Experiment
Adventurous or Reckless?
In 1977, the psychologists E. Tory Higgins, William Rholes, and Carl Jones ran what participants were told were two unrelated studies. The first asked them to memorize a short word list. The second asked them to read a paragraph about a man named Donald and form an impression of him. Everyone read the identical paragraph. Whether they came away thinking Donald sounded adventurous or reckless depended almost entirely on which word list they'd memorized twenty minutes earlier. This demo runs the same idea, with an original paragraph built for it rather than a reproduction of theirs.
First, a short memory task: you'll see five words, then be asked to recall them later. Then you'll read a paragraph about a stranger and rate him. Don't overthink either part.
Memorize these five words. You'll be asked to recall them later.
Read this paragraph about someone named Marcus, then rate him below.
He spent the weekend repairing the roof alone, refusing offers of help even after a board gave way beneath him. He has already told his manager he's taking next month off with no fixed plan, just a truck and a departure date. He rarely returns calls from people he hasn't decided are worth his time, and he spent two years teaching himself to sail well enough to take a boat out past the point where everyone else turns back.
Before the reveal: what were the five words from earlier?
Discussion
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