At the Habit Summit Europe

Yesterday, 30th April, I gave a brief presentation at The Habit Summit Europe in Amsterdam.

Having a bit (more) experience in organizing events, I have to say very little about The Habit Summit: It was good!

As for my brief presentation, I got some very nice feed-back... which is only natural since people who didn't like it didn't say anything :)... Still the number of people who liked it was quite encouraging... Looking forward to the release of the recording.

Thank you to the organizing team and to Monolith.

And by the way, My nastiest habit is THINKING

Don't forget to check out my workshops in applied BS (that is Behavioral Science, not the other BS) on www.naumof.com 

Later Edit: found the first pick with me ;)
Thank you Tom Prakke

No! I am not the big fat guy... I'm the one in the red blazer 

Even Later Edit: I found another pic :) Apparently because most people were focused on my presentation there weren't too many pictures taken...
 

It actually makes a lot of sense once you read my book: It Makes (No) Sense…

It is time to get closer to Applied Behavioral Science!

People often do things that make little or no sense from a rational point of view.

This is until you view them through the lenses of

the 4D Model of Human Behavior

based on top-level research in Behavioral Sciences.

Many companies and NGOs already apply insights from Behavioral Science in marketing, employee engagement, market research, fundraising and social programs.   

Even the (UK) Government Applies Behavioral Science…

Watch the recording of my webinar "See human Behavior in 4D" (from August last year) and get the gist of how the 4D Model of Human Behavior can help you to

Become Better at Understanding, Predicting and Influencing

Human Behavior!

 Liked it? 

Get a better picture with my Live Seminar

“See Human Behavior in 4D” 

and Get Introduced to Applied Behavioral Science

Book a session ASAP and enjoy the “prohibitive” price of just 950€/ session*

* VAT (BTW) applicable for clients in The Netherlands; travel expenses not included.

Screw the Attitudes! Go (directly) for Behavior

Too many behavioral change related endeavors focus excessively on goals such as “raising awareness”, “changing (improving) attitudes” and, of course, “informing the public”… yes, I have in mind non-profit endeavors, but this situation (shortcoming) concerns not only such projects.

The reality is that almost all such endeavors are destined to fail at achieving actual behavior change. So, why is there so much emphasis on attitudes? Here are some possible answers:

The people behind these endeavors still hold the erroneous belief that behavior is driven by attitudes, thus changing attitudes will lead to a change in behavior. Even if, most of the time, this is wrong, I think that it is an honest mistake. If one (still) believes that human behavior is the result of one’s personality combined with deliberate thinking, it is only natural to think that attitudes precede behavior. Now, if you read this blog, you know that human behavior is influenced by a huge array of factors and that much of what we do is not necessarily the result of deliberate thinking.

When it comes to attitudes, the reality is almost the other way around than the general (naïve) belief.

The naïve belief is that when attitudes change, behavior, too, changes.

Reality is that when behavior changes, attitudes, subsequently change.

The psychological process behind this is a mix of self-identification theory and confirmation bias. (Note that I didn’t mention the outdated cognitive dissonance). For example, let’s just assume that as a result of randomness, Samantha ends up making a donation for a (random) charity. After the fact (behavior) she will try to make sense of her actions. In this process, Samantha will find all sorts of reasons for why her action is not only justifiable, but even a very good (wise) one. She will think better of the cause the charity is promoting. Moreover, Samantha will see herself as a “good person who supports worthy causes”.

Another not so innocent answer, is that attitudes are relatively easy to measure (who doesn’t know of the famous 7-point Likert-scale…). In contrast, behavior change is a lot more difficult to measure, assess and, quite often, takes a lot of time.

The least innocent answer is that some NGOs and even governments simply have some money to spend (waste) and they do anything that can be done within the budget. In order to show that they have done something useful (or at least pretend), these organizations show up with some data on how attitudes have changed…

The essence is: if the issue one wants to tackle is behavioral, then focus on behavior! The attitude change will follow the change in behavior.  

Learn How to Influence Behavior through the
Physical Environment

Psychology of Design

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 :)

The Paradox of Journalism and Information – The Irrationalities of Why (3)

Journalists and media institutions say that their job (duty) is to inform the public.

(Most) People tend to trust media organizations and journalists. This is most true when it comes to believing that the information presented in the media is worthy of knowing. Some people simply take for granted that whatever is in the news is important, relevant and it deserves our limited cognitive resources.

Most media organizations (companies) and subsequently the (most) journalists have income depending on the audience reach they have. TV stations, Radios, internet websites and even newspapers get their income from advertising which in a nutshell means that the media organization sells “thousands of views” (exposures).

Here is the paradox. Media organizations need to get as many “views” (audience reach) as they can. This depends (in part) on which information is transmitted to the audience and on how it is presented. Thus the incentive of media organizations and journalists is to present appealing information in an appealing manner so that they get the widest audience-reach possible…

But appealing is not the same thing as important, relevant, worthy of knowing…

So people in the audience think that a piece of information is worthy of knowing (important) because it was presented in the news (media), but at the same time the media chose that piece of information because it knows that people will find it appealing and subsequently will consume it.  

Use (commercial) media just for entertainment … the important stuff is usually not there…

Applying Behavioral Science in Service Design Implies Open-Minded Skepticism

Applying Behavioral Science in Service Design Implies Open-Minded Skepticism 

When we think of someone being “Open-minded” we imagine a person who is willing to try anything and who does not reject (from the start) ideas that are not perfectly aligned to her existing beliefs.

