Steve Jobs iPad Price-Reveal Anchoring Showing $1,000 before revealing $499 made the iPad's real price feel cheap Ep 18, 111, 217 Steve Jobs Sunk-Cost Persuasion Cases Three cases where Steve Jobs deliberately sank visible time or effort into pursuing someone else, using their awareness of his investment... Ep 110, 217 Steve Martin Red-Shirt Hitchhiker Study A red t-shirt roughly doubled a hitchhiker's pickup rate Ep 59 Steve Martin Social-Proof Email Backfire Studies Steve Martin found social proof performs reliably worse delivered electronically (email, blanket messaging) than delivered in person or i... Ep 214 Stevens Swearing Pain-Tolerance Studies Genuine swearing (not euphemisms) raised ice-water pain tolerance 33-50% Ep 38, 184 Stigliano Birthday-Email Reciprocity-Authority Case Joseph Stigliano, president of a bank with over 1,000 employees, personally emails every employee a short, personalized birthday message ... Ep 265 Stoate Wulf Lewthwaite Fabricated-Feedback Running-Efficiency Study (2012) False praise about running form measurably lowered runners' oxygen consumption at the same pace Ep 307 Stock Ticker Pronounceability Study Pronounceable tickers outperformed unpronounceable ones on the NYSE Ep 134 Stockholm Odenplan Piano-Stairs Case (2009) Overnight in 2009, technicians converted the ordinary staircase leading out of Stockholm's Odenplan metro station into a set of giant... Ep 100 Stockholm Speed Camera Lottery Case Rather than only punishing speeding drivers, an idea from Kevin Richardson erected a sign on a major Stockholm road that displayed each... Ep 83 Story-Opening-With-Change Examples Jaws, Spot, The Hunger Games, and Dickens all open on a moment of change Ep 123 Strack Pen-in-Teeth Facial Feedback Study Holding a pen to engage smiling muscles made a film seem funnier Ep 29 Stradivarius Blind Violin-Preference Test Elite (top-percentile) concert violinists, when asked their favorite violin, typically name classic prestige brands like Stradivarius. Ep 106 Strasbourg Dancing Mania Case (1518) ~400 people danced for weeks; some died of stroke or heart attack Ep 165 Strategic Umbrage Negotiation Study Deliberate, controlled anger as a negotiation tactic outperformed genuine anger Ep 181, 218 Strava Jockeys Singapore Case (2024) Runners-for-hire log into clients' Strava accounts to fake an impressive fitness feed Ep 293 Street Musician Tip-Jar Stooge Study A TV crew filming a segment on helping behavior recorded footage of commuters passing a street musician at a busy station entrance, initi... Ep 256 Streicher Estes Product-Grasping Choice Study (2016) Researchers tested whether physically holding one product affects a person's choice of a different, separately-seen product. Ep 247 Subway Wara Food Markets Business RCT Cases Two commercial examples of ordinary randomized controlled trials run inside real businesses, cited as evidence that RCTs aren't purely an... Ep 219 Successive-Contrast Candidate-Ordering Effect Candidates scored lower right after a strong candidate, higher after a weak one Ep 32 Suedfeld Bochner Matas Clothing-Similarity Petition Study (1971) At a 1971 anti-war demonstration, two female experimenters — one dressed in "hippie" clothing, the other in "straight" (conventional) clo... Ep 246 Suk Lee Lichtenstein Bar-Menu Price-Order Study (2012) Listing the priciest beer first raised bar revenue 4% over alphabetical ordering Ep 287 Sunderland Sleep-Deprivation Attractiveness Study Judges rated sleep-deprived faces as less attractive and less healthy Ep 126 Sunjin Dubois Slow-Motion Ad Costly-Signal Study Slow-motion Facebook ads made people pay 11% more for the same wine Ep 151, 228 Sunk-Cost Stuttering-Therapy Weight-Loss Study A pointless "therapy" produced more real weight loss the longer it lasted Ep 128 Sunny Day University Open House Study Weather on visit day predicted university enrollment better than any stated factor Ep 15 Sunny-Day Persuasion and Satisfaction Study A man complimenting women and asking for their phone number to arrange a date was tested on sunny versus cloudy mornings. Ep 92 Super Mario Onboarding Goal-Gradient Case Front-loaded quick wins and teach-through-doing drove the game's addictive onboarding Ep 248 Supermarket Wine and Music Study French/German music shifted matching-country wine sales ~3:1 Ep 1, 209, 260 Supreme Scarcity Logo-Markup Case A $5 Pyrex cup sold for $25 once branded and scarcity-dropped by Supreme Ep 172 Sussman Repeated-Purchase Spending-Reminder Study Reminding shoppers of future similar purchases reduced spending on the current one Ep 127 Sutherland Coerced-Choice Health-Outcome Studies Felt loss of control over major decisions predicted worse health outcomes Ep 140 Sutherland Handwritten-Letter House-Purchase Case Rory Sutherland describes a couple expecting triplets who wanted to buy a house in Chesterfield, but found no suitable properties actuall... Ep 215 Sutherland Shark-Attack and Stroke Risk-Misperception Examples