6. December 2008 by John Schinnerer.

Happiness is catching. Happiness spreads through friends, spouses, siblings and neighbors. There is a ripple effect whereby happiness extends widely through social networks, even between people who may not know one another. One’s happiness depends on the degree of happiness of those surrounding her.

A study performed at Harvard University, by Nicholas Christakis, is the first of its kind to demonstrate the existence of clusters of happy and sad individuals. Happiness depends upon the happiness of those around them. What’s more, individuals who surround themselves with happy people are more likely to be happy in the future. One’s future happiness can actually be predicted by the number of happy people surrounding them and the degree to which the social network as a whole experiences constructive emotions, such as happiness.  These findings come from an analysis of the Framingham Heart Study social network, a longitudinal study that has followed nearly 5,000 people for over 20 years.

Study findings suggest that happiness results from the spread of happiness throughout social networks and not merely from individuals choosing to surround themselves with like-minded individuals. For example, if your next door neighbor becomes happier due to a job promotion, your likelihood of becoming happier increases by 34%. And this happiness effect can linger for up to one year.

This relationship between individual’s happiness holds true for the first three degrees of separation. For example, when John becomes happier, it buoys the happiness of John’s friends as well as the friends of John’s friends. So there is a ripple effect of happiness within social circles where happiness is contagious and spreads similar to the waves of a wireless network. And we are consciously aware of little, if any, of it.

In the past five to ten years, more and more studies have looked at happiness and what determines it (e.g., genetics, money, elections, marital status and emotional management). However, no study has looked at human happiness as it relates to the happiness of others. While the study is the first of its kind and needs to be replicated to ensure the accuracy of these findings, the findings are remarkable and exhilarating.

Emotional contagion, the process by which one person picks up the feelings of another, has been scientifically documented since 1994. Emotions may be ‘caught’ from others for a length of time ranging from seconds to weeks.  This is particularly true of destructive emotions - anger, fear and sadness. In fact, the hard part is not ‘catching’ the emotions but in protecting oneself from them, keeping them at bay. Until this study, emotional contagion had not been documented for any of the positive, constructive emotions such as joy, contentment, peacefulness or happiness.  

The difficulty is that most people primarily feel destructive emotions. Most people experience more destructive emotions than constructive emotions.  

On the other hand, roughly 10% of adults in the United States feel three times as much positive emotion as negative. This 3:1 ratio is the measuring stick for a thriving happy life as set by Barbara Fredrickson at UNC Chapel Hill. It appears that this top 10% is raising the level of happiness of many others. Imagine if it were possible to raise this thriving, happy portion of the population to 15% or 20%.

Assuming the percentage of the populace experiencing happiness could be improved, here are just a few of the possible societal benefits:

·        The economy would improve (e.g., higher ratios of positive, open-ended inquiries are present in executive teams in highly successful firms)

·        Creativity would increase (e.g., happiness is linked to greater innovation)

·        Productivity would soar (e.g., a happy employee is a productive employee; optimistic salespeople outsell pessimistic ones by approximately 38%)

·        The burden on the health care system would be eased (e.g., happiness improves immune system functioning).

·        People would live longer (e.g., happy, optimistic people live 7 – 10 years longer than those who are pessimistic and unhappy)

·        The educational system would show significant academic gains (e.g., students taught to be more happy and optimistic showed significant gains on achievement testing and received better grades)

The exciting part is that happiness can be taught. It can be learned. People can learn to feel positive emotions more frequently and more intensely. Emotional management is a learnable skill. Just as one practices a sport and improves over time so it is with emotions.   As individuals learn to string together more and more happy moments, the ripple effect spills over and one person’s happiness positively influences others.  It even influences the happiness of other people they don’t know.

The goal is emotional management. The goal is happiness. The goal is to learn to mitigate destructive emotions and encourage positive emotions. Happiness is social phenomena. The more individuals experience positive emotions, the more society as a whole is happier, healthier, and more productive and that is no small feat.

