o behave! issue 19
TRANSCRIPT
O BEHAVE!Issue 19 • October 2015
Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid 3
Bias of the Month 4
The Smell of Freshly-Baked Altruism 5
Are You Sure You Want to Sleep On It? 6
What’s in a Name? 7
Real Life Nudge of the Month 8
Upcoming Events 8
CONTENTS
BE AFRAID, BE VERY AFRAIDThere are lots of things out in the world that we should be afraid of, and it often feels like there is too much nameless fear being pedaled to really engage with it and take action where we can. However, when properly harnessed, fear is a powerful emotion; arguably responsible for the survival of early humans on the Serengeti, whose fear response to predators ensured an appropriate response of fight or, more likely, flight. Though threats to our lives in the modern day are much less likely to have big teeth and be able to sprint after us, health campaigns often try to provoke the same fear response to encourage people to change their behaviour, from quitting smoking to attending cancer screenings. Perhaps the most famous example of this is the “AIDS: Don’t die of ignorance” campaign, which used evocative imagery like tombstones to convey the gravity of the illness, and is widely credited with keeping the spread of the virus under control in the UK, relative to sub-Saharan Africa. Whether these campaigns are effective on the whole, however, is not well understood; different theories predict different effects of fear on behaviour. For example, the linear model of fear appeals suggests that the behavioural response will be stronger the more fear is applied, while the curvilinear model posits that people refuse to engage when there is too much fear, so a moderate amount is more effective.
Tannenbaum, M.B., Hepler, J., Zimmerman, R.S., Saul, L., Jacobs, S., Wilson, K., & Albarracin, D. (2015). Appealing to Fear: A Meta-Analysis of Fear Appeal Effectiveness and Theories. Psychological Bulletin, 141 (6), 1178-1204.
The largest meta-analysis on the effects of fear-based messaging, by the festively-named Tannenbaum and her colleagues, has been published this month in Psychological Bulletin, examining a total of 127 different studies. They found that the fear appeals studied successfully elicited a fearful response, and this in turn had a positive effect on attitudes, intentions, and behaviour. However, within this overall finding, there is differential support for the different theories. Both the linear and curvilinear models are rejected, as the authors found responses plateaued at moderate fear; there was no increase in response with high levels of fear application as predicted by the linear model, and no detrimental effect of increased fear as hypothesised by the curvilinear model.
Interestingly, fear appeals were most effective when accompanied by an efficacy message; in other words, a reassuring statement that the recipient is capable of performing the behaviour, or that the behaviour will result in the desired consequences. However, there was no detrimental effect on fear messages that did not include an efficacy message, contrary to the predictions of the health belief model and the parallel process model. Perhaps unsurprisingly, fear messages were also more effective for one-time actions (such as getting tested) rather than long-term sustained behaviours (e.g. exercise). The paper concludes that fear is an effective tool in changing behaviour – perfect for Halloween.
BIAS OF THE MONTH
Ebbinghaus Illusion
Van Ittersum, K., & Wansink, B. (2012). Plate Size and Color Suggestibility: The Delboeuf Illusion’s Bias on Serving and Eating Behavior. Journal of Consumer Research, 39 (2), 215-228.
Experiments in behavioural economics show us time and time again that context influences how we see and interact with the world. A classic example of this influence on our perception is the Ebbinghaus illusion, which occurs when two circles of identical size are placed near to each other, one surrounded by larger circles and the other surrounded by smaller circles. As a result of the juxtaposition of the circles, the central circle surrounded by the large circle appears smaller than the central circle surrounded by the small circle. Although the two circles in the centre are exactly the same size, the relative framing ensures we are biased to see them as different.
This illusion is the reason why people tend to serve themselves more, and as a result eat more, from big plates: the pile of food in the centre looks much smaller than it would on a small plate, hence the easiest way to lose weight is to buy a smaller set of plates. Conversely, you can also use this to encourage your children to eat more healthy food; studies have shown that people will eat more when their food is a similar colour to their plate, as the low colour contrast enhances this illusion, so stocking up on green plates could encourage more broccoli consumption.
THE SMELL OF FRESHLY-BAKED ALTRUISM
Guéguen, N. (2012). The Sweet Smell of… Implicit Helping: Effects of pleasant ambient fragrance on spontaneous help in shopping malls. The Journal of Social Psychology, 152 (4), 397-400.
Although bread may not be the best for our waistlines, new research suggests it can have a positive effect on our level of kindness. Unfortunately, it is not the taste of bread (so we can’t use this research to justify actually eating it), but the smell of freshly-baked goods that has this effect.
There is an array of literature showing that pleasant smells improve our mood and make us feel happy, and has even in one case been shown to make us behave in a more tidy fashion: Holland, Hendriks and Aarts (2005; in a paper named, “Smells Like Clean Spirit”) exposed participants to the smell of a citrus-scented all-purpose cleaner, and found they were more likely to brush crumbs off their desk to keep it clean as a result.
In this study by Guéguen (2012), the tangible effect of actively engaging in pro-social behaviour was examined. Eight participants (men and women) were asked to wait outside either a bakery which pumped out delicious smells of freshly-baked bread, or a clothes shop with no ambient aroma. Also outside these shops were volunteers who pretended to look for something in their bag. As the volunteers walked away from the shop they dropped a glove, handkerchief or packet of tissues. The experimenters wanted to see whether the smell outside the shop influenced the participants’ willingness to help the volunteer and return the item they dropped.
