Welcome to the Saturday edition of The Conversation U.S.’s Daily newsletter.
It’s a common source of regret: You order something online when you’re tired or distracted, perhaps late at night, and when it shows up at your door, you don’t have the foggiest idea why you bought the thing in the first place.
Matt Pittman, a business professor at the University of Tennessee who specializes in consumer psychology, has long researched the curious choices people make when they shop online. In a recent project, he ran an experiment that compared people’s responses to two different kinds of Instagram ads for sustainable products: those that were “explicit” in their claims – this product is the best! – and those that were “implicit” by asking shoppers to come to their own conclusions through the facts presented.
It turns out that people respond differently to those approaches when their brain is tired – say, from scrolling. Even 30 seconds spent on Instagram had an effect, Pittman found. In those cases, bold assertions did better than ones requiring reasoning and logic. In his piece, Pittman explains why your brain works this way – and how to avoid buyer’s remorse going ahead.
This week we also liked stories about avoiding tick bites, tips on being grateful even when it can be very hard, and why brain scientists are so interested when people mix up their words.
Did somebody forward this email to you? Subscribe to our daily and weekly newsletters here.
