Why susie sells seashells by the seashore pelham

An alternate approach to this analysis would be to categorize each individual participant according to the fre- Note. Names in boldface type have expected frequencies greater than 5.

Proportion U. These findings further suggest that when it comes to beloved Saint. Of course, it is not clear why such a priming effect first names, name-letter preferences a are stronger for women should hold more strongly for female than for male names. None- than for men and b are stronger for unique as opposed to highly theless, it would be reassuring to see that the results of Study 5 common names.

Each of these findings increases our confidence in generalized to surnames as well as first names. Taken together, well as first names though in much lower frequencies as sur- these supplemental findings involving gender and distinctiveness names. Were people disproportionately likely to inhabit Saint also suggest that there is more to name letter preferences than mere cities when their surnames were the same as the names appearing exposure.

Finally, the robust surname findings for Study 5 further in the city names? Base-rate calculations indicated that there suggest that the name letter preferences we observed are not should have been Another Systematic Replication sequences of implicit egotism to an alternate self-evaluative bias.

Because the exact date of a residence matching effects. In particular, we consulted census records to identify the five most common sur- Study 6 names that happen to be place names commonly used in city names. People were disproportionately likely to Study 6 made use of the same SSDI records examined in Studies 1, 4, live in cities featuring place words that happened to be their and 5.

These records were ideal for the purposes of Study 6 because they surnames. Further- To summarize thus far, Studies 1—5 strongly suggest that people more, this search engine allows comprehensive searches that include one- are attracted to places that resemble their names. We have sug- word portions of a city name. Thus, if one searches for cities named two, gested that these preferences constitute examples of implicit ego- this search engine will return hits from any U.

Study 6 focused on all U. However, advocates of explicit egotism might take issue with cities whose names began with the numbers 2— 8, inclusive. Typical city this explanation. Perhaps people consciously gravitate toward names included Two Harbors, Minnesota; Three Forks, Montana; and Five places that remind them of themselves a possibility that, in some Points, Alabama.

Although there were a few cities whose names contained ways, is more intriguing than the explanation we have offered. Our list of usable birth dates thus ranged from Febru- ary 2 to August 8. In Study 6 we attempted to gather such evidence by seven sets of city names. Specifically, if people possess positive implicit associations set of cities that corresponded to each number.

As illustrated in Table 9, the observed frequency in each. Two 22 For the diagonal frequencies, in boldface type, expected values appear in parentheses. That is, for every possible birthday— city set occupations. However, we had to relax our three-letter criterion from Law combination, people were disproportionately likely to have lived in to La for all of the female names and for three of the four male names a city whose name prominently featured their birthday number at because there were no names that qualified using the stricter criterion.

The 16 names we generated in this fashion included the female names least by a very small margin. It thus appears that people are attracted to cities whose names Lawrence or Laura would be overrepresented among lawyers. Because the activate their positive associations regarding their birthday num- lawyer search engine produced a great number of false alarms involving bers. Although we obviously do not know how these people would last or middle as opposed to first names, we carefully cleaned the data have explained their decision to live in a specific city, it seems generated by this search engine to limit hits to true first name hits no such extremely unlikely that many of these people set out on a con- problem occurred for the dentist search engine.

Finally, to make manage- scious trek for a city whose name reminded them of their birth- able the task of cleaning the lawyer data, we limited both searches to the eight most populous U. Relative to female lawyers, female namely where people choose to spend their lives.

The comparable results for sion—what people choose to do for a living. It is worth noting in men are summarized in the right-hand portion of Table Although we expected that places of residence that fit this same bill. This fact, combined with women might show more pronounced name-letter preferences than the scarcity of public databases that include information about men, we did not expect men to show such weak effects.

None- might be concerned that these findings were driven by only one or theless, the same logic that dictates that people should prefer to two of the names we sampled or that they were an artifact of a live in places whose names resemble their own names also dictates specific comparison between dentists and lawyers.

We conducted that people should be attracted to careers whose names resemble several analyses to address these concerns, and they all supported their own names. For Because we were unable to locate any large databases that example, in one such analysis, we sampled dentists in all 50 U. In the studies that follow, that Denise, or Dena the two most common male and female names in is, we had to examine one or two careers at a time.

We began our our lists. Of course, the number of dentists who had the two European American names few people ever make a specific choice between these two partic- that were most similar in frequency to each of these specific ular careers.

However, comparing the proportion of people with names. For example, according to census records, the names different first names who choose these two different careers allows for a simple and direct test of our hypothesis 1 The name— city matching effect observed in Study 6 occurred in a Study 7 weaker but significant form in an alternate analysis that included partici- pants born on the 2nd through 8th day of any month of the year.

This is a Method very weak test of the name— city matching hypothesis because for 11 out of 12 of the participants in this analysis, the month number associated with We searched for dentists and lawyers by consulting the official Web their birthday conflicts with the day number associated with their birthday.

