2012/01/01 by Oliver Dyjas, Raoul P. P. P. Grasman, Ruud Wetzels +2 · 6 citations
Social Sciences · Neuroscience · Psychology · #Social and Intergroup Psychology #Memory Processes and Influences #Names, Identity, and Discrimination Research #Psychology #Bayesian probability #Volume (thermodynamics) #Cognitive psychology #Social psychology #Artificial intelligence #Computer science
paper · pdf · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00334
published in Frontiers in Psychology 3, 334 (Frontiers Media)
openalex publication_date 2012/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
People generally prefer their initials to the other letters of the alphabet, a phenomenon known as the name-letter effect. This effect, researchers have argued, makes people move to certain cities, buy particular brands of consumer products, and choose particular professions (e.g., Angela moves to Los Angeles, Phil buys a Philips TV, and Dennis becomes a dentist). In order to establish such associations between people's initials and their behavior, researchers typically carry out statistical analyses of large databases. Current methods of analysis ignore the hierarchical structure of the data, do not naturally handle order-restrictions, and are fundamentally incapable of confirming the null hypothesis. Here we outline a Bayesian hierarchical analysis that avoids these limitations and allows coherent inference both on the level of the individual and on the level of the group. To illustrate our method, we re-analyze two data sets that address the question of whether people are disproportionately likely to live in cities that resemble their name.