Pictograms and mood.

Pictograms, icons and graphic representations understood as figures or symbols that communicate a concept or an idea have always had a fundamental role in human communication, as a way of transmitting a message directly, accessible to everyone and striking, for therefore, easy to remember or, seen from the opposite angle, less likely to be forgotten. Now, in the era of social networks and the consumption of information at a glance and/or click, they are experiencing a new golden age as a vehicle to transmit information or simply provoke a reaction, in an attractive and immediate way. Hence, they are the object of study by communication and marketing researchers.

But their potential is much greater, or so is clear from a recent study carried out by researchers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, who have discovered a new capacity or additional benefit of pictograms: they can induce optimism. Specifically, in certain circumstances and as a vehicle for depending on what messages, they can influence our mood, promoting a greater feeling of optimism and confidence, or pessimism and negativity.

As? What the authors of the research have confirmed is that, in the case of what are known as frequency pictograms, those used to visually represent a percentage or probability, the presence of several icons or identical and grouped images produces in the receiver of the message a favorable feeling, optimism and confidence regarding their own possibilities. On the contrary, using isolated figures instills a feeling of pessimism, distrust and negativity.

A very powerful example that allows us to fully understand the potential of this conclusion refers to the way of presenting the percentage of chances of overcoming a disease. Thus, if we talk about the health effects of tobacco consumption, if the message is, For example, “80% of patients overcome the disease”, and it is expressed by representing a group of 8 figures, it is possible to instill optimism and confidence in the treatment. On the contrary, if the message is “1 in 5 smokers dies”, and is expressed with an isolated figure, it conveys a feeling of pessimism and negativity towards tobacco consumption (even though the percentage reported is the same in both cases: 80% survive).

This has led researchers to conclude that “the use of grouped or isolated pictograms can be used strategically depending on whether the message to be transmitted is favorable or negative; promotional or prohibitive. At the same time, future areas of research are pointed out in this area: for example, if mere repetition, the presence of icons or grouped images, generates a feeling of optimism and confidence regardless of the concept that these icons capture; whether the effect is more powerful when all the icons are the same or different, etc.

THE BATA EFFECT

In this sense, a most suggestive approach is to explore whether this repetition of pictograms is behind the success of Hawaiian shirts (or Christmas sweaters, for example); garments regarding which there is an almost unanimous consensus on their inherent horterism; Despite which, summer yes, summer too, they are a bestseller: is there a parallel effect to the one known as the Bata Effect that explains it?

The Robe Effect (or, in more academic terms, clothed cognition) refers to how the clothes we wear can modify and improve, refine, optimize, guide, or however you want to express our cognitive capacity. This effect was first documented in a 2012 study by researchers at Northwestern University. In it, those responsible carried out a series of experiments with which they verified that the results obtained in a test of attention and concentration capacity achieved by a group of volunteers improved significantly when they performed them dressed in a white doctor's coat. An improvement that, however, was not experienced by another group of volunteers when they wore an identical white coat but presented in this case as “a painter's coat.” Nor did a third group of subjects who carried out the test with the same doctor's coat on display. Results that, according to the researchers, are justified through a double effect: the physical experience of wearing the garment, in this case the doctor's coat, and the symbolic meaning given to it. That is, the values, attributes and capabilities that are usually assigned to those who usually wear it, in this case, doctors.

Back to the success of Hawaiian shirts, is it possible that, by virtue of their motley prints based on repeated and grouped pictograms, they manage to generate a feeling of optimism in those who wear them, that things are going to go well for us and it is going to be a great day?

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