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The study method seems to be "rate the letters by how much you like them". While it looks like the study has been repeated enough to not be total quackery, the

The study method seems to be "rate the letters by how much you like them". While it looks like the study has been repeated enough to not be total quackery, there is still the question of what's the point. Does your preference for a particular letter has an effect on your choices? I doubt the research about people preferring brands with the names in their letters has properly ruled out other variables, or would prove to be significant. How many people actually give thought about what letters they like the most? I'm guessing the study was the first time the subjects were ever exposed to the thought of liking a letter. As such, ot seems reasonable to go for some point of reference that is simple and available, auch as your own name.

ComodoHacker 9y ago
The article also mentions study of charity donations.
- Illniyar 9y ago
  Skimming the article for that study, I don't find anything wrong with it superficially, but while the effect might be statistically significant, they are tiny - I.E. from 4.2% of donors to 5.5% had K initial in Katrina, and 10% to 12% in Hurrican Mitch (though the data might be bad, since the actual data did not contain the exact information they needed). Also the effect was apparently not noticeable in Hurrican Rita. There is also no mention of the percent of people starting with the letter from the given population - since the dataset for before the hurricane was much smaller (Katrina- ~300 before, ~4000 after), it's very likely that the proportions of named individuals drifted to the average, as what happens in larger datasets. The number of hurricanes tested was also small - I.E. 3 , I'm not sure an effect can be inferred from such small numbers.
ryanar 9y ago
One application of this is measuring implicit self-esteem. From the article, people who do not like themselves do not exhibit name letter preference. Also, people doing the name letter preference task do not realize they are choosing letters from their own name. As a result, this task can be used to measure how much implicit self-esteem or self-like one has
pbhjpbhj 9y ago
You can tailor spam to someone's name to elicit more sympathy! I wonder if it works aurally too, like would I prefer a thing called "eight-ball" because it's got the same syllable as "aitch" which is in my name?

ComodoHacker 9y ago

The article also mentions study of charity donations.

Illniyar 9y ago
Skimming the article for that study, I don't find anything wrong with it superficially, but while the effect might be statistically significant, they are tiny - I.E. from 4.2% of donors to 5.5% had K initial in Katrina, and 10% to 12% in Hurrican Mitch (though the data might be bad, since the actual data did not contain the exact information they needed). Also the effect was apparently not noticeable in Hurrican Rita. There is also no mention of the percent of people starting with the letter from the given population - since the dataset for before the hurricane was much smaller (Katrina- ~300 before, ~4000 after), it's very likely that the proportions of named individuals drifted to the average, as what happens in larger datasets. The number of hurricanes tested was also small - I.E. 3 , I'm not sure an effect can be inferred from such small numbers.

ryanar 9y ago

One application of this is measuring implicit self-esteem. From the article, people who do not like themselves do not exhibit name letter preference. Also, people doing the name letter preference task do not realize they are choosing letters from their own name. As a result, this task can be used to measure how much implicit self-esteem or self-like one has

pbhjpbhj 9y ago

You can tailor spam to someone's name to elicit more sympathy! I wonder if it works aurally too, like would I prefer a thing called "eight-ball" because it's got the same syllable as "aitch" which is in my name?