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secular-vernacular · 5 years

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Dan Ariely, Predictably Irrational

Predictably Irrational

ch1: relativity

Arbitrary coherence: arbitrary prices, once established in our minds, will shape present and future prices

Once participants willing to pay a certain price for something, willingness to pay for other items in the same category judged relative to the anchor. This makes them coherent

Self-herding: consistency with past decisions / behaviours

Behaviour serves a need: what do they get out of it?

New habits / behaviour easier to embed where they are already disrupted - so piggyback onto existing rather than whole new

Avoiding an anchor / setting a new one - make the experience so different it’s not tied to the last anchor

Can take an ambiguous experience and arbitrarily turn it into a positive or negative one

Question your repeated behaviours: where did they come from?

Rational economic model assumes price of product set where two forces converge: production at each price (supply) & desires of those with purchasing power at each price (demand) - these results challenge those assumptions as consumers’ willingness to pay can easily be manipulated

Can also be the other way around - market prices (set by suggested retail prices by suppliers) can influence consumers’ willingness to pay

Elasticity of price: would price changes have an effect on demand if consumers weren’t anchored to the original price? Maybe not

Mutual benefit of trading rests on the assumption that all the players in the market know the value of what they have and are considering getting from trade - this may not be true if we have the wrong initial anchors

So what do we do if we can’t rely on the market forces of supply and demand to set optimal prices and can’t count on free market mechanisms to help us maximise our utility?

Zero (cost) is an emotional hot button

Issue in struggle between free and another price (for a good item)

Most transactions have an upside and a downside, but when something is free we forget the downside - we perceive it as immeasurably more valuable due to loss aversion. No visible possibility of loss when something is free

The draw of zero cost appeals equally for goods as it does money

Example of zero cost effect (buying things you don’t need due to the appeal of ‘free’) - free shipping on orders over £X

The concept of £0 also applies to time

Want to draw a crowd? Make something free. Want to sell products? Make something free

Want people to do the right thing? Decrease the cost (make it free!)

Standard economic theory considers the absolute value and the relative value - what they get and what they give up

Tension between market norms and social norms

Social norms, reciprocity is not immediately required

Dragging circles experiment: social favour dragged the most circles, followed by highest payment, then by second highest payment

People will work more for a cause than for cash

Market norms crowd out social norms (lawyers would volunteer their time but not for $30)

Gifts keep us in social exchange and away from market norms

For market norms to emerge, it is sufficient to mention money (even when none changes hands)

Thinking about money made participants in the salary group more self reliant and less willing to ask for help - but they were also less willing to help others - more selfish and self-reliant

Once a market norm has crowded out a social norm, the social norm doesn’t really re-emerge

Treating customers socially great - encourages loyalty - but establishing it as a social relationship and then treating it as a market one (eg late fines) is even worse. I.e. you can’t have it both ways. If you don’t want to be social, just stick to a simple value proposition

Social rewards strongly motivate behaviour - one of the least used in corporate life is the encouragement of social rewards and reputation

Social norms (e.g. the excitement of building something together)

Social norms - pride in profession and sense of duty

Elevate the social norm - honour it as much as we honour something else

Purpose, mission and pride rather than money, test scores, etc.

We should probably rethink school curricular and link them in more obvious ways to social goals (e.g. elimination of poverty)

Influence of arousal (e.g. teen pregnancy & HIV/AIDS)

When aroused, participants’ interest in some activities twice as high as when they weren’t. Magnitude of underprediction was huge

Jekyll & Hyde; dichotomy between repressive propriety and uncontrollable passion

Our inability to understand ourselves does not seem to improve with experience

To make informed decisions we need to somehow experience and understand the emotional state we will be in at the other side of the experience

Pre-commitment tools can help overcome procrastination

Bundling services / requirements (r.g. Series of car tests) more effective

Endowment effect: when we own something we value it more than others do

The powerful drive of anticipated regret / memory - collecting memories and experiences

Much of our life deviated to ownership - including selling our time

Poor spending decisions due to three quirks:

1) we fall in love what we own (and recount good memories of it when we try to give it up) - nature’s ability to make us instantly attached to what we have

2) focus on what we may lose rather than what we may gain.

