Using Neuroscience to Influence Human Behavior

“Come on now, who do you think

you are?Bless your soul, you really think

you’re in control?”- Gnarls Barkley

USING NEUROSCIENCE TO INFLUENCE

HUMAN BEHAVIOR

Welcome to the experiment

Assignments• Today - Time provided to meet with team, discuss and post

to Coursework

• Tuesday - Meet with team after class to build Desire Engine for group assignment.

• Wednesday - Work on team and individual assignments.

• Thursday - Time provided to meet with team, discuss and post to Coursework

• Friday - Presentations. Present individual assignment (5 min each) or group assignment (15-20 min) (but only if entire team agrees)

The nature of behavior

One brain, two minds

• Elephant = impulsive mind

• Rider = Rational mind

• Path = the environment

Willpower is the strength of the rider

Where the elephant lives

• “Primitive” parts of brain

• Basal ganglia

• Storage of instinctual habitual behaviors

• Nucleus accumbens

• Center of reward system

• Wants immediate gratification / satiation

Where the rider lives

• “Newest” part of brain

• Pre-frontal cortex (PFC)

• Executive function

• Controls impulses and higher level thinking

Think of your behaviors

• What are the routines, habits, skills, addictions in one’s life?

HighLow

Do

Resist doing

Amateur behaviors

Self-Control Required

Amateur

What defines amateur behaviors?

• The rider and elephant are in sync

• Easy to do, but also easy to forget

• Reward, process motivated, “for the love”

• Long-term

Amateur behaviors

How did you create your amateur behavior?

Creating amateur behaviors

• Create a path for the elephant

• Make it simple, easy

• Placing well-timed cues

• “Baby steps”

HighLow

Do

Resist doing

Skillful behaviors


Skillful

Skillful behaviors

What defines skillful behaviors?

• Rider is steering the elephant

• Outcome, goal driven

• Hard work, grit

How did you create your skillful behavior?

Creating skillful behaviors

• Deliberate practice

• Focus on fixing failures

• Grit and persistence

• Often with coaching

Skillful behaviors

Amateur- Casual

enjoyment- Jog into old age

Skillful- Goal driven

- Win a marathon

Running

HighLow

Do

Resist doing


Habitual behaviors

Habitual

Habitual behaviors

What defines habitual (negative) behaviors?

• The rider tries to control the elephant

• Constant temptation

• Struggle with desire

How did you stop your habitual behavior?

Resisting habitual behaviors

• Mindfulness

• Surfing the urge, creating space (ex - 10-minute rule)

• Reminder of purpose

• Self-compassion

HighLow

Do

Resist doing


Addictive behaviors

Addictive

Addictive behaviors

What defines addictive behaviors?

• The rider has lost control and the elephant is charging

• Self-destructive

• Extremely hard to resist

Resisting addictive behaviors

• Reigning in the elephant

• Abstinence, removal of cues

• Physical detoxification

• Social support

• Root cause analysis

HighLow

Do

Resist doing

Behavior types


Amateur Skillful

Habitual Addictive

Matching behavior types with change

methods

Change with right tool

Behavior type Change method

HighLow

Do

Resist doing

Change methods


Create the path

Reign the elephant

Train the rider to push the elephant

Train the rider to pull the elephant

Does the method match the type?

• “No pain, no gain”

• “Never quit”

• “Set strict goals”

• “Hold yourself accountable”

Healthy lifestyle

• Over a lifetime

• Do (amateur behaviors):

• Physical activity

• Eating healthy foods

• Resist doing (habitual behaviors):

• Eating unhealthy foods

• Overconsumption

Beating yourself up hurts

• The worse a drinker feels about how much they drank the night before, the more they drank the next night. (Muraven et al 2005)

• Gamblers who feel most ashamed by losses, most likely to “chase” the loss and keep gambling. (Yi and Kanatar 201)

• Students who feel the worst about procrastinating, put off studying the longest for next exam. (Wohl, Pychyl, Bennett 2010)

• Addicts who feel most guilt about a minor relapse, were most likely to have a major relapse. (Stephens et al 1994)

Source: Kelly McDonigal, “The Willpower Instinct”

The “what-the-hell” effect• Dieters and non-dieters

asked to drink a milkshake as part of “taste perception study”

• Then asked to sample as much ice cream as “needed” for taste test.

