WHAT I'M READING WEDNESDAY: Drunk Tank Pink by Adam Alter

Last month, I read Alter's recent book The Anatomy of a Breakthrough and enjoyed it enough that I decided to go back further and read Drunk Tank Pink from 2014.

Last night, I was describing some of what I have learned so far to my husband, and he was skeptical. He's read about too many studies that have since been disproven because they aren't replicable in other contexts.

Let's see what you think of some of these ideas. Do you believe their credibility?

• Our emotional selves are quite sensitive to color, and so if you put an agitated, or aggressive person in a pink room, they will calm down more quickly that in another colored room.
• Names and labels matter in applying for jobs, as much as in applying ourselves. Labels end up being self-fulfilling prophecies. Your challenging child will be challenging, and your flourishing child will flourish, just because of how you perceive them.
• Voters will more likely vote for someone with an easy sounding name, than a more complex one, even if they aren't qualified.
• Who we surround ourselves with matters, and the number of people matters too. Test takers did better in smaller testing situations than in larger ones.
• If you put a picture of eyes above your "honesty box" in the break room, you'll get way more contributions to the coffee/tea fund. (Do these exist anymore?) It worked for the police too -- posters of eyes and the "We have our eyes on criminal behavior" led to a marked reduction in crime in one community.
• If your boss turns on a real light bulb in your conference before your brainstorming meeting, you'll come up with more and better ideas. (A flash of the Apple log works too.) The symbol of a lightbulb or of Apple's logo is so strong that it will unconsciously push us to be more creative.

Do any of these resonate with you? Could you use any of them to your benefit?

Originally posted on LinkedIn with comments.

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