We study theory of mind (ToM)

The goal of this article is to develop a new theory-driven scale for measuring salespeople's interpersonal-mentalizing skills-that is, a salesperson's ability to "read the minds" of customers in the sense of first recognizing customer intentionality and processing subtle interpersonal cues and then adjusting volitions accordingly. Drawing from research on autism and neuroscience, the authors develop a model of brain functioning that differentiates better-skilled from less-skilled interpersonal mentalizers. They establish the convergent, discriminant, concurrent, predictive, and nomological validities of measures of the scale using four methods in four separate studies: confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation models, multitrait-multimethod matrix procedures, and functional magnetic resonance imaging. The study is one of the first to test the validity of measures of a scale not only in traditional ways but also by adopting procedures from neuroscience.To predict how economic man will behave, we need to know not only that he is rational, but also how he perceives the world-what alternatives he sees and what consequences he attaches to them.- Simon (1956, p. 271) Ostensive [i.e., intentional] communication opens up a wide, wild, inner world of relationships and meanings,

We explore genetic and neurological bases for customer orientation (CO) and contrast them with sales orientation (SO). Study 1 is a field study that establishes that CO, but not SO, leads to greater opportunity recognition. Study 2 examines genetic bases for CO and finds that salespeople with CO are more likely to have the 7R variant of the DRD4 gene. This is consistent with basic research on dopamine receptor activity in the brain that underlies novelty seeking, the reward function, and risk taking. Study 3 examines the neural basis of CO and finds that salespeople with CO, but not SO, experience greater activation of their mirror neuron systems and neural processes associated with empathy. Managerial and research implications are discussed.Keywords Knowledge brokering . Opportunity recognition . Genetics . Customer orientation . Neuroscience . Biomarkers . Personal selling . Marketing concept "Everybody hates their phone," Jobs says, "and that is not a good thing. And there's an opportunity there." To Jobs' perfectionist eyes, phones are broken. Jobs likes things that are broken. It means he can make something that isn't and sell it to you at a premium price. In their visionary paper, Saxe and Weitz (1982) explore two contrasting orientations by which salespeople interact with customers: sales versus customer orientation. Under the former, salespeople are driven by such notions as, "I try to sell customers all I can convince them to buy, even if I think it is more than a wise customer should buy," where the motivation is to meet one's own short-term interests and goals and not necessarily the customer's. Under the latter, salespeople are guided primarily by such ideas as, "I try to align customers who have problems with products that will help them solve their problems," where the aim is to meet mutual needs and the hope is to build long-term relationships.Sales orientation (SO) involves persuasion and "selling to" customers, whereas customer orientation (CO) is more about "interacting with" and encouraging customers to talk about their problems so that the salesperson can figure out their needs (a process akin to co-creation of solutions) and bring them in touch with solutions to their problem. Seldom has a concept sparked so much interest, resonating with both researchers and practitioners (e.g., Franke and Park 2006;Homburg et al. 2009;Leigh et al. 2001 Mark. Sci. (2012) 40:639-658 DOI 10.1007 Academics and sales managers are very interested in successfully selecting and managing salespeople, but to understand the basis for salesperson motivation and implement successful policies in this regard, they need to know the why behind CO and SO. Here is where the situation is muddled, for many anecdotal and loosely conceived explanations lack coherence and managerial relevance. Saxe and Weitz (1982) proposed that researchers should explore the psychological mechanisms underlying CO, and indeed a plethora of selling and marketing research has attempted to do just this. For example, in their meta-study, F...

Several studies indicate that the cerebellum might play a role in experiencing and/or controlling emphatic emotions, but it remains to be determined whether there is a distinction between positive and negative emotions, and, if so, which specific parts of the cerebellum are involved in these types of emotions. Here, we visualized activations of the cerebellum and extracerebellar regions using high-field fMRI, while we asked participants to observe and imitate images with pictures of human faces expressing different emotional states or with moving geometric shapes as control. The state of the emotions could be positive (happiness and surprise), negative (anger and disgust), or neutral. The positive emotional faces only evoked mild activations of crus 2 in the cerebellum, whereas the negative emotional faces evoked prominent activations in lobules VI and VIIa in its hemispheres and lobules VIII and IX in the vermis. The cerebellar activations associated with negative emotions occurred concomitantly with activations of mirror neuron domains such as the insula and amygdala. These data suggest that the potential role of the cerebellum in control of emotions may be particularly relevant for goal-directed behavior that is required for observing and reacting to another person’s (negative) expressions.

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