• Dieters ate more than non-dieters after drinking the milkshake

• Showed increased activity in nucleus accumbens

Source: Kelly McDonigal, “The Willpower Instinct”, Heatherton & Wagner, 2011

One size does not fit all

HighLow

Do

Resist doing

Amateur- Path driven- Long-term

- Self-directed

Skillful- Goal driven

- Grit- Hard work- Coaching

Habitual- Surfing urge- Mindfulness

- Self-compassion

Addictive- Abstinence

- Physical detox- Root cause

- Social support


In summary

• Rider, elephant and path

• Before changing a behavior:

• Identify behavior type

• Match with appropriate change method

Take a break and a survey

www.OpinionTo.us(and take your stuff)

Why influence behavior?

Helping people do what they want to do.

HighLow

Do

Resist doing

Persuasive products


Amateur Skillful

Habitual Addictive

pref· er· ence/ˈpref(ə)rəns/

Noun, Def: A greater liking for one alternative over another or others.

be· hav· ior/biˈhāvyər/

Noun, Def: The way in which an animal or person acts in response to a particular situation or stimulus.

rou· tine/ro ͞oˈtēn/

Noun, Def: A sequence of actions regularly followed; a fixed program.

hab· it/ˈhabit/

Noun, Def: An behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary, without cognition.

ad· dic· tion/əˈdikSHən/

Noun, Def: A persistent, compulsive dependence on a behavior or substance.

Are customer habits good for business?

• Higher life-time value

• Greater price inelasticity, can charge more

• Word-of-mouth brings down cost of acquisition

= Higher ROI

Source: Inc. magazine, Dec. 2011

Why is this graph “smiling”?

StackOverflow

• Largest technical QA site

• Alexa rank 93

• 5,000 questions are answered per day

• FT Staff: 66

Holding on to customers by forming habits

Source: Amy Jo Kim, “Community Building on the Web”

To build habits need...

Au· to· ma· ta· city

Noun, Def: The ability to do things without occupying the mind with low-level details, allowing it to become an automatic response pattern.

What is automaticity good for?

• Ability to learn

• Helps us decide

• Saves energy

• Allows multitasking

Impairment of basal ganglia• Trouble performing tasks requiring multi-

step behaviors or where emotion is deciding factor.

• With “elephant” out, the “rider” tries but fails.

• Making simple decisions. (which pen?)

• Ignoring insignificant details. (reading faces)

• Inability to act quickly “from the gut.”

Source: Antonio Demasio via Lehrer "How We Decide"

Decision fatigue• “Rider” gets tired and lazy because decision

making requires effort.

• Prisoners appearing for parole hearings early in the morning granted parole 70% of the time.

• However, those appearing late in the day, when judges were more tired, paroled less than 10% of the time.

• So, making more decisions through habit instead of logic, can leave more resources for important decisions

Source: Levav and Danziger, 2011

How to build automaticity?

Frequency and utility

How do we get users to come back?

Building desire through engagement

Low engagement

High engagement

The Desire Engine

Remember: A TARI

A - A Desire Engine has 4 parts:

T - Trigger

A - Action

R - Reward

I - Investment

In summary• Habits can be good for business.

• Habits require automaticity - action without cognition.

• Leaves us with more “decision making reserve.”

• Creating automaticity is a function of utility and frequency.

• Frequency from creating desire.

Triggers

Habits aren’t created, they are built upon

Where are you sitting?

• Who is sitting where they sat before break?

• Why did you sit there?

• What told you to sit?

• Where did you learn this behavior?

TriggersExternal Internal

AlarmsCalls-to-action

EmailsStores

Authority

What to do next is in the trigger

What to do next is in the user’s head

EmotionsRoutinesSituations

PlacesPeople

TriggersExternal Internal

AlarmsAdvertising

Calls-to-actionEmailsStores

Authority

EmotionsRoutinesSituations

PlacesPeople

What to do next is in the trigger

What to do next is in the user’s head

DissatisfiedIndecisiveLostTenseFatiguedInferior

Fear of lossBored LonesomeConfusedPowerlessDiscouraged

Negative emotions are powerful internal triggers

When I feel... ... I use

LonelyHungryUnsureAnxious

LostMentally fatigued

FacebookYelp

GoogleEmailGPS

ESPN, Glam

Internally triggered technologies

Bored Stressed

ExcitedContent

Emotional triggersShiv x-framework

People with depression check email more.

Source: Kotikalapudi et al 2012,Associating Depressive Symptoms in College Students with Internet Usage Using Real Internet Data

Habits form from frequent problem/solution fit.

