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Name-letter effect

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The name–letter effect refers to a person's tendency to favor the letters in their name over the other letters of the alphabet and it is one of the widest used measures of implicit self-esteem.[1] Discovered by Jozef Nuttin, the name-letter effect has been the subject of much research over the last few decades, shedding light on subjects such as implicit egotism, academic and financial success, and even the idea that people gravitate to cities that resemble their names.[2][3][4]

The name–letter effect differs from "implicit egotism",[5] the latter being attributed to the way people allegedly gravitate towards places, people and situations that reflect themselves, including perhaps similarities with their own name.

History

The name–letter effect was first described by that name by Belgian researcher Jozef Nuttin in 1985[2], although previous work refers to similar phenomena, including a study in 1962 by Alluisi and Adams that found a strong correlation between estimations of frequency of letter occurrence in English and visual pleasantness of that letter. In addition, the 1968 study by Robert Zajonc demonstrated that related exposure to a stimulus (a certain letter) is a sufficient condition to enhance its attractiveness[2]. He observed the name–letter effect in 15 European countries and at least 3 non-European countries. Stefan Steiger and Etienne LaBel found that the name–letter effect is most prevalent among letters from one's initials.[6]

Nuttin's original study involved Flemish elementary and university students. Pairs or triads of capital letters wer presented to these students, with one of the letters being one of that participant's initials. Nuttin found that the average proportion of own-name letter preferred was significantly higher than the random-letter partner(s). This was true of both first-name letters and family-name letters across 16 conditions.[2] A subsequent study performed by Nuttin in 1987 studied the name–letter effect across 12 languages and included different alphabets. Participants were shown 10 random orders of capital letters and were told to choose the top 6 favorites. Nuttin found that letters found in one's own name are 50% more likely to be chosen for the top 6, with the strongest correlation to the first letters of the first and family names (initials).[7]

Initial Support

Nuttin was the first to document this phenomenon with two separate studies in his initial paper published in 1985. He asked 38 Flemish girls from grades two through six to rate a series of letters, and found that the participants, on average, rated the letters of their own names higher than the rest of the alphabet.[2]

His second study was very similar to the first in structure, but consisted of older participants to see if longer exposure to the entire alphabet would change the results. Nuttin also manipulated other factors in the experiment, such as the letters appearing in pairs or triads, in an attempt to increase the validity of the study. The result of the experiment provided solid evidence of the name-letter effect across all 16 variations of the study.[2]

Continuing on from this in 1987, Nuttin, along with various colleagues from the European Association of Experimental Social Psychology, collaborated to test the name-letter effect across 12 different European languages in universities across the nation.[7] The results from this experiment showed that even across languages, people were significantly more likely to choose their name letters above the other letters in their respective alphabets.

Cause

Most scientists agree that the name-letter effect is caused by links with implicit self-esteem, or the implicit positive feelings a person has for themselves.[1] Since the letters of the name correspond to the self, it is thought that this is one of the main causes of the name-letter effect. Nuttin, however, attributes the name-letter effect to the idea of "mere ownership".[2] The idea is that a person feels ownership of their names and initials, causing an enhancement of the attractiveness of the owned object.[7]

The effect is hypothesized to result not just from writing one's own name repeatedly, because the effect is observed for people who write their names in Cyrillic characters: When selecting words written in the Latin alphabet, these people prefer words containing letters superficially similar to those in their own names even when letters having those shapes represent different sounds in their own alphabet (e.g., P (Cyrillic equivalent of Latin R), C (in Latin, S), and X (in Latin, "Kh")).[8]

World Extensions

Academics

Leif D. Nelson and Joseph P. Simmons performed a study that concerned the name-letter effect and its effects on academic success.[3] Their study strove to test whether the name-letter effect had any effect on GPA. It was shown that students with names that started with the letter C or D were more likely to have lower GPA's, thought to be due to the students being less averse to the lower grades because the signifying letters of those grades corresponded with their initials. However, students with initials corresponding to higher grade values did not show any improvement over students whose names did not correspond with any grade.[3]

Additionally, a study by Evan Polman, Monique M.H. Pollmann, and T. Andrew Poehlman went on to suggest that sharing initials with members in a group can increase the quality of group work. Studying over 260 undergraduate students that were organized into groups, they found that groups sharing initials performed better than groups that did not. Beyond this, groups that had a higher proportion of shared initials exceeded groups with a lower proportion of shared initials.[9]