In the 400 times the experiment was repeated, 77% of the participants stopped, picked up the items and returned them to their owner when the volunteers dropped an item outside the bakery. Only 52% of participants outside the clothes shop helped the volunteers.
The researchers noted that this research showed that, “In general, spontaneous help is offered in areas where pleasant ambient smells are spread.”
“Just sleep on it” is classic advice for making big decisions. Often when making decisions, we do not decide straight away but defer the decision to a later date. Sometimes this can be beneficial, as it allows time to gather additional information, but other times it can be risky, such as when deferring retirement saving decisions negatively affects retirement income. Why are some decisions made straight away and others deferred?
Previous research in this domain has focused primarily on the composition of the choice set and the associated difficulty of choosing: people are more likely to defer a decision when they find it difficult to determine which is the best option, which isparticularly a problem when the alternatives are similar in attractiveness. A new study in this area by Krijnen, Zeelenbergand Breugelmans (2015) examined another factor that may affect the likelihood of deferral: decision importance. The researchers noted that there were different reasons to defer important decisions and therefore controlled for these, as they wanted to isolate the question of whether people use decision importance itself as a cue for deferral. Do they use the heuristic, “This decision is important and therefore I should take more time and effort when deciding”?
Krijnen, J. M., Zeelenberg, M., & Breugelmans, S. M. (2015). Decision importance as a cue for deferral. Judgment and Decision Making, 10(5), 407-415.
Across a series of experiments, the researchers showed consistent support for their hypothesis that people defer important decisions more than unimportant decisions. This finding persists even when deferral does not provide flexibility (experiment 2), has potential disadvantages (experiment 3), has no material benefit and is financially costly (experiment 4). The researchers therefore concluded that, “These results point to the idea that people use decision importance as a cue for deferral. People infer the time and effort that should be invested in a decision from the perceived importance of the decision, and this seems to cause them to defer important decisions.”
So next time you are making an important decision think to yourself, should I really sleep on it or just hurry up and make the decision?
ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO SLEEP ON IT?
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
Your first name just happens to be a reflection of your parents’ tastes or family and cultural heritage, but it doesn’t have any real bearing on the rest of your life, right? Well, not so much. It has been suggested that people with shorter names are likely to earn more, and even that your name can determine your choice of career, with a disproportionate number of men named Dennis becoming dentists (Pelham, Mirenberg & Jones, 2002). In fact, names can have such an influence on how employers perceive job applicants that a number of firms in the UK, including HSBC, Deloitte and the NHS, are removing names from the first stage of recruitment process altogether.
Duguid, M.M., & Thomas-Hunt, M.C. (2015). Condoning stereotyping? How awareness of stereotyping prevalence impacts expression of stereotypes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100 (2), 343-359.
There is a great deal of evidence to suggest there is a bias towards interviewing people with more ‘white’ sounding names. Bertrand and Mullainathan (2003) sent fictitious job applications in response to adverts in newspapers in Boston and Chicago, with either white-sounding names (e.g. Emily, Greg) or African American-sounding names (e.g. Lakisha, Jamal). They found that the white-sounding applicants were a huge 50% more likely to get a call back, even when all of the CVs were of a very high quality. Other research has found a similar preference for white names in comparison to Asian names (Esmail & Everington, 1993). This bias has also been observed in gender; studies have shown people perceive men’s skills and achievements as more impressive, particularly in male-dominated fields. In one study, participants were asked to rate either Dr. Karen Miller or Dr. Brian Miller’s CV, both of which were identical aside from the name. Brian’s research, teaching and service experience were rated as being of a much higher quality than Karen’s, and three-quarters of participants considered him hirable, compared to fewer than half of those who saw Karen’s CV (Steinpreis, Anders & Ritzke, 1999).
Depressingly, research has shown that making people aware of these stereotypes doesn’t eliminate them; Duguid and Thomas-Hunt (2015) found that managers who had been told that many employers hold gender stereotypes, before reading the transcript of a job interview, were 28% less interested in hiring the female applicant, and rated her as 27% less likeable. The authors concluded that, as well as letting people know these stereotypes exist, they must be told how undesirable and unacceptable they are. Although stripping the entire recruitment process of biases would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, taking names off the first round of applications will help to level the playing field.
Spotted: Ego and consistency from Spotify
Everyone likes to think they were doing something before it was cool, and here Spotify has chosen to make us feel like we ‘discovered’ Sam Smith. This works not only by making you feel like a trendsetter and new music aficionado, but also piques your curiosity in finding out which other artists you had picked up on before they were well-known. In doing so, you’re driven to peruse Spotify, activating the need to remain consistent with that previous behaviour by exploring their more obscure artists to see if you can recreate the same success for someone else.
REAL LIFE NUDGE OF THE MONTH
UPCOMING EVENTSBehavioural Boozeonomics with the London Behavioural Economics NetworkMonday 9th October, 6.30-11.00pmThe Comedy Pub, Piccadilly
Phishing for Phools: the economics of manipulation and deception by Professor Robert Shiller Wednesday 11th October, 6.30-8.00pmOld Theatre, Old Building, LSE
Society for Judgement and Decision Making Annual ConferenceFriday 20th - Monday 23rd NovemberChicago Hilton, Illinois USA
Cíosa Garrahan@CiosaGarrahan
BROUGHT TO YOU BY
Juliet Hodges@hulietjodges