Jaws cut beach swimming despite lower shark risk than driving; people rate stroke risk backwards vs. accidents Ep 272 Sutherland Starbucks Slow-Barista Case Rory Sutherland describes Starbucks discovering that baristas making multiple drinks at once in parallel — objectively faster, more effic... Ep 215 Sutter Health Nurse-Credentials Study Sutter Health, a Californian healthcare provider, changed how its diabetes nurses were introduced to patients — rather than introducing t... Ep 214 Suwelack Hogreve Hoyer Money-Back-Guarantee Study (2011) Money-back guarantees raise purchase intent and willingness to pay; stricter terms increase credibility Ep 283 Suzuki Hippocampus Associative-Learning Research Specific hippocampal neurons fire specifically during associative learning Ep 128 Swansea Job-Interview Mistake-Admission Study Admitting past mistakes raised hireability only for already-impressive candidates Ep 58 Swedish Lottery-Winner Happiness Study A team of Swedish researchers ran one of the largest studies to date on the long-term psychological effects of large lottery wins. Ep 97 Sweet Shop Free-Sample Purchase Study A free chocolate on entry made shoppers 42% more likely to buy Ep 137, 199, 265, 269 Swiss Children French Election Prediction Study Kids given seconds predicted a real election better than kids given more time Ep 15, 90 Swiss Energy Supplier Renewable Default Switch A renewable-only default lifted green-tariff uptake from 3% to 80-90% Ep 71 Sydney Fines and Copenhagen Litter Distinctiveness Interventions A red "PAY NOW" stamp cut late fines 14-17%; bright bins raised litter capture 45% Ep 5 Sylvan Goldman Shopping Trolley Conformity Campaign Paid actors pushing trolleys in 1937 made shoppers adopt them Ep 130 System1 Ad Wear-In-Not-Wear-Out Study 50 retested ads scored higher with age, not lower, contradicting "ad fatigue" Ep 161 T-Mobile Flash Mob Dance Ad Campaign Neuropsychological-goals ad raised T-Mobile sales 49%, ROI 146% Ep 19 TAC 'Australia's Deadliest Predator' Speeding Campaign Comparing a speeding car to sharks/snakes/spiders used availability bias to shift speeding-risk perception Ep 272 TAC Drunk-Driving Bloody-Idiot Campaign Graphic 1980s hospital-aftermath ad cut Victorian road deaths 37% in 12 months Ep 272 Tajfel Minimal-Group Tribalism Study Randomly, transparently assigned groups still favored their own members Ep 59 Tam O'Brien Scottish Tea Fraud Case A fake "Scotland's first tea grower" made £550k on borrowed prestige and country-of-origin halo Ep 285 Teasing Effect Curiosity Study (2018) A 2018 paper titled "The Teasing Effect" tested how withholding information about a brand or product — teasing it rather than revealing i... Ep 213 TED Mystery $10,000 Happiness Study A wealthy couple within the TED community, via TED's then-head Chris Anderson, offered to give away $10,000 each to hundreds of people... Ep 304 Telecoms App-Usage Personality Clustering Study App-usage clusters mapped cleanly onto conscientiousness, extroversion, neuroticism Ep 50 Telefonica/Carnegie Mellon Notification-Off Study A single day without notifications improved mood; half kept them off 2 years later Ep 21 Tennis Second-Serve Slowdown Study 99% of players hit second serves slower, out of loss-averse caution Ep 56 Terwiesch Wharton ChatGPT MBA Study (2023) Wharton School professor Christian Terwiesch tested ChatGPT (the GPT-3.5 model) on the core MBA operations-management exam used in Wharto... Ep 261 TfL WiFi Route-Choice Data Case The installation of WiFi routers across the London Underground gave Transport for London an unexpected byproduct: real data on which... Ep 84 Thaler Beer-on-the-Beach Willingness-to-Pay Study Identical beer's top price rose from $1.50 to $2.65 depending on venue framing Ep 42 Theranos Steve Jobs Halo Association Case The turtleneck, Jobs's ex-employees, and Apple's ad agency, all borrowed halo Ep 135 Theranos Website Labour-Illusion Case An exploded-view Edison diagram showing engineering effort that didn't work Ep 135 Thibodeau Boroditsky Crime-Metaphor Framing Study Online readers were shown an identical news account of a three-year rise in city crime, with one word changed: crime was described as... Ep 92 Third-Person Decision-Making Cancer Treatment Study Choosing a treatment for someone else beat choosing for yourself, 31% vs 40% wrong choice Ep 61 Thomas Reimann 2023 HR Bias-Blind-Spot Study Researchers Olga Thomas and Olaf Reimann studied 234 HR employees in Switzerland. Ep 266 Thorndike Officer Halo Effect Study Officers rated highly on one trait were rated highly on unrelated ones Ep 89, 111, 135, 217 Tidal Celebrity-Story Launch Failure Case Jay-Z launched the Tidal streaming service on stage with numerous millionaire musicians (Kanye West, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé), framing the... Ep 108 Tiger Woods Photoshopped-Salesman Liking Study A face secretly blended with Tiger Woods's was trusted more — until his scandal Ep 159 