Cognitive Design

Four recent experiments suggest:

“People often face outcomes of important events that are beyond their personal control, such as waiting for an acceptance letter, job offer, or medical test results. We suggest that when wanting and uncertainty are high and personal control is lacking, people may be more likely to help others, as if they can encourage fate’s favor by doing good deeds proactively.”

We naturally do good rather than act selfishly when we want something important that is outside of our control.  The idea is that by doing good we are more deserving of a favorable outcome and the fates will smile on us.

The are many implications for cognitive design. For example, presenting options to invest in Karma (do good) when people are in this mental state could be an effective  way of managing individual anxiety and creating social value at the same time.