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Social Science Theory

5 Phenomenon

orbitofrontal cortex controls both olfaction and emotions, hence there is a strong connection between smell and emotions (Rolls 2004). smell can induce stronger emotion than conversation (Willander and Larsson 2007)

5.1 Similarity Asymmetry

Based on (Tversky 1977) contrast model, pairwise similarity judgments between products are asymmetrical: the less typical product will be perceived as more similar to the typical product than the reverse. (Herr, Aaker, and Biel 1994, 305)

5.2 Assortative Mating

In assortative mating, people tend to marry others of similar ages, nationalities, racial backgrounds. Even with matching linguistics styles, (50% of people will still be dating if they match linguistics styles).

5.3 Social Magnet

Social magnet, sometimes others can attract, but they can also repel. Sometimes we conform or imitate; others we avoid and diverge. (Berger 2016)

5.4 Wisdom of the crowd

The crowds’ wisdom is good when the group has access to everyone’s individual information (and pool think independently).

5.5 Losing leads to Winning

Being slightly behind can lead to increase in probability of winning because being slightly behind increases one’s efforts (Berger and Pope 2011)

For example, in basketball game, a losing team at half time by one or two points are more likely to win at the end of the game.

5.6 Microblogging

Microblogging (e.g., status updates on Facebook and tweets on Twitter) is driven by its undirected nature: “undirected communication allows people to reach out and elicit social interaction without having to worry about imposing unwanted communication on a particular person.” It is valuable when people want to avoid directed communication (in the case of socially apprehensive – anxiety about communicating with others and concern about being rejected ). (Buechel and Berger 2017)

5.7 Pack Journalism

News reporters from different news outlets usually cover the same story (or use the same sources of information), which makes news rather homogeneous.

5.8 Replication crisis in psychological science

Estimated about one-third to half of the psychological scientific study can be replicated (“Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science” 2015)