About the Author

Dr. John Schinnerer is in private practice helping individuals learn happiness by mitigating destructive emotions and fostering constructive emotions. His practice is located in the Danville-San Ramon Medical Center at 913 San Ramon Valley Blvd., #280, Danville, California 94526. He graduated summa cum laude from U.C. Berkeley with a Ph.D. in psychology. Dr. Schinnerer has been an executive and psychologist for over 10 years. Dr. John Schinnerer is President and Founder of Guide To Self, a company that coaches clients to their potential using the latest in positive psychology, mindfulness and attentional control. Dr. John Schinnerer hosted over 200 episodes of Guide To Self Radio, a prime time radio show, in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Dr. Schinnerer is President of Infinet Assessment, a psychological testing company to help firms select the best applicants. Dr. Schinnerer’s areas of expertise range from positive psychology, to emotional awareness, to moral development, to sports psychology. Dr. Schinnerer wrote the award-winning, “Guide To Self: The Beginner’s Guide To Managing Emotion and Thought,” which is available at Amazon.com, BarnesAndNoble.com and AuthorHouse.com.  

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11. June 2008 by John Schinnerer.

Most people like to enjoy the illusion that they are rational consumers. However, more and more studies are demonstrating the powerful impact that emotions play in buying decisions. In a recent study in the Journal of Consumer Research, researchers found that customers in an angry mood make different purchasing decisions than customers in a sad mood, demonstrating that negative emotions vary in how they influence consumer decision-making.  

Angry Mood Makes Consumers More Likely to Stick to Their Guns 

Angry consumers were 37% more likely to stick with their existing choices than sad individuals. In other words, angry individuals are less likely to see the advantages or benefits of a new product or service. People in an irritable or angry mood become cognitively rigid, which is to say, their neural nets are knotted. Until they calm down, new information will be ignored. 

Sad Mood Still Open to Options  On the other hand, individuals who were sad behaved the same as those in a neutral mood (i.e., a 5 on a 1 to 10 scale) when it came to consumer decision making. In contrast, folks in a funk (i.e., sad sacks) have a tendency to look at options closely and carefully and then make the best decision based on the information at hand.  Take Home Message   Different negative emotions influence behavior differently yet predictably. If you know how someone is feeling, you can predict (within a certain range) how they will behave.  For example, if you sell consumer packaged goods, you are more likely to sell new products to sad consumers than angry ones. Individuals in an angry mood are significantly more likely to stick with status quo. Angry peoples’ thoughts comingle with, and are influenced by, an angry mood. As a result, they tend to overfocus and dwell on their anger and, typically, do not look at options or possibilities.  A mood of sadness or melancholy gives one the chance to reflect and a willingness to ponder a variety of possibilities. This is typically done in an attempt to self-correct one’s mood towards a neutral middle ground.  Conclusion  As an individual, be wary of making any important decisions when you are angry. You could be missing some fantastic opportunities! As a corporation, have your finger continuously on the pulse of how your customers feel.  Awareness of the mood of the consumer can lead to a more engaging, pleasant and profitable relationship.  John Schinnerer, Ph.D.Emotion Mining Company, Inc.

www.EmotionMining.com

Incidental and Task-Related Affect: A Re-Inquiry and Extension of the Influence of Choice. Journal of Consumer Research. June 2005.

