Beer: (Not) Drinking with Colleagues

Grabbing a drink with coworkers is a common way to let off steam. But those who forgo alcohol may wonder if it dulls their image. In this experiment, we tested whether opting for a non-alcoholic drink affects how fun and likable you seem. 

Branding & Your Image - Mac vs. PC

Apple has spent decades building its brand through sleek, innovative product designs for which customers pay top-dollar. Psychology says branding affects how we think about ourselves. Can it also affect how others perceive us?

Bulleted Lists & Memory

How can you make your writing more memorable? Whether it's an important email, presentation, or grocery list, you want your readers to remember what you wrote. Is a bulleted list the silver bullet? Evidence from our psychology study suggests it helps.

ChatGPT - Disclosing You Used It

Content creators are covertly using generative AI to produce written content. But disclosure regulation is on the horizon. In this experiment with 1,200 readers, we tested how crediting ChatGPT affects perceptions of the information and the content creator.

Email Name

There's a professional trend with email that involves using your full name in your personal email address. Does doing so actually provide a professionalism boost? We put it to the test in an experiment with 400 email users.

Email Signature

Email signatures, the organizational details below one's name in an email, do more than convey contact info. They can also serve as a symbol of status or professionalism to signal trust or importance. But do email signatures really have such an effect? We conducted a psychology experiment to find out.

Error Bars in Graphs

Statistical averages often come with a "margin of error," based on the sample size and variance between datapoints. This margin of error can be shown graphically via error bars. But do error bars increase rigor at the expense of understandability? Our experiment with an audience of over 1,000 people put it to the test.

Exclamation Marks in Emails

If you use exclamation marks in work emails, you may wonder how it affects your readers' perceptions of you. Do gender or age matter? We conducted an email experiment with 400 people to find out. 

Laptop Case vs. Backpack

Traditionally, messenger bags have been the go-to carrying case for laptops. But more recently, professionals are also turning to backpacks, despite their historical use by students. In this experiment, we asked how professional each seems to co-workers.

Meetings: Office vs. Café

Meetings, much like work itself, are practically inevitable. But perhaps switching up the venue can improve team morale. We ran a survey experiment with 805 people testing which types of people look forward to meeting at a café vs. the office.

Non-Native Speakers - Grammar Perceptions

Learning English is hard. Even native speakers make grammatical mistakes. But are non-native speakers judged more or less harshly for such errors, particularly in the workplace? The results of an experiment with 1,200 people suggest that gender may play a role.

Overtime Perceptions

Working late is often thought to be a way to win your boss's heart. But does it alienate you from your colleagues? In this randomized experiment, we had 1,200 people rate their perceptions of a colleague who either left on-time or stayed after hours.

Parentheses - Nuance or Nuisance

Parentheses provide supplemental details that (while potentially helpful) are not essential. Does including those details (and the parentheses enclosing them) boost informativeness? Or are they just annoying? We have the data in this 1,200-person experiment.

Phone Call Anxiety

A lot of people hate phone calls, particularly spam calls. Young people even claim that they can trigger anxiety. The results of an experiment with 400 people suggest there may be some validity to these claims.

Research Trust - Corporate vs. University

Irrespective of its actual credibility, it's an open question how much we actually trust corporate research compared to university research. Our experiment with 400 people put those perceptions to the test in a novel experiment.

Serif vs. Sans Serif Fonts

Serif fonts, with their decorative tapers, have historically been used in print media to help readers distinguish between letters. But in the digital age, sans serif fonts may be no less readable nor visually appealing, according to our 1,200-person email study.  

Statistics - Do They Persuade?

Can adding a statistic to support your claim convince others of its validity? We ran experiments across three contexts, including politics, business, and a college essay, measuring audience perceptions of claim believability and claim-maker competence.

Typos

We all make mistakes, especially when writing or typing. But making it a habit may affect your image. According to our workplace research study, typos in emails significantly affect how smart, likable, and trustworthy you seem.

Vertical vs. Horizontal Bar Graphs

Bar graphs are among the most popular types of graphs used in presentations and reports. While vertical bars are more traditional, horizontal bars have gained popularity. Which do audiences prefer? Our 1,200-person experiment has the answer.

Video Duration

Videos have become a dominant format in marketing media. But as entertaining as videos can be, they're also more time-consuming than simply viewing a photo or line of text. We investigated whether videos of differing lengths spark interest or annoyance.

Zoom vs. Metaverse Meetings

Virtual meetings have skyrocketed in recent years, with Zoom and other video conferencing platforms now the standard. But if virtual reality becomes a feasible venue for such meetings, which would people prefer? We put it to the (preliminary) test.