Liberal Talk Radio

Provocative Op-Ed in the Sunday NYT. Psychologist Daniel Gilbert argues that we’re hard-wired to “help a brotha’ out,” so to speak, and a new generation of marketers is exploiting this fact to sell us Nissan Altimas:

Nissan knows that we will bend without thinking because the impulse to help is bred into our marrow. Our best instinct will be awakened by a key ring and then punished by a commercial. Like rubes throughout the ages, we will be lured by a false cry of distress and quickly cured of our innocence and compassion.

It makes sense, but at the end of the day, isn’t just a difference of degree? Marketers have exploited every aspect of human psychology — through things like color palettes and word choices — since forever.