Author Information

Dr. Schinnerer is Chief Communication Officer at Emotion Mining Company, which has a powerful method to accurately quantify emotions to help craft successful change initiatives, improve brand equity, increase effectiveness of marketing campaigns, remove roadblocks to team building and allow for new scientific research.  The EM method was designed and fine-tuned over the last 15 years by a Stanford psychiatrist and neuroscientist and tested with Fortune 500 companies, such as AOL, Coke, Penske, Campbell’s, and Purina, with unparalleled results.In the past, Dr. Schinnerer has served as President of Guide To Self (http://www.guidetoself.com), a company that focuses on executive coaching and positive psychology.  Dr. Schinnerer also hosted Guide To Self Radio, a prime time radio show on positive psychology and emotional management.  Dr. Schinnerer started in the private sector as President of Infinet Assessment (http://www.infinetassessment.com), a psychological testing company to help firms select the best applicants. Dr. Schinnerer wrote the book “Guide To Self: The Beginner’s Guide To Managing Emotion and Thought” (Available at Amazon.com, Target.com and BarnesAndNoble.com) and many articles such as “The Marketing Revolution: Connecting Behavior with the Subconscious Mind.” His book was awarded “Best Self-Help Book of 2007.” 

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23. March 2008 by John Schinnerer.

The Solution to the Chief Marketing Officer’s Dilemma – Accurate Emotional Engagement Metrics 

By Dr. John L. Schinnerer and Shirley Knight 

On average, companies change CMOs every two years. Is this a function of unrealistic expectations, unclear job requirements, or something more fundamental? Perhaps the solution is as simple as accurately measuring that which truly bonds consumers to brands – emotional engagement. The task of linking consumer behavior to brands and marketing efforts is a difficult one with which the best Chief Marketing Officers’ grapple daily. Solutions such as self-report surveys, focus groups, and in-depth interviews suffer from a critical disconnect between their results and consumers’ real world behavior. This ongoing challenge has put Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) into the unenviable position where their best efforts are not measureable, and as a result their job security is never assured.  The CMO’s Dilemma  In his April 2008 Gallup Management Journal article “The Chief Marketing Officer’s Dilemma,” Willam J. McEwen looks at some of the difficulties of the CMO position – rapid turnover, high pressure expectations, and a poorly defined job.  The CMO position faces inherent difficulties in the sense that customer engagement depends upon  a) Communicating the brand promise and b) Delivering upon the company’s brand promise.    Both consumer engagement and profitability rise when employees help deliver on the brand promise. The difficulty arises in that the CMO has control over the first half of the equation (communicating brand promise via advertising and marketing) but not the second half (delivering upon brand promise via employees and operations). The CMO has no direct control over the workforce. They control the packaging, promotion and promise, but not the daily deliverance and implementation. Thus, to a large extent, the real potential, and the potential pitfalls, of the brand are in the hands of employees who are outside of the CMO’s control.  Gallup’s Proposed Solution The solution to the dilemma is two pronged. First, CMOs must be capable of recognizing and understanding the entire breadth of their brand – from the brand’s promise to each interaction between employee and customer to every experience customers have with the brand. This indicates that CMOs must “look at the world from the customer’s point of view.” Second, senior executives must design more comprehensive, well-defined objectives and accountability measures for their CMOs. However, this solution proposed by Mr. McEwen falls short of the target. The assessment of the problem and its respective solutions can be extended to incorporate a broader view of the mind, the market, the brand and the CMO – a view which involves both sides of the mind, the rational and the emotional, and allows for a more accurate picture of engagement, branding and profitability. 

Rational vs. Emotional Mind 

From a neuromarketing perspective, there are at least two parts to the human mind – the rational and the emotional.   The rational mind is reasonable, logical, and linear. The rational mind is excellent at developing levelheaded explanations for behavior. It is so good it has consumers (and others) convinced that they are rational shoppers. The rational mind is so good at creating the illusion that it is in control that scientists didn’t even discover the emotional mind until a few decades ago. In other words, the rational mind has conveniently overlooked the existence of the emotional mind ever since Descartes’ famous but flawed line, “I think, therefore I am.” The emotional mind is associative, largely subconscious, irrational and intense. The emotional mind is more powerful than the rational mind. It had greater endurance than the rational mind. It works more quickly than the rational mind. This is partially due to the order in which the brain evolved over millions of years. Those areas of the brain which are primarily responsible for emotions, the hippocampus, the amygdala, and the insula, among other regions, developed 5 – 10 million years ago. On the other hand, the part of the brain responsible for rational thought, the neocortex, developed a mere 40,000 – 2 million years ago. In terms of evolutionary brain development, the rational mind is still in its infancy, while the emotional mind is like a mature adult. So the emotional mind has been through hundreds of revisions and updates, while the rational mind is still a bit ‘buggy.’ Research confirms the emotional mind is a more powerful driver of behavior. Consumers buy with the emotional mind and explain the purchase (to their spouse, for instance) with rational mind. The Importance of Fully Engaged Customers 

