How We Decide, a Study of the Brain

It snowed yesterday morning, which meant it took twice as long as usual to get to work. While I was inching down the freeway in Utah County, I heard the most FASCINATING report on NPR that I think everyone should know about.

Here's the scoop. A marketing professor at Stanford had each person participating in the study commit a number to memory. Some of the people were given two digit numbers, and some seven digit numbers.

(If you remember from psych 101, there are several famous studies which concluded that 7 digits is all we can store in our short term memory--which is why phone numbers are "rememberable", except that now we have 10 digits in Utah!)

Back to the study. The person was to commit the number to memory and then deliver that number to a person in a room down the hall.

While walking down the hall, each person was presented with a snack, as a thanks for participating in the study. A piece of chocolate cake, or a healthy bowl of fruit.

Those who were given the seven digit number were TWICE as likely to choose the cake! That's not just barely statistically significant, that's overwhelmingly significant.

The theory: the rational part of our brains are constantly at war with the emotional parts. When we fill up valuable cognitive space in our rational side, our emotional side is quick to take over.

I can only imagine the marketing implications...