TikTok Disinformation Flagging Experiment Flagging likely disinformation cut its shares 24%, likes 7%, views 5% Ep 66 Time-Limited Online Promotion Justification Study Online countdown offers only work if justified or kept to ~24 hours Ep 168 Time-vs-Money Preference and Priming Studies Preferring time over money predicted higher life satisfaction regardless of amount held Ep 129 Tinder Blurred-Match Curiosity-Gap Case Tinder shows free users blurred, unrevealed images of people who have already liked their profile, only unblurring them if the user... Ep 102 Tired Driving and Daylight Saving Studies 19 hours awake impaired concentration as much as the legal drink-drive limit Ep 126 Toby Park Climate-Impact Misperception Study (2021) Toby Park and colleagues at the Behavioural Insights Team ran a 2021 study asking people to estimate the relative climate impact of vario... Ep 249 Todd Rogers Voter Turnout Commitment Study Forming a voting plan raised turnout 4.1-9.1% in the 2008 US election Ep 7, 9, 127 Toddler Picture-Condition Unity-Helping Study Toddlers shown a "unity" image (two figures shoulder-to-shoulder) helped a clumsy researcher 3x more than other conditions Ep 216 Todorov Election Face-Competence Study (2005) Alexander Todorov flashed photographs of real US election candidates to participants for a fraction of a second each, asking only which... Ep 90 Tokunaga 2010 Cyberbullying Induced-Hypocrisy Study Participants were shown an online anti-cyberbullying campaign explaining its harmful consequences, then asked to actively support the cam... Ep 266 Tony's Chocolonely Advent-Calendar Variable-Reward Case Tony's Chocolonely, a chocolate brand campaigning against slavery in the chocolate supply chain, sells bars deliberately broken into uneq... Ep 239 Too Good to Be True Rating Study 4.0-4.5 star products outsold both 4.5-5.0 and perfect 5.0 star products — a flawless rating reads as manipulated Ep 212 Tormala Geer Norton Candidate Potential Study "Potential" framing beat "achievement" framing for candidates and ads alike Ep 11, 103 Torre Steinmetz D'Cosa Bystander Food-Choice Study People chose healthier food when watched by out-group observers Ep 193 Touch Compliance Studies (Nightclub, Phone Number, Petition) Three studies on brief, incidental physical touch and compliance. Ep 103 Toyota Certified-Repair Authority Ad Case A long-running ad contrasts certified technicians with vividly bad uncertified tradespeople to build authority Ep 277 Toyota Prius vs Honda Hybrid Costly-Signal Case A distinctive shape let Prius owners broadcast values a twin-look Civic couldn't Ep 151 Trader Joe's and Walmart Greeter Friendliness Cases Both retailers deliberately hire/train for warmth at first customer contact Ep 276 Transparent Donation-Box Denomination-Anchoring Study A transparent charity donation box was filled, in one condition, with a large volume of coins; in another, with fewer, larger-denomination... Ep 87 Transport for Humans New-User Incentive Cases A cluster of small public-transport incentives cited by Pete Dyson as ways to overcome the "perceived sunk cost" of learning a new,... Ep 84 Trehan Shotton Concrete-Abstract Phrase Recall Study (2021) Researchers Mike Trehan and Richard Shotton tested recall of concrete phrases (easily visualized, like "fast car") against abstract phras... Ep 213, 239 Trinity Mirror New Day Newspaper Launch Failure A newspaper that tested well in research shut down after 3 months, £1m in losses Ep 26 Triplett Fishing-Reel Social-Facilitation Study (1898) Children wound a fishing reel faster with another child present — the founding social-facilitation study Ep 293 Tropicana Rebrand Failure A $35M rebrand cut sales 20% and was reverted within 6 weeks Ep 26 Troy Duhan Das Sustainability-Messaging Revenue Study Sustainability-labeled grocery products earned 6.4% more revenue Ep 170 Truancy Letter Simplification Study A 150-word 5th-grade letter cut absenteeism 40% more than a 350-word one Ep 134 Trump Vaccine Story vs Data Case An anecdote outcompeted settled scientific consensus in a live debate Ep 123 Turin Branded-Ingredient Halo Study A branded ingredient like Lindt chocolate raised demand for the whole product 40% Ep 149 Turnwald Indulgent-Vegetable-Naming Studies Researchers tested vegetable dish names in university dining halls, comparing a plain or health-focused name against an "indulgent" name ... Ep 249 Tversky Camera Extremeness-Aversion Study Adding a $399 camera nobody buys shifted choices 3:1 toward the $199 one Ep 138 Tversky Doctor Framing Survival-Mortality Study Surgery recommendations flipped 84%→50% between survival and mortality framing Ep 43 Twenge Pandemic Family-Meal Resilience Study Jean Twenge, tracking a 50-year longitudinal dataset on adolescent wellbeing, examined teenage resilience specifically during the first two... Ep 112 Twitter Character-Limit Expansion Backfire Doubling tweet length per user requests didn't raise usage, diluted the brand Ep 54 