Impulse by David Lewis
Why we do what we do without knowing why we do
it.
Impulse lie at the root of most personal and
social problems ranging from obesity, alcohol and drug abuse, overspending,
unwanted pregnancies, smoking, emotional problems, dysfunctional relationships
and school underachievement to a failure in achieving cherished life goals.
Impulse as per physicist, impulse is an
indefinitely large force that acts for a very short time that brings about a
change of momentum. In this book I argue that virtually everything we say and
we do between waking and sleeping can be considered impulsive in that the vast
majority of those actions occur mindlessly rather than mindfully.
As per Ellen Langer, when we accept an
impression or a piece of information at face value... the that impression
settles unobtrusively into our minds.... most of us don’t reconsider what we
mindlessly accepted earlier...the mindless individual is committed to one
predetermined use of the information and other possible use or applications are
not explored.
Within a few hundredths of a second of meeting
someone for the first time we usually get a sense of whether we like them, are
sexually attracted to them are indifferent to them or are uncomfortable in
their presence. The feeling of not liking someone without being able to explain
why was summed up by a 17th century student named Thomas Brown in a verse
dedicated to his university dean Dr. Thomas Fell:
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell
The reason why I cannot tell;
But this I know and know full well,
I do not like thee Doctor Fell.
The impulsive power of smell
We all possess an entirely personal ‘smell
signature’ It is this unique smell that enables bloodhounds to track specific
individuals, even in crowded urban environment. Our smell signature comprises a
blend of skin, hair and glandular secretions, food and drink choices, odors in
our surroundings and any perfume, after-shave or deodorant we use. But the most
distinctive odor of all tends to be sweat. On its own this is capable of
triggering impulsive sexual desire. The German sexologist Richard Kraft Ebbing,
for example, described a ‘voluptuous young peasant man’ who boasted how he had
‘seduced quite a considerable number of chaste girls without difficulty by
wiping his armpits with his handkerchief while dancing and then using this
handkerchief to wipe the face of his dancing partner.
In the presence of a pleasant odor people were
impulsively regarded as more likeable than when viewed with an unpleasant odor
being present. Heart rate slowed in the presence of a pleasant odor and
increased with an unpleasant one. Today the same fear of offensive body odor
and a desire t make oneself sexually attractive and desirable are two main
reasons why the manufacture and sale of perfumes and cosmetics has become a
$280 billion a year global industry.
In Roman era, Civert and ambergris were esp.
popular among leisured classes and given the importance of vanilla as an
aphrodisiac it is interesting to note that the name of this spice is a
diminutive of the Latin word vagina. When, during the 16th century, Sheikh
al-Nefzawi of Tunia wrote one of the world’s earliest sex manuals, it was no
coincidence he titled it ‘The Perfumed Garden’.
One substance used in modern male grooming
products is androstenediol, a chemical structurally related to testosterone,
the hormone produced in the tests which is found in male sweat and urine. Dr.
David Benton of University College, Swansea, a researcher in this field found
that females reacted more strongly to the hormone during the middle of their
menstrual cycle, when it is caused them to assess their own mood as more
submissive. “Sexual attraction relies on many factors including personality,
social skills, past experience and present situation. If everything else is
suitable then an odor may make a small difference but the product of an aerosol
spray is unlikely to be the difference but the product of an aerosol spray is
unlikely to be the predominant influence and compensate for other feelings.
So is pure French jasmine essence, reportedly
the world’s most expensive perfume, really worth up to $300 a gram? More
generally what effect does a woman wearing any sort of perfume have on the men
around her? The answer seems to depend on how she is dressed. That is what
research by Dr. Robert Baron of Purdue University suggests. In his tests, when
assistant dressed smartly the perfume made seem cold and unromantic. When she
wore the perfume with jeans and a T-shirt, however, the men’s impulse response
was to regard her as warm and romantic. So the response that perfume evokes
depends not just on our sense of smell but also the context in which it is
worn.
In 1973 the American psychologist Philip Kotler,
Professor of Marketing at Northwestern University, coined the term,
atmospherics to describe the conscious planning of atmosphere to contribute to
the buyer’s purchasing propensity and predicted that atmospherics is likely to
play a growing role in the unending search of firms for differential advantage.
Today even moderately sized supermarkets allocate space to an in-store bakery
despite the fact that it is far more convenient and cost-effective for a central
bakery to serve a number of stores. Managers know that by stimulating hunger
pangs, the smell of freshly baked bread encourages people to buy not just bread
but also other food, even frozen products.
In laundry section of a supermarket, shoppers
exposed to the scent of freshly laundered sheets not only buy more detergents
but also splash out on impulse purchases of products claiming to whiten whites
or leave linen smelling like a spring morning. One company has injected
the smell of coconut into the shops of a British travel agent, because some
sustain oils smell of coconut and the aroma is said to help trigger memories of
past holidays and so encourage shoppers to book fresh ones.
