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March 19, 2008

steve_jobs

The Reality Distortion Field is reality

Posted Mar. 19, ’08, 5:31 AM PT by Derik DeLong
Category | Apple » Steve Jobs

Apple Logo Good news. The next time you spend hundreds, or thousands, of dollars on the latest Apple product, you can blame the RDF. Up until recently, you might have gotten laughed at, but now you’ve got a Duke University and University of Waterloo study to back you up.

College students had two logos shown to them, an Apple and an IBM one. They were then prompted to think of uses for a brick. The Apple logo viewers were statistically more creative. The logo, it messes with your brain man.

“These experiments demonstrate that most any brand that has strong associations with particular traits could have the capacity to influence how we act,” Chartrand said.

Influence how we act? There we have it. I can’t help it. That logo appears and the synapses scream “BUY BUY BUY”. I just can’t ignore it anymore. That Airport Express was inexpensive, right?

[via Slashdot]


6 Comments

Anonymous said:

I have another theory..

what if people just gravitate to things they can associate with.

ie. creative people will pick creative professions do creative things, buy creative products etc.

March 19, 2008 6:10 AM
Torgo said:

That may partially explain why creative people buy apple products, but sounds like the subjects in the experiment were chosen at random. Seeing the apple logo somehow *made* them more creative... weird.

March 19, 2008 8:43 AM
Siouxsie said:

In response to that theory, this study was made by showing random people random logos - not showing creative people the apple logo and non-creative people the IBM logo.

March 19, 2008 9:37 AM
Anonymous said:

To anonymous. I believe that your argument is likely correct for people who choose to use a particular brand (e.g. creative types tend to be more attracted to the Macs).

However, in this study, if the assignment of people to the groups was truly random, then the variances in the two groups (Apple Logo viewers and IBM viewers) would be expected to be equal and any difference in group could be attributed to the effect of the logo.

However, I would need to look at the research design. I imagine that a truly good study would need good random assignment, an ABACA crossover design and a believable placebo group.

Would make an interesting dissertation though. ;-)

Seth

March 19, 2008 9:49 AM
Ward Author Profile Page said:

Is Apple taking orders for the iBrick yet? I'll take 2!

March 19, 2008 10:15 AM
Dave-O said:

So all I need to do is hang a large Apple logo in my workspace and I'll be more creative!

March 19, 2008 12:36 PM

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