The persuasive pressure of peer rankings

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Here’s what you might see on a typical week when users took part in a friendly competition to rank themselves against their friends and colleagues in weekly step counts.

When introducing a new product it is essentially an exercise in persuading people to change their behavior. Many companies try to tackle this challenge by making the functional benefits of the new seem so much more compelling than the old. But this approach rarely works. After all, how many of us as children enjoyed eating our vegetables just because our moms said they were better for us than dessert?

 

 

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Fear Dictates What Music Teenagers Listen To

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Listening in Fear?

It’s no secret that peer pressure influences many teenagers’ lives.

But a new study has found that adolescents choose to listen to music that has been approved of by their peers rather than because they like it.

The study looked at teenagers listening to music on social networking sites such as MySpace, where a song’s popularity can be gauged by how many times it has been downloaded.

The results suggest that if their musical choices do not match those of others, their brains recoil in fear.

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Federated Media launches ExecTweets

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A Tweet of Ones Own or a Tweet Beater??

Moments ago, John Battelle and the team at Federated Media launched the beta of ExecTweets, a new service for folks to find and follow business execs on Twitter. It’s an interesting model, essentially a lens on Twitter that’s further organized by specific industry, like tech, media, healthcare, etc. Continue reading… “Federated Media launches ExecTweets”

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Learning With Robot-Aided Therapy

Learning With Robot-Aided Therapy 

A robot named Cosmo has become six-year-old Kevin Fitzgerald’s unlikely ally in his uphill everyday battle with developmental difficulties.

At a strip mall clinic in suburban Maryland, Kevin is at the unlikely intersection of new efforts to treat symptoms of autism, cerebral palsy and other developmental disorders with robotics and computer work.

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Children Influenced By Negative Family Members and By Positive Non-Family Members

 Children Infuenced By Negative Family Members and By Positive Non-Family Members

 

While children look up to and aspire to be like a positive family member or peer, they are more likely to imitate traits of other role models — including negative role models, which can lead to behavioral problems, according to a Kansas State University researcher.

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On The High School Popularity Scale, Being In The Middle Has Rewards

On The High School Popularity Scale, Being In The Middle Has Rewards 

The cult of popularity that reigns in high school can look quaint from a safe distance, like your 20th reunion. By then the social order may have turned over like an hourglass: teenagers who were socially invisible have emerged as colorful characters, confident, transformed. Others seem preserved in time, same as ever, while some former princes and queen bees are diminished or simply absent, now invisible themselves.

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Social Media Influencing Investment Decisions

Social Media Influencing Investment Decisions

Two-thirds of high-net-worth investors are influenced by online peer-generated content

An April 2008 Cogent Research survey found that US investors are highly engaged in social media, and their investment decisions are influenced accordingly.

The study found that 25% of US online adults are engaged in social media specifically related to personal finance and investing.

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