It's not news, it's FOX

My eye is twitching.

minoridiot: So, that explains TotalFark.

I'd say Fark as a whole.

Glockenspiel Hero: Methinks the reward might have been a little too low. "A sliding scale of up to 4 cents"? Most people don't bother to track pennies- why should they treat that as a reward? Even if you'd get $10-20 in the end because you'd answer a lot of questions, the opportunity cost of changing one or two as you go along is so low that it probably didn't even trigger.

Pay the man, Shirley

Enough about that study, guess where I'm going to lunch? Jimmy John's!

as a matter of fact " I do have high cheek bones"

Did I mention Haaarvard? snort

bim1154: minoridiot: So, that explains TotalFark.

I'd say Fark as a whole.

Actually it's Facebook and Twitter. Because, at least in theory, Farkers are in on the joke.

It's no secret that people love to talk about themselves. It's a common technique for service/sales people: get your customer talking about themselves; they're usually more apt to make larger purchases and give bigger tips.
However, this study reeks of pseudoscience to me. Of course participants answered the questions about themselves more readily and with more enthusiasm: those answers are easy, since they're part of each participant's psyche. Questions about other people or events require recollection of knowledge that isn't necessarily as close to one's own life experience.
It's a lot easier to get pumped up when getting paid to talk about shiat you don't even have to think about.

Flip it around and have people pay on a sliding scale to talk about themselves and you would still have a whole lot of takers. Hell, you'd probably have to pay them triple just to shut up and leave.

This is why I love job interviews. A whole hour where you are expected to do nothing but talk about yourself in flattering terms to a stranger.

ghare: bim1154: minoridiot: So, that explains TotalFark.

I'd say Fark as a whole.

Actually it's Facebook and Twitter. Because, at least in theory, Farkers are in on the joke.

I never brag about myself on fark... but that's because I'm cooler than the combined best traits of gary cooper and miles davis.

Plissken: It's no secret that people love to talk about themselves. It's a common technique for service/sales people: get your customer talking about themselves; they're usually more apt to make larger purchases and give bigger tips.
However, this study reeks of pseudoscience to me. Of course participants answered the questions about themselves more readily and with more enthusiasm: those answers are easy, since they're part of each participant's psyche. Questions about other people or events require recollection of knowledge that isn't necessarily as close to one's own life experience.
It's a lot easier to get pumped up when getting paid to talk about shiat you don't even have to think about.

I think the fMRI data was the most telling. the parts of the brain that lit up while talking about one's self were significantly different from the parts of talking about other people.

/ but, I like a little science in my pseudoscience... so sometimes a big expensive machine is enough for me to say science.

A sliding scale of up to 4 cents? There isn't much that that is going to convince me to do. I would rather answer questions about myself just so I didn't have to carry the farking pennies around after the questions.

I've used this knowledge for years to be honest. I do pretty well in a variety of social situations because I always get people to talk about themselves and they farkin love it!

Like how in most conversations between a number of people everyone is just waiting for a pause to say something about themselves. I'll throw a curve ball and when a pause comes along I'll say 'So Jim, that concert you went to that you were just talking about, been a fan of that group for long'. The only thing people love more than talking about themselves is knowing that someone was listening and being given an open to talk even more about themselves.

It can really be surprising how forgiving and helpful people can be when you do this.

/Doesn't always work though
//Especially not with women

Isn't that the point in dating?

Well no shiat... the evolution of the human race is pretty much dependent on sharing your ideas and thoughts with others. This is how knowledge is passed and learned, and good ideas get vetted from bad ones.

Without it, we would still be animals.

All therapy = foregoing money to talk about oneself. People are willing to pay thousands of dollars to have someone pretend to listen to them. This is known.

Yeah, stupid study. If they wanted to make it interesting they could keep upping the amount of money till they find the point were its enough of an incentive for people to not talk about themselves. Making a whole dime for sitting there for two hours isnt turning down money, its keeping yourself from being bored.

That's right, put your personal business out there for others to use against you later.

/If it weren't for the stupid and the narcissistic, lawyers would be on the side of the road picking up cans.

Glockenspiel Hero: Methinks the reward might have been a little too low. "A sliding scale of up to 4 cents"? Most people don't bother to track pennies- why should they treat that as a reward? Even if you'd get $10-20 in the end because you'd answer a lot of questions, the opportunity cost of changing one or two as you go along is so low that it probably didn't even trigger.

That part may be true, but "willingly gave up between 17 percent and 25 percent of their potential earnings so they could reveal personal information" that is a little more telling.

ghare: bim1154: minoridiot: So, that explains TotalFark.

I'd say Fark as a whole.

Actually it's Facebook and Twitter. Because, at least in theory, Farkers are in on the joke.

This is true, but in my years on Fark, some don't get the joke.

I thought the slideshow on the right about contraband seized at Dulles was more interesting than this.

I like posting in threads about people talking about themselves.

/I can FEEL the synapses firing!

OhioUGrad: Glockenspiel Hero: Methinks the reward might have been a little too low. "A sliding scale of up to 4 cents"? Most people don't bother to track pennies- why should they treat that as a reward? Even if you'd get $10-20 in the end because you'd answer a lot of questions, the opportunity cost of changing one or two as you go along is so low that it probably didn't even trigger.

That part may be true, but "willingly gave up between 17 percent and 25 percent of their potential earnings so they could reveal personal information" that is a little more telling.

You have to offer them more than a buck sixteen for a 17 to 25% reduction to feel meaningful.

I think it has more to do with the denomination than anything else. They could replicate the study and raise the reward until it reached a tipping point, so to speak. I think something like 25 cents per response would cause a huge jump in participation compared to even 24 cents.

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

A couple things pointed out in the article seemed kinda weird to me. They mentioned choosing between talking about oneself as opposed to speculating or answering questions about someone else.

I would think that it would certainly be more rewarding to your brain to speak about something you feel like you know or are sure of, as opposed to speculating about someone else because you do not know them.

Then again, I am not a neuroscientist, nor a psychologist.

This is awesome. Funny also how the Fox headline writer changed the study's constructive findings regarding "self-disclosure" into the destructive interpretation "bragging".

I wonder if particularly empathetic people have a greater tendency to lurk online rather than talk directly about themselves.

Minerva8918: A couple things pointed out in the article seemed kinda weird to me. They mentioned choosing between talking about oneself as opposed to speculating or answering questions about someone else.

I would think that it would certainly be more rewarding to your brain to speak about something you feel like you know or are sure of, as opposed to speculating about someone else because you do not know them.

Then again, I am not a neuroscientist, nor a psychologist.

This is a classic "grad student study," where something obvious is tested in a glaringly stupid way and trumpeted to PR firms so that they can get their master's or doctorate. I regularly see grad students appear on audio/video mailing lists with the dumbest questions trying to do the dumbest changes possible to a standard just so they can say "We got .01% improvement with a novel change" with a runtime of 100x and a compatibility of zero. If it gets them out of school, what do they care if they're spamming useless papers to every after-run journal in the world until someone picks it up.

ZeroCorpse: So they tested a bunch of extroverts, and probably didn't get one introvert in this study...

Came here to say the same thing. Wouldn't the study be a bit biased right from the start if they were taking volunteers for a social experiment?

That being said, I know a few people that talk about themselves 40+% of the time, and they are extremely irritating to be around. They certainly aren't introverts.