The 10 most important psychological effects

A summary of the main psychological effects that have been discovered so far.

One of the major research efforts in psychology has been to understand the distortions of perception and thought that lead us to behave as we do. The idea is that by understanding the "psychological circuits" that condition our way of perceiving the world, we will be able to better understand the human mind.

That is why, for decades, psychologists have been studying a series of psychological effectscurious phenomena capable of being studied in laboratory conditions and which reflect biases and strange patterns of perception that occur in almost all people. In this article we will see which are the most important ones.

The main psychological effects

These are several psychological and perceptual phenomena that show that, underneath the apparent order in the human mind, strange mechanisms are hidden and that at certain times they can behave in a counterintuitive way.

1. Dunning-Kruger effect

This is one of the most consistent and robust psychological effects among those that have been found in the different investigations on human behavior, since it appears again and again in most experiments on this subject. It consists of the tendency to overestimate our skills and level of competence in what we are not good at, and the tendency to underestimate our skills and level of competence in what we are not good at.and in the tendency to undervalue ourselves a little in what we are really good at.

2. Stroop effect

The Stroop effect has to do with a process of interference between the senses, in which the textual component of a concept is mixed with a sensation. It appears when, under certain conditions, we read aloud and quickly the name of a color, whose word is written in a different color. the name of a color, the word of which is written in a different color.In these cases, it is very likely that instead of reading what the text says, we mention the name of the color to which we have been exposed sensorially, and not textually.

3. Lake Wobegon effect

This is one of the cognitive biases that have to do with the evaluations we make about ourselves; that is, it is related to our self-concept and self-esteem. Specifically, it is a tendency to believe that we are more skilled or virtuous than the average person and that, at the same time, if we show any sign of weakness or imperfection, it is due to circumstances external to ourselves, which have not allowed us to behave or be in the way that really defines us.

4. Cocktail party effect

Attention management has been for decades one of the topics in which psychology has put more interest, and the cocktail party effect gives us an idea of why, since it is very curious and at the same time common.

It is the psychological phenomenon that occurs when, in an automatic and involuntary way, our mind selects a sound that is mixed with the sound of the cocktail party, our mind selects a sound that is mixed with the background noise (or ambient noise) and that is relevant to us. relevant to us. For example, if we are at a crowded party and among the noise of people talking we hear our name, we will spontaneously be able to "isolate" that word from the rest and react to it, probably by turning in that direction.

Thus, the cocktail party effect occurs between the border between the conscious and the unconscious, as it takes place before we decide to direct our attention to a particular conversation, and "delivers" us a sound that has been selected by some mental process beyond our control.

5. McCollough effect

The McCollough effect is a phenomenon of perception belonging to the world of optical illusions based on after-images, which means that they show us the way in which retinal cells adapt to visual stimuli. The effects of the previous ones affect the way we see things that we are exposed to right afterward.

For this to occur, we first fix our gaze on a series of parallel lines of red and green, and then we are exposed to a similar pattern of parallel lines, but this time without color, black on white. This will cause us to perceive this stimulus mixed with the previous one, causing both to affect each other, creating an optical illusion.

6. Kappa effect

The Kappa effect is the psychological phenomenon whereby, if enough time passes between being exposed to one stimulus and being exposed to the next, we tend to believe that this lapse is longer than normal, while if this period is short enough, the opposite occurs: we have the feeling that less time has passed than has actually passed between one stimulus and the other. In other words, this psychological effect shows us the existence of thresholds that affect our perception of time..

7. Ben Franklin Effect

The Ben Franklin effect reveals a mental process related to cognitive dissonanceIf we do a favor to a person, in successive periods we are more likely to do that person a favor again than if we had received a favor from that person. This is thought to occur as a way of justifying our past action: we assume that it is natural to make small sacrifices for that person regardless of whether they are rewarded.

8. Forer effect

The Forer effect consists of the tendency to identify with deliberately abstract descriptions of a particular person, even when objectively there is nothing in them to indicate the degree of concreteness necessary to know who is being talked about. It is believed that the success of tarot and divination is based on this distortion of the mind, which can occur in virtually anyone given the right conditions.

9. Halo effect

The halo effect consists of a tendency to positively evaluate a person or entity in general based on an assessment of one of his or her qualities in particular. For example, it is common for famous people to be admired and valued very positively simply because they have this attribute (popularity and presence in the media).

In other words, the halo effect leads to exaggerated value judgments based on the lack of information about the person or entity as a whole, based on the fact of looking at the person or entity as a whole.The halo effect leads to exaggerated value judgments based on the lack of information about the person or entity as a whole, based on the fact of focusing on one of its characteristics that are visible and easy to verify.

10. Von Restorff effect

The Von Restorff effect describes the general pattern by which a homogeneous set of stimuli, we tend to remember more the ones that are out of the general norm.. For example, if we see a set of generally tall people, we will more easily remember the one that is significantly short.

This is one of the most exploited psychological effects in the world of advertising, which often uses images and metaphors that quickly express the idea that what is being offered is different from what the competition is offering.

Bibliographical references:

• Broadbent, D.E. (1954). The role of auditory localization in attention and memory span. Journal of Experimental Psychology. 47 (3): 191-196.
• Bronkhorst, A.W. (2015). The cocktail-party problem revisited: early processing and selection of multi-talker speech. Atten Percept Psychophys. 77(5): p. 1465-87.
• Fabiani, M. & Donchin, E. (1995). Encoding Processes and Memory Organization: A Model of the von Restorff Effect. Journal of Experimental Psychology; 21(1): 224-240.
• Nelson, D.L.; Reed, U.S.; Walling, J.R. (1976). Pictorial superiority effect. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning & Memory. 2 (5): 523–528.
• Ramachandran, V. y Zeve, M. (2017). Synesthesia and McCollough Effect. i-Perception, 8(3), 201-211.
• Svenson, O. (1981). Are we all less risky and more skillful than our fellow drivers? Acta Psychologica, 47, 143-48.