In supermarket the sale of laundry products
significantly increased when a fresh, lemony aroma was combined with the sound
of freshly laundered sheets being folded. This, the promoters of the system
claim, triggers associations with the comfort, safety and warmth of home.
Perhaps by recalling childhood memories of helping mother with the weekly wash.
The impulsive power of sounds
Dr. M. Morrison of the department of marketing
at Monash University says, “Music communicates with our hearts and minds; it
serves as a powerful connection into our emotions. Music is versatile, it has
the ability to relax or invigorate. Music is memorable, it can transport us in
an instant to places we want to be. Retailers can use specifically programmed
music to create links to past experience. Music can be critical components of
store atmosphere and plays a role in purchase decision making process. As per
the study conducted, under 25 spending more time shopping when exposed to easy
listening music while those over 25 thought they had been in the store longer
than when top 40 music was played.
Impulse purchases of the most expensive wines
increased when Mozart, Bach and Vivaldi were played. Music preference, they
found, are determined by age rather than sex of the shopper. Middle aged
(25-49) shoppers spent more and shopped longer when foreground music was played
whereas older shoppers shopped longer and purchased more when background music
was playing.
Risk-taking personality
John Coates of university of Cambridge in his
recent study, measured the length of male high-frequency traders second and
fourth digits. They found that the traders appetite for risk taking could be
accurately predicted by comparing the length of these two fingers. Research has
shown that men who are impulsive risk takers have a ration of less than 1 if
the length of their index finger (second digit) is divided by their ring finger
(fourth digit). This has been dubbed the 2D:4D ratio. The ratio differs
reliable by sex with males typically having a lower 2D:4D on their right hand
than on their left hand. How much is less than 1, which much risk taking and
how much more than 1 shows how much they are risk averse.
In a moment when, James Joyce wrote in Ulysses:
“I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes, and then he asked me would I
yes.... and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me as he
could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes
I said yes I will yes”..
In his 1971 book, The Attraction Paradigm,
social psychologist Don Byrne proposed that while shared appear to form the
basis of attraction, the number of similar views mater less than proportion of
similar to dissimilar attitude. So consistent is this finding that one can
express the probability of liking or disliking occurring in terms of the
following mathematical formula
Y=5.44X =6.62
This states that the best way of predicting the
extent of liking (Y) between two people is to multiply the proportion of
similar attitudes (X) by 5.44 and then add 6.62. Two people who share 50% of
the same views will score 9.34 (0.585.44 + 6.62).
In my lab we use eye-tracking technology to
examine how men and women look at one another’s bodies. In lab conditions, men
and women look at the semi-naked bodies of members of the opposite sex in a
very different ways. Single heterosexual man viewing a bikini clad women; he
started at her thighs and buttocks and then moved up to her groin, breasts and
neck. His eyes travelled back to her breasts and up & down her abdomen and
legs. He concluded at the point where her left hand points downward to her
groin. The woman by contrast, began her inspection at man's face, returning
there on three subsequent occasions. Next her eyes travelled up and down his
chest and abdomen, halting just above his groin. She then examined his chest
muscles and left arm m his right arm, his left armpit and then his face again.
She repeated her examination of his torso, stopping as before, just above the
pubic region. Finally her eyes moved back his left arm, before ending where she
began, at his face. When individuals being viewed are fully clothed a
different pattern of gaze occurs with more attention being directed towards
face.
The most reliable of those fertility cues is the
waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) which, Dr. Devendra Singh contends, is the key to
being regarded by males as fertile and fanciable. Between 19820 and 1980s,
every Miss America winner has a WHR between .72 and 0.69.
The scarcity effect of physical desire was first
investigated by Dr. James Pennebaker of the University of Virginia who was
intrigued by a line in songwriter Baker Knight 1970s hit: Don’t all the girls
get prettier at closing time”. This read, Ain’t it funny, ain’t it strange, the
way a man’s opinion change when the stars to face that lonely night.’
Ten practical ways to beat the overrating
impulse
1. Eat from smaller plates and bowls. Because we
eat with our eyes as much as with our mouth, using smaller plates and bowls is
a quick and easy way to reduce the number of calories consumed at each meal.
2. When drinking anything but water, use a tall
narrow glass rather than a short wide one. This is known as horizontal-vertical
illusion. The eye is fooled by the height of the liquid in the glass and
ignores the width.
3. Eat with chopsticks, rather than a knife and
fork, obliges you to take smaller mouthfuls and eat more slowly.
4. Put ice in your drink. Because the body has
to use energy to beat up the beverages, around 1 calorie per ounce of fluid is
consumed.
5. Eat alone. We eat significantly more when
dining in company than eating alone.
6. When dining out in an up-market restaurant be
aware of the effects of soft lights and classical music. Both encourages you to
linger longer and so eat or drink considerably more than you realize.