3) we assume other people will see the transaction from the same perspective as we do

The more work you put into something the more ownership you feel for it

‘Virtual ownership’ - picturing it as yours (e.g. highest bidder in an auction)

View all transactions as though you’re a non owner

Normally, we can’t stand the idea of closing the doors on our alternatives - usually we give something up in exchange

Consequences of not deciding; lost time, opportunity, love

Effect of expectations (anchoring) - MIT (balsamic brew) disgusting to those who were told what it was

When the coffee ambience looked upscale, it tasted upscale too

When we believe beforehand something will be good, it generally will be good

Does expectation change the psychology of the experience (e.g. modify the neural activity underplaying the taste)? I.e. reshape sensory perception?

Which is more important? Knowledge before experience or an input of information after the experience has taken place?

Ventromedial prefrontal cortex associated with strong feelings

A stereotype is a way of categorising information

Asian American women experiment (169) - influence our performance in line with a stereotype

Power of priming - participants walk slower after thinking of words to do with elderly

Expectation allows us to make sense of a conversation in a noisy room

‘Blind’ condition might help - facts presented without opinion / who did it could help better recognise the truth

We are all trapped in our perspective, which blinds us to the truth - neutral third party may be helpful

The power of price: expectations change the way we perceive and appreciate experiences

Expectation can alter our subjective and objective experiences

Placebo - Latin ‘I shall please’ - used to refer to sham mourners hired to sob for deceased at funerals

Two mechanisms shape expectations; belief and conditioning (like Pavlov’s dogs)

Can implied difference in quality (e.g. by price) influence experience?

The relationship between price and placebo is particularly pronounced for people with more experience with recent pain

Consumers who stop to reflect about the relationship between price and quality are far less likely to assume that a discounted drink is less effective

Effect of discounts is largely an unconscious reaction to lower prices

Perception of value can become real value - but there is a problem here for marketers in that hyping a product beyond what can be objectively proven is problematic

In the US very few surgical procedures are tested scientifically - while it may be morally questionable to make patients test the efficacy of treatments, may be morally difficult to inflict painful treatments that aren’t proven (I.e. may not work) - wasted suffering is the cost of not doing them

The context of our character: Part I

Enron owed much of it’s success to ‘innovations in accounting’

Why are some crimes, particularly white-collar crimes, judged less severely than others, we wondered - especially since their perpetrators can inflict more financial damage between their ten o’clock late and lunch than a standard-issue burglar might in a lifetime’?

When given the opportunity, many honest people will cheat - but just by a little bit - once tempted to cheat, the participants didn’t seem to be as influenced by the risk of being caught as one might think

The success of most people almost always depends upon the favour and good opinion of their neighbours and equals; and without a tolerably regular conduct these can very seldom be obtained

Individuals are honest only to the extent that it suits them (including the desire to please others)

Honesty is considered a moral virtue in nearly every society

Freud: internalise social virtues leading to development of superego

The problem is our internal honesty monitor is active only when we contemplate big transgressions, like taking a single pen or two pens

Cost/benefit and probability of getting caught does not seem to have much influence on dishonesty

The mere contemplation of a moral benchmark reduced dishonesty

Moral reminder at the point of temptation

Once professional ethics (the social norm) have declined, getting them back won’t be easy

In China, the word of one person in one region rarely carries to another region

Lower trust decreases the willingness to take risk and no one pays in advance, no-one offers credit

Sign our names to promises that we will act with integrity

Psychological distance: why dealing with cash makes us more honest

Much of the dishonesty involves cheating one step removed from cash

When given the opportunity to cheat with non-monetary currency, cheating doubles in magnitude

The rate of ‘total cheating’ was four in 2,000 (in control condition)

Not all expenses alike in terms of people’s ability to justify them

When people give receipts to others to submit, they are another additional step removed

Corporate dishonesty (e.g. mis-leadings practices - air miles you can’t exchange)

Once cash is a step away, we will cheat by a factor bigger than we could ever imagine

Personality trait: need for uniqueness: to order what they enjoy and portray themselves in a positive light; people willing to sacrifice personal utility for reputations utility

