Understanding how deeply hardwired our brains are to be social gives us a better understand of how we make judgments and decisions, creating the right foundation for new forms of communication and design.

1. Contact: david@gravityideas.com @gravityideas Gravity Ideas

2. PerspectiveTaking Experiment
Did you see 6 dots?
Yes No

3. PerspectiveTaking Experiment

4. PerspectiveTaking Experiment
Did you see 6 dots?
Yes No

5. PerspectiveTaking Experiment

6. The Benefits of Frequently Replicated Experiments
Testing subtle variations to understand different cognitive mechanisms
Task Completions
Average
Participant
Response
Time

7. PerspectiveTaking Experiment
Did you see 6 dots?
Yes No

8. PerspectiveTaking Experiment

9. PerspectiveTaking Experiment
Decrease in
the number
correct
answers
Increase in
participants
response
time
Paper: Dana Samson & Ian Apperly: Seeing it their way

10. 3Important Observations
Automatic Uncontrolled Mental
The participants
automatically took on
the other perspective
The participants did not
deliberately mean to take
on the other perspective.
Variations of the experiment
reveal the effects mental
roots of the mechanism

11. 2 UsefulVariations
Controlling for spatial concerns Familiarity & similarity effects

12. Key Insight
There is mechanism within our cognition that
automatically simulates the inferred mental
representations of other people, even when it is not
in our best interest to do so
Evidence of how deeply hardwired our brains are to be social

13. Is this Surprising?
Behavioural
Contagion
Emotional
Contagion
Mental
Contagion
For a long time thought to be
more deliberate, effortful act.

14. Doubted because of big insights around
egocentric intrusion
More deliberate, controlled,
focused
Better ability to take on the
others perspective
The dangerous story it told

15. Our Language Doesn’t Help Either
“Try and see it from
her perspective”
“You need to get
into his shoes to
understand”

16. Challenging our Assumptions
Altercentric Intrusion Mental Contagion
Automatic, non-deliberate
simulating of other people’s
mental representations

17. Uniquely Human
Behavioural
Contagion
Emotional
Contagion
Mental
Contagion
Paper: Laurie Santos: Exploring the evolutionary origins of overimitation

18. From the Field: Eyes onYou
“In weeks with eyes on the list, staff paid 2.76 times as much for their drinks as in weeks with flowers.”
Alternative 2 different
messages to coffee/tea-
drinking employees over
the course of 10 weeks.

19. Beyond Performance?
Taking on others’ perspectives
effects our performance of
tasks, but does it influence the
contents of our minds in lasting
ways?
Yes!

20. Performance yes, but what about contents?
Over-immitation Judging Other People
Behavioural Economics
Prioritizing Others
Inferred Values
Cognitive Scientists Social Psychologists Neuro Economists
Neural Decoding
Cultural Psychologists
Following the Perceived
Herd

21. What About Everyday Decision Making?
Food we buy?
News we watch?
Apps we download?
Clothes we wear?

22. Mobile App Downloads
Network Data 5xbetter than Demographic Data
Call Network
Bluetooth
Physical Prox
Social Media
Biggest predictor that you will start
using an app is if the people around
you are using that app
The value we attach to things seems to be
deeply influenced by the inferred value that
those around are attaching to those things.
Paper:Wei Pan & Sandy Pentland: Composite Social Network for Predicting Mobile App Installation

23. Consider 2Assumptions
We automatically take on
the be the inferred mental
representations of other
people
These representations have a
strong influence on our
judgements, what we value and
our decision making
2
1

24. How is this Important from a
Business Perspective

25. Taking a Step Back
Fundamental
Assumptions
Build a more realistic
understanding of client,
employee and our own
behaviour
Better Strategy
Better Design
Better Communications
Better Research
“Working from false assumptions about
people is bad for business, politics and
scholarship.”
Behavioural
Insights
“Our role is to turn human
understanding into business
advantage”

26. Cases where more challenging
our assumptions have lead to
practical business value
?

27. Cases where behavioural insights that challenge traditional
assumptions and had big value?
Human are Maximizers
Business Value:
Loss Aversion
Choice Paradox
Human are often act like Satificers
Assumption Shift:
Communication Framing
Structuring Incentives
More choice is always better
Too much choice leads to overload
<
LimitingChoice Sets
Free trials and Sampling
Categorizing and Partitioning
Only Presenting Salient Information

28. What happens when we embrace
a more the social view of Client
Behaviour
?

29. Practical Applications
Practical examples where a more social view has been embraced
Marketing
Strategy
Incentive
Structuring
Communications
Design

30. Marketing Strategy
1. Using social network analysis, isolate potential
users who are situated within a network of
existing users.
2. Push those users incentives (eg. Coupons) to
make them tip (download)
Much more effective than traditional approaches (demographic
targeting, historical behaviour)
Social Network-informedTargeting
A
C
B

31. Marketing Strategy
What about launching a new app of an existing app into a new
market?
1. Identify individuals with lots of edges (connections) (A)
2. Push incentives to them, as well as two strong bonds (B)(C) to
encourage experimentation and social learning
3. Adoption should lead to a high level of exposure and social
learning within the network
Sandy Pentland Study:This approach increased data plan purchases
by 13x
Social Network-informedTargeting
A
C
B

