Alphabetical Order

Researchers Kurt Carlson and Jacqueline Conard at the Georgetown University School of Business published a very cool article in the Journal of Consumer Research. (By the way, much of the research that goes on in business schools is essentially applied psychology.)

They found that people whose last names are further toward the end of the alphabet respond more quickly to offers of free basketball tickets or an opportunity to complete a survey in return for a bottle of wine. Their theory is that people whose names are further toward the end of the alphabet have spent a lifetime being at the end of the line and waiting their turn, which causes them to jump more quickly at these kinds of opportunities.

Here is a more complete popular summary of this research and the research article itself.

There is really a lot to think about here. But one striking thing is the very respectable strength of the relationship. For example, the correlation between people's last names (A = 1 ... Z = 26) and the time it took them to respond to the basketball ticket offer was -.27. According to Cohen's guidelines, this is a medium strength relationship. And this for a relationship that no one (except for Carlson and Conard, I suppose) would have guessed existed at all.

Anyone who has dabbled in psychological research knows that many variables that seem like they ought to be related turn out not to be (or at only trivial levels). I can't count the number of times students in Psych 144 or Psych 42 have looked at the relationship between the number of units one is enrolled in and one's stress level and found ... bupkis.

So although the research seems well conducted and analyzed, I'm waiting to seeing some more replications--especially ones that use different methods and come from different labs. I love counterintuitive results (probably much more than the next guy), but the more counterintuitive they are, the more confirmation I want.

Stay tuned for more ... I hope.