Biasss!

Vorsicht vor sozialwissenschaftlichen Untersuchungen. Vor allem wenn sie auf direkter Befragung basieren.
In punkto Selbsteinschätzung, Fremdwahrnehmung, Offenlegung der eigenen Motive sind die Antworten aus vielen Gründen extreme gebiased. Intervenierende Variablen Suggestion durch den Befrager das Problem der sozialen Erwünschtheit und Manipulation der Daten sind weitere Faktoren, die den Blick auf die wahre Natur des Menschen erschweren.
Aus der comedy show Saturday Night Live:
" If you ask a woman why they find a guy attractive. All women say: Its because of his humor. So Brad Pitt and Georg Clooney must be hilarious."

Schönes Beispiel wie hochsensibel situationsabhängig Wahrnehmung und Bewertung von sozialen Phänomenen ist:

Did you know that holding a warm cup of coffee can foster a sense of trust in another person? Touching is an important part of interacting with our environment and people. Research suggests that touch, including temperature sensations can subconsciously affect our impressions of others, the decisions we make and even our behavior.

New scientific evidence now suggests that what we think and perceive can result from associating concepts we garnered from touch experiences. A recent study,¹supported by the National Institutes of Health, set out to discover whether or not tactile impressions affect what we think and believe. Researchers, Dr. John Bargh (Yale), Dr. Joshua Ackerman (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and Christopher Nocera (Harvard), designed a series of experiments to test whether the characteristics of an object can affect our judgment about unrelated things.

Weight, texture and hardness are often used as metaphors. Weight is associated with concepts of seriousness and importance (e.g. a "weighty matter" or "light reading"). And roughness and smoothness are associated with difficulty and harshness (e.g. a "rough day" or "smooth sailing"). Hardness and softness are associated with stability, rigidity and strictness (e.g. "hard-hearted" or "soft on someone"). To test these sensible concepts, the researchers conducted four experiments:

1. Researchers recruited people walking along the street and asked them to evaluate a job candidate by reviewing resumes handed to them on either a light or heavy clipboard. Participants holding the heavy clipboard rated the candidates as better overall and more serious about the position. They also rated their own involvement at the task as more important.


2. In another experiment people were asked to complete a puzzle, with either puzzle pieces covered in rough sandpaper or pieces with smooth surfaces. Then they read a passage describing a social interaction. The participants who had completed the rough puzzle rated the interaction as more difficult and harsh than those who had completed the smooth puzzle.


3. To test hardness, random passersby were asked to examine either a soft blanket or a hard block of wood. They were then told an ambiguous story about an interaction between a supervisor and an employee. Those who had felt the hard block judged the employee to be more rigid and strict than those who had felt the soft blanket.


4. Finally, in another test, people engaged in mock haggling over the price of a new car. Some were seated in a soft-cushioned chair and others in a hard chair with no cushion. Those sitting in hard chairs turned out to be less willing to compromise on price than those sitting in soft chairs.

What they found suggests that information acquired through touch creates imperceivable influence over what we think and believe. "Our minds are deeply and organically linked to our bodies," said Bargh. They also found that these tactile experiences can create beliefs that may differ from reality.

The multi-sensory interactions we experience are a natural process that takes place in certain regions of the brain. We unknowingly use several of our senses to discern and learn. For instance, when someone shows you an object that you are not familiar with, you instinctively reach out your hand to grasp it and say, "Can I see that?" This response suggests that investigation involves more than vision, it is rather the sum of seeing, touching, feeling and even manipulating the unfamiliar object.

WHAT ignites the engine of creativity? A popular metaphor in American business urges you to think “outside the box.” Folk wisdom advises that problem-solving is helped by thinking about something “on the one hand” and then “on the other hand.”

Is there any psychological truth to such metaphors for better thinking? Our research suggests that the answer is yes. When people literally — that is, physically — embody these metaphors, they generate more creative ideas for solving problems.

Recent advances in understanding what psychologists call “embodied cognition” indicate a surprisingly direct link between mind and body. It turns out that people draw on their bodily experiences in constructing their social reality. Studies show, for example, that someone holding a warm cup of coffee tends to perceive a stranger as having a “warmer” personality. Likewise when holding something heavy, people see things as more serious and important — more “weighty.”

However, until recently it was not known whether bodily experiences could help in generating new ideas and solutions to problems. Our research, which will be published soon in the journal Psychological Science, discovered that it can.

For example, we asked 102 undergraduates at New York University to complete a task designed to measure innovative thinking. The task required them to generate a word (“tape,” for example) that related to each of three presented clue words (“measure,” “worm” and “video”). Some students were randomly assigned to do this while sitting inside a 125-cubic-foot box that we made of plastic pipe and cardboard. The rest got to sit and think outside (and next to) the box.

During the task we tracked the number of correct responses suggested by the students. We found that those thinking outside the box were significantly more creative: compared with those thinking inside the box, they came up with over 20 percent more creative solutions.

Even the outline of a box can influence creativity. In another study, our team examined the originality of ideas among 104 students at Singapore Management University. First we showed students pictures of objects made of Lego blocks. Then we asked them to think of original uses for the objects, either while walking along a fixed rectangular path indicated by duct tape on the floor (marking out an area of about 48 square feet) or by walking freely as they wished.

The differences were striking: students who walked freely were better at generating creative uses for the objects — coming up with over 25 percent more original ideas. Such creativity was assessed in terms of fluency (the number of ideas generated), flexibility (the number of unique categories that described the generated ideas) and originality (as judged by independent raters).

Something similar happens when thinking about a problem on one hand and then on the other. In another study, 40 undergraduates from the University of Michigan were asked to lift and hold a hand outstretched (as you might while addressing an audience from a stage). Some were asked to lift just one hand, while others were asked to switch between hands. While they were doing this, we asked them to generate novel uses for a new university complex. Among students who were allowed to switch hands — in other words, to think about a problem on “one hand” and then “on the other hand” — we found a nearly 50 percent increase in the number of uses generated.

By showing that bodily experiences can help create new knowledge, our results further undermine the strict separation between mind and body — another box that has confined our thinking for a long time. In addition, although we’re only starting to grasp how catchphrases shape how people think, it’s possible to begin prescribing some novel suggestions to enhance creativity. For instance, if we’re performing a job that requires some “outside the box” thinking, we may have to avoid working in cubicles.
But we shouldn’t avoid cubicles altogether: to think outside the box, you first need a box.

Again: Es ist die Strüktür!