Blame It on Your Name
Every once in awhile, you run across a study that boggles the mind.
Case in point: Psychologists in marketing at Yale and the University of California, San Diego, have found that "a preference for our own names and initials — the 'name-letter effect' — can have some negative consequences," USA Today reports.
The study of the unconscious influence of names and initials, which will be published in the December issue of Psychological Science, finds that students whose names begin with "C" or "D" get lower grades than those whose names start with "A" or "B." (Heaven knows how this affects the Franks and Felicias of the world.)
The researchers' work supports a series of studies published since 2002 that have found the "name-letter effect" causes people to make life choices based on names that resemble their own. Those studies by Brett Pelham, an associate professor of psychology at SUNY University at Buffalo, have found that people are disproportionately likely to live in states or cities resembling their names, have careers that resemble their names and even marry those whose surnames begin with the same letter as their own.
The USA Today story provides a few examples based on the research, including one that caught my eye. Apparently, a guy named Tom is likely to live in Toronto and marry someone named Tonya.
I don't know about all this. Never mind the Carls or Denises we all know who did well in school. I'm a Tom ... who lives in Virginia ... and married a Barbara.
However, the authors of the study do say that while the effect is more than coincidence, it is small.
Maybe very small.
5:17 PM ET | 11-15-2007 | permalink