Business

Frederik Anseel and Wouter Duyek performed a study which entailed obtaining a database containing information about the names of people and the businesses in which they are employed. Using this information they found that people are more likely to work at companies that share the same letters of their name, rather than companies that do not.[10] In a separate study researchers also found that owners of hardware stores were more likely to have the initial "H" rather than "R", while owners of roofing companies were more likely to have the initial "R" rather than "H".[11]

Birthdays and numbers

The birthday–number effect is the phenomenon that people prefer their birthday numbers, particularly the day and the month of birth, over non-birthday numbers.[12] Jones, Pelham, Mirenberg and Hetts performed a study assessing both name-letter preferences as well as birthday-number preferences. The researchers proposed that both the name–letter effect and the birthday–number effect reflect people's implicit self-esteem. The study showed significant results relating to participants showing a preference to numbers relating to their birth month or birth day. The researchers state that people's elevated liking for their name letters and birthday numbers are best conceptualized as examples of implicit egotism or unconscious self-regulation.[12] An study by Japanese researchers tested preferences for both name-letters and birthday numbers. After testing undergraduate students, they found a significantly enhanced liking for birthday numbers. Overall, participants showed a greater liking of their birth date over their birth month. In addition, they found that women showed a higher correlation for preference of birthday numbers. They reported similar reasoning for this phenomenon as the previous study, stating that people strive to boost their self-esteem. [13]

Gender-role orientation

Besides the name–letter effect measuring implicit self-esteem there also exists a name–letter effect for measuring gender-role orientation.[14] Gender-role orientation (GRO) refers to the extent to which an individual adopts and displays traits, attitudes, and behaviors normatively identified as male-typical or female-typical.[14] GRO has been defined as “an underlying, and not necessarily conscious, perception of the maleness or femaleness of the self."[14] It can be measured by the gender initial-preference task (gender-IPT),[14] which requires participants to rate letters for their gender typicality. Men have been shown to rate their initial letters as more male-typical, whereas women rate their initials as more female-typical. Also, the gender-IPT showed satisfying convergent validity with other direct and indirect (gender implicit-association test) measures of gender-role orientation, as well as predictive validity with sensation seeking and gender-typical everyday-life behaviors. Women can be expected to develop a greater sensitivity to their intuitive self-evaluations.[15] Their implicit and explicit self-esteem are likely to go hand in hand.[15] Two studies were performed that shows correlation between name-letter preferences and explicit self-esteem stronger for women than men.[15] These studies were performed in Singapore and Amsterdam.[15]

Egocentrism

Egocentrism is the inability to see in other peoples point of view, from their perspective. Implicit egotism is the general idea of people's positive associations about themselves spill over into their evaluations of objects associated with self.[12] It represents a form of unconscious self-enhancement.[12] Egocentrism and name-letter effect are related. They are both inhibited by their own personal aspect. It may affect their likability in certain things such as hair products or future occupation. For example, in name-letter effect, people evaluate the letters in their own name more favorable than letters that aren't included in her name.[12] For implicit egotism, peoples positive associations about themselves spill over into their evaluation of the object/situation.[12] This effect has been documented in at least 14 countries. [12] There were many studies performed to test these theories. There is something called egocentric empathy gap which is the egocentric gap between one person and others. The one person see other people's view. According to a study, participants thought the other persons valuation of a commodity was closer to their own. Owners overestimated the buyers valuation and buyers underestimated the owners valuation.[16]

Cross-cultural studies

There are many cross-cultural studies performed that supports the name-letter effect. One example would be the studies done in Singapore and Amsterdam that tests the gender-role orientation effect in the name–letter effect. It is important to understand the effects it has in many cultures because there may be some cultural/environmental effects that may affect the name–letter effect. There were also many European studies that have tested the name-letter effect. An example would be the study done that tested whether there was a name letter effect for letters belonging to own first and/or family name. This was tested among 12 different European languages which included Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish and etc.[17] The experiment supported the name-letter effect. A person will like something more if the letters of their own or family name are included in it.

