Neuromarketing Glossary
A dictionary of cognitive biases, behavioural effects and neuromarketing principles
Cognitive Biases and Neuromarketing Principles
What is the difference between Social Proof and Social Cognition? How does Implicit Egotism increase sales, and why does Reactance reduce them?
The recent successes of neuromarketing books like Roger Dooley’s Friction or Dan and Chip Heath’s Made to Stick has created a demand for information about psychology and consumer behaviour. Books like Robert Cialdini’s Influence and Richard Thaler’s Nudge, have returned to the best-sellers lists, and new books like Oversubscribed and Smart Persuasion have joined them. These publications have brought with them a whole new lexicon of neuromarketing principles that need to be properly understood.
Ambiguity Effect
A tendency to avoid options with unknown results, even when these are the best choices available.
Attention Ratio
The way a person’s limited cognitive resources are divided between a certain number of distractions.
Attentional Bias
A tendency to focus on certain limited factors when making a decision, ignoring other information.
Authority Principle
A socialised reaction to authority figures, compelling individuals to respond appropriately.
Availability Bias
When ideas that are familiar and easy to access are mistakenly considered more likely or important.
Curse of Knowledge
An effect that prevents those with knowledge from communicating to those without it.
Decision Fatigue
Mental tiredness caused by a sustained period of decision making.
Endowment Effect
The increase in an item’s perceived value as a result of ownership.
Foot-in-the-Door Technique
An efficient technique to convince people to do something by asking for something small first.
Goal Gradient Effect
The tendency to increase the effort applied to a task as it nears completion.
Group Influence
The psychological influence that a majority has on the individual.
IKEA Effect
A tendency to overvalue items that we have customised or built ourselves.
Information Bias
A belief that more information will lead to better decisions, even if the extra information is irrelevant.
Motivation (Extrinsic and Intrinsic)
Two types of motivation, respectively based on internal and external factors.
Mere-exposure Effect
The way in which a positive reaction can be induced simply from familiarity with something.
Motivating-Uncertainty Effect
The fact that uncertain rewards can increase motivation.
Need for Certainty
A need to feel more in control of the surrounding world by correctly predicting future events.
Pain of Paying
The discomfort caused by spending money. It can negatively affect how people feel about a product they have purchased.
Picture Superiority Effect
The fact that the human brain remembers better visual information than written one.
Processing Fluency
The ease and speed at which information is organised and assimilated.
Psychological Reactance
A negative response triggered when one feels that their freedom of choice is threatened.
Risk Compensation
Adjusting one’s behaviour according to the level of risk perceived, rather than the actual risk encountered.
Scarcity Effect
A tendency to place a higher value on a scarce product than on an abundant one.
Social Cognition
The attraction one feels toward people, places and objects that are similar to oneself.
Status Quo Bias
A general preference for maintaining habits or ways of thinking.
Sunk Cost Effect
Continuing to invest money, time or effort in a doomed project due to the amount already invested.
Visual Cueing
The fact that visual cues, such as arrows, help the human brain to focus on specific elements.
Visual Depiction Effect
Encouraging a potential customer to imagine using a product increases their desire to buy it.
Von Restorff Effect
A tendency to remember things that stand out and are unusual.
Zeigarnik Effect
A tendency to remember incomplete tasks more than completed ones.
