This issue of "O Behave" discusses various topics related to behavioral science including: how the language we use shapes our behavior and perceptions; an experiment showing that saying "I don't" instead of "I can't" when resisting temptation is more effective; research finding people overestimate how much others enjoy self-promotion; and how wearing formal clothes can prime more abstract thinking. It also provides brief summaries of recent behavioral research studies and highlights upcoming behavioral science events.
Behavioral economics : what it is and how it could help us do our job betterDigitasLBi Paris
From forms to porn banners, how behavioral economics can optimize user experience?
by DigitasLBi strategic planning
Des formulaires aux bannières porno: comment l'économie comportementale peut optimiser l'exp. utilisateur - par les planneurs de DigitasLBi
A review of the behavioral economics concept of the paradox of choice where some choice is good, but too much choice creates paralysis and dissatisfaction
Behavioral economics : what it is and how it could help us do our job betterDigitasLBi Paris
From forms to porn banners, how behavioral economics can optimize user experience?
by DigitasLBi strategic planning
Des formulaires aux bannières porno: comment l'économie comportementale peut optimiser l'exp. utilisateur - par les planneurs de DigitasLBi
A review of the behavioral economics concept of the paradox of choice where some choice is good, but too much choice creates paralysis and dissatisfaction
VCCP Kin Production Director Chris Chaundler - Sustaining brand conversationThe_IPA
VCCP Kin Production Director Chris Chaundler's presentation from the Agile Creative AdaptLab at The IPA's Agility Adaptathon in London where he looks at how to sustain brand conversation 24-7 in an always on world. Learn more about Agility www.ipa.co.uk/adapt/agility & on Twitter #ipadapt
Dr Max Blumberg: Harnessing the power of human capital for the digital ageThe_IPA
The IPA hosted its Talent Adaptathon at Altitude in London on 7th October 2014 in association with Daniel Marks London. Dr Max Blumberg (CEO Blumberg Partnership, Goldsmiths Research Fellow & CIPD Consultant) talked about harnessing the power of human capital for the digital age. Get involved by visiting the ADAPT Hub www.ipa.co.uk/adapt/talent and on Twitter #ipadapt.
SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTANDING OF BEHAVIOR CHP. 1LEARNING OBJECTIVES.docxbagotjesusa
SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTANDING OF BEHAVIOR CHP. 1
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
· Describe why an understanding of research methods is important.
· Describe the scientific approach to learning about behavior and contrast it with pseudoscientific research.
· Define and give examples of the four goals of scientific research: description, prediction, determination of cause, and explanation of behavior.
· Discuss the three elements for inferring causation: temporal order, covariation of cause and effect, and elimination of alternative explanations.
· Define, describe, compare, and contrast basic and applied research.
Page 2DO SOCIAL MEDIA SITES LIKE FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM IMPACT OUR RELATIONSHIPS? What causes alcoholism? How do our early childhood experiences affect our later lives? How do we remember things, what causes us to forget, and how can memory be improved? Why do we procrastinate? Why do some people experience anxiety so extreme that it disrupts their lives while others—facing the same situation—seem to be unaffected? How can we help people who suffer from depression? Why do we like certain people and dislike others?
Curiosity about questions like these is probably the most important reason that many students decide to take courses in the behavioral sciences. Science is the best way to explore and answer these sorts of questions. In this book, we will examine the methods of scientific research in the behavioral sciences. In this introductory chapter, we will focus on ways in which knowledge of research methods can be useful in understanding the world around us. Further, we will review the characteristics of a scientific approach to the study of behavior and the general types of research questions that concern behavioral scientists.
IMPORTANCE OF RESEARCH METHODS
We are continuously bombarded with research results: “Happiness Wards Off Heart Disease,” “Recession Causes Increase in Teen Dating Violence,” “Breast-Fed Children Found Smarter,” “Facebook Users Get Worse Grades in College.” Articles and books make claims about the beneficial or harmful effects of particular diets or vitamins on one's sex life, personality, or health. Survey results are frequently reported that draw conclusions about our beliefs concerning a variety of topics. The key question is, how do you evaluate such reports? Do you simply accept the findings because they are supposed to be scientific? A background in research methods will help you read these reports critically, evaluate the methods employed, and decide whether the conclusions are reasonable.
