In a university life, it is often found that many women avoid going on a four-to-four blind date with someone whom they think is prettier than them. They believe that they are devaluated compared to the pretty ones. This kind of behavior is called the “contrast effect.” As society expands, people start to be more involved with intricate relationships among other people and as a result, their behaviors have become more complicated as well. That is why the number of psychological terms like “- effect” that describe people’s actions has abruptly increased. Surprisingly, there are more interesting and inexplicable psychological facts about human behaviors than people normally think.

 

Customers tend to visit the store more often if they possess a coffee punch card with two stamps already put on it and have to get ten more stamps to get free coffee than those who need the same ten stamps but without the two stamps marked on it. In both cases, customers need ten more stamps to get free coffee, but why do they act differently? This result was obtained in Columbia University by examining “goal gradient hypothesis.” This hypothesis was formed in 1930. Researchers discovered that rats in a maze ran faster as they approached to the food. This experiment shows that the tendency to achieve a goal increases with adjacency to the goal. Humans act much like rats. Hence, people are inclined to buy coffee more frequently as they approach a fully stamped card. This also explains why a coffee punch card with two stamps already on it is more effective than one without them.

 

In some cases, men are involved with an unreasonable psychological phenomenon. One example would be a hostage who assimilated with the culprits and sympathized with them at the end. This is called “Stockholm Syndrome.” This terminology was created by a criminal psychologist named Nils Bejerot who reported in the news about a bank robbery that occurred in Stockholm, Sweden. This incident took place in August 23, 1973, in Kreditbanken Bank. Four innocent citizens were taken hostages for six days. Astonishingly, all hostages got emotionally close to the criminals after six days and supported them during police investigation. This kind of phenomena was also found in other cases. In February 4^th 1974, an American newspaper heiress named Patty Hearst was kidnapped by the Symboinese Liberation Army, SLA, for two months. What is more shocking is that she fell in love with one of the culprits and refused to go back to her family. In addition, she was imprisoned for two years because she took part in a bank robbery with other SLA members. If so, why does this kind of phenomena happen? In such an extreme situation like hostage crisis where the hostages feel high level of stress and fear, they rather feel thankful for criminals not harming themselves and create an illusion that criminals are showing compassion to them. This syndrome also applies to battered wives and abused children.

 

The possibility of winning the first prize in the Lotto is 1 in 8,145,060. This number is smaller than the chance of being struck by lightning. Despite such an infinitesimal number of probability, people get addicted to the Lotto. This also is an illogical behavior of people. Those who are addicted to Lotto believe that it is a fair game. Winning the first prize at Lotto does not require special qualifications or conditions. Individual ability and other aspects do not affect the result of Lotto. Hence, as the number of opportunities of fair competition in society decreases, people dream more of turning their lives around by lottery. People would spend a week with hope and excitement before checking the winning lottery numbers. Although the chance to win the lottery is feeble, a thousand won paid for a Lotto ticket is hardly regarded as waste because it is used to buy the excitement that lasts for a week.

 

There are always reasons why people behave in a certain way. Some actions that people do unconsciously also occur due to certain causes. Some people behave the way other people cannot understand and other people act irrationally even though their behaviors do not bring them positive remarks. People should not evaluate others’ actions based on their point of view. It would help them if they open their minds and accept the behaviors of other people.