The things that touch you influence you more than you know.
When
you are deciding who to hire for a job, or who to go out on date with,
what kinds of information influence your decision? Do you consider his
or her
education and background?
Sure I do. What about friendliness and social skill?
Of course. And physical appearance?
You bet.
What
about the kind of chair you happen to be sitting in while making your
decision? Or perhaps the kind of object you happen to be holding in
your hand?
My chair? No - nothing like that could possibly be affecting my judgments, right?
Wrong. Your sense of touch is influencing you a lot more than you realize.
Most
of us have grown accustomed to the idea that our mood, and even our
judgments, can be influenced by unrelated experiences of sight and sound
- we feel happier on sunny days, more relaxed when listening to certain
kinds of music, and more likely to lose our tempers when it's hot and
humid. But very few of us have even considered the possibility that our
tactile experience - the sensations associated with the things we
touch, might have this same power.
New research
shows that the weight, texture, and hardness of the things we touch
are, in fact, unconsciously factored into our decisions about things
that have
nothing to do with what we are touching. Potentially, every decision we make.
Let's
start with weight. Heaviness is something that we usually associate
with seriousness and importance. Consider expressions like the "gravity
of the situation," the trouble "weighs heavily upon him," or she is
"carefree and light-hearted." So what happens when we make a decision
while we are holding something heavy?
In one study, people who
held a clipboard that was nearly 10 times heavier than their peers
rated a job candidate they were reviewing as much better overall, and as
having displayed more serious interest in the position. In a second
study, heavy clipboard holders recommended allocating significantly more
government funding to serious social issues (like pollution) than
lighter clipboard holders. So when we are holding something heavy, we
see seriousness and importance in people and issues that we might not
otherwise.
(Tip: Perhaps if you want to make the best
impression at an interview, you should start by asking your potential
employer to please hang on to your set of encyclopedias, that you just
happen to bring along, while you use the restroom.)
Next, the
researchers examined the effects of texture. We associate smoothness
and roughness with ease and difficulty, respectively, as in expressions
like "smooth sailing," and "rough road ahead." Once again, the studies
show that people unconsciously transfer their tactile experience of
roughness to their interpersonal decisions.
For instance, people
who completed a puzzle with pieces that had been covered in sandpaper
later described an interaction between two other individuals as more
difficult and awkward than those whose puzzles had been smooth. In
another study, feeling roughness led participants to negotiate poorly,
offering their opponent a better deal than the smoothness-feelers
offered, because they saw the bargaining task as more difficult.
(Tip:
Never try to buy a car or negotiate a raise while wearing a wool
sweater. Consider satin underpants instead. Everything seems easy in
satin underpants.)
Lastly, the researchers studied the effects of
experiences of hardness and softness. We often associate hardness with
qualities like stability, rigidness, and strictness, and softness with
flexibility and yielding. Consider expressions like "an iron will" and
she "melted like butter."
As with weight and texture, hardness
exerts an influence on our perceptions and behavior. People who had
earlier examined a hard piece of wood judged an employee interacting
with his boss as more rigid and strict than did people who had examined a
soft blanket instead.
The tactile experience doesn't always
have to come through your hands, either. In a second study, the
researchers found that sitting in a hard wooden chair (instead of a soft
cushioned one) made participants adopt more rigid, less cooperative
negotiation strategies. Each person was told to make an initial offer
for a new car (worth $16,000). After their first offer was rejected,
they were told to make a another. Hard chair sitters' second offer was,
on average, $350 closer to their first offer than soft chair sitters -
in other words, the hard chair sitters didn't want to budge from what
they had originally said the car was worth. They had a feeling they
should stick to their guns, completely unaware that this feeling was
coming from their backside. (Perhaps this is the origin of the
expression "hardass"?)
(Tip: When you want someone to grant
your request, start out by making sure they are seated on something
soft. Or, perhaps, stroking a cat.)
In all seriousness, we
are more strongly influenced by all of our senses in ways most of us
fail to realize. It's worth taking the time to think not only about the
sights and sounds and smells, but also the things you touch most
frequently - the furniture in your home and workspace, your clothing,
your bedding. Would work seem easier with a lighter laptop? Would
your coworkers get along better with plush seats in the conference room?
You can make whatever you're touching work to your best advantage.
Trust me, folks - this is
hard science.
Singer Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel have stunned the showbiz world by ending their romance.
Academy for England at the age of 16.
victory over