Many occupations require the use of research findings. For example, mental health professionals must make decisions about treatment methods, assignment of clients to different types of facilities, medications, and testing procedures. Such decisions are made on the basis of research; to make good decisions, mental health professionals must be able to read the research literature in the field and apply it to their professional lives. .
According to recent research, even when you don't get what you want, there's a strong chance that you won't even notice.
For example, imagine that you've been asked to taste two different types of jams and choose your favorite. You are then offered another taste of the one you selected as your favorite and then asked to explain why you chose it. Do you think that you would notice that you actually tasted the jam that you had initially rejected?In a 2010 study by Hall, Johansson, and their colleagues presented just such a scenario to supermarket volunteers, They found that less than 20 percent of participants noticed that they tasted the jam they had turned down just a few moments earlier. In many cases, the difference between the two flavors differed dramatically, ranging from spicy to sweet to bitter.Psychologists refer to this lack of awareness of our own decisions and preference as choice-blindness.
U06A1 (Methods and Findings)
U06A1 (Methods and Findings)
Student:
Institution:
Professor:
Date of Submission:
Introduction
In this assignment, I was able to get a real chance to be in the actual field making first hand observations. It was such an interesting activity to move around and watch natural behaviour in the field. During this time, my main objectives involved making observations of random people in their natural environment and how they behaved, how frequent they were into social media. Their frequency to social media usage was judged by how they were using their gadgets such as tablets and cell phones. Another objective involved getting close enough to hear their conversations and capture their attitude on some aspects. All this was done without their knowledge so as to ensure they had their natural behaviour free from influence.
Another phase of my activity involved asking some questions about their opinions on some issues such as social media usage. These questions were designed in such a way that a response/behaviour would follow soon enough. The reason for these mechanism was to compare their attitudes towards something and how they actually behaved in relation to their attitudes. Most of my questions were social media related so as to ensure I remained relevant to my research and social psychology.
The activity involved observation of ten random subjects and how they interacted with one another, how they behaved as a result of their peer surrounding since the experiment was conducted in a public setting. The observation occurred on two phases. Each phase taking approximately 20-30mins such that I had approximately two minutes for each person. The second phase was the most interesting since this is where I was asking the questions and observing whether the persons would behave in accord to their opinions and attitude. It should be noticed that, at times I would make the observation then pose the question about what I had observed just to see if their actions would match their opinions.
Their entire time in the field was really interesting and mind opening.
Ethical obligations and challenges
Every research will always have some challenges associated with it. The challenges are even more when the subjects under study are humans. This is because we humans have rights and freedoms which ought to be respected and upheld.
My study had several challenges. However, such challenges were tackled professionally such that my results were not biased and no violations of whatsoever kind were made. My first challenge was to target selection. With so many people in a public setting, it is difficult to select a fair sample that would be representative enough. In addition to this, gender and age repre ...
Google scholarAdvantages of using Google scholar for research·.docxwhittemorelucilla
Google scholar
Advantages of using Google scholar for research
· It gives an option of seeing an article related to one another which is not available in the online library. This makes search easier and simpler, you can easily get an article that interest you search your research topic
· Google scholar gives an easier option of citing the work and at the same time give a link of the articles and books held in ECU libraries
· It is easier to use
· It is free so u can access it anytime anywhere so long as you have internet connection
Disadvantages of using Google scholar for a research topic
· Google Scholar's scope is far reaching yet not exhaustive. It can be an exploration source, yet ought not to be the main source you utilize.
· Google Scholar does not give the criteria to what makes its outcomes "insightful". Results are frequently fluctuating in quality and it is up to the scientist to figure out which of the outcomes are appropriate for their motivations.