• Need to find the existing behavior to attach to.

• Find the behavior that occurs just before.

• “Every time you (verb), use (product).”

To find the problem, know the narrative

Jack Dorsey on narratives

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acMXhhdWylQ

The “Instagram moment”

Instagram triggers

External Internal

- FB and Twitter- App notifications

- Fear of loosing the moment...- Bored, lonesome, curious...

Your turn

• Pick an “amateur” behavior you’d like to turn into a new routine in your life.

• Brainstorm with the person next to you for 5 min each about potential triggers.

• Describe the narrative of both external and internal triggers.

• Write this down and be prepared to share.

Form teams and complete Coursework assignment (see syllabus)

Debrief with team:- What resonated with you?

- What stimulated new thinking?- Ideas for personal and professional growth?

- Ideas for new ventures?- What intrigued you, either by creating new questions

or by kindling a quest for more?

30 min discussion15 min post to Coursework

Actions

whendoing < thinking = action

Creating the path

triggers

ability

B = m.a.t.

Fogg Behavior Modelm

otiv

atio

n

Source: Dr. BJ Fogg, Stanford University

trigger(SUCCESS!)

trigger(FAIL!)

ability

mot

ivat

ion


B = m.a.t.

Fogg Behavior Model

mo· ti· va· tion/mōtə vāSHən/

Noun, Def: The psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a desired goal.

mot

ivat

ion

Motivators of Behavior

Seek:PleasureHopeAcceptance

Avoid:PainFear

Rejection

SensationAnticipation

Social Cohesion


a· bil· i· ty/əˈbilitē/

Noun, Def: The capacity to do something

ability

How increase capacity to do something?


ability

Factors of ability

TimeMoneyPhysical effortBrain cyclesSocial devianceNon-routine


Simplicity

“Simplicity is a function of your scarcest resource at that moment.”

- BJ Fogg

TimeMoneyPhysical effortBrain cyclesSocial devianceNon-routine

Factors of ability

Differ by person and context

What move first?

triggers

ability

mot

ivat

ion

Move ability before motivation


Focus on ability and triggers before motivation

Focus on ability and triggers before motivation

Which has fewer calories?

Motivated people know healthier option

Source: (Chernov et al. 2011; Chandon & Wansink 2007)

2010

Source: Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, Centers for Disease Control

America the obese

Twitter homepage

2009

2010

Twitter homepage

2012

Twitter homepage

The evolution of Twitter2009 2010

2012

triggers = interface design

ability = product

Behaviors to actions with cross-functional teams

mot

ivat

ion

= m

arke

ting

Your turn• Take out your behavior from yesterday or pick a new one.

• Rate your ability to do your behavior. (1 is not at all able, 10 is very able, easy)

• Rate how motivated you are to do your behavior. (1 is not at all, 10 is very)

• How could you make your behavior easier (considering your scarcest resource to increase ability)? and / or increase motivation?

• Brainstorm with the person next to you for 5 min each.



Motivators of BehaviorSeek:

PleasureHopeAcceptance

Avoid:PainFear

Rejection

SensationAnticipation

Social Cohesion

Factors of abilityTimeMoneyPhysical effortBrain cyclesSocial devianceNon-routine

Bi· as/ˈbīəs/

Noun, Def: 1. A tendency or inclination; a prejudice

2. A lever to increase motivation or ability

A well-studied bias

Classical biases

• Rational

• Can articulate, “I’d buy it if it were cheaper.”

• Predictable (for the most part)

Cognitive Biases

• Rational or irrational

• Unable to articulate

• Predictable

Scarcity

Source: Worchel, Lee, and Adewole (1975)

• People value cookies more in a nearly empty jar than in a full jar.

Value attribution

Source: Plassmann, O’Doherty. Shiv, and Rangel, 2008

• Wine actually tastes better if you believe it’s more expensive

Remember this?


The halo effect


Which car owner?

• Are involved in more collisions.

• Receive 65% more traffic tickets.

• Drives 25% more miles than other drivers.

• Are a more costly risk to insure than other vehicles.

Source: Data from insurance analytics company Quality Planning, reported in “Mitchell Industry Trends Report” 2010

Moral licensing

• We tend to reward ourselves with the freedom to be “bad” when we’re acting “good.”

Anchoring• We tend to rely too heavily on just one trait

of a decision.

