5 Bizarre Factors That Secretly Influence Your Opinions

Their theory is that it's just your brain's attempt to get you warm. We do, after all, think of romantic feelings as getting us "hot" (moist palms, blushing cheeks, an accelerated heart rate). It seems like you actually get even warmer by running through the desert from a chainsaw murderer, but whatever. We also associate closeness with other people with "warmth" (if you say relations between two people have grown "cold," you sure as hell don't mean they're hugging a lot), so when you get cold, you want to watch other, sexy people steadily getting closer for 90 minutes.

Our brains subconsciously tell us that we need heat during cold weather and make us crave this psychological "warmth." Unfortunately, achieving this requires being repeatedly subjected to Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher, but hey, no one ever said survival would be easy.

Really persuasive people know that it's all about touch: the salesman or politician is quick to pat you on the back or shake your hand; the waitress knows that a touch on your arm gets a bigger tip. If the thing they're selling is a physical product, they know they'd better let us customers put our greasy mitts on it. This is why car salespeople are so big on making you test drive the vehicle (they literally phrase the technique as "The feel of the wheel will seal the deal").

Why? Because in humans, touch is almost a form of goddamn mind control. Whatever it is, if you touch it for a while, you'll become attached to it.

Wait, What?

Not only are people more likely to buy something they've touched, but they're actually willing to pay more -- this is why, if the product comes in a box, the store will try to put a display model out that you can handle to your heart's content. Even if you can't actually gain any information about the usefulness of the product, it doesn't matter. Running your paws over an object makes you feel connected to it, and can even give you a false sense of ownership.

Oh, and it also makes a difference how the object feels under our hands. We don't just mean that we judge a new shirt based on how soft it is -- that sort of makes sense. We mean that one study showed that water in a firm cup tasted better than water in a flimsy cup, regardless of the fact that it was the same water. Even when people were just told about the firmer cup, they declared its water superior -- just because the container felt better under their hands. Hey, do you think this is why super-expensive Fiji water comes in thicker bottles that contain twice as much plastic? Or why Perrier still uses freaking glass?

If you want to know what the future of touch-based brainwashing is, well, it involves products that enjoy making you touch them. Sony tried this with their QRIO robot -- a vaguely canine mecha-creature that recognizes faces and responds to touch -- by letting it loose among a bunch of 2-year-olds. Usually, toddlers treat robots like regular toys, tossing them around and using them as blunt weapons before quickly getting bored with them. But QRIO is different -- it senses touch and gives little giggles of pleasure. When it started doing that, the kids accepted it as a living being. Instead of throwing it around, the kids gently touched it, just like it was another child, and even put a blanket over it when it "laid down for a nap." We're thinking the first company that makes a cellphone that squeals with pleasure every time you touch it is going to dominate the market.

Wait, What?

For instance, your name also affects your political stance by subtly altering your voting behavior: In the 2000 election, people whose last names started with a B were more likely to vote for Bush, while Al Gore profited from the G people. But that's just all those misinformed yokels who vote in elections, right? Aren't half those people just flipping a coin anyway? Well, you find it among investors on Wall Street, too -- the name-letter effect scoffs at your puny efforts to look into actual profitability, gently nudging you toward companies that sound similar to your name (like if your name is Michel, you're more likely to purchase Michelin).

Looking for a job? The company you prefer might just share initials with you, and the first letter of your name can determine your career path. There is a statistical overabundance of dentists whose first names start with D and lawyers with names like Larry and Laura. What the hell? Are people just ... stupid?

The theory is that this is all because our brains are selfish dicks that think the bits of the alphabet that start up our names are somehow better letters. Some psychologists believe it's linked to a phenomenon called implicit egotism: We respond more favorably to anything that reminds us of ourselves. No matter how illogical and arbitrary.

Wait, What?

Let's say you're an eyewitness to a bank heist. The cops come up to you and ask you to describe the guy. The officer says, "Did he have a beard?" And he does that thing that some people do, gesturing at his own chin as if you somehow didn't know what a beard was and needed him to physically demonstrate. And in that moment you think, "Yeah ... I believe he did have a beard."

Guess what: That guy's hand gesture just programmed your memory.

The University of Hertfordshire did a series of tests where they interviewed participants about a video they had watched. While asking questions, the researchers deliberately made misleading gestures, like stroking their chin to suggest a beard or touching their wrist to indicate a watch. The test subjects were three times more likely to believe that the guy in the video had a beard if the interviewer pretended to stroke his nonexistent goatee while asking about it. These weren't mouth farts where you say "bearded" despite thinking "clean shaven," either. The gesture actually brainwashed the subjects into honestly believing that the guy had a beard.

And yes, when a politician or lawyer stands up and makes those hand gestures to drive home his point (pointing at the audience, slapping his palm with his fist), that totally works. There are detailed guides on what exactly you should be doing with your hands if you want the audience to buy what you're selling. That's why a president can't simply say, "I've got your cruise missile right here" -- he needs to actually gesture toward his crotch to get the full effect.

Wait, What?

Have you ever gotten talked out of liking something? Maybe you saw The Dark Knight Rises in the theater and had a great time, but the next day you started talking to your movie connoisseur friends and they pointed out all of the plot holes ("When did Batman have time to paint his logo on the bridge?!"). Over time, it gets to where you can't even admit to yourself that you enjoyed it. Even when you think back to your experience in the theater, all you're thinking about is the plot holes.

You might convince yourself that thinking about the subject led you to the "right" opinion, but studies show that you can just as easily be steered from a correct opinion to a wrong one.

Researchers tested this with a couple of experiments where subjects were asked to offer an opinion on things like which college course they preferred or which brand of jam tasted better. The catch was that some of the participants were asked to simply taste or sample the thing and move on, while others were asked to really think about their decision before making it official. The subjects who mulled over their opinions were way less in line with the opinions of experts than the others. The more they thought about it, the more wrong they became. How is this possible?

Well, when you're forced to think through or express why you like something, you're immediately biased toward opinions that you can actually explain or verbalize. In other words, you may taste five jams and decide that No. 4 just tasted better, because in that moment your senses were taking in a thousand different factors you weren't consciously thinking about. But when pressured to actually explain in detail which one you liked best, you're looking for easily quantifiable things -- suddenly you're talking about how No. 2 had more berries, or how No. 1 had better color. In reality, neither of those things actually affected your enjoyment. You're just trying to make it sound like you made your decision based on an easily explainable chain of logic when in reality your tongue had it right all along.

It's kind of like the example with the movie (if you hated The Dark Knight Rises, feel free to substitute any movie you changed your opinion on months later). While you were watching it, the sum of all of its parts may have swept you away, but if somebody made you create a list of pros and cons, you'd realize that you can't logically defend your choice. Or maybe you had a relationship with someone who you thought you were madly in love with, but a hundred conversations with friends changed your mind ("Yeah, I guess he did wear a lot of holiday-themed sweaters ...").

When forced to stick with qualities that are simpler and easier to discuss, suddenly the spell is broken. Congratulations, you have successfully used logic to kill your own enjoyment of something. Thanks a lot, brain.

Check out XJ's $0.99 science fiction novella here. He also has a blog or you can follow him on Twitter. You can check out Monte's strange opinions here.

For more ways we don't control anything about ourselves, check out 7 Things 'Good Parents' Do (That Screw Up Kids for Life) and 6 Insane Things Science Can Predict About You at Infancy.

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