This week our minigraphic takes a look at the correlations between spooner/spoonee, and dumper/dumpee. To blatantly violate the fact that correlation doesn’t imply causation, here’s the obvious net takeaway: to decrease your chances of being dumped, get spooned more often.
Are you dressing up for Halloween this year?
No? Well, you’re in good company — 58% of Hunch users don’t dress up for Halloween. Meanwhile, 30% enjoy going out one night a year dressed as someone else, and 12% consider Halloween a chance to “be themselves.” (Incidentally, 31% of the latter group also thinks facial tattoos can be cool if done the right way.)
We don’t need stats to prove that almost everyone loves Halloween candy, but we’re Hunch. So yeah, we have stats for that.
Halloween isn’t just about sugar and costumes, though. There are tricks that go with those treats. Last Halloween, we looked at what your favorite scary movie says about you. This year, we decided to look at the different Teach Hunch About You (THAY) questions related to fear.
Let’s start with everyday creepy-crawlies. There’s an interesting and alliterative split by gender. Male Hunch users are more likely to be creeped out by spiders and snakes, while female Hunch users shriek when they see roaches and rats. Still, 73% of men and 27% of women say nasty vermin and pests don’t phase them.
What else are Hunchers afraid of? Here’s a list:
1. Clowns: 19%
2. Heights: 37%
3. Death: 39%
4. The dark (at least some of the time): 40%
Whatever your favorite treat or deepest fear, Happy Halloween from Hunch.
Hunch headquarters has a notoriously slow elevator. New generations of Apple devices have been developed and released in the time it takes to get from our tenth-story office to the ground floor or vice-versa.
What do you do when you’re in this sort of situation? Do you push the button once and wait patiently? Do you start thinking, “Maybe I didn’t push it hard enough…” and tap it again? Or do you bash repeatedly, like the elevator panel’s a video game controller? (And if you’re in that much of a rush, why not take the stairs?)
We created our latest infographic to support a Starcom presentation at the recent ANA “Masters of Marketing” conference in Phoenix. The infographic explores how elevator button pushing correlates with other attitudes, life experiences, and preferences. Big ups to our partners at Column Five Media for the design.
We know getting lumped in a group pushes some people’s buttons, but how do you wait for the elevator? Do you fit one Hunch button pusher profile, or are you somewhere between floors?
Looking for something to watch on Netflix this weekend? Try out the newest release from our labs, the Hunch Netflix Predictor. When you connect your Netflix account, we’ll personalize movie recommendations based on your taste and instant watching activity. Grab some popcorn, give it a spin, and send your feedback to movies@hunch.com.
How is your global political savvy? Here’s what 57,000 Hunch users had to say, and what additional correlations we found:
With no iPhone, there is no Android. This is not to say that Android copied iPhone, but rather the impetus to adopt and trust Google’s Android offering was driven by a market dynamic that resulted directly from the iPhone’s success.
- Bill Gurley, “Android or iPhone? Wrong Question”
How do you feel when someone jocks your style?
Before Microsoft started opening retail stores to compete with Apple and Android was accused of copying, err “directly responding to” the iPhone (and vice-versa), Charles Caleb Colton wrote, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” Then all these other people copied him chimed in. Ralph Waldo Emerson declared imitation a form of suicide. Salvador Dali called it unavoidable, saying, “Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.”
Great ideas inevitably inspire other great ideas. It’s the question of ownership that gets people heated. When is imitation complimentary, and when is it just plain stealing?
Let’s say you worked for a recommendation engine that ran partly on a large list of user questions and then noticed another company called Apartment List using some of the same questions. How would you feel about it?
Hunch THAY:
Apartment List question:
Hunch THAY:
Apartment List question:
Most Hunch users — 79% of them, when we account for those who skipped the question — would be flattered.
But what about the 21% who would be angry? Are they more likely to be creative types who think personal style is as individual as DNA? Are they more competitive, in general? Do they tend to keep cool bands, books, and events to themselves, instead of recommending them like a Hunch influencer?
We turned to Teach Hunch About You (THAY) questions to make sense of two groups we’ll call The Flattered and The Angry. (Sounds like a soap opera, no?) Here’s what we found out:
1. Hell hath no fury like that of a woman copied.
The majority of Hunch users are flattered when someone imitates their style. But what would you guess is the gender split on The Angry? Current Hunch stats show that it’s 60% women and 40% male. We’re guessing these women are the kind who worry about showing up at a party wearing the same outfit as someone else.
2. It’s not “stealing your style,” it’s “learning from your elders.”
Apparently one’s acceptance of copycats get better with age. A whopping 71% of The Angry are age 34 or younger. Those ages 35-49 are 61% more likely to take being imitated as a compliment.
3. Fashion-challenged people enjoy validation from copycats. Fashionistas don’t need it.
The Angry are 55% more likely to consider themselves fashion-blessed. The Flattered are 50% more likely to say they’re fashion-challenged. Getting a little copycat recognition means they’re doing something right.
4. If you hate being copied, then why are you watching the remake of Footloose?
We’re not sure how many Hunch users have seen the recent remake of Footloose…or would admit to it. But we do know that The Angry are 17% more likely to enjoy movie remakes, because they improve already proven work. (So what’s the big deal with someone copying your outfit, guys?) Meanwhile, The Flattered prefer the original movie. Maybe it’s because they’re old enough to have seen it.
5. The Flattered follow the crowd…or try to.
You’re unique, just like everybody else. The Angry are 9% more likely than The Flattered to want to be perceived as unique, while The Flattered are 21% more likely to say they prefer fitting in with the crowd. We’ll leave it to you to decide if keeping up with fashion trends is more about leading or following.
