Human Psychology Cheat Sheet

Channels change every year. Human wiring does not. Start here.

Kahneman's two modes of thought, and which one buys things.

From survival to self-actualization: which need does your product really serve?

People decide emotionally and rationalize afterward. The data on why.

Reciprocity, commitment, social proof, authority, liking, scarcity: the canonical six.

The mental shortcuts that quietly drive every purchase decision.

Why reviews, testimonials, and 'X people bought this' work, and when they backfire.

The most powerful (and most abused) lever in the toolkit.

The first number and the first words shape every comparison that follows.

Losses hurt twice as much as gains feel good: Kahneman's most actionable finding.

The neuroscience of getting people to feel rather than judge.

Charles Duhigg's framework: how products become habits.

Why people overvalue what they helped create, and how to use co-creation in product and marketing.

Familiarity breeds preference: Zajonc's finding and what it means for brand frequency and reach.

Why people throw good money after bad, and how retention and loyalty programs exploit this wiring.

Pre-attentive attributes, the orienting reflex, cognitive load, and emotional memory encoding: the brain science behind every hook and headline.

Thaler's nudges and the field that finally accepted humans are not rational.

Defaults, ordering, friction: designing the path you want people to take.

People remember the peak emotion and the end: design experiences accordingly.

The deepest motivators in B2C and luxury: why brands become tribes.

The most powerful nudge: doing nothing. How defaults shape behavior at scale.

Cognitive load, decision fatigue, and behavioral science tactics to reduce checkout and form drop-offs.

Emotions drive 95% of buying decisions. Learn why understanding the human brain is the most durable marketing skill you can build.

How one-sided emotional bonds with creators drive purchase decisions, and what brands must do to leverage this ethically.

How neuroscience explains engagement: dopamine is released in anticipation of reward, not just on receiving it. Learn variable ratio reward schedules, ethical dopamine design, and why over-optimisation damages long-term brand trust.

Three dimensions of trust: competence, integrity, benevolence. How expertise signals build trust, why admitting weakness paradoxically increases credibility, and why the first 50 milliseconds matter.

Why an unanswered question pulls harder than an answered one, the 1927 study behind it, and where 'curious headline' turns into 'broken promise'.

You value things more the moment you feel they are 'yours', even if you never paid for them.

One standout quality quietly convinces people every other quality is just as good. Learn where the research came from and how brands engineer it on purpose.