communication

How to Depolarize Ourselves: Communication and Understanding Across Cultures

The world is becoming increasingly polarized, as is seen through evidence of “us” versus “them” mindsets. Divisions have evolved into partisanship across groups, highlighting the need to understand how we differ culturally and across groups, why we are becoming more polarized, and how we can begin to reduce the impact of these divides. Cross-cultural and other models provide insight into how individuals differ across groups, and how we can reconnect with those around us.

Tell Me Why! Explanations for Ambiguity in Health Decision Making Affect Treatment Choice

Medical treatment decisions are often rife with ambiguity. Exact probabilities for things like side effects or treatment success rates are frequently unknown. But why is this important? Because decision making research has shown that ambiguity can systematically alter the choices people make. We investigated how providing different explanations for the ambiguity in a treatment decision context affected willingness to adopt a treatment with an ambiguously described success rate. When the explanations involved elements that the person was knowledgeable about or could control, people were more interested in an ambiguous treatment.

The Budgeting App Trap: When Spending Information Backfires

Do budgeting apps always improve consumers' financial decisions? Contrary to common beliefs, the use of budget apps can increase spending, especially at the end of the budget period. The authors of this article propose five interventions to mitigate the acceleration of spending and help FinTech apps better serve consumers' financial needs.

Stop Chasing the Past: Improving Investment Decisions with Social Disclaimers

Mutual funds cannot consistently return better-than-average performance. Yet investors often pick their mutual funds based on past performance. Researchers Leonardo Weiss-Cohen, Philip Newall and Peter Ayton conducted a long-term Think Forward Initiative research project that sought to answer how their investment decisions could be improved.

The Battle for Consumers Is Often about Beliefs, Not Consumer Experience

Marketers increasingly mold their work around the customer experience. They manufacture rich, immersive interactions, carefully crafted to resonate with consumers. A 1998 Harvard Business Review article on the ‘experience economy’ noted that “experiences are a distinct economic offering.” Quite simply, the argument runs that delightful customer experiences add value and build loyalty. And yet many companies find that objective improvements to products and services, which are central to experience, don’t translate into customers or revenue. The fact is, renovating experience is insufficient, because how we perceive an experience depends deeply on our beliefs and intuitions.

Three Surprising Ways Language Affects Net Worth

It is no secret that the way we speak to others has a strong impact on how we are perceived, and how successful our interactions will be. The lesson from cognitive science is this: When it comes to money, the way we speak to ourselves is equally important.

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