6. But how do The Angry really feel about their sense of style?
Your school guidance counselor was right: Hurt people hurt people. Even when it comes to clothes and who wore something first. The Angry are 59% more likely to say they don’t like themselves most of the time. The Flattered are 25% more likely to say they overall like who they are. Can we just hug it out now?
7. Go figure. Entrepreneurs would rather not be blatantly copied.
The Flattered are 18% more likely to identify as team players and 54% more likely to be motivated to help a team succeed. The Angry are 29% more likely to be entrepreneurs and not surprisingly, 23% more likely to be motivated by individual success.
8. Insert reference to Charlie Sheen and winning here.
Whether you’re a team member or a free agent, competition is part of any work situation. The Angry are 30% more likely to say they mostly compete with others. The Flattered are 14% more likely to say they’re only competing with themselves and 17% more likely to say they’re not competitive at all.
9. The Angry would appreciate some credit.
Are you emulating the style of someone else? You might want to just thank the appropriate person and get it over with. The Angry are 75% more likely to prod you into saying it, anyway. The Flattered are 24% more likely to help someone without expecting an expression of gratitude. (Thanks for that!)
10. Are fashion advice and computer help really so different?
Hunch users tend to be more tech-savvy than the average bear, but The Angry are 9% more likely to be asked for help with gadgets and technology at home or among friends. The Flattered are 22% more likely to ask someone else for help. Isn’t copying someone’s sense of style the ultimate example of following advice?
When is imitation a matter of emulation, and when is it something to get angry about?
This week we take a look at how people tend to pay for small purchases. Wonder if the debit card percent will start to fall going forward based on the fees that many banks are introducing for them?
Side note: it’s the cash people that you want to be friends with or related to, in case they score the winning lottery ticket.
Our latest infographic stars the eight U.S. Ivy League colleges. We used Hunch’s API to get predictions about each of them for 14 different questions, ranging from political ideology to personality traits. (See information about the data collection methodology under the infographic.) We then pitted schools against each other and displayed results on a relative/forced rank basis. Hats off to our Column Five Media partners for the cool design.
Keep in mind that Hunch’s Taste Graph is making predictions about people who say they like each respective college, not people who are necessarily students, staff, or alums. Still, we found some pretty interesting differences that will probably raise an eyebrow or two.
Some notes on data collection methodology
To get the rankings above, we started by using Hunch’s “get-predictions” API call, which returned a predicted correlation strength associated with how the fans of each school would answer each question. Then we computed the difference between the highest and lowest correlations and used that spread to re-scale the results to a 1-10 scale. This has the effect (by definition) of sometimes exaggerating small absolute differences. But hey, welcome to the Ivy League, where forced rankings and steep competition are a fact of life. Example: the difference between a high school GPA of 3.96 and 4.00 could easily be a 10-point student ranking.
The Taste Graph’s propagation algorithms are continually trying to get an accurate ‘resolution’ to its predictions based on all the data available to them. Ultimately, that means that correlation strengths tend to resolve and cluster around poles. For example, you’d likely see a cluster of numbers predicting which colleges will be strongly favored by extroverts and which by introverts, but typically you’d see fewer data points in the mid-ranges.
If you’re still reading by this point, you might just be interested in the absolute numbers and data tables used for all of this. Here you go.
The US Republican presidential candidates (technically, still primary candidates) are in full-out campaign mode, with twists and turns in poll numbers happening every week, it seems.
The candidates are naturally spending a lot of time trying to distinguish themselves from their rivals in terms of accomplishments, experience, and policy principles. We thought it would also be insightful to take a look at the aggregate characteristics of the voters themselves who are following each candidate on Twitter. What are some common traits of each candidate’s respective followers?
To find out, we ran the Twitter name of each of the top 6 Republican candidates through Hunch’s Twitter Follower Tool. It draws upon data from Hunch’s Taste Graph to make predictions about how a Twitter user’s followers would answer selected THAY (“Teach Hunch About You”) questions. Here’s what we found:
Mitt Romney (Twitter follower profile) (Twitter page)
some sample predictions: Were never bullied in high school, support social (over environmental) causes, predict that they’ll leave a nice inheritance when they die, tend to be brand loyal, favor private school for their kids.
Herman Cain (Twitter follower profile) (Twitter page)
some sample predictions: Identify with Rush Limbaugh as their ‘voice of reason’, describe their style as ‘soccer dad or mom’, like furniture from Ethan Allen, dislike Michael Moore movies, say that their actions are most guided by religion and that Sundays are for Church.
Rick Perry (Twitter follower profile) (Twitter page)
some sample predictions: Think the US Tea Party is ‘good for Republicans’, made a charitable contribution of $250 or more in the last 6 months, don’t believe that universal health care is a right, were in a fraternity or sorority in college, believe that war is justified ‘in many scenarios‘.
Newt Gingrich (Twitter follower profile) (Twitter page)
some sample predictions: Live in the suburbs, subscribe to many magazines, have 2 kids in the household, didn’t change their name when they got married, have a household income “up to $200,000″, have been in the current job for more than 6 years, drive a Truck/SUV.
Ron Paul (Twitter follower profile) (Twitter page)
some sample predictions: Use Foursquare and Tweet frequently, involved in some type of internet-related business, own an iPhone, believe in prosecutorial immunity for journalists to not reveal sources, consider themselves ‘news junkies‘, know what a command prompt is and support net neutrality.
Michele Bachmann (Twitter follower profile) (Twitter page)
some sample predictions: Describe their style as a soccer dad or mom, have been with their current partner more than 10 years, have a mortgage, prefer the aisle seat on planes, describe themselves as overweight, have donated to a political party in the last 2 years, enjoy the game show Jeopardy, are aged 50-64.
What do you think? Do you support one of the candidates above, and if so, do some of the Twitter follower stats accurately describe you?