Consequences

Several studies have stated consequences of the name-letter effect on our decision making. With the preference for our own name letters, we may choose places to live, jobs, or other aspects of our lives based on our name letters. Dyjas, Grashman, Wetzels, Wagenmakers and Maas found examples of this relating to things people buy, places they live and names they may give their children. One might chose to move to St. Louis because their name is Louis, or buy a Philips brand television because their name is Philip.[18] While these may not be negative changes to our lives, it shows a bias in decision making toward our name letters. While this effect has been seen by many researchers, Karasawa and Kitayama dispute this phenomenon stating that throughout our daily lives, we use other letters just as frequently as we use our name letters.[13] While a man named Denis may aspire to become a dentist, this could be due to other non-name letter related aspects of the individuals life.

References

  1. ^ a b Baumeister, Roy (2007). Encyclopedia of Social Psychology. Sage Publications. p. 603.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Nuttin, J.M. (1985). Narcissism beyond Gestalt and awareness: The name–letter effect. European Journal of Social Psychology, 15(3), 353–361.
  3. ^ a b c Nelson, Lief (December 2007). "Moniker Maladies: When Names Sabotage Success". Psychological Science. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  4. ^ Dyjas, Oliver (2012-09-25). "What's in a name: a Bayesian hierarchical analysis of the name-letter effect". Frontiers in Psychology. Frontiers. Retrieved 2014-11-06.
  5. ^ Pelham, B.W., Carvallo, M., & Jones, J.T. (2005). Implicit egoism. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(2), 106–110.
  6. ^ Steiger, S., & LaBel, E. (2010, August 18). Name–Letter Preferences for New Last Name and Abandoned Birth Name Initials in the Context of Name-Change via Marriage. Retrieved November 5, 2014, from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.gate.lib.buffalo.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=9a851be5-fee0-4ee3-9acb-181547c20ad9@sessionmgr111&vid=1&hid=119
  7. ^ a b c Nuttin, J.M. (1987). Affective consequences of mere ownership: The name letter effect in twelve European languages. European Journal of Social Psychology, 17(4), 381-402.
  8. ^ The name letter effect: Attachment to self or primacy of own name writing? by Vera Hoorens and Elka Todorova. European Journal of Social Psychology. Volume 18, Issue 4, Pages 365–368. March 1988.
  9. ^ Polman, Pollmann, and Poehlman (2013-11-13). "The Name-Letter-Effect in Groups: Sharing Initials with Group Members Increases the Quality of Group Work". PLoS ONE. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  10. ^ Anseel, Frederik (October 2008). "Unconscious Applicants: A Systematic Test of the Name-Letter Effect". Psychological Science. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  11. ^ Hodson and Olson (2005-07-05). "Testing the Generality of the Name Letter Effect: Name Initials and Everyday Attitudes". Sage. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); line feed character in |title= at position 50 (help)
  12. ^ a b c d e f g Name Letter Preferences Are Not Merely Mere Exposure: Implicit Egotism as Self-Regulation. Jones, Pelham, Mirenberg and Hetts. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology Volume 38, Issue 2, March 2002, Pages 170–177.
  13. ^ a b Karasawa, M., & Kitayama, S. (1997). Implicit self-esteem in Japan: Name letters and birthday numbers. “Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin”, 736.
  14. ^ a b c d Stieger, S., Burger, C., Schiller, F. R., Schulze, E. K., & Voracek, M. (2013). Measuring Implicit Gender-Role Orientation: The Gender Initial Preference Task. Journal of Personality Assessment. DOI: 10.1080/00223891.2013.825622 url: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00223891.2013.825622
  15. ^ a b c d Koole, Sander L.; Pelham, Brett W. "On the Nature of Implicit Self-esteem - The Case of the Name Letter Effect" (PDF). on_the_nature_of_implicit_self-esteem_-_the_case_of_the_name_letter_effect. Retrieved 11/5/14. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  16. ^ "Egocentric Empathy Gaps Between Owners and Buyers: Misperceptions of the Endowment Effect" (PDF). {{cite web}}: line feed character in |title= at position 51 (help)
  17. ^ "European Journal of Social Psychology". Affective consequences of mere ownership: The name letter effect in twelve... Wiley. 10/1/1987. Retrieved 11/7/14. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  18. ^ Dyjas, O., Grasman, R., Wetzels, R., Van Der Maas, H., & Wagenmakers, E., (2012). What's in a name: A Bayesian hierarchical analysis of the name-letter effect. “Frontiers in Quantitative Psychology and Measurements”, 1-15. Doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00334.
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