Seven Ironies of Applying Behavioral Science

This list refers to naïve people who think that reading one book on behavioral science and watching very catchy videos (with Dan Ariely, of course) makes them ready to apply the insights of behavioral science. This list does not refer to true experts. Most interestingly, the number zero irony is that virtually all readers of this post will think that they are the experts and that it is “other people” who are the Naïve ones. Luckily for our self-esteem, we all think that we are above average… read on, it’s worth it.

1. You know (and talk about) System 1 and System 2 thinking (mainly about System 1, to be fully honest) and that is very nice. What you fail to understand, however, is that applying behavioral science is essentially a System 2 thinking process. This irony comes from the very nature of behavioral science findings – namely that they are counter-intuitive. So in order to apply counter-intuitive findings you can’t rely on your intuitive System 1… this is unless you have a very profound understanding of behavioral science and your System 1 intuitions are in line with the scientific findings… (again, many will think they are)…

2. You think that everything that starts with “Neuro” is more true, more important and more worthy of knowing and implementing. Now, I have nothing against Neuroscience (the real one) and I truly respect the real neuroscientist who are reserved about their work and the field. The issue with “Neuro” stuff is that it is so appealing that it attracts all sorts of … well… charlatans and incompetents looking for attention. Let me be clearer. The fact that something (activity) is found in the brain when investigating things like judgment, decision-making and behavior is, in essence, no news. It would be news if some activity would be found in someone’s knee when the person is making a decision. In addition, the fact that a part of the brain is activated doesn’t mean that we should jump to conclusions… there is still much more to be learned about our brains and stay reassured that the findings will not be communicated in bombastic speeches that go viral…

The video on this link is worthy of watching… it is about “Neuro” … Neuro-bunk that is… 
http://www.ted.com/talks/molly_crockett_beware_neuro_bunk (open it in a new tab and watch it after you finish reading)

3. You know about the many cognitive biases and yet you are in awe when hearing successful case-studies without for one second doubting that they can be the result of chance, that the methodology might be flawed and that a part of their success comes from the nice narrative given by the presenter…

4. You bought “Thinking Fast and Slow”, but never gave it a proper read… and I don’t mean reading it in trains, trams, airplanes etc. It’s a wonderful book, but it is not popular science and if you don’t read it (twice) using System 2, very likely you don’t get too much of the wonderful science presented in it. By the way, owning good books doesn’t make anyone an expert in what is written in those books.

5. You think that what is presented in key-note speeches and in articles is important, true, worth knowing and “the next big thing”; at the same time you fail to realize that the key-note speaker’s (or journalist’s for that matter) main goal is to deliver something interesting and catchy so that his (her) brand value will increase… You keep confusing appealing with important, popular with worth-knowing and catchy with true.

6. In applying behavioral science, you want to get to the “applied” part and skip the “science” bit… this is only natural, but it might be more effective to shoot in pitch darkness in hope that you’ll hit a small target. Similarly, because applying behavioral science seems cool, nice etc. you assume that actually doing it (applying) will be a joyride, when the reality is that there are a lot of head-aches, trial and error spiced with learning. Seeing case-studies on applying behavioral science is a zillion times easier than actually doing it.

7. You think that all applications of behavioral science are “good” and you tell yourself that you would never do it for “evil” purposes. The irony is that you give yourself extreme examples (prototypes) of “evil” such as “I would never help a Tobacco company sell more cigarettes / sell to children”, when the reality is that such “big evils” will never ever ask for your services… Moreover, by giving yourself this prototype of “big evil”, you ignore a major finding in behavioral science, that there is a big “grey” area in terms of what is “bad”. By saying that you’d never help a Tobacco company make people smoke (more), it becomes very acceptable to help companies “reduce consumer surplus” (read take all the money) and sell more of anything useless, but not harmful. Applying behavioral science is the same thing as manipulation and that is the truth… What counts is towards what you manipulate…

Here’s a bonus (Free) Irony for you:

You clicked the link to this post because the title contained the catchy number “7” and something intriguing… yet the truth is that there are “7” ironies simply because I got bored of writing more of them…   and, by the way, in this post there are nine ironies (counting the “free” one and the “number zero” one at the beginning), but I guess few of you noticed.

Oh… almost forgot… I don’t claim to be better than any of you who read till here. I just know that I’m prone to error and I try to stay skeptic and use System 2 as much as I can :)