by david allan van nostrand | Feb 23, 2017 | Conformity, Human Behavior
A fellow named Harold Garfinkel held that we engage daily in the building up of rules for behavior like an oyster builds a pearl, slowly and irrevocably. He also pointed out that we follow these gradually accumulated rules, without knowing we’re doing so, or...
by david allan van nostrand | Feb 16, 2017 | Conformity, Human Behavior, Items in the News, Social Desirability
There is an excellent article in the February 15, 2017 Wall Street Journal called A Generation Living For Likes. Here is a link to it. In it, Laura Vanderkam talks about Donna Freitas’ book, The Happiness Effect. “The real downside of Facebook, Instagram and their...
by david allan van nostrand | Feb 9, 2017 | Human Behavior, Research
In an earlier century, the would-be entrepreneurs had an idea for a new business: home delivery of desserts. No one in their area was doing it, and they would have the market all to themselves. A shoestring operation, they had budgeted for only two focus groups. We...
by david allan van nostrand | Feb 2, 2017 | Gatekeepers, Organizational Behavior, Surveys
Most people aren’t surprised when we tell them 80% of companies say they provide superior customer service. But most are surprised when we tell them only 8% of those companies’ customers agree. This means 72% of companies who say they provide superior customer service...