Economic theory assumes there are no free lunches - if there were any, someone would’ve extracted the value already

Psychologically easier to sacrifice consumption in the future

In behavioural economics, a free lunch is the benefit of making better decision for yourself

Relativity is everywhere, and we view everything through its lens (e.g. someone you were friends with in Spain but would never be friends with at home). Prevents disenchantment

Pain of paying insensitive to the amount we pay (diminishing sensitivity

Gifts aren’t rational

Market norms may also erode the pride and meaning people get from their workplace

Explicitly stating the financial value of benefits can diminish enjoyment, motivation and loyalty amongst employees (e.g. X on salary, X on gym, etc.) - transactional

skinner - schedules of reinforcement - either fixed schedule (regular - e.g. one every hundred) or variable schedule (random) - the arrival of the reward is unpredictable. Variable schedule more motivating - e.g. gambling - inability to predict when reward is coming - we become so addicted to receiving the unexpected (a pellet) that we become fixated with checking

If a particular desired behaviour results in an immediate negative outcome (punishment) it will be very difficult to promote, even if the ultimate outcome is highly desirable

Look for immediate, powerful and positive reinforcements with the not-s-pleasant steps we have to take toward our long term objectives

Positivity bias - overvalue ourselves & anything to do with us

Expectation plays a huge role in how we experience things

Pope: blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed

Cheating arises from our attempts to behave honestly. Instead, the picture that emerges from our experience is that cheating arises from our attempts to balance two incompatible goals - feeling good about ourselves, and being selfish - flexible psychology allows us to play in the grey (fudge factor) - what happens when people rest with conflicting interests

If it’s clear cut, make the right decision. If there’s any ambiguity, it’s easier to rationalise bad behaviour

You can actively ask the experts you rely on for a declaration on any financial interests (e.g. XX)

Planning fallacy - underestimate how long a task will take

The moment you make a financial mistake, the chances that you’ll be hit hard by the financial industry are high

The trust game - central role of trust in human behaviour

Fehr experiment: trust and revenge - most people who had an opportunity to exact revenge did - reciprocity - experiences in the striatum (reward centre) - desire for revenge is pleasurable, or similar to pleasure. In a bizarre way, revenge can be an enforcement mechanism (you’d expect someone to come after you or you went after them - mango story)

All creatures respond negatively in situations where things don’t seem to make sense - when we don’t have an explanation for what is happening, we become prone to learned helplessness

Seligman and Maier: when you don’t understand the relationship between cause and effect you become more helpless; their perception of their ability to predict and control the shocks had a big impact on how helpless they became generally - imagine this feeling in markets - Unexplained and erratic economic behaviour destroyed faith that we understood the cause and effect in our environment

Pennebaker; even when external events make no sense, we can benefit from the process of trying to make sense of them - do this actively with news rather than passive consumption

Journalists; ‘if it bleeds, it leads’

Can connectivity decrease creativity and diversity?

Connecting many markets globally decreases diversity in financial instruments and in opinions

Pressures of conformity are such that in one large financial village is likely to lead everyone to accept the same general beliefs (model) of how the financial world works

Basic free market argument: if they can’t recruit and retain the best minds in the business, these minds will simply go elsewhere, leaving us with less qualified people in charge of the economy

Impact of bonus on performance; as long as the task involves only mechanical skill, bonus incentives -but when the task requires rudimentary cognitive skill, higher bonus led to poorer performance

Public image as a motivator

Social pressure is a two-edged sword: having to perform in front of others raises stress too, and at some point the stress overwhelms the benefits of increased motivation

Analogy: we recognise our physical limitations and use tech to overcome them - why don’t we recognise our cognitive limitations?

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bct1305722paulchan-blog · 7 years

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‘Continuous Partial Attention’ in using smartphone technology and Creative Integrated Practice

This title sounds baffling ! What the hell is ‘Continuous Partial Attention”? and how on earth is this relevant to Creative Integrated Practice ?....Let me give it a shot.