Gallup has convincingly shown that “profitable growth is directly dependent on the degree to which a company’s customers are ‘fully engaged.’”  Gallup defines “fully engaged customers” as “strongly emotionally attached and attitudinally loyal.” On the other hand, actively disengaged customers are “completely detached from your company…they may become virulently antagonistic toward your company or brand…they’re always eager to tell others exactly how they feel.” The inevitability of negative customer-employee interactions and subsequent drops in customer engagement make it imperative that the CMO find a way to accurately quantify and measure emotional engagement.  With an accurate method to lay out the conscious and subconscious emotions that consumers feel when they interact with the brand, the CMO has a fighting chance to ensure customers return again and again for the same “feel good” experience. Once the CMO has this emotional profile for the brand, then she can set about focusing on “increasing sales share …while meaningfully enhancing the brand.” Until then, the CMO is akin to a ship atop the sea without a rudder; adrift without a map.  Emotions and the Subconscious Drive Behavior 

Emotions and the subconscious are the primary driving forces behind consumer behavior, including buying behavior. The challenge has been to develop a tool to accurately identify and measure conscious and subconscious emotions in real time. In the absence of any such tool, CMO’s have had to rely on basic, rudimentary methods, such as observation of shopping behavior, self-report questionnaires and focus groups to predict engagement and behavior. These methods have proven inconclusive at best.  The CMO’s job security is thus tied to shaky and unreliable data collection methods. Given how consumer data is still being collected in archaic ways, it’s no wonder that the tenure in the CMO position is so short. The problem is not that the CMO does or does not know how to do the job. The problem is that no one knows how to accurately measure emotional engagement so there are no real benchmarks against which performance can be judged.  

Communicating Brand Promise  The creator of the most successful mass-communication ad campaigns for Avis and Volkswagen, William Bernbach, said, “You can say the right thing about a product, and nobody will listen.  You’ve got to say it in such a way that people will feel it in their gut. Because if they don’t feel it, nothing will happen.”   The value of brand equity is not so much in the rational, conscious mind as it is in the emotional, subconscious mind. It’s not how consumers think about a company or its offerings. It’s how they feel about it. And oftentimes, they’re not even consciously aware of how they feel.  The most successful marketing campaigns will speak to the head and the heart, the rational and the emotional. Yet, for most CMOs, the ability to accurately measure the emotional side of the equation is not an option, if, for no other reason, than no adequate emotional ruler exists.   The one company which has best delivered on the promise of measuring emotional engagement is the aptly named, Emotion Mining Company. Emotion Mining Company has developed an online, projective technique which enables accurate and reliable measurement of the emotional mind. This information is as essential as it is unprecedented and as such it makes sense that Emotion Mining’s tool be standard for every company that wants to reach consumers at a gut level. Delivering On Brand Promise 

