Category: Human Emotion & Motivation

Blog posts on human emotion & motivation by Sentient Decision Science, a global leader in implicit research.

Belichick, Rationality and Why the Colts are 14-1

It’s fourth down with two yards to go. You’re facing the decision to punt the ball to Peyton Manning and Colts offense with a little over 2 minutes to play and giving your defense the chance to stop a touchdown drive, or to go for it and essentially end the game with a first down. […]

Wii: Let's Get Visceral

Take a moment and let your mind wander; inhale deeply, exhale, and find your neutral state. Now click play on the video below. You might want to turn down your speaker volume a little.
One might simply explain this as a conventional sibling relationship; the younger sibling almost always wants to do everything just like the older sibling. If this were the whole explanation, though, why would we be getting excited and happy too? Part of what’s happening for the little girl – and to a lesser degree, us, the almost-detached observer – is an explosion of activity in a group of nerves in the brain called “mirror neurons.”

Flash sales: a better way to sell clothes or a short-lived Recession strategy?

Flash sales bring up all sorts of interesting shopper behaviors – some which are very new to shopper culture, and some which have been around longer. Buyer’s remorse, for example, has been around a long time – about as long as people have been exchanging goods and services for currency (in one of its many […]

Consumers curb their instant gratification urges

Black Friday sales were up .5% from last year and retailers have high hopes for Cyber Monday. But the really good news for retailers might be yet to come: Interbrand noted that 51% of consumers said they will shop later this year and our own research bears that out:  our shopper focus groups throughout November […]

Psychological insight on consumer self-image

Sentient recently partnered with Crystal Deodorant to conduct a study about body odor. Not surprisingly, the results of this study show that people want to avoid bad body odor. What is surprising are the lengths people are willing to go to avoid bad body odor and how intimately it is tied to the sense of […]

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