Insights Good and Bad

Back in the early 90s one of the most pervasive sources of misinformation weaved its way into mass media, one that is still widely believed today despite numerous revisions and an updated scientific consensus.

The source in question is the USDA food pyramid, introduced in 1992 and the first of its kind to not only separate food into common groups, but also recommend daily servings of each.

Changing Minds

When it comes to influencing people to pick up a habit or start a new behaviour, it helps to consider how they think about existing habits. The best framework for exploring this is Sherif’s Social Judgment Theory.

An important component of this model is the Latitudes of Acceptance; a theory of how people respond to information that either confirms or denies long-held beliefs.

Me, Myself, and Brands

Around fifteen years ago, the Truman Show hit cinemas; a film about a guy whose entire life was a reality TV show manufactured by an executive board and broadcast 24/7.

Since then, in the US and UK alone, psychiatrists have documented over 40 cases of those suffering from the belief that they are in fact the centre of such a reality TV show, and that every action they take is being monitored by hidden cameras that secretly broadcast them to millions across the globe.

The frequency of such cases was enough to give the condition a name: the Truman Show delusion. The question is, why the hell did this happen?

Disprove Yourself

For all the talk on how marketing is as far removed from science as a discipline can be, marketing and advertising progress and evolve in much the same way as any field of science. Falsifiability.

I’m coming up to the ‘one year’ mark of being a planner, so I thought I’d impart as much wisdom as a 22-year-old psych grad can ever hope to, and talk about being wrong.