These sources proved to be very useful because they cluded the searched-for name when it proved to be a middle name or a provided comprehensive national directories of the official members of surname. When the first name we searched for showed up as a middle these two professional organizations though they only allowed searches on name, we included the name on our list because we saw no evidence of any a state by state basis.

Each of these directories also allowed for searches systematic bias in which of our names were first versus middle names. We began this search proved to be a surname because we observed that some first names turned by consulting census records. Using these records, we attempted to up as surnames more often than others. Our results do not differ meaning- identify the four most common male and female first names that shared a fully if we exclude all hits that involve middle names.

Table 10 entific publications in the geosciences e. Unlike most other widely used bibliographic search tools e. This is important because search tools Women Men that generate individual citations will yield many redundant hits. In Study 8, we examined whether people named George or Geoffrey the two Occupation Den names La names Den names La names most common American first names beginning with Geo were dispropor- tionately likely to be published in the geosciences.

We did not include Dentist 30 Lawyer For each cell of the design, expected values appear in parentheses. Each name set is collapsed across the four most common names fitting that target names using an expanded version of the procedure described in the criterion.

The complete set of names used in Study 7 were Denise, Dena, supplemental portion of Study 7. Pete, Randolph, Jonathon, and Bennie. Because this search tool does not allow searches by first name only, we had to specify a last name for each search.

We selected the eight most common U. Doing so had the Jerry, Dennis, and Walter respectively ranked 39th, 40th, and 41st additional advantage of controlling, in part, for potential ethnic confounds. Taken together, the names Jerry In the interest of brevity we collapsed a across the two target names and Walter have an average frequency of 0. Thus, if people named the eight surnames. Dennis are more likely than people named Jerry or Walter to work as dentists, this would suggest that people named Dennis do, in fact, gravitate toward dentistry.

This is the case. A nationwide Results and Discussion search focusing on each of these specific first names revealed On the basis of the observed frequencies for the eight control dentists named Dennis, dentists named Walter, and den- names, there should have been The odds ratio corresponding to this effect is Geoffrey in Study 8.

To assess the Denis, Denise, and Dena. Although the sample sizes were much generality of this effect, we conducted an identical analysis for the smaller for these remaining names, the odds ratios for these names three most common male first names that began with the letters Ge also supported our hypotheses. These odds ratios were 1.

Vance and Jarrod , 2. Beverly and Geo. Although the results for these three names Gerald, Gene, Tammy , and 1. Therese and Candy. Inci- and Gerard were all in the predicted direction, the sample size for dentally, we did not conduct a comparable set of analyses for each of these names was very small.

For instance, the base-rate lawyers because a the lower reliability of the lawyer search control name calculations for Gerard indicated that there should engine for first names would have required an extraordinary have been a total of 1.

In reality there were 4. Thus, this name yielded an from the results, one case at a time and b the lawyer search impressive effect size and an equally unimpressive sample size. Critics with large amounts of time on their based on first initials rather than first names while still using the hands are invited to conduct these analyses for themselves.

First, we consulted The results of Study 7 thus provide additional evidence for the census data for male first names to determine which letter i. Although the methods used to address this question in Study 7 This proved to be the letter T. In , about 8. Nonetheless, we examined census data working in a single occupation. In Study 8, we made use of this for female first names as well.

The percentage of female names approach to see if people whose first names began with the letters beginning with G was 1. As a stringent indicator of expected frequencies for the professional geoscientists. On the basis of this estimate, 5. We then randomly sampled three U.

We searched for hardware stores and roofing companies in initials G and T. This search yielded totals that corresponded the 20 largest U. The names of almost perfectly with the estimates based on census data. Specif- these cities appear in Table Because we did not anticipate a large number of hits for these searches, we collapsed first and last initials into a ically, collapsing across these three states and the eight sur- single analysis and pooled our results across the 20 cities.

We searched names , there were 12, people whose first initial was G only under hits that appeared under H and R in the alphabetical lists, and and 12, people whose first initial was T.

It thus seems very safe we were careful to exclude potential hits that appeared to be the names of to assume that among Americans with the eight common surnames streets, towns, or suburbs e. Examples of hits sampled in Study 9, G is a slightly less common first initial than that we treated as valid indicators of names include HL Campbell Hard- is T. Examples of hits that we excluded from the having these two initials. Relative to the base rates for Americans search include Hardware Mart, Highland Hardware on Highland Avenue , in general, these geoscientists were much more likely to have first and Roof Roofing because a phone call to the owner indicated that his names that began with G as opposed to T at a rate of to , company was named after his barking dog.

Because the standard of comparison in to the nearest whole number in each city thus it took two ambiguous hits Study 8 was people with exactly the same surnames as these in the same category in a given city to be counted. There were very few geoscientists, it is more difficult than it would be otherwise to of these ambiguous hits, and our results do not change if we exclude them attribute this finding to an ethnic confound.

