Quirkology (2 page)
Authors: Richard Wiseman
The maverick Victorian scientist Sir Francis Galton might be considered the founding father of this approach because he devoted much of his life to the study of offbeat topics.
1
He objectively determined whether his colleagues’ lectures were boring by surreptitiously measuring the level of fidgeting in their audiences, and he created a “Beauty Map” of Britain by walking along the main streets of major cities with a punch counter in his pocket, secretly recording whether the people he passed were good, medium, or bad looking (London was rated the best, Aberdeen the worst).
1
He objectively determined whether his colleagues’ lectures were boring by surreptitiously measuring the level of fidgeting in their audiences, and he created a “Beauty Map” of Britain by walking along the main streets of major cities with a punch counter in his pocket, secretly recording whether the people he passed were good, medium, or bad looking (London was rated the best, Aberdeen the worst).
Galton’s work on the effectiveness of prayer was more controversial.
2
He hypothesized that if prayer really worked, then members of the clergy—who obviously prayed longer and harder than most—should have a longer life expectancy than others. When his extensive analyses of hundreds of entries in biographical dictionaries revealed that the clergy actually tended to die
before
lawyers and doctors, the deeply religious Galton was forced to question the power of prayer.
2
He hypothesized that if prayer really worked, then members of the clergy—who obviously prayed longer and harder than most—should have a longer life expectancy than others. When his extensive analyses of hundreds of entries in biographical dictionaries revealed that the clergy actually tended to die
before
lawyers and doctors, the deeply religious Galton was forced to question the power of prayer.
Even the making of tea caught Galton’s attention; he spent months scientifically determining the best way to brew the perfect cup of tea. He constructed a special thermometer that allowed him constantly to monitor the temperature of the water inside his teapot, and after much rigorous testing, Galton concluded that “the tea was full bodied, full tasted, and in no way bitter or flat . . . when the water in the teapot had remained between 180 degrees and 190 degrees Fahrenheit, and had stood eight minutes on the leaves.”
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3
Satisfied with the thoroughness of his investigation, Galton proudly declared, “There is no other mystery in the teapot.”
On the surface, Galton’s investigations into boredom, beauty, prayer, and tea-making may appear to have nothing in common. But in fact they are all excellent and early examples of an approach to investigating human behavior that I have called “quirkology.” Put simply, quirkology uses scientific methods to study the more curious aspects of everyday life. This approach to psychology has been pioneered by a few researchers over the past hundred years who have followed in Galton’s footsteps and had the courage to explore the places mainstream scientists avoid. These brave academics have
• examined how many people it takes to start a Mexican wave in a football stadium;
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• charted the upper limits of visual memory by having people try to remember 10,000 photographs accurately;
5
• identified the perceived personality characteristics of fruits and vegetables (lemons are seen as dislikable, onions as stupid, and mushrooms as social climbers);
6
• secretly counted the number of people wearing their baseball caps the right way or back to front;
7
• stood outside supermarkets with donation boxes quietly measuring how different types of requests for donations determined the amount of money given (simply saying “Even a penny helps” almost doubled donations);
8
• discovered that children’s drawings of Santa Claus grow larger in the build-up to Christmas Day, and then shrink during January.
9
For the past twenty years, I have carried out similarly strange investigations. I have examined the telltale signs that give away a liar, explored how our personalities are shaped by month of birth, uncovered the secret science behind speed dating and personal ads, and investigated what a sense of humor reveals about the innermost workings of the mind. The work has involved secretly observing people as they go about their daily business, conducting unusual experiments at art exhibitions and concerts, and even staging fake séances in allegedly haunted buildings. The studies have involved thousands of people all over the world.
This book details my adventures and experiments and also pays homage to unusual research carried out by the small band of dedicated academics that has kept the quirky flag flying for the past century. Each chapter reveals the secret psychology underlying a particular aspect of our lives, from deception to decision making, selfishness to superstition. Along the way, you will encounter some of my favorite pieces of strange but fascinating research: experiments that have, for instance, measured the amount of subsequent horn-honking when cars become stalled at traffic lights; examined why a disproportionate number of marine biologists are called Dr. Fish; secretly analyzed the type of people who take more than ten items through express lines in supermarkets; asked people to behead live rats with a kitchen knife; discovered whether suicide rates are related to the amount of country music played on national radio; and proved beyond all reasonable doubt that Friday the thirteenth is bad for your health.