Two Buck Chuck Wine Origin-Story Study Identical cheap wine tasted better when said to be from Northern California vs. North Dakota Ep 41 UBC Cafeteria Veggie-Order Conformity Study (2018) Researchers observed students queuing at a small cafeteria offering only two lunch options, one meat and one vegetarian, recording what... Ep 304 UBC Traffic-Light Carbon-Menu Study Jiaying Zhao's lab added red/yellow/green carbon-footprint icons to menu items at UBC's largest dining hall — red for high-carbon dishes... Ep 304 Uber Finding-Riders Loading-Message Study A "finding other riders" status message cut booking cancellations 11% Ep 88, 166 Uber Surge Pricing Precision Study Riders accepted precise surge multipliers (1.9x/2.1x) more readily than round ones (2x) Ep 2, 138 Uber vs London Black Cab Ease-Tradeoff Case Riders flock to the easier option even when black cabs are cheaper and faster Ep 134 UC Berkeley Incongruous-Word Brain-Activity Study An out-of-place word in a sentence spiked brain activity Ep 59 UCLA Social-Exclusion fMRI Study Group exclusion activated the same brain regions as physical pain Ep 73 UCLA Vaccine Common-Ground Study Starting from shared values shifted vaccine-hesitant participants more than facts did Ep 187 UK A-Level Appeals-System Bias Case UK A-level exams (taken by 17-18 year-olds, and the primary basis for university admission) are, individually, designed to be unbiased — ... Ep 255 UK Antibiotic-Prescribing Social-Norm Letter Study A peer-comparison letter cut prescribing as much as a financial incentive scheme Ep 43 UK Blood Service O-Type Blanked-Letters Campaign Removing every "O" from a blood-shortage ad forced readers to actively fill the gap themselves Ep 272 UK Divorce Service Price-Hiding Case Removing a detailed court-fees calculator produced a sustained revenue jump Ep 27 UK FCA Pension Switching Loss-Frame Study Loss-framed pension messaging raised shopping-around by 8-27% Ep 25 UK Government COVID Messaging Framing Shift UK slogans shifted from individual-risk framing to protecting-others framing Ep 28 UK Résumé Name Discrimination Field Studies Non-Anglo names needed 50-75% more CVs sent for equal callback rates Ep 32 UK Sugar Tax Reformulation Case Taxing producers by sugar content got 15% of the market to reformulate Ep 43 UK Tax Rate Charm-Pricing Case A 39.9% top tax rate would feel better than 40%, per charm-pricing logic Ep 179 Unbounce Demo-Timeslot Reduction Case Software company Unbounce offered prospective customers a free-demo signup page with four available time slots, on the reasoning that mor... Ep 240 Unbounce Landing-Page-Builder IKEA Effect Case Free self-build landing pages raised perceived product value immediately Ep 31 Uncapher Media-Multitasking Memory Study Cognitive neuroscientist Melina Uncapher and colleagues studied "media multitasking" — regularly toggling attention between multiple medi... Ep 230 Uncertainty-Engagement Studies Unresolved uncertainty (HIV waits, TV show Lost) sustains attention and anxiety Ep 164 Unity-Themed Ad Slogans Cases A collection of real-world ad slogans Bas Wouters cites as commercial applications of Unity (Cialdini's Seventh Principle) — language tha... Ep 216 University Binge-Drinking Norm-Backfire Case A British university, alarmed to find its average student drank around six pints on a typical night out — well above recommended limits —... Ep 256 University Drinking Norm Negative Social Proof Study Publicizing the average student drinking rate increased drinking Ep 24 University of Arizona Binge-Drinking Dynamic-Norm Campaign Rather than publicizing the health risks of excessive drinking, University of Arizona researcher Corinne Johanson ran ads in the student ... Ep 246 University of Georgia Art-Cutlery Luxury-Perception Study (2008) Researchers at the University of Georgia had participants evaluate a set of cutlery, varying only whether a piece of artwork was displaye... Ep 253 Upside of Down Price-Position Study A price shown below the product read as 9% cheaper than the same price above it Ep 157 Uri's Tattooed Accountant Costly-Signal Case An accountant buys biker gear freely, but will never get the tattoo Ep 151 US Five-a-Day Attitude Campaign vs No Behavior Change Attitude belief quadrupled (8%→35%) while actual eating behavior didn't move Ep 20 US Military Coffin-Image Ban Case For 18 years, US media were prohibited from publishing images of American soldiers' coffins returning from war, until Defense Secretary... Ep 108 US Olympic Basketball Dream Team Case After professionals were first allowed to compete in Olympic basketball in 1992, the US assembled the "Dream Team" (Michael Jordan, Magic... Ep 259 USS Greeneville Periscope Collision Case On February 9, 2001, the US Navy submarine USS *Greeneville*, performing a routine emergency-surface demonstration for civilian visitors ... Ep 222 Utilities Insurer Psychographic Segmentation Campaign Personality-segmented ad creative cut cost per acquisition by ~$30 Ep 50 Vacation Happiness Peak and Anticipation Studies Vacation happiness peaked at 43 hours in; the day before a trip beat every day of it Ep 113, 171 Van Bommel Online-Forum Bystander Study The bystander effect replicated (and reversed) in an online forum Ep 36 Van Boven Dunning Loewenstein Mug Empathy-Gap Study (2000) Mug buyers and sellers each mispredicted the other side's price, alongside the endowment effect itself Ep 280 Van Boven Gilovich Experiential-Purchase Happiness Study Researchers Leaf Van Boven and Thomas Gilovich asked 97 undergraduate students at the University of British Columbia to recall a recent p... Ep 241 Van der Meulen Dutch Frequency-Illusion Study (2020/2022) A 1925 style guide's "common word" claim was backwards by a 909-to-8 margin, exposing its author's own frequency illusion Ep 280 Van der Weele Schwardmann Overconfidence-Signaling Study Economists Joel van der Weele and Peter Schwardmann gave participants an intelligence test and asked them to estimate their own score bot... Ep 227 Van Edwards TED Talk Hand Gesture Study Top TED talks used nearly double the hand gestures of average talks Ep 12 Van Halen Brown M&M Clause Signaling Case Touring with complex lighting/audio rigs assembled by unfamiliar local stadium crews each night, Van Halen needed a fast way to gauge... Ep 87 Vance Packard Indiana Cheese-Sample Case Free cheese samples sold 1,000 pounds of cheese in three hours Ep 199 Varghese Dental-Students Error-Driven Learning Trial 74 undergraduate dental students learning atraumatic restorative treatment (a dental procedure) were randomly split into two groups of 37... Ep 234 Velcro-Tied Couples Novelty Relationship Study Couples doing a novel physical task reported greater relationship satisfaction Ep 131, 162 Vickery Subliminal-Cinema-Ad Hoax The 1950s "subliminal popcorn ad" that boosted sales was entirely fabricated Ep 143 Video Game Branded-Object Encoding Case Actively-engaged media encoded branded objects more deeply than passive ads Ep 39 Vienna Pay-What-You-Want Envelope Study Diners paid more when no one could see what they'd paid Ep 151 Vietnam Rat-Tail Bounty Gaming Case A bounty on rat tails led residents to farm rats rather than kill them Ep 155 Virenque Tour de France Saltwater Placebo Case (1997) A saline injection believed to be a real drug preceded the best time trial of a cyclist's career Ep 298 Virginia Summer Text-Message Brevity Study A 20-word text beat an already-short 36-word text by 6% response rate Ep 177 Vogue Brand-Proximity Aspirational-Pricing Study Published as "To Be In Vogue: How Mere Proximity to High-Status Neighbors Affects Aspirational Pricing in the US Fashion Industry."... Ep 89 Volkswagen Dieselgate Hypocrisy Case Through the early 2010s Volkswagen ran an extensive marketing campaign proactively promoting its environmental credentials ("on our way t... Ep 262 Von Restorff Distinctiveness Studies 1933 and 2016 studies show a single distinctive item is recalled far more often Ep 5, 161, 217, 268, 294 Voss Bank-Robbery Mirroring Case Chris Voss defused a real bank robbery in progress using verbal mirroring Ep 182 VW Beetle Ugly-Ad Campaign Mocking the Beetle's own flaws became AdAge's best campaign of the century Ep 58, 174 Wadhwa Zhang Hedonic-Utilitarian Rounded-Price Study (2015) Rounded prices preferred for hedonic purchases, non-rounded for utilitarian ones Ep 283 Waggle Dance Explore-Exploit Case 20% of foraging bees ignore the waggle dance and explore randomly instead Ep 189 Wagner Lutz Weitz 2009 Powermart Order-Effect Study Researchers Tillmann Wagner, Richard Lutz, and Barton Weitz created a fictional electronics retailer, "Powermart," and told participants ... Ep 262 Wagner Placebo Analgesic-Cream fMRI Study (2004) An inert "analgesic cream" halved reported pain and measurably reduced pain-region brain activity Ep 289 Walker All-Nighter Learning-Impairment MRI Study An all-nighter made new learning 40% worse, even after recovery sleep Ep 128 Walton Banaji Coke-Drinker Self-Perception Study Writing "I'm a Coke drinker" five times made people like Coke more Ep 154, 158 Wansink Canteen Choice Architecture Study Salad-bar placement, opaque lids, and reach nearly tripled salad sales Ep 20 Wansink Kent Hoch Multi-Unit Pricing Study (1998) Framing a discount as a 6-unit bundle price raised sales 32% over an equivalent per-unit price Ep 287 Wansink Menu-Name Framing Study Renaming dishes more appetizingly raised sales 27% with no product change Ep 121 Wansink Supermarket Soup Purchase-Limit Study A stated 12-can purchase limit nearly doubled average soup purchases Ep 8, 25, 180 Wansink van Ittersum Wine-Label Restaurant Study (2007) Diners at a restaurant in Illinois were given a free glass of wine to accompany their meal. Ep 253 Warmth in Terrorist Interrogations Study Respectful interrogators got fewer stonewalling responses than accusatorial ones Ep 12 Warmth Workplace and Service Studies Warmer tone cut malpractice