The second part of the CMO’s dilemma, delivering upon the brand’s promise, also has an essential emotional component to it. This should come as no surprise as we are still dealing with humans who are quintessentially emotional beings.  It is well understood that employee satisfaction is positively linked to profitability.  The more engaged employees are, the better their interactions with customers; the better the interactions with customers, the more loyalty generated; and customer loyalty equals profit.  To truly leverage employee engagement, find out how employees really feel about the customer base in general. If a call center representative thinks of and, more importantly, feels that customers are like incapable, annoying children, their interactions will obviously suffer. If a call center rep sees the customers as sources of innovative ideas who are in genuine need of help, their interactions will flourish and the brand will gain new champions as a result of their positive exchanges.  Even though delivery of the brand promise is outside the CMO’s purview, she can still influence her colleagues who oversee delivery by acquiring and sharing a deeper, more accurate, understanding of a) how the consumer perceives the brand and b) how the consumer wants to experience the brand. In this way, the CMO provides the company with the necessary hard data to create the finest possible customer experience. Such information in the hands of senior management would be a powerful driver of organizational change and brand enhancement as it creates positive guidelines for promotion and delivery.  Measuring the emotional responses of consumers is an aspect of market research that is just now coming to the fore, creating new and necessary tools for the marketing toolbox.  Dr. Tom Snyder, the founder of Emotion Mining Company Inc., whose method identifies conscious and subconscious emotional reactions to a question, brand or concept, states, “The emotion data – both quantitative and qualitative – is generated in less than a month and provides previously unavailable insights into the consumer’s perspective. As a result our clients, such as Coca-Cola, have been able to better target both marketing and delivery.” As McEwen suggested in his article, CMOs need to look at the world from their customer’s point of view, and senior management need to design more comprehensive, well-defined objectives and accountability measures for their CMO’s.  Recognizing the role of emotions and measuring emotional responses provides competitive advantage for the firm as well as job security for the CMO! About the Authors:
 Dr. John Schinnerer is Director of Client Relations for Emotion Mining Company which offers a novel, patented method to measure conscious and subconscious emotions and thoughts. In the past, Dr. Schinnerer has served as President of Guide To Self (http://www.guidetoself.com), a company that focuses on executive coaching.  Dr. Schinnerer also hosted Guide To Self Radio, a prime time radio show on positive psychology and emotional management.  Dr. Schinnerer started in the private sector as President of Infinet Assessment (http://www.infinetassessment.com), a psychological testing company to help firms select the best applicants. Dr. Schinnerer wrote the book “Guide To Self: The Beginner’s Guide To Managing Emotion and Thought” and the article “The Marketing Revolution: Connecting Behavior with the Subconscious Mind.” His book was awarded the “Best Self-Help Book of 2007.” 

Shirley Knight is an Executive MBA from Queens University who has 30 years experience in banking and insurance, fulfilling roles in leadership, sales, relationship management, and change management. Shirley joined Emotion Mining (http://www.emotionmining.com) as COO to help clients gain access to unique insights that can build more competitive organizations.

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27. February 2008 by John Schinnerer.

John Schinnerer, Ph.D.

Director of Client Relations

Emotion Mining Company, Inc.  A scientific revolution is taking place. This revolution has to do with the exponentially increasing understanding of the human mind – the subtle yet profound influence of the subconscious mind on behavior.

Conscious awareness is merely the beginning of the journey into the mind. Neuroscientists agree the vast majority of cognitive processing takes place outside of conscious awareness. Most neuroscientists estimate between 90-95% of mental and emotional activity occur outside our conscious notice. Much of this “underground” activity is automatic and emotional. Much of this commotion is bubbling just below the level of our awareness.

So what’s the fuss? Why care about mental activity that goes on behind the scenes? The main reason is that subconscious activity has a massive impact on our perception of the world, behaviors, buying decisions, and satisfaction with life.

For example, the price of wine influences how people perceive the same bottle of wine. When people are told the price of wine is higher, they subconsciously create the perception of a better tasting wine. The higher priced wine is perceived to have new characteristics such as improved body, taste, and aroma once the price is revealed. Another study showed that brand recognition plays a large role at the subconscious level in influencing how we perceive objects, such as soda. Blind taste tests may show that individuals like drink A over drink B by a large percentage.  However, when those same individuals can see the product packaging and brand, they prefer B. No change in the two drinks, just an awareness of the brand which subtly yet powerfully kicks the subconscious mind into motion and changes the way the taste buds perceive the drink A and drink B.