• We overvalue things on sale

5 for $34 3 for $29.50

Unit cost = $7.38Unit cost = $6.80so, 6 for $44.25

Jockey only!

• 8 car wash, get one free

• 8 blank squares vs. 10 squares with 2 free punches

• 82% higher completion rate

Completion

• Motivation increases the closer get to a goal

• “Endowed progress effect”

Source: Nunes and Drèze, The Endowed Progress Effect: How Artificial Advancement Increases Effort, 2006

Sequencing

• Tendency to complete complex behavior if parsed into smaller steps

Many more...

• Social proof, framing, reciprocity, relevance, status quo, loss aversion, familiarity bias, regret aversion, peak-end effect, money proxy, authority bias ...

Your turn

• Pick 2-3 “Mental Notes” cards.

• How could you make use of cognitive biases to increase your behavior?



Take a breakand a survey

www.OpinionTo.us

Playlist: “Aeroplane”, “Cocaine”, “Your love is my Drug”, “Satisfaction”

Variable rewards

The brain and rewards

Source: Olds and Milner, 1945

Watch

What triggers the reward system?

• Stimulation of brain’s reward system activates new behaviors

• “Awakening the elephant” is possible through probes or drugs

• What stimulates the brain naturally?

Dopamine triggers

Were Olds and Milner stimulating pleasure?

(not exactly)

“I like pleasure spiked with pain, it’s my aeroplane”

- The Red Hot Chili Peppers

Ann’s story

• Sufferers from Parkinson’s

• Treatment includes dopamine boosters

• Becomes a compulsive gambler

• Why?

The promise of reward• Dopamine system activated by anticipation of

reward

• And dampened when reward achieved

Source: Knutson et al 2001

To supercharge the “stress of desire”... add variability.

We crave predictability

• Variable rewards drive us nuts

• Compulsion to make sense of cause and effect

• Dopamine system drives the search

Curious by nature

“I can’t get no satisfaction”- The Rolling Stones

The search for rewards

the Hunt

the Tribe

the Self

Search for Social Rewards

theTribe

- Acceptance- Sex- Power

Rewards of the tribe

Rewards of the tribe

Search for Resources

theHunt

- Food- Money- Information

Rewards of the hunt: search for resources

Rewards of the hunt: search for information

Dare you not to scroll

Rewards of the hunt: search for resources

Search for Sensation

theSelf

- Mastery- Consistency- Competency- Purpose

Rewards of the self:Search for competency and mastery

Rewards of the self: Search for control

Fish bowl technique• Addiction Recovery Study (Petry 2006)

• Patients earned opportunity to draw a ticket out of a bowl every time they passed a drug test.

• Half of the tickets said “Keep up the good work.” The rest won the patient a nominal prize worth $1 to $20 but one ticket was worth $100 prize.

• 83% of fish bowl patients stayed in treatment for full 12 weeks (vs 20% of standard-care patients).

• 80% of fish bowl patients passed all their drug tests (vs. 40% of standard-care patients).

• Fish bowl group less likely to relapse.

• Technique worked better than paying patients for passing drug tests.

Rewards Decay• As rewards become predictable, they

become less novel

Finite Variability Infinite Variability

- Single-player games- Consumption of media- Finishing a race

- Multi-player games- Creation of content- Communities- Running for pleasure or competition

Who gets hooked?• Pathological gamblers and non-pathological

placed in MRI. See images of win, lose, and “near-miss.”

• Pathological gamblers experienced more “excitement” from seeing win.

• Gamblers brain saw near-miss as near-win.

• Non-pathological experienced near-miss as near-loss.

• Unknown if gambler’s brain is different at birth or if caused by repeated exposure.

Source: Habib, 2010

Variable reward levers

• Type (Tribe, Hunt, Self)

• Frequency

• Amplitude

Keep ‘em guessing

Your turn

• How could you make use of variable rewards to create your behavior?

• How can you add an element of mystery, the unknown, or surprise?

• The search for rewards of the tribe (social), hunt (resources), self (mastery, control)

• Brainstorm with the person next to you for 5 min each and prepare to share.

Investments

Investment

• Where user does a bit of “work.”

• “Pays” with something of value: time, money, social capital, effort, emotional commitment, personal data ...

Investment is about future rewards that

makes the next action more likely.

T A

RI

Facebook, friend, email ...

Scroll

Information(Hunt)Follow

Twitter (consumer)

T A

RI

App icon, mention, messageRe-Tweet or Tweet

Social feedback(Tribe)

Create new contentConnect with others: @ reply, DM ...

