Today we delve into an unusual arena in which to find knowledge useful to the business person: Harvard Medical School. But go there we must, for the topic is how we make choices when comparing apples to oranges. The answer, it turns out, is that our individual neurons might be encoded to help us make this decision.
The astute marketers in our audience are already wondering, how do you market to neurons? And encoded ones at that! Sad to say, this article in Harvard Science doesn’t provide tips, but it does offer interesting insights into what is called transitvity, or “the hallmark of rational choice.”
Read the piece and learn how:
- A tamping iron passed through your brain not only hurts but can cause “choice deficits.”
- How monkeys (customers?) assign values in the apple juice versus grape juice decision.
- Researchers are studying whether value-encoding neurons adapt to different value scales over longer periods of time.
But what really caught my eye was the term “neuroeconomics”, which uses medical imaging technology to study the brain’s neural activity as we make make decisions. Apparently I missed my September 2006 edition of The New Yorker, which carried this article on the topic.
Hmmm. Is the M in MBA soon to stand for Medical? Where do you think science is driving the future of business in general and marketing specifically?
(Brain image by Gaetan Lee, CC 2.0)
