In the Basic Attention Management mini-course (available in the Publications Archive at www.AvatarEPC.com) you were asked to shift your attention around the room and notice how it sticks for a few moments on certain things and slides by other things. If you were to place a newspaper, a keyboard, and a pile of hundred dollar bills on a table and you asked people to look at them without touching, most people would spend more time looking at the hundred dollar bills than at the newspaper or keyboard. What if you replaced the keyboard with a rattlesnake and the newspaper with a loaded gun? That might change people’s focus.
Advertising firms have spent millions of dollars studying what items and events hold people’s attention the longest, giving the advertisers an opportunity to promote their products. Curiosity and interest draw a person’s attention, but what makes it stick? Two things: desire (like) and resistance (dislike). A person will look longer at something they like, or at something they dislike, than at something that they have no opinion about. Of course, not everyone likes or dislikes the same things, so advertisers have to know their audience.