When we think of someone being “Skeptic” we imagine a person who is overall reluctant to trying new things and who is not very comfortable with ideas that have not been proven.

When applying Behavioral Science in Service Design one needs to be, at the same time, both Open-Minded and Skeptic. 

This apparently is (close to) impossible since our prototypes of “Open-minded” and “Skeptic” people are (almost) opposites. 

Nonetheless, both traits are essential when one wants to translate the scientific findings of behavioral sciences into practical insights.

We know that features of the physical environment strongly influence human behavior. 

However, this knowledge is for many people counter-intuitive. Take the following pieces of information:

A.  Diffusing the scent of lavender in a restaurant influences the time spent by customers in the establishment and their consumption – how much they order and pay. (see Gueguen, N., & Petr, C. (2006) “Research note Odors and consumer behavior in a restaurant”. Hospitality Management, 25, 335–339)

B.  Playing classical music in a restaurant influences the average value of an order across all categories of products (i.e. main course, desert, drinks etc.) (see North, A.C., Shilcock, A., Hargreaves, D.J. (2003) “The Effect of Musical Style on Restaurant Customers' Spending”. Environment Behavior, 35, 5, 712-718)

These pieces of information apparently make no sense. That is if one believes that time spent and what is ordered in a restaurant depends exclusively on the clients’ pre-existing and stable preferences and on deliberate decision-making. To someone who knows a bit of behavioral science, these pieces of information will seem less outrageous, but this is not fully relevant at the moment.

Now let’s imagine that at a state authority (e.g. city administration) there is a new boss who wants to improve citizens’ experience when having to deal with the authority. When thinking of improving people’s experience with state authorities, first come to mind things like simplifying procedures, the staff being friendlier etc. There are, however, some shortcomings with these things… many procedures can’t be changed very fast and quite often they depend on laws, regulations etc. that are set by other institutions than the state authority that has a new boss. The staff of the institution can’t be changed at the command of the new boss (there are laws, unions etc.). Moreover, the staff’s behavior depends, in part, on how the citizens behave with the staff. For example, if one has to deal eight hours a day with angry, irritated people will, most likely, fail to be very friendly.

So the endeavor of the new boss is not as smooth as it appeared to be…

How about applying the knowledge I mentioned earlier… the one on the effects of lavender scent and classical music in restaurants?

I know that for a lot of people the “gut reaction” goes something like “are you crazy?”, but I’m not crazy (or at least I like to think so)…

Of course, at first sight the proposition of diffusing the scent of lavender and (or) playing classical music in a public institution seems outrageous. 

Why in the world would citizens have a better experience in dealing with the public authority if the waiting room would be smelling like lavender and (or) there would be classical music playing?

Here is where being open-minded comes into play. 

The influences of the scent of lavender and of classical music on people’s behavior in a restaurant are real and there are some psychological mechanisms that power them. These mechanisms and many more are presented in detail in my Master Class Design Influence.

The same mechanisms may work in a public authority waiting room setting… So the new boss of the institution might succeed (partly) in his endeavor of improving citizens’ experiences with the institution by simply playing some classical music and (or) placing some scent dispensers in the waiting room. The new boss needs to be open-minded to accept this proposition.

Here comes the skeptic part… 

We know that lavender and classical music influence several types of behavior in various settings (e.g. restaurants, shops etc.), but we are not certain that they will have the same effect on the behavior and satisfaction of citizens who have to deal with a public authority.

Skepticism in applying behavioral sciences does not mean being reluctant to new ideas or to apparently outrageous propositions. Skepticism refers to asking relevant questions and testing (experimenting). In the situation described above, here are some very pertinent skeptic questions:

Does the scent of lavender / classical music have an influence on citizens’ experience with the public authority?

What is the combined effect of the scent of lavender and the classical music on citizens’ experience?

If, for example, the lavender scent does not improve people’s experience, would any other scent do a better job?

When applying behavioral science in practice, skepticism is necessary because there is a huge risk in going head-on into unknown territory… and spending lots of money on something that we don’t know if it works.

I am fully aware that bosses (aka managers) favor safe, tested, proven etc. solutions.  At the same time everyone “loves” innovations and thinking outside the box etc.

The particularity of behavioral science that prevents it from being a tested, proven, safe, sure “plug and play” solution is that behavioral science takes into account context. If anyone thinks that applying insights from behavioral science is similar to plugging a USB stick into a computer, I’m sorry to say that it is not so… contexts that involve people are not standardized computers and simply applying (plugging in) an insight from behavioral science can have different outcomes in different contexts.

Join me for the webinar Behavioral Science for Service Design on June 19 and

Psychology of Money Workshop by Pikant & Naumof at Storm Software Solutions Bolton UK

On 4-5 December 2013 I, Nicolae Naumof - The Behavioral Science Trainer, spiced up with a session of the Psychology of Money Workshop – Thinking Money the activity of Storm Software Solutions in Bolton UK.

Four very eager to learn employees of Storm Software Solutions attended the workshop. Here’s what Paul Flood, Managing Director of Storm Software Solutions said about the Thinking Money Workshop:

Engaging content from Nicolae who provides both an academic and real world perspective on how people think and make decisions about money.

 Understand How People Make Decisions about Money and Learn How to Decrease (Increase) the Pain of Paying   

Thinking Money – Workshop on Psychology of Money.

Here's a pic taken while the participants were solving the case studies on increasing and decreasing the pain of paying.

For me, giving this training was a pleasure and I was delighted by the participants’ openness and their willingness to learn. Moreover, I was very pleasantly surprised by the Northern English Hospitality.