· Google Scholar does not enable clients to restrict results to either peer inspected or full content materials or by teaching.
· Google Scholar does not give notice of when its materials are refreshed.
· Google Scholar's reference tracker can be hard to utilize and mistaken.
WHERE TO START CHP. 2
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
· Discuss how a hypothesis differs from a prediction.
· Describe the different sources of ideas for research, including common sense, observation, theories, past research, and practical problems.
· Identify the two functions of a theory.
· Summarize the fundamentals of conducting library research in psychology, including the use of PsycINFO.
· Summarize the information included in the abstract, introduction, method, results, and discussion sections of research articles.
Page 21THE MOTIVATION TO CONDUCT SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH DERIVES FROM A NATURAL CURIOSITY ABOUT THE WORLD. Most people have their first experience with research when their curiosity leads them to ask, “I wonder what would happen if …” or “I wonder why …,” followed by an attempt to answer the question. What are the sources of inspiration for such questions? How do you find out about other people's ideas and past research? In this chapter, we will explore some sources of scientific ideas. We will also consider the nature of research reports published in professional journals.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS, HYPOTHESES, AND PREDICTIONS
The result of curiosity is a question. Researchers use research questions to identify and describe the broad topic that they are investigating, and then conduct research in order to answer their research questions. A good research question identifies the topic of inquiry specifically enough so that hypotheses and predictions can be made. A hypothesis is also a question; it makes a statement about something that may be true. Hypotheses are more specific versions of research questions; they are directly testable whereas a research question may not be. Thus, a hypothesis is a tentative idea ...
Complete a scientific inquiry research using three credible sources..pdfforwardcom41
Complete a scientific inquiry research using three credible sources. Start by summarizing the
similarities and differences between social inquiry and the everyday assumptions that people
make. In addition, analyze the way claims are made, based on these two different approaches.
Provide at least one example for each.
Solution
Scientific inquiry
Source :Husband and Wife Differences in Response to Undesirable Life Events
In our society today we have so many dynamics to a “family.” Many things factor into these rolls
and they are not things that were seen 10 or even 5 years ago! We have woman’s rights, equality,
Stay at home fathers, gay rights, and single parent homes. The divorce rate is higher than ever
and what was normal for a family last year is not the same today by any means. After reading the
study you realize that the author is testing about how certain stressors in a person’s life can affect
them in different ways depending on what sex they are. The author states that men and woman
deal with things on a different level and each process things in a different manor. Whereas,
something that may affect a man, will not have as much bearing on a woman and vies versa.
Woman tested were more prone to psychological problems like depression and anxiety. Men
tested were more likely to demonstrate other symptoms of distress such as alcohol or drug use.
They believed that men would become more hostile about situations and woman would be
anxious about the same situation
In the present study of 451 married couples living in the rural midwest, gender differences were
examined in reports of exposure and vulnerability to specific types of undesirable life events.
Consistent with expectations derived from either a social structural or identity perspective, the
results demonstrated that men are more likely than women to report exposure to and to be
distressed by work and financial events. Women, on the other hand, are more strongly influenced
by exposure to negative events within the family but not within their network of friends.
Outcomes vary according to the type of emotional distress. Financial stress, for example,
increases hostility among men more than among women, but wives are more likely than
husbands to report somatic complaints in response to the same stressor. The findings demonstrate
the need for future research that more directly investigates the intraindividual and social
mechanisms which account for gender differences in a broad range of emotional and behavioral
responses to varying types of significant life changes.
Inquiry is a natural human activity; that is, people seek a general understanding about the world
around them. We recognize that present circumstances affect future circumstances. We learn that
getting an education will determine the amount of money we earn later in life. The key to inquiry
is observation. We can never understand the way things work without first having something to
understand. Understanding through experienc.
