ATTENTION

Attention is the behavioral and cognitive process of selectively concentrating on a discrete aspect of information, whether considered subjective or objective, while ignoring other perceivable information. It is a state of arousal. Attention is the basic food and water of a living and breathing relationship. Attention is how we nurture and feed. Attention is what we need and crave. Without attention, no relationship, no matter how strong, can survive for long. The roots of connection simply shrink and whither. If you give someone or something your attention, you look at it, listen to it, or think about it carefully. ... If someone or something is getting attention, they are being dealt with or cared for. There are four different types of attention: selective, or a focus on one thing at a time; divided, or a focus on two events at once; sustained, or a focus for a long period of time; and executive, or a focus on completing steps to achieve a goal. What are the determining factors of attention? -Intensity: the more intense a stimulus is (strength of stimulus) the more likely you are to give attention resources to it. -Size: the bigger a stimulus is the more attention resources it captures. -Movement: moving stimuli capture more attention that ones that remain static. How to catch people's attention in the business world. It works in our peraonal lives too. 1. Surprise:Surprises in headlines work because human brains like novelty. ... Thus, surprises prove to be far more stimulating and grab our attention much quicker than things we know well and even really like. This explains why people can subconsciously prefer an unexpected experience over something they want. 2. Questions Questions that prime our curiosity are powerful brain influencers. Whereas, if we already know from the headline what we are getting next, our curiosity may be over before it begins. 3. Curiosity There’s a psychological phenomenon you can use effectively called the curiosity gap, which is the gap between something a person knows and something he or she wants to know. People start to feel a kind of deprivation when they notice a gap in their knowledge. 4. Negatives Everyone knows that superlatives like “best,” “greatest,” and “biggest” are effective in headlines, but sometimes negative superlatives such as “worst” are even more powerful. Possibly, this is because negatives are unexpected compared with positives and, thus, cause surprise. 5. How To Many advertising writers say if your headline starts with “how to,” it can’t be bad. Probably, this is thanks to everyone’s wish to be smarter. At the same time, people don’t really want information. What they really want is some sense of predictability and order in their lives. Everyone wants control over their world. That’s why they seek out secrets, tips, rules, hints, laws, and systems that promise to provide order and make better sense of things. 6. Numbers The first reason numbers work in headlines is that people like predictability and don’t like uncertainty. Numbers help readers by providing them with expectation management so that they know exactly what they are getting into. Additionally, it seems that the larger the number in the headline, the better the post spreads. Besides, negatives are powerful for tapping into people’s insecurities. Using words like “don’t,” “stop,” and “avoid” often work well since everyone wants to know if there’s anything they should stop doing. It’s possible to provoke that feeling by providing just a bit of information. Once a person knows a little, they will want to find out more and fill in the missing information so they can feel better. With this in mind, try to “prime the pump” by giving readers some intriguing (though incomplete) information in your headline, telling them enough to spark their curiosity but not so much that you give your story away.The best questions are about something readers can relate to or want to know about. People seek for attention for different reasons. it can be good thing and can also be a bad thing. Attention seeking behavior is to act in a way that is likely to elicit attention, usually to elicit validation from others. People are thought to engage in both positive and negative attention seeking behavior independent of the actual benefit or harm to health. It is a conscious or unconscious attempt to become the center of attention, sometimes to gain validation or admiration. Sometimes adults seek attention because of jealousy. When someone finds themselves threatened by another person who takes all the attention, they may respond with attention-seeking behavior. Lack of self-esteem can be another cause for attention-seeking behavior. By;Oluwapelumi Atanseiye @pearlumie_