Boredom, curiosity, Lonesome

Twitter (creator)

Labor is love

The IKEA effectSource: Dan Ariely, Upside of Irrationality

People value their labor

• Value own work almost as much as an expert’s.

• Even if other’s don’t.

Source: Ariely, Mochon and Norton, 2012

Source: Langer, 1975

• People who pick lottery numbers more likely to play.

• Assign greater odds.

Labor increases motivation

Value labor done for us

Source: Buell and Norton, 2011

Others’ labor increases value too

• Search took same time.

• People “seeing” the work perceived more value.

Source: Buell and Norton, 2011

As we invest, we endow and tend to

overvalue.

The endowment effect• When chimps given juice bar

and peanut butter, 50/50 preference split.

• When given PB first, 80% chose to keep rather than exchange.

• The “endowed” item was preferred

• Only worked for food

Source: Brosnan et al 2007

Humans endow things• Endowed mugs vs pens worth twice as much

(Kahneman, Knetsch & Thaler,1990)

• Endowed final four tickets worth 14 times more (Carmon and Ariely, 2000)

• Employees worked harder to maintain a provisional bonus than a potential yet-to-be-awarded prize (Hossain and List, 2010)

• Universal behavior across different populations and with different goods (Hoffman and Spitzer,1993) including children (Harbaugh et al, 2001)

Why do we endow?

• Improved bargaining position in bilateral trades. If I act like I love it, maybe you will too. (Huck, Kirchsteiger & Oechssler 2005)

• Loss aversion. Loosing feels twice as bad as the joy of gaining. (Kahneman and Tversky,1984)

• Need for consistency causes cognitive dissonance leads to rationalization.

Jesse Schell, Professor of game design, Carnegie Mellon University

Rationalization and commitment

The preference cycleInvestment:

“Should I ‘spend’ on this?”

Rationalization:“Only an idiot would

have ‘spent’ on something not good.”

Confirmation:“Since I spent on it

before, and I am not an idiot, it must be good.”

Little investments, big results

Group 1: 17% accepted

Group 2: 76% accepted

Source: Freedman & Fraser, 1966

Adaptive preference formation

• Changing preferences to be more compatible with the situation.

• We acquire preferences to serve our need to be consistent.

• Relieve pain of cognitive dissonance.

Source: Jon Esler, 1983

Acquiring taste

• Think of the first time you tried spicy food or alcohol.

• Acquiring taste follows similar patterns of rationalization to avoid cognitive dissonance.

• Change ourselves as we change our preferences.

• “I’m a ____ drinker.”

Motivating through identity

• Registered voters completed survey the day before or the morning of the election.

• “How important is it to you to be a voter in the upcoming election?” (Noun)

• “How important is it to you to vote in the upcoming election?” (Verb)

• Tracked who actually voted.

• How we see ourselves (the nouns) shape what we do.

Source: Bryan, Walton, Rogers, and Dweck, 2011

“the largest experimental effects ever observed on objectively

measured voter turnout.”

In summary:• We over value the results of our labor

(endowment effect)

• But need to rationalize this irrational value (cognitive dissonance)

• One way to do this is to change our taste (adaptive preference formation)

• And behave in line with how we see ourselves (identity shaping)

Your turn

• How could you use small investments and commitments to make the behavior more likely to occur?



Desire Engines create routines

- External triggers- Low

preference

- Internal triggers- High

preference

Low engagement

High engagement

T A

RI

Icon on phoneOpen unread messages

Write back

Procrastinate, anxiety, thoughts of others....

Tribe, hunt and self

Email

Spectator sportsT A

VRI

Watch

Outcome (Self)Fandom - belonging (Tribe)Capturing the win (Hunt)

Boredom, anxiety ...

Everywhere

Identify self as fanBuy stuffAttend events

With more cyclesIncrease motivation

and difficulty of action

Greater loyalty, increased price inelasticity, greater

satisfaction

Using neuroscience to influence human behavior

• Preferences to behaviors.

• Behaviors to routines.

• Routines to habits.

• Habits become who we are.

What are you going to do with this?

• When is it right to “give people what they want?”

• When are people really in control?

• When is it ok to manipulate?

Use this for good

and take a survey www.OpinionTo.us

Using Neuroscience to Influence Human Behavior

Documents

pain fear

fogg behavior

group assignment

endowment

care patients

bj fogg

desire engine

stanford university