Biology

What on earth does biology have to do with senior moments? Maybe nothing but read on. Now, as a senior citizen, I have virtually no interest in Biology. Anyway, the word Biology caught my attention in an article as a play on words: Buy-ology. The article referred to a $7 million study of 2,000 people of what happens in one's brain (including seniors) during marketing. The researcher discovered that to create successful brands (anything, really), companies need to learn what people really want, not what they say they want.

It went on to illustrate the point by cigarette advertising where warnings on packages actually stimulated cravings rather than dampen them. Why? Because these smokers said they pay attention to the warnings but that wasn't what they really wanted. It concluded that the most successful brands stimulate the brain's emotional centers more positively. Therefore, buy-ology.

Across the page was another article: The Power of Pure Poppycock by Jerry Adler (Newsweek, October 27, 2008). This article said that people all over the world have been increasing their scores on IQ tests each decade but argued that people are not any smarter. It illustrated this by showing how famous athletes, medical doctors and politicians once extolled the virtues of smoking for advertisers (“Not a cough in a carload”) insisting paradoxically that smoking was both calming and stimulating. Another illustration of buy-ology.

Interestingly, the clever advertising lit up the brain more than the warning enabling the smoker to feel free to indulge. In effect, it was a biological factor more than an intellectual one. Had the warning been more dramatic than the warning, the result would have been the same because of the significant difference between what we say or feel and what we really want. Most smokers (and other addicted souls) will tell you they almost desperately want to quit but deep down that isn't what they really want.

The old adage Too soon we get old and too late smart comes to mind. We seniors have had decades where supposedly our IQs have risen. Maybe we believed that. Maybe not. What we may have known but forgotten (or maybe never knew) is the difference between knowing what we say we want and what we really want. Could this factor account for some of those bothersome senior moments we experience?

If your senior moment is tempting you but you still give in, maybe this in part will help you understand why.