Barking Up The Wrong Tree

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In this paper we examine the market reaction—price and volume—to the appearance of a firm in the Who’s News column of The Wall Street Journal. We differentiate between those firms whose articles are accompanied by a picture of an executive and a control set of firms whose articles on the same day are not accompanied by a picture. The results show a more pronounced market reaction to the “cum picture” articles, consistent with the incomplete information theory of Merton [1987] and the heuristic-based familiarity hypothesis. There is no evidence of significant long-run abnormal performance for the sample firms.

Source: “A Face Can Launch a Thousand Shares—And an 0.80% Abnormal Return” from Journal of Behavioral Finance, Volume 9, Issue 3 July 2008 , pages 107 – 116

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The degree to which physical attractiveness and nonverbal expressions of pain influence physicians’ perceptions of pain was investigated. Photographs of eight female university students were represented in four experimental conditions created by the manipulation of cosmetics, hairstyles, and facial expressions: (a) attractive-no pain, (b) attractive-pain, (c) unattractive-no pain, and (d) unattractive-pain. Each photograph was accompanied by a brief description of the patient’s pain problem that was standard across conditions. Medical residents (N = 60) viewed the photographs and rated each patient’s pain, distress, negative affective experience, health, personality, blame for the situation, and the physician’s own solicitude for the patient. The results showed that physicians’ ratings of pain were influenced both by attractiveness of patients and by nonverbal expressions of pain. Unattractive patients, and patients who were expressing pain, were perceived as experiencing more pain, distress, and negative affective experiences than attractive patients and patients who were not expressing pain. Unattractive patients also received higher ratings of solicitude on the doctor’s part and lower ratings of health than attractive patients. Physician’s assessments of pain appear to be influenced by the physical attractiveness of the patient.

Source: “Are physicians’ ratings of pain affected by patients’ physical attractiveness?” from Soc Sci Med. 1990;31(1):69-72.

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Hold some money:

People often get what they want from the social system, and that process is aided by social popularity or by having money. Money can thus possibly substitute for social acceptance in conferring the ability to obtain benefits from the social system. Moreover, past work has suggested that responses to physical pain and social distress share common underlying mechanisms. Six studies tested relationships among reminders of money, social exclusion, and physical pain. Interpersonal rejection and physical pain caused desire for money to increase. Handling money (compared with handling paper) reduced distress over social exclusion and diminished the physical pain of immersion in hot water. Being reminded of having spent money, however, intensified both social distress and physical pain.

Source: “The Symbolic Power of Money, Reminders of Money Alter Social Distress and Physical Pain” from Psychological Science

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