In addition, conscious self report measures such as polls, surveys and focus groups are poor predictors of consumer behavior. Self report measures are notoriously flawed in their ability to predict future behavior.  The relationship between the stated intention of consumers and their actual buying behavior is low and can even be negative at times. For instance, over 60% of individuals who tested a new kitchen appliance in their home stated they were “likely” or “very likely” to purchase the appliance within three months. Nearly a year later, only 12% of those consumers had actually made the purchase. A follow up survey among those who said they were going to buy but did not discovered that those consumers could not explain the disconnect between their stated intention and their behavior.

What’s more, the subconscious mind works at lightning fast speed. It works so quickly that it can pick up information from the environment that does not even register in the conscious mind. For example, a message which appears for 30 milliseconds (below the threshold of conscious awareness) dramatically affects individuals’ behavior in the near future. An automobile manufacturer tested a new sensor system which could automatically measure the speed of the car as well as the distance of an object directly in the path of the car. When the program discovered a high probability of a crash, it flashed a message on the windshield which stated, “Brake!”

During testing of the program, it was found that the ideal length of time to flash the message on the windshield was 30 milliseconds – so fast that the conscious mind was not even aware of it, but the subconscious mind was. When the message was shown for 30 milliseconds, drivers demonstrated optimum braking ability. When the message was displayed for longer periods of time (so the conscious mind could “see” it), braking performance declined in speed.

These examples are just the beginning of a revolution in marketing, advertising, branding, and improved consumer experiences.

With the birth of new imaging tools and innovative methodologies such as Emotion Mining’s patented approach to get at subconscious thoughts and feelings, the mind is rapidly beginning to reveal its secrets. Similar to exploring the deepest depths of the ocean, we are on the verge of stunning new discoveries.  And, among others, marketing and branding professionals stand poised to reap the benefits. 

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6. February 2008 by John Schinnerer.

My clients teach me many new things; so that each contributes to the success of the others.  One of my oldest clients, Emotion Mining, is a research and software firm in Wellesley, Massachusetts.   They have been doing breakthrough research for select companies for over a decade; but are now reaching out to a broader market.  We’re delighted to announce that Emotion Mining’s long-awaited new web site is now live and ready for your visits at   www.emotionmining.com

I am writing this because I believe you may know people who are interested in gaining deeper insights into what drives human behavior, either in the field of brand marketing, public policy, or organizational development.   Emotion Mining is an Internet-based research technology that combines the qualitative and unique insight of an in-depth personal interview, the concept testing and idea-building of a focus group, and the efficiency and quantitative output of a survey…..and does all of this in a fraction of the time of traditional research. Emotion Mining offers this unique methodology to gain unprecedented insight into markets, and has already contributed directly to increased sales and brand recognition for many companies.   In the last year, Emotion Mining has also helped executive management identify and address human resource issues that arise from company culture changes, mergers, and reorganizations.

Our experience has taught us that people feel before they think or act; thus it is feelings that drive behavior.   Yet most of us are not conscious of the emotional reactions our brand or management creates.   Emotion Mining distinguishes between conscious (stated, surface reactions) and unexpressed (more powerful, deeply felt, unstated) behavior drivers to give market strategists and/or organizational leaders insight into the messages and actions that are most likely to change behavior.  Before Emotion Mining, decision makers had to guess at feelings and motivations - now we can reliably capture this important information about key behavior drivers.

We invite you to visit our new site at www.emotionmining.com to learn more.   We encourage you to register so that we can easily keep you updated on ways your organization can benefit from a relationship with Emotion Mining.   Most importantly, I urge you to please pass this email invitation on to your professional associates who may be interested.

Thanks for reading this far !!

Questions?   Call or email me at any time.

Barry Neagle

774-238-6073

barryneagle@emotionmining.com

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