Sarah, our editor at Doubleday, sent us this article about decision-making in groups. What’s interesting here is that if the same person repeats the same argument three times, the rest of the people in the group will chalk it up to three separate votes for a certain position.

In other words, the more you repeat something, the more people will feel it reflects the overall sentiment of the group. Surgeons and pilots alike are actually trained in this very technique of speaking up—and repeating themselves if necessary—when they notice something important that is getting overlooked by the rest of the group.

We’ll try it out next time we discuss editing choices with Sarah. See if she’ll notice.

To say that there’s no love lost between Scott McClellan and the White House is an understatement. McClellan ripped Bush and his buddies a new…well, let’s say his analysis was critical. The interesting thing for us, though, is why he didn’t speak up sooner. Sure, he was trying to protect his job—and yes he’s coming out with a new book.

But it’s also that the Bush administration has been a big one to squelch dissent. Simply put, when everyone nods and agrees, it’s hard to be the one guy who stands up and offers what psychologist David Kantor calls a blocking voice.

We’d argue that McLellan was only able to really see the light once he was out of the group. Once he could reflect back and think rationally: why did I continue nodding my head? And for that he deserves our kudos.

Check out this video of Ori produced by our friends from BNET.com
(shout out to Liz Kao) discussing SWAY.

Welcome to the Sway blog, looking at human behavior with a new lens.

Rom’s a psychologist.  Ori is an entrepreneur.  And we often talk about
the intersection between our two fields. 

You’ll hear from Ori, you’ll read from Rom, and sometimes  from both.