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2. The Secret Behind Resisting Chocolate Cake 3
Bias of the Month 4
The Unintended Consequence of Self-Promotion 5
Don’t Worry, I’ll Google It 6
Suit Up for Success 7
A Beautiful Mind 8
Real Life Nudge of the Month 10
Upcoming Events 10
CONTENTS
3. THE SECRET BEHIND RESISTING CHOCLATE CAKE
The language we use fundamentally shapes the world we live in. As mentioned In O Behave Issue 4, Zuni speakers only have one
word for yellow and orange and therefore find the task of telling the difference between these colours extremely difficult. The
Australian aboriginal speakers of the Kuuk Thaagorre language don’t use the words left or right but instead describe direction
using North South East and West and have therefore developed the skill to tell what direction they are facing at all times and finally
research done on futured languages have found people in these countries are more likely to save for the future than people who
live in a country who speak a futureless language.
New research in this field has looked at whether words we use when talking to ourselves influence our behaviour and they did so
in a situation that will be very familiar to all of you reading this….resisting chocolate. Saying “no” to temptation is a critical skill
required for us all to lead a healthy life but it’s a skill we all wish we were better at. This research lets you in on a the secret on how
this skill can be improved.
There is an array of research that shows that feeling empowered and having perceived control over and a behaviour, particularly
over goal-directed behaviour such as being on a diet or eating healthy can have a positive influence on this behaviour.
Using these insights, a study looked at whether using an empowered word
and a word that puts the person in control such as “”don’t” will have a more
positive effect on peoples behaviour than a word that connotes external
focus such as “cant”. A group of participants with a healthy eating goal
were told that each time they faced a temptation they were told to tell
themselves that “I don’t do X” or “I can’t do X”; depending on the
experimental condition and told to rehearse this strategy a few times. They
then moved onto a unrelated study. When the experiment was over and
they were leaving the room the researcher provided snacks to say thank
you, choices being a chocolate bar or a healthy granola bar. Results
showed that those in the can’t group were significantly more likely to
choose the chocolate bar than those in the empowering don’t group who
were more likely to choose the granola bar. So remember, next time that
chocolate cake is calling your name, you don’t want it, not you can’t have
it!.
Patrick, V. M., & Hagtvedt, H. (2012). “I Don’t” versus “I Can’t”: When Empowered Refusal Motivates Goal-Directed Behavior. Journal of Consumer Research, 39(2), 371-
381.
4. BIAS OF THE MONTH
Rhyme as Reason Effect
This is a bias whereby we judge a statement to be more truthful and accurate when it is written so that it rhymes. In
experiments, subjects judged variations of sayings which did and did not rhyme, and tended to evaluate those that
rhymed as more truthful (controlled for meaning). For example, the statement "What sobriety conceals, alcohol
reveals" was judged to be more accurate than by different participants who saw "What sobriety conceals, alcohol
unmasks“
The Keats Heuristic has been given as one explanation as to why this happens. This heuristic states that the truth of a
statement is evaluated by its aesthetic qualities whereby statements that are cognitively easy to process are preferred
and therefore more believed; such as rhymes.
McGlone, M. S., & Tofighbakhsh, J. (2000). Birds of a feather flock conjointly Rhyme as reason in aphorisms. Psychological Science, 11(5), 424-428.
The most famous case of this bias in the real world comes from
the OJ Simpson murder trial where the signature phrase used by
one his lawyers Johnnie Cochran was “If it doesn’t fit than you
must acquit”. Not only was he a great lawyer, seems he was a
also a secret behavioural scientist.
5. Scopelliti, I., Loewenstein, G., & Vosgerau, J. (2015). You Call It “Self-Exuberance”; I Call It “Bragging” Miscalibrated Predictions of Emotional Responses to Self-
Promotion. Psychological science, 0956797615573516.
It is human nature that we want people to like us. It can be essential for a business that clients like those representing the
business as this can influence whether the client stays or not. When we are trying to be impressive to others we all often
indulge in a little self-promotion but it turns out that this self-promotion might be doing us more harm than good. According
to new research out this month, people over estimate how much their self-promotion works in their favour and
underestimate how much it achieves the opposite effect.