I read the ‘The Guardian’s Weekend technology special report by Paul Lewis this morning, in a title of “Our minds can be hijacked’: the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia”. In simple wording, “Continuous Partial Attention” referred to using smartphone is a mental cause for an additive behaviour of touching and swiping it up to 2,617 times daily {1} , such as only for summoning or reading followers’ like of your post, blog, tweet and ect.. for a fake excitement and enjoyment.

Ironically, according to the report, “Google, Twitter and Facebook workers who helped make technology so addictive are disconnecting themselves from the internet.” Frankly to say, they are ditching to use the ‘technology’ they invented.

“Justin Rosenstein purchased a new iPhone and instructed his assistant to set up a parental-control feature to prevent him from downloading any apps. He was particularly aware of the allure of Facebook “likes”, which he describes as “bright dings of pseudo-pleasure” that can be as hollow as they are seductive. And he should know: he was the Facebook engineer who created the ‘LIKE’ button in the first place” in 2009.

So, what could these tech geeks’s quitting of using these ‘online hooks’ means to some creative minds, like me :) ?

First of all, let me raise some questions and find out the answers.

1, A Paradigm ?

I would have to go back to my early learning of the concept of Paradigm Shift by Thomas Kuhn who defines a scientific paradigm, provides model problems and solutions for a community of practitioners.

The question here is, could that become a trend that many smart minds (a certain scientific community) will follow suite ? Should I join this trend? and more importantly, does this suggest or factor a ‘‘Paradigm shift’ ?{2}

Kuhn “used the term of paradigm{2} in two meanings:1, It refers to what is in common that shared by a certain scientific community, eg, techniques, pattens and values; 2, It also refers to single model, element, example of a whole for such community, eg, a scientific law, a rule, a standard. From here, he comes to a thought that “rule can be derived from these paradigms” that has accepted as ‘gospels’ to follow, where a model of thinking becomes unchallengeable.Yet, when critical abnormality, or some uncommon ideas, and or new theory kick in, ‘Paradigm shift’ can happen to change the pattern of those rules.”

So, the magic ding of ‘like’ initiated by Facebook starts and establishes a paradigm shared and copied by all social media networking platforms and beyond in the last 8 years. No APPs that users can download from APP store does come with a magic ding of ‘like’ and similar. It in reality has become a norm/rule to follow by APP developers.

2, But could the dystopia attitude by the Geeks for using APPs an implication of a Paradigm Shift too ?

Thomas Kuhn comes to a thought that “rule can be derived from these paradigms” that has accepted as ‘gospels’ to follow, where a model of thinking becomes unchallengeable.Yet, when critical abnormality, or some uncommon ideas, and or new theory kick in, ‘Paradigm shift’ can happen to change the pattern of those rules.” {3} What affect such shift is the Paradigm paralysis—“ the inability or refusal to see beyond the current models of thinking of this community.

Kuhn uses this picture to explain about the ‘Paradigm shift’ demonstrates a ‘Paradigm paralysis’ that a scientific community would encounter in seeing the true world of their own by following their own pattern of ‘rules’.

3, What does the tech geeks’s quitting of using these ‘online hooks’ mean to creative technology practitioners like us ?

In my learning with this paper (Ctec 500), I believe the answer goes into Integrated Practice research with Transdisciplinarity.

“Transdisciplinarity connotes a research strategy that crosses many disciplinary boundaries to create a holistic approach.” {4}

In Jean Piaget’s words, it is:”Finally, we hope to see succeeding to the stage of interdisciplinary relations a superior stage, which should be “transdisciplinary”, i.e. which will not be limited to recognise the interactions and or reciprocities between the specialised researches, but which will locate these links inside a total system without stable boundaries between the disciplines”{5}.

In justifying a paradigm shift, it is arguably difficult to “locate the links inside a total system without stable boundaries between the disciplines”, where, in such a paradigm shift, a creative technology practitioner would need to research across the boundaries between the disciplines to pinpoint the links between the identify such disciplines for an answer, and or results and even solution, by using these trans-disciplinary approaches.