32. Important to understand the strategy is not just targeting specific
individuals to increase the likelihood of them downloading the app
But rather
Because of the these individual’s position in various social
networks and so their ability to interact and widely share
information about the app
Marketing Strategy
Social Network-informedTargeting

33. Peer-to-peer Incentives
Instead of targeting individuals and hoping the interaction and
social learning necessary for adoption will occur,
Why not incentivize the interaction?
Moving beyond individual incentives
A
B
C
A
B
C

34. Peer-to-peer Incentive Study
A
B
C
A B C
Group A: Individual Incentives Group B: Peer-to-peer Incentives
1) Community of adults given smart phones with pedometers to track fitness
2) Split into two groups (Group B picks friends to partner with)
A’s week 2 > week 1 activity = reward for A B and C’s week 2 > week 1 activity = reward for A
Peer-to-peer outcomes:
• Transparency (performance visibility)
• Stimulates conversation about the topic
• Exercise very top of mind
• Cooperation (don’t let the team down)
• Formation of groups, making behaviour sticky

35. Examples of Peer-to-peer Incentive
Structures:
√
√ √
Individual + 2 peer complete
weekly goals = individual receives
team reward
?√
Individual asks or answers a
question the team is rewarded
SESAME CREDIT
+- +-
+-
Changes in your rating effect the
rating of your close peers

36. Communication
Design
Framing communication in away that implies what the
majority of others in particular social context are doing
What is perceived as socially ‘normal’

37. Communication Design
Implied Social Norms
We are very good at picking up signals of what is
socially normal behaviour in a particular
environment

38. Communication Design
Implied Social Norms
People are much more
likely to throw car
flyers on the ground if
there are flyers/litter
on the ground around
them

39. Communication Design
Implied Social Norms

40. Communication Design
Explicit Communication of Social Norms
Sent out a variety of letters to try get UK
tax payers to make their payments
The ‘local norm’ letters pointed out
that the great majority of
people in the recipient’s local
area had paid on time
the ‘debt norm’ pointed out that
most people with a debt like
theirs had already paid

41. Communication Design
Explicit Communication of Social Norms
Financial
Message
Environmental
Message
Future-shock
Message
Neighbourhood
Norm Message
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
norm you

42. Communication Design
Explicit Communication of Social Norms
Conformity goes both ways!
Bad savers,
save more
Good savers,
save Less

43. Trying to get around the conformity issue
Addition: Efficient
neighbours comparison
Addition: Visual
positive feedback
Addition: Dollar
amount savedCommunicating
behaviour of top
performers

44. Raises An Important Broader Question
Do we unknowingly
communicate social norms that
run in the opposite direction to
the behaviour we are trying to
change?
Yes!
“The Big
Mistake!”

45. The Big Mistake! – Social Norm Miss-use
Many past visitors have
removed petrified wood from
the Park, changing the natural
state of the Petrified forest
[no message] Please don’t remove the
petrified wood from the Park,
in order to preserve the natural
state of the Petrified Forest
7% Theft 3% Theft 1.7% Theft

46. Real World Examples of ‘The Big Mistake’
“Many of your colleagues have been
caught and punished for selling work
Visas”
Number of people who have missed
their appointment today: 12
Poster in UK immigration offices Sign in Doctor’s waiting areas FeminismCampaign in the Uk
‘Female company board members
10%, this must change!’
David Halpern (BIT) – ‘Big mistakes’ in the wild

47. 6 KeyTake Outs
Ask yourself how social
learning might exist around
your product or service and
how to manage it effectively
Develop a more social view
of client behaviour by
challenging your existing
assumptions
Incentivize adoption
indirectly through peer-to-
peer interaction
Understand the social
environments that matter
to your clients, and what
the existing norms there
are
Leverage off existing social
norms when trying to guide
behaviour in a certain direction
Be aware of ‘the big
mistake’ in your
communications
Contact: david@gravityideas.com @gravityideas Gravity Ideas

48. Next:
Can Social Learning Explain
Consciousness?
Contact: david@gravityideas.com @gravityideas Gravity Ideas

49. Task
Paul is looking at Linda and Linda is
looking at Patrick. Paul is married
but Patrick is not. Is a person who is
married looking at a person who is
not married?
Yes/No/Cannot be determined
Contact: david@gravityideas.com @gravityideas Gravity Ideas

50. Task
Paul is looking at Linda and Linda is
looking at Patrick. Paul is married
but Patrick is not. Is a person who is
married looking at a person who is
not married?
Yes/No/Cannot be determined
Contact: david@gravityideas.com @gravityideas Gravity Ideas

51. Task
Paul is looking at Linda and Linda is
looking at Patrick. Paul is married but
Patrick is not. Is a person who is
married looking at a person who is not
married?
Paul (married)  Linda  Patrick (not married)
Contact: david@gravityideas.com @gravityideas Gravity Ideas

52. Further Reading:
Contact: david@gravityideas.com @gravityideas Gravity Ideas
Additional books: Gravity Library
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