In addition, because from the analysis. In contrast, roofers showed the reverse pattern. In this pared with H. This was the case in 17 of the 20 cities. Although the results of Study 9 supported our predictions, an Method alternate explanation for these results is based on the fact that we In Study 9 we identified owners of hardware stores versus roofing were not able to search for these two businesses by the actual companies whose first or last names began with the letters H versus R.

We names of the business owners. It is thus plausible that cific businesses or companies in specific U. For example, a single an equal number of people with the initials H and R go into search using this directory could be conducted to produce an alphabetical hardware and roofing respectively.

Instead of reflecting an attrac- listing of all of the hardware stores in Buffalo, New York. New York, NY San Jose, CA course, if people have a powerful preference for alliteration, they 2.

Los Angeles, CA Baltimore, MD should take advantage of other opportunities to provide their 3. Chicago, IL Indianapolis, IN places of employment with highly alliterative labels. We tested this 4.

Houston, TX San Francisco, CA alternate hypothesis by conducting three supplemental analyses to 5. Philadelphia, PA Jacksonville, FL 6. San Diego, CA Columbus, OH see if people gravitated toward alliteration in naming their busi- 7. Detroit, MI Milwaukee, WI nesses. We began by searching for hardware stores and roofing 8. Dallas, TX Memphis, TN companies in the eight largest U. Phoenix, AZ Washington, DC H and R e. We then San Antonio, TX Because very few people gave their businesses the Using Non-Self-Referent Words Beginning With H Versus names of the cities in which they lived, we supplemented this R Study 9 analysis by examining whether the participants in our 20 original cities ever named their businesses after the streets on which they First or last initial were located e.

Business H R Neither of these analyses yielded any support for the alliteration hypothesis. In fact, the trends in both analyses were weakly in a Hardware 27 Roofing 32 Expected frequencies appear in parentheses. The results of began with the letter pairs Ch and Sh.

Of course, we skipped names that did this analysis appear in Table Though weakly in the direction not fit our criterion for pronunciation e.

In short, a variety of Sharon, Sherry, and Shannon. Nonetheless, it would be useful to devise a test of implicit whether it truly constituted a business that began with the letter S or C.

Hits egotism and career choices that more convincingly ruled out this involving adjectives that began with S or C e. However, when a of our career findings that applied to women, we conducted business name following an adjective constituted a true hit e.

Along similar lines, in cases in which an Study 10 adjective was an inherent part of the product or service being sold e. Typical examples of business number of consecutive words or letters that begin a business name. Coders were kept blind to the names a single follow-up letter to each name, a researcher can log all of the hits of business owners by replacing the names with arbitrary code numbers.

Results were averaged across the valid business names of interest. The flexibility of this search tool also two raters, rounded to the nearest whole number, and summed across each makes it possible to control directly rather than indirectly for alliteration. In particular, quite a few female names that begin with the sh sound begin with the letters Ch rather than Sh. As a concrete Results and Discussion example, if Sheryl is more likely than Cheryl to own a seashell shop, it is The results of Study 10 are summarized in Table As shown difficult to crack this fact up to alliteration.

For example, in one study involving surnames we arbitrarily chose computer shops and travel agencies as the Business H R target businesses and then generated owner names by sampling the four most common American surnames beginning with the letters C Clark, Hardware 42 People whose surnames began with C were slightly more likely to Note.

Because of the very be in the computer business e. Initial letter of business name Ch names Sh names Taken as a whole, we feel that our findings provide solid evidence for the existence of implicit egotism.

In contrast to this C 55 From this per- spective, researchers who fail to use random sampling have no Note. Although we sampled names systematically in this research, began with Sh appeared to own such businesses. This association we obviously did not sample them randomly.

Thus, even when we eliminated alliteration as an tool, is well suited to some problems and poorly suited to others.

Studies showed that people are disproportionately likely to live in places whose names resemble their own first or last names e. Study 6 extended this finding to birthday number preferences. Done Editing Tags. Share this article. This content was created by a Daily Kos Community member. Make YOUR voice heard! Log in or create an account. Comments are closed on this story.

L Recommend r Reply. More hints Back to Story Show Parent Thread. The authors refer to such preferences as implicit egotism.

Ten studies assessed the role of implicit egotism in 2 major life decisions: where people choose to live and what people choose to do for a living. Studies showed that people are disproportionately likely to live in places whose names resemble their own first or last names e… Expand.

View on PubMed. Save to Library Save. Create Alert Alert. Share This Paper. Background Citations. Methods Citations. Results Citations. Tables and Topics from this paper. Egoism Name Seashells Mental association. Citation Type. Has PDF. Publication Type. More Filters. Implicit egotism is an unconscious preference for things resembling the self.