THE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCE OF SELF-PROMOTION
In a series of experiments researchers asked one group of people to
remember and describe a time when they bragged about themselves.
They asked them to note the emotions they felt along with how they
thought the person listening felt. Parallel to this, they asked another group
of people to think of and describe a time when they had to listen to
someone brag about themselves. Similarly, they asked them to note the
emotions they felt along with how they thought the other person felt.
Results showed that the bragging group thought that their audience felt
more happier and more proud of them than they actually did. They also
underestimated how annoying the listener thought they were. A final
aspect of the study asked one group to make a positive impression on the
other group which in line with the previous research showed that they did
in fact brag, which as I am sure you have guessed, had a negative effect
on the person they were trying to impress.
The researchers noted that these results are extremely important when we think about the internet and social media where people
often display self-promotion behaviours. In these situations the effects can be even more exaggerated as the lack of personal
connection can increase the negative emotions felt by the recipient of the self-promotion.
So remember, next time you are trying to impress someone in your personal life or in a business setting, maybe tone down the
bragging if you want to insure you impress rather than irritate.
6. DON’T WORRY, I’LL GOOGLE IT
Advances in technology have inarguably had a huge impact on us as a species; we’re able to communicate and retrieve
information with unprecedented speed and ease, revolutionising our professional and personal lives alike. This has had a
myriad of positive effects, but also some negative; nomophobia, for example, is the very modern phobia of being without one’s
mobile phone, running out of battery or losing service contact (Bragazzi & Puenete, 2014).
Fisher, M., Goddu, M. K., & Keil, F. C. (2015, March 30). Searching for Explanations: How the Internet Inflates Estimates of Internal Knowledge. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: General, forthcoming.
This overreliance on technology – even amongst those of us who wouldn’t
consider ourselves phobic of losing contact – can be problematic, and not
just for pub quiz masters who now have a lot more policing to do. A study
by Fisher, Goddu and Keil (2015) suggests that people conflate the
knowledge they can find on the Internet with their own, an effect which can
lead to overconfidence in our abilities. Humans have always formed
transactive memory systems, allocating certain cognitive tasks within their
personal communities and relying on specific people to store certain
information. These networks often form organically, and can help us to
perform more efficiently. The Internet, however, is like a supercharged
version of our cleverest friend; referred to as a “supernormal stimulus”, the
breadth and depth of the knowledge it contains far exceeds any memory
partner we would previously have adapted to. In a series of studies, the
authors found that participants who were able to search for explanations
for preliminary questions rated themselves as far more likely to give good
explanations for subsequent questions without Internet access, than those
who were shown the preliminary questions alone.
Interestingly, giving participants direct links to sites answering the questions did not improve these confidence ratings;
however, when a filter was applied to the search engine so that any search term would return a message saying it “did not
match any documents”, this overconfidence in their abilities improved again – despite the fact they had not managed to access
any new information. This suggests that the act of searching in itself is responsible for the increase in confidence; as they are
actively seeking the information themselves, people neglect the lack of knowledge they started with. Perhaps it’s worth
remembering how Google-happy you are next time you’re showing off about your trivia knowledge ahead of that pub quiz.
7. SUIT UP FOR SUCCESS
The phenomenon of enclothed cognition, where the clothes we wear influence the way we think and behave, has
started to receive attention from the academic community. This goes beyond a simple increase in confidence when
wearing something that looks and feels good; for example, Hajo and Galinsky (2012) found that just putting on a lab
coat improved their participants’ performance on attention-oriented tasks. Moreover, in a subsequent experiment, they
found that this effect was greater when the lab coat was framed as a doctor’s coat, than when framed as a painter’s
coat. This shows how our clothing can activate associations in our mind, priming our behaviour based on knowledge
and previous experiences.