suits, raised tips, and raised workplace-help compliance to 79% Ep 12 Watson Crick DNA Double-Helix Myth Case The popular account of DNA's double-helix discovery, largely shaped by James Watson's own bestselling memoir (later adapted into a film),... Ep 258 Watts Music-Lab Social-Influence Study Early ratings snowballed into runaway hits, purely from visible peer scores Ep 146, 167, 303 Wave Apps Website-Scraping Personalization Case Wave Apps, an invoicing tool aimed at entrepreneurs switching from generic tools like Microsoft Word or Excel, asks new users for their w... Ep 248 Wave Invoicing App Branded Onboarding Case Auto-branded invoice previews built trust as a keystone onboarding habit Ep 49 Wealth and Time-Pressure Studies Cross-country surveys (Germany, Korea, and others) found wealthier individuals report feeling more rushed and time-pressured day-to-day,... Ep 117 Wealth-Priming Isolation Studies Three related findings on money and social isolation. Ep 117 Wells 2000 Office-Personalization Study Employees with meaningful control over personalizing their workspace reported higher job satisfaction Ep 297 West Cafeteria-Food Reactance/Scarcity Study (1975) Told their cafeteria would close for 2 weeks, students rated the unchanged food 30% more positively Ep 277 Westerholm 2017 Swear-Word Advertising Study Jim Westerholm showed 54 participants three versions of an insurance/coffee/energy-drink ad set: a strong-swear ad for Esure insurance ("... Ep 218 Westminster Litter-Bin Biophilia and 'Monster Bin' Case Westminster's communal bin areas suffered chronic side-of-bin bag-dumping (attracting foxes/rodents), despite the council already trying... Ep 100 Wetherspoons Reactance-Driven Naming Case A pub chain is named after the teacher who said its founder would amount to nothing Ep 140 When More Seems Like Less Price-Difference Study (2019) Showing a price difference as a lump sum, not a percentage, made a premium upgrade feel like better value Ep 212 Which Shrinkflation Survey and Product Examples 77% of shoppers noticed shrinkflation but kept buying shrunk products anyway Ep 210 Which? Black Friday Discount Myth Study Only 4 of 83 tracked items were actually cheapest on Black Friday Ep 18, 159 Whillans Time-Saving-Purchase Happiness Study People who buy time-saving services are happier, but few do it even when able Ep 131 White Coca-Cola Can Taste-Perception Case In November 2011, Coca-Cola released a limited-edition white version of its can, replacing the brand's iconic red, to raise awareness for... Ep 260 White Fishbein Rutstein Arousal-Misattribution Study (1981) Physiological arousal from running or a frightening recording raised rated attractiveness of an unrelated woman Ep 278 White-Space Logo Brand-Attitude Study Added logo white space raised brand attitude 2-7 points, except for rugged brands Ep 173 Who Wants to Be a Millionaire Loss-Aversion Pitch Case When Who Wants to Be a Millionaire was first pitched to UK broadcasters, every one turned it down — no broadcaster believed a game show... Ep 82 Wiessner Bushmen Campfire Storytelling Study Isolated Kalahari Bushmen spent 81% of campfire time telling stories Ep 244 Wikipedia Awards Retention Study Purely symbolic editor awards raised newcomer retention 20% Ep 175 Wikipedia Editor Recognition Coupling Study Small symbolic recognition raised editor retention 20% at one month, 13% at one year Ep 127 Wild Pig Foot-in-the-Door Trapping Case Wild pigs are trapped the same way people are: one small step at a time Ep 152 Williams Bargh Warm-Coffee Study A tripled-sample replication found no warm-coffee personality-warmth effect Ep 202 Williams Bourgeois Croyle 1993 Stolen-Thunder Study Researchers Kipling Williams, Martin Bourgeois, and Robert Croyle recruited 257 participants and had each read one of three versions of a... Ep 264 Wilson 1968 Cambridge Height-Perception Study The same man was judged progressively taller as his stated academic status rose from student to professor Ep 277 Wilson Power-Saw Noise Misattribution Study Psychologist Timothy Wilson had college students watch a film while a power saw operated intermittently in a room outside; partway throug... Ep 252 Window Tax and Amsterdam Canal-House Tax Cases A tax on windows and house-width literally reshaped two nations' architecture Ep 155 Windsor Castle Chatbot Assassination-Encouragement Case An AI companion chatbot encouraged a plot to assassinate a royal Ep 197 Wine-Expert Dampened-Enjoyment Study Trained wine experts experience wine less intensely than untrained novices Ep 176 Winter Games Presentation Peak-End Case Moving a course pitch to a talk's end drove a record 24-hour signup spike Ep 68 Wirtsch Cookie Jar Scarcity Study Scarce cookies rated tastier; adding a popularity reason raised willingness to pay 43% Ep 8, 159, 186, 277 Wiseman ATM and Supermarket Honesty Studies Two-thirds kept an ATM's mistaken £10; nearly all kept mistaken supermarket change even when challenged Ep 290 Wiseman