haptics

APPLYING for a job? The weight of the clipboard to which your CV is attached may influence your chances of getting it. Negotiating a deal? Sitting in a hard chair may lead you to drive a harder bargain. Those are two of the surprising conclusions of a study published in today's issue of Science, which shows that the physical properties of objects we touch can unconsciously influence our first impressions of other people and the decisions we make about them. Josh Ackerman of the Sloan School of Management at MIT, and psychologists Chris Nocera and John Bargh of Harvard and Yale Universities,…