Understanding other people’s behavior is hard. But understanding yours is even harder. In fact, sometimes we end up asking ourselves why we acted a certain way.
Interestingly, human behavior is susceptible to social forces. This means that you act in response to social events. Unfortunately, the environmental forces operate within your unconscious mind. Meaning, you have no idea why you behave differently in different situations.
Here are some of the psychological effects that might influence your behavior.
1. Audience Effect
Audience effect is also called Social Facilitation Effect. It is a tendency of an individual to perform better in the presence of others than alone. But this effect mostly occurs when a person is prepared or already mastered a specific task. If you are new to a certain task, this effect may be highly unlikely.
For instance, a smart student may perform better in front of his classmates. But an average student may fail to do so. Why? Because the presence of other people boosts the confidence of a smart student but threatens the average one.
2. Ambiguity Effect
The ambiguity effect is a behavioral tendency wherein a person makes a safe choice. In an ambiguous situation (a situation that you are not certain what to do) it is most likely that your decision leans towards a safer course of action.
This cognitive bias affects people’s behavior in the field of investing. Most people are inclined to invest their money in the bank (the safe but low return) than in the stock market where the return of investment is high but volatile.
3. Halo Effect
Halo effect is probably one of the most influential cognitive biases. This effect pertains to a tendency of an individual to judge someone as good, generous, and intelligent if s/he is good looking.
Halo effect is also evident in industrial settings. For instance, an interviewer selects an applicant based on shared values and experiences. As a result, the less competent applicants may be chosen over the more competent ones.
4. Hawthorne Effect
Hawthorne effect is a reactive tendency in which a person changes his/her behavior due to an observer presence. This commonly happens in workplaces where employees tend to perform well when their boss is around.
5. Novelty Effect
The novelty effect pertains to a person’s increased interest in new technology or method being applied. For instance, new teaching strategies such as using computer-aided educational materials can help boost students attention and interest. However, such interest, according to novelty effect may vanish when students get accustomed to such strategy.
6. Spacing Effect
The spacing effect states that a person can only achieve effective learning if s/he studies a subject of interest in a long period of time. Cramming is not effective. This effect suggests that students should study in advance to have better memory performance.
7. Spotlight Effect
The spotlight effect is another psychological effects that influence behavior. In this premise, a person may think and behave as if s/he is the center of attention. S/he clings to an illusion that everybody is looking at him/her.
8. Primacy Effect
A primacy effect is a tendency in which a person tends to have better memory on the first information comapred to the last information presented. The reason being is that there is a considerable amount of cognitive process involved in the first information than the last. As a result, you may remember well the name of the person who was first introduced to you than the last one.
This list only contains a few psychological effects that affect your daily behavior. The additional will be posted soon. Nonetheless, it is my best hope that this article enlightens your mind.
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