Most of the research that you are about to encounter has, until now, been hidden away in obscure academic journals. The work is serious science, and much of it has important implications for the way in which we live our lives and structure our society. However, unlike the vast majority of psychological research, these studies have something quirky about them. Some use mainstream methods to investigate unusual topics. Others use unusual methods to investigate mainstream topics. All are aimed at discovering the big truths in small things.
Let the quirkology begin.
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WHAT DOES YOUR DATE OF BIRTH
REALLY
SAY ABOUT YOU?
REALLY
SAY ABOUT YOU?
The New Science of Chronopsychology
G
iven that approximately 100 million Americans read their daily horoscopes, and about 6 million have paid professional astrologers to analyze their personalities,
1
it is easy to argue that many people believe there may be something to astrology. Even world leaders are not immune to the lure of the soothsaying stargazers. Both Ronald and Nancy Reagan were fond of consulting with the cosmos, and President Reagan allowed astrologers to influence the timing of international summits, presidential announcements, and the flight schedule of Air Force One.
2
iven that approximately 100 million Americans read their daily horoscopes, and about 6 million have paid professional astrologers to analyze their personalities,
1
it is easy to argue that many people believe there may be something to astrology. Even world leaders are not immune to the lure of the soothsaying stargazers. Both Ronald and Nancy Reagan were fond of consulting with the cosmos, and President Reagan allowed astrologers to influence the timing of international summits, presidential announcements, and the flight schedule of Air Force One.
2
Although astrology is dismissed by many mainstream scientists, some dedicated researchers have seriously investigated the relationship between people’s lives and their dates of birth. They have studied mass murderers, trawled through millions of U.S. tax returns, examined the birth dates of major athletes, had more than 20,000 people go online to assess their luck, and asked a four-year-old child to predict the movement of international stock markets.
Over the years, the work has sifted fact from fiction to reveal the many ways in which our date of birth
really
influences the way we think and behave.
really
influences the way we think and behave.
The British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) was established in 1831 by the eminent Scottish scientist Sir David Brewster. The BAAS has several claims to fame. The term “dinosaur” was first used at one of its meetings in 1841, and at their 1860 annual gathering, the physicist Sir Oliver Lodge presented one of the first public demonstrations of wireless transmission. Also in 1860, they staged an infamous public debate about evolution between the biologist T. H. Huxley and the bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce (nicknamed “Soapy Sam” because of his slipperiness during ecclesiastical debates). Rumor has it that during the debate Wilberforce turned to Huxley and asked: “Is it on your grandfather’s or grandmother’s side that you claim descent from the apes?” Unfazed, Huxley quietly muttered, “The Lord hath delivered him into my hands,” and then publicly declared that he would rather be descended from an ape than from a bishop.
Each year the BAAS organizes a wonderful, week-long, national celebration of science, and in 2001 they invited me to conduct an experiment as part of the proceedings. After receiving the invitation, I happened to discover a newspaper article describing the latest fad in stargazing: financial astrology. According to the article, some soothsayers were claiming that the date of a company’s formation could predict its future financial performance. If true, this had enormous implications for investors all over the world, and so I decided to find out whether heavenly activity really could influence the bottom line.
The experiment involved three participants—a financial astrologer, an experienced investment analyst, and a young child. At the beginning of the test we gave them a notional £5,000 each and asked them to invest the money in the stock market as they thought best. Then, over the course of a week, we tracked their choices. Who would make the wisest investments?
Finding astrologers willing to take part in these types of studies is notoriously difficult. The vast majority do not want their claims put to the test, and those who are interested rarely agree to the conditions associated with a scientific experiment. However, after a few dozen telephone calls, we found a professional financial astrologer who accepted the challenge because she thought the project sounded like fun.