Baby-Photo Wallet-Return Study Wallets with a baby photo inside were returned 35% of the time, far ahead of other photo types Ep 288 Wiseman Criminal-Stereotype Jury-Bias Study Identical mock-trial evidence produced 40% convictions for an "unattractive" defendant vs 29% for an "attractive" one Ep 290 Wiseman LaughLab World's-Funniest-Joke Study (1999-2000) A year-long global joke-rating project found no joke was funny to more than 55% of respondents Ep 292 Wiseman Litter Payment Self-Perception Study Paid £10 to litter-pick rated enjoyment 2/10; paid £2 rated it 8.5/10 for the identical task Ep 288 Wiseman Milgram Small-World UK Replication A UK parcel-passing replication reached the target in an average of 4 steps; 38% never forwarded it at all Ep 290 Wiseman Milk-Drop Favor-Request Case A shop assistant who visibly fumbled got more help and higher likability ratings from a real customer Ep 288 Wiseman Placebo-Alcohol Red-Blue Badge Study Bar patrons unknowingly served non-alcoholic drinks still showed alcohol-like impairment Ep 292 Wiseman Pupil-Dilation Book-Cover Study Male buyers unknowingly favored a book cover with digitally enlarged pupils Ep 290 Wiseman Robin Day Megalab Truth Test (1995) TV viewers spotted a lie at chance level (51.8%); radio listeners did far better (73.4%) Ep 290 Wiseman Shopping-Centre Pratfall Replication A live shopping-centre replication of Aronson's pratfall study, ~60 years later Ep 288 Wiseman Speed-Dating Pizza-Topping Study An open, unusual opening question ("what pizza topping would you be?") beat generic lines Ep 288 Wiseman Wine-Tasting Price-Blind Study Festival-goers, including professional tasters, couldn't reliably tell cheap wine from expensive by taste Ep 292 Withheld-Rating Attractiveness Study Men who withheld their rating of a woman got more dates than those who disclosed it Ep 102, 121, 123 Wolff Race-Disparagement Humor Study (1934) Each group rated jokes disparaging the other group funnier — founding evidence for superiority theory Ep 292 Wood Brooks Question-Asking Liking Study Alison Wood Brooks studied how question-asking behaviour during a getting-to-know-you conversation affects how much conversational partners... Ep 90, 96 Woodzicka LaFrance Real-vs-Imagined Harassment Study (2001) Women imagining a harassing interview predicted anger and walking out; women in the real interview felt fear and complied Ep 274 Woolley Carnegie Mellon Collective-Intelligence Study Researchers led by Anita Woolley measured groups on nearly every individual trait previously hypothesized to predict team performance — B... Ep 259 Woolley Fishbach 2016 Classroom Worksheet Temptation-Bundling Study Music, snacks, and markers alongside a math worksheet raised completion vs. a distraction-free room Ep 305 Word-of-Mouth Explain-vs-Describe Restaurant Study Explaining a dining experience dampened it, whether it was good or bad Ep 176 Wordle Viral Growth Case Social proof, IKEA effect, distinctiveness, and scarcity compounded into a global habit Ep 76 Workplace Cohesion Ritual Case Studies "Crisp Thursday" and hospital theatre games built team cohesion at zero budget Ep 21 Workplace Ritual Trust-Game Study A week of shared daily ritual made groups 20% more trusting of each other Ep 200 World's Deepest Bin Curiosity Study A public park in Stockholm had a litter problem, with an ordinary trash bin collecting about 65 pounds of litter on average. Ep 243 Wouters This-Word Headline Curiosity Test Bas Wouters tested two headlines for a blog post: a plainly-stated control, "the way of working is changing drastically," against a varia... Ep 243 WRAP Bread-Freezing Packaging Case UK charity WRAP identified that ~410,000 tonnes of bread (≈20 million slices/day) are wasted yearly. Ep 100 Wu Paluck 2022 High-Involvement Meeting Study Researcher Sherry Wu of UCLA randomly assigned work groups within an organization to one of two conditions for their existing 20-minute w... Ep 267 Wuchty Jones Uzzi Team-Science Study (2007) Researchers analyzed 19.8 million research articles and 2.1 million patents across nearly every academic and inventive discipline, compar... Ep 258 WWII Bomber Survivorship Bias Analysis Reinforcing where bombers weren't hit, not where they were, since hits there proved fatal Ep 45 WWII Japan-Jews Unity-Persuasion Case "We are all Asian, just like you" reframed Japanese officers' in-group identity, saving Japan's Jewish community from Nazi deportation Ep 216 Xerox Copy-Machine Because-Word Study The word "because" raised compliance 50% even with a meaningless reason Ep 108, 154, 240, 285 Xu Genisi 2010 Gift Voucher Expiry Study Researchers Xu and Genisi gave participants a $6 gift voucher for free coffee and cake at a local cafe, randomly assigning one of two exp... Ep 263 Xygalatas Mauritius Ritual-Donation Study Researcher Dimitris Xygalatas and colleagues studied donation behavior at the Thaipusam Hindu festival in Mauritius, where some participa... Ep 237 Yaacov