A new study by Slepian, Ferber, Goal and Rutchick (2015) has
found that wearing more formal clothing can actually make people
more creative and abstract thinkers. Formal dress is usually worn
on specific occasions, dictated by social norms or to signal status
and professionalism. As such, it can influence our self-perception;
people who wear formal clothes tend to describe themselves as
competent and rational, while those who wear casual clothing
describe themselves as friendly and laidback. In their study, Slepian
et al asked participants to bring an outfit they would wear to a job
interview and one they would wear to lectures to the experiment,
where they were randomly assigned to change into one of these
two outfits. Those who changed into formal clothes displayed more
abstract thought, as demonstrated by a categorisation task. For
example, they were more likely to include the word “camel” in the
“vehicle” category, showing more creative thinking than those in
casual clothes who were more anchored in rigid definitions.
The implications of this study are damning for casual Fridays, but it is important to note that it was performed with
students who presumably spend more of their time in lectures than job interviews, so it is not clear whether this was
more a result of the novelty of wearing something new than the formality itself. Further research is required to find out
whether people wearing suits at work every day could benefit from a change of style, or if suits are helping them to
perform at their best.
Slepian, M.L., Ferber, S.N., Gold, J.M., & Rutchick, A.M. (2015). The Cognitive Consequences of Formal Clothing. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 1-8.
8. A BEAUTIFUL MIND
This week brought the sad news that John Nash, Nobel Prize winner in economics,
and his wife Alicia were killed in a car accident in New Jersey.
The brilliant mathematician was best known for his work in game theory, defining the
Nash equilibrium in his 28-page PhD thesis in 1950. This advanced Von Neumann’s
original theory by accounting for situations with multiple players and different
motivations, where players could reach equilibrium by choosing the best strategy
according to their and the other players’ options. A Nash equilibrium is where no
player has anything to gain by changing their strategy. Nash’s flourishing career was
sadly curtailed by his diagnosis of schizophrenia in 1958, which claimed three
decades of his life before gradually dissipating with the hormonal changes of age.
This recovery and the Nobel Prize meant Nash was again accepted in mathematics
circles, and his biography A Beautiful Mind and the Oscar-winning film of the same
name completed this almost miraculous turnaround.
Alicia Nash was also an inspirational individual; an El Salvadoran aristocrat, they
met at MIT where she was majoring in physics, one of only sixteen women in the
class of 1955. As Nash’s mental illness took hold, she continued to care for him and
supported him and their young son by working as a computer programmer. Sylvia
Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind, notably said, “It was Nash’s genius to choose a
woman who would prove so essential to his survival.”
The couple were on their way home from Norway, where Nash received the Abel
Prize for his contribution to mathematics. They are survived by their son, John
Charles Martin Nash, and John David Stier, Nash’s son from a previous relationship.
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10. Spotted: Social norms in an HIV testing campaign, Clapham
Being tested for HIV is important for peace of mind, making informed decisions
and starting treatment if the test is positive; but instead of focusing on the
rational benefits or the risks that can be prevented, this campaign is entirely
based on the number of people getting tested. Furthermore, this social norm is
localised to London, which makes it even more compelling as we like to do what
people like us are doing. This is reminiscent of Goldstein, Cialdini and
Griskevicius’ (2008) hotel towels study, where hotel guests were 26% more likely
to reuse their towels when told the majority of other guests did, which jumped to
33% when they were told the previous guests staying in their room reused their
towels, compared with an environmental message. This shows that norms can
be more effective than more rational arguments for behaving in a certain way.
REAL LIFE NUDGE OF THE MONTH
UPCOMING EVENTS
Behavioural Boozeonomics with the London Behavioural Economics Network
Monday 8th June, 6.30-11.00pm
The Comedy Pub, Piccadilly
Beyond Rationality: Behavioural Economics and the Modern Economy
Monday 29th June – Friday 3rd July
LSE’s New Academic Building
Nudgestock 3
Friday 12th June
Leas Cliff Hall, Folkestone