7. Get a good night sleep.
8. Avoid shopping for food when hungry
9. If you have sweets or chocolates in the
office, place them in opaque containers rather than clear ones and at a
distance form, rather than directly on, your desk.
10. When snacking on popcorn in the cinema, use
your other hand (right-hand person use left hand vice versa). If so,
consumption will be less.
Inside World's most powerful selling machine:
Just walk into a supermarket, we become
participants in what Jeff Chester, director of the US based Center for Digital
Democracy has called a ‘marketing technological arms race. Everything we see,
hear, smell, taste or touch is the result of millions of dollars worth of
research, design and planning.
The first products we typically see on entering
a supermarket are fresh fruits and vegetables. It is done so for two reasons.
First because they make both the store and the products themselves look fresh
and attractive. Fruits and vegetables look better in natural light, just as
meat and fish look tired in anything but a clean white light. Furthermore they
subtly convey a sense of freshness and naturalness, evoking images not of vast
and soulless food processing plants but of open green fields and cloudless blue
skies. The second and chief reason is to make the shopper more likely to grab a
trolley than reach for a basket. Because a trolley holds more it encourages
shoppers to buy more. By making the task of moving purchases around far easier
it encourages shoppers to impulse-buy more.
Another factor retailer must take into account
when stacking shelves is known as the invariant right. A possible explanation
for this is that the left hemisphere of the brain controls the right side of
the body and this hemisphere is associated with an approach response and
positive emotions. Shoppers tend to stay on the right as they stroll down both
supermarket aisles and high street pavements. It is for this reason that in a
well-designed airport, travelers drifting toward the departure gate will find
the fast-food restaurants on their left and the gifts shops on their right.
Both are in position most likely to encourage impulse purchases: while people
may be prepared to cross a lane of pedestrian traffic when hungry they will
rarely do so to buy a magazine or souvenir.
Research has shown that when we walk down an
aisle we look mainly at shelves not at eye level but slightly lower. This is
because when walking past shelves, a shopper’s gaze is directed between 15
& 30 degrees downward, mainly as a result of the weight and shape of the
head and how it is supported by the spine. This is the prime position for high
margin impulse purchases. Lower prices lower profit products go with down to
floor level or upwards so as to be out reach to all but the tallest or more agile
shopper.
Going deeper into the store we come across
products termed destination goods or known value items (KVI). KVIs include such
core grocery lines and weekly staples as milk, bread and baked beans. Supermarkets
call these traffic generators because they have to be purchased frequently and
are the most price-sensitive. While the average shopper’s awareness of prices
tends to be limited, most do know the price of these regularly bought items and
so are able to make comparison between rival stores. By ensuring the price of
benchmark KVI is kept artificially low, by selling at or even below the cost,
supermarkets are able to present all their products as great value for money.
On counters displaying clothes, high-margin
items such as expensive and exotic foods, enticing gifts, must-have gadgets,
these products are frequently laid out in such a way as to exploit the power of
what is called the triangular balance. it is based on the fact that your eye
will always go straight to the center of a picture says Karl McKeever. ‘Here,
they put the biggest , tallest products with the highest profit margin in the
center of the each shelf and arrange the other sizes around them to make it
look attractive. When you look at the triangle on the shelf, your eyes goes
straight to the middle and the most expensive box. It is used everywhere and it
is very effective.
In fashion areas of stores, tables are often
positioned next to clothes racks to allow customers to handle the items;
Younger shoppers esp. are drawn more towards scuffed-up displays of cloths
because this suggests they are popular. When the piles of garments appear
overly neat, by contrast, it sends a message that no one else is interested in
buying them.
Disordered piles and mounds of products are more
likely to attract buyers than neatly ordered displays. There is a natural
reluctance on the part of most shoppers to be the first to interfere with the
symmetry of perfectly stacked items of food or ordered lines of fruit in an
elegant display. Most products are handled many times by browsers before being
purchased. The average lipstick, for example, is examined 6 to 8 times before
it leaves the store and a greeting card 25 times.
Research has shown that the main limit on
exercising our willpower is willpower itself. By exerting self-control in one
situation we diminish our capacity to do so in another.
For more than 3 centuries, worries about one
type of impulse above all others dominated the lives of many adults and ruined
the lives of their children. That impulse is masturbation. Fear of the supposed
consequence of what they called self-abuse led parents, doctors and ministers
of church to seek ways of eliminating the practice by means of extremely cruel
and humiliating.
The anonymous author of Hippolytus Redivius
(1644) regarded it as a remedy against the dangerous allurements of women.
The idea that a conflict exists between impulses
and self-control between passion and reason as the Greek philosophers put it.
Socrates suggests that weakness of will cannot exist since no one would
willingly act against his or her better judgment. Hunger, thirst, fatigue,
addiction and sexual arousal all create the desire to satisfy a physical need,
by eating, drinking, sleeping, taking drugs, or having sex. Called ‘visceral
drives’ they can lead to impulses which undermine long-term goals.
