Our world is made up of lots of people doing lots of things all the time. Psychology can help you to understand your own and other people’s behavior better. Following are just a few of the ways you can deploy psychology in your social life. Some people might call these items hacks, shortcuts, or even manipulation techniques. But all can be socially useful—and are based on sound psychological principles.
1. People remember the first and last things you do, so make a good impression and end on a high note.
The Serial Positioning Effect is one of the most well researched concepts in all of psychology. Basically, it explains that, in a list, we tend to remember the things at the start and at the end. This is a fairly strong and reliable effect. More generally, in a sequence of events, things that happen first and last are going to stick in our memory more strongly than events in the middle.