Our remaining two guinea pigs proved easier to recruit. A quick Internet search and a couple of telephone calls uncovered an experienced investment analyst who was also happy to participate. Finally, a friend of a friend said she would ask her daughter if she wanted to be our third and final participant. A bar of chocolate sealed the deal, and Tia, a four-year-old girl from southeast London with no investment experience, completed the team. When Bar-clay’s Stockbrokers, one of Britain’s leading investment firms, agreed to adjudicate the contest, we were set to go.
We allowed our three volunteers to invest their cash in any of the one hundred largest companies in the United Kingdom’s Stock Exchange. After carefully examining the formation date of the companies, our financial astrologer promptly chose a variety of sectors, including communication and technology-based stock (Vodafone, Emap, Baltimore Tech, and Pearson). Our investor drew on his seven years of extensive experience and decided to invest mainly within the communications industry (Vodafone, Marconi, Cable & Wireless, and Prudential).
We wanted Tia’s choices to be random, and she happily approved a cunning selection procedure involving a stepladder and a big pad of paper. At 11:55 A.M. on March 15, 2001, I found myself balancing precariously on the top of a six-foot stepladder in the marble foyer of Barclay’s Stockbrokers. Tia, and a small audience of Britain’s top investors were waiting patiently on the ground below. One of my hands gripped the ladder tightly; the other held one hundred small pieces of paper, each bearing the name of a company. As the clock struck noon, I threw the papers high into the air and Tia randomly grabbed four of them as they gently fluttered to the ground. She carefully handed the four pieces to her mother, who announced that her daughter would invest in a well-known bank (Bank of Scotland), a consortium of well-known drinks brands (Diageo), a financial services group (Old Mutual), and a leading supermarket chain (Sainsbury). The onlookers applauded, and Tia curtsied to her small but appreciative audience.
To be as fair as possible, we allowed our participants to change their investments a few days into our week-long experiment. When our financial astrologer again consulted the heavens, she swapped three of her choices; her final portfolio contained BOC, BAE Systems, Unilever, and Pearson. In one interview with journalists, she justified her decisions on the basis that these companies had a good planetary wind behind them.
3
Our expert investor chose to stick with his original selections. A second round of random paper dropping left Tia with Amvescap, Bass, Bank of Scotland, and the Halifax.
3
Our expert investor chose to stick with his original selections. A second round of random paper dropping left Tia with Amvescap, Bass, Bank of Scotland, and the Halifax.
At the end of the week, we regrouped at Barclay’s Stockbrokers and examined the results. It had proved an exceptionally turbulent week for the stock market, with billions of dollars wiped off the value of the world’s leading companies. Strangely enough, neither of our experts had seen the crash coming. In line with this dramatic downward trend, all three of our participants had lost money. At the bottom of the pack came the financial astrologer, whose planetary prognostications resulted in a 10.1 percent loss. The expert investor came a close second with a 7.1 percent loss. At the head of the class was Tia, with a loss of just 4.6 percent.
Our investor didn’t exactly display the kind of optimism commonly associated with his trade; indeed, he told journalists that he had confidently expected to finish last and had thought all along that Tia would win.
4
Our astrologer turned to the heavens to help explain her failure: She noted that had she known beforehand that Tia was a Cancerian she wouldn’t have played against her.
5
Tia, who was remarkably modest about her win, said that she couldn’t explain her winning ways and didn’t even study science at nursery school.
6
4
Our astrologer turned to the heavens to help explain her failure: She noted that had she known beforehand that Tia was a Cancerian she wouldn’t have played against her.
5
Tia, who was remarkably modest about her win, said that she couldn’t explain her winning ways and didn’t even study science at nursery school.
6
The
Sun
newspaper was rather taken with Tia’s success and carried a full-page profile of her in its financial section, including her three top tips for those eager to play the market: “Money isn’t everything—sweets are,” “Go to bed early,” and “Watch the growing market in kids’ toys.”
7
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
expressed an interest in having Tia on the program, and I suspect that she was the only guest to decline on grounds of homework.
Sun
newspaper was rather taken with Tia’s success and carried a full-page profile of her in its financial section, including her three top tips for those eager to play the market: “Money isn’t everything—sweets are,” “Go to bed early,” and “Watch the growing market in kids’ toys.”
7
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
expressed an interest in having Tia on the program, and I suspect that she was the only guest to decline on grounds of homework.
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