Calorie-Target What-the-Hell-Effect Study Missing a calorie target by a few calories triggered much larger overeating Ep 124 Yahoo and IBM Skunk-Works Innovation Cases A small team physically separated from HQ let two giants build something new Ep 150 Yahoo Mood and Receptivity Diary Study Upbeat mood raised receptivity to app triggers by 24% Ep 13 Yamagishi Denominator-Neglect Study Identical death rates felt riskier expressed as "1,286 out of 10,000" Ep 202 Yang Dollar Sign Menu Study Removing the $ sign from menu prices raised spend by 6% Ep 6 Yang Menu Eye-Tracking Study Diners scan menus like a book, then jump straight to entrées Ep 6 Yang Pathological-Liar Brain-Structure Study 12 of 108 job seekers were pathological liars, with measurably different brains Ep 133 Yang TikTok Time-Distortion Study Researchers split 62 college students into two groups: one watched TikTok for 15 minutes, the other read for 15 minutes. Ep 241 Yeh Parachute Satire Paper A satirical BMJ paper "proved" parachutes don't prevent injury — from a stationary plane Ep 144 Yeltsin Texas Supermarket Peak-End Case An unplanned supermarket visit reportedly shook Yeltsin's faith in communism Ep 68 Yi and Li Free-Gift vs Bundle Returns Study Framing the second item as a free gift halved returns for identical offers Ep 137 Yoeli California Energy Public Commitment Study Public sign-up tripled participation in a costly energy program vs. anonymous sign-up Ep 12 Yoon Simonson Choice-Set-Configuration Study (2008) Researchers Sung-Joon Yoon and Itamar Simonson tested how people evaluated products (including lawnmowers, food processors, cars, and pen... Ep 253 Young Steve Jobs Early Persuasion Tactics Cases A cluster of early-life anecdotes Phill Agnew cites as evidence Steve Jobs intuitively used persuasion tactics well before Apple existed. Ep 110, 217 Zajonc Turkish-Words Michigan Ad-Exposure Study Students preferred unfamiliar words they'd been passively exposed to via ads Ep 196, 276 Zak BBDO 18-Ad Sales-Prediction Study Skeptical of Paul Zak's immersion measurement claims, global ad agency BBDO sent his team 18 already-released ads across six brands (thre... Ep 251 Zak Emotional-Video Oxytocin Donation Study Paul Zak and colleague Jorge Barraza showed 145 adults one of two videos featuring the same father and his two-year-old son, Ben: one an ... Ep 251 Zak Life-Insurance Email Immersion Study An American life insurance company asked Paul Zak's team to identify what might persuade lapsed policyholders (often people between jobs)... Ep 251 Zak Luxury-Retailer Salesperson-Immersion Study A high-end French luxury retailer asked Paul Zak's team to help explain why roughly 80% of its sales came from just 20% of its sales staff. Ep 251 Zak Oxytocin Nasal-Spray Donation Study Paul Zak's team sprayed synthetic oxytocin into participants' sinuses (enough crosses the blood-brain barrier after about 45 minutes to a... Ep 251 Zak Super Bowl Immersion vs Likability Study Paul Zak measured "neurologic immersion" in 35 participants watching Super Bowl ads (2014, later repeated for subsequent years including ... Ep 251 ZAL Neck-Pillow Jargon Study A meaningless made-up word made an identical product seem worse and pricier Ep 149 Zambia Condom Public-Chart Study A public sales chart outsold a 90% commission two-to-one Ep 43 Zane Ethical-Other Denigration Study Willfully-ignorant shoppers rated a more ethically-informed peer as less smart, less attractive Ep 170 Zane Production-Enjoyment Field Studies Sellers signaling enjoyment raised buyer interest, most for high-skill work Ep 204 Zane Unethical-Amnesia Memory Studies Consumers recalled and recognized unethical product info worse than ethical info Ep 170 Zappos Pay-to-Quit Offer $2,000 to quit after training cheaply self-selects out uncommitted hires Ep 49 Zelensky Skin-in-the-Game Perception Shift Case From joke candidate to admired leader, tracking his visible personal risk Ep 139 Zhang Allard Bagchi 2025 Token-Effort Coupon Study Requiring a coupon code or short form to unlock a discount raised purchase likelihood 59-154% Ep 300 Zhang and Zacon Group Humor Study The same ad was rated funnier watched in a group than watched alone Ep 10 Zhang Fishbach 2007 Tomato Cancer-Claim Dilution Study Researchers Ying Zhang and Ayelet Fishbach split participants into two groups. Ep 263, 301 Zhao Doom-and-Gloom Climate-Messaging Study Researchers recruited 59,000 adults across 63 countries and randomly assigned them to different climate-messaging interventions, including... Ep 304 Ziva Kunda Caffeine Motivated-Reasoning Study Heavy coffee drinkers rejected an expert warning that conflicted with their habit Ep 196 Zoe Chance Toddler-Toy Autonomy Study Giving toddlers a sense of choice, not just compliance, changed their behavior Ep 182 Zohran Mamdani Campaign Persuasion Case Zohran Mamdani, a relatively unknown 33-year-old democratic socialist New York state assemblyman, defeated longtime establishment figure ... Ep 254