3-1, What did I see in applying transdisciplinarity?----telling a rabbit from the look of a duck

Here, does the move by the tech geeks from FB, Googles from using online social media to avoid addictive behaviour suggests a doom of the popularity of using the ‘magic ding’ ? I personally doubt that. To get a simple idea to compare the hollow and pseudo-pleasure of enjoying ‘like’, the magic ding, to heroine, I would have to say, somebody, or, even all drug takers are to quit, or to receive treatments for such quit will not ever end the use of drug. That is obvious.

However, to look into the drug issues of How it generates detrimental effects on user’s life? Why the success rate of quit is low? What can we do ? and so on, so much, is far too complicate and difficult to give a satisfactory answer.

Likewise, dealing with the ‘like’ of magic ding is the same. It is more of a mission than a challenge for these tech geeks to “locate the links inside a total system without stable boundaries between the disciplines” for unlocking the myth of smartphone dystopia and drug like addicts. This invites transdisciplinary practices.

Let me take this opportunity to walk in their shoes, even just for a few ‘steps’ to look for some solutions.

(1) Understanding the human nature...the Phycology

We like ourselves as much as being to like to be liked. That is part of our selfhood.“Probably, the best account of the origins of selfhood is that the self comes into being at the interface between the inner biological processes of the human body and the sociocultural network to which the person belongs."{6}

“One of the most basic facts about the human condition is that we know ourselves from the inside, but know others only from what they choose or are able to tell us, a far more limited and edited set of data.” {7}

So we definitely LIKE to be liked and polished. If so, on the back of realising how the ‘like’ relate to the acts by people, a creative technology practitioner would know how to go beyond the ‘Like’-mania on smartphone use.

Solution: Therefor, my responding approaches may include how to manipulate people into habitual use of their products as compared to how often the swipe their smartphone. Preferably, creative technology practitioner would have to be a behavioural psychologist too!

(2) Identifying the unintended consequence. The overwhelmingly additive of the ‘Like’ by hundreds of millions users is really one of the best showcase of intention having an unintended, negative consequences.

The story in the book of ‘Defending the free market of giving the poor’ tells about how ‘free lunch’ for the poor who are not required any commitment consequently shrinks the ‘Fish & Chips’ store’s customer base.

Robert A. Sirico says in his book: “But we can’t just throw money at people and expect them to come out of poverty.” because Sometimes, Good Intentions may have Negative Consequences. {8}

Here I suddenly realise being a creative tech practitioner may be entailing more of social studies, rather than just going into the ivory tower of high tech. This reminds me of an incident that I used to question about one our teachers of the Studio 2 class (CTEC503) for his Blog account name of “Social Computing” ! This incident tells how ignorant I was in the beginning of my attendance to his class.

Solution: I can refer the sending and receiving ‘like’ to going for a free lunch. Therefor, How about creating a ‘Reality Check Button’ for both sender and receiver? The idea is to insert a voluntary ‘give back of money’ function linked to the APPs, wherein, such functionality is bonded by user’s money account (such as credit card, bank account, Paypal, Push-Pay & etc) as a complimentary feedback; and the sender of like can ask for the same when he sends the ding of ‘Like’ as well, where the account activity would need to be defined and monitored to avoid any ‘Negative Consequences’ of abuse.

(3) Understanding the ethnics and social responsibility.

According to the report, social media network is facing a big challenge on the success of their own for creating such humongous platforms of billions of actively additive users worldwide.

Source:2017-06 {9}

People now “contend that digital forces have completely upended the political system and, left unchecked, could even render democracy as we know it obsolete.”{10} or a dystopia, and a total hate by their users.

This is reflected by a critic of the tech industry, Tristan Harris’s comments: “A handful of people, working at a handful of technology companies, through their choices will steer what a billion people are thinking today,” {11}

So, ‘It’s changing our democracy, and it's changing our ability to have the conversations and relationships we want” Tristan Harris, former design ethicist at Google.{10}

People are now questioning the ethical responsibility by these social media network for the ‘loophole’ in their advertising models for accidentally spreading officially uncensored fake news. This is yet to blame on the huge behemoths of the monopoly built by such business model by the biggest platform, such as of Google’s search engine. “The EU recently penalised Google $2.42bn for anti-monopoly violations”{12}

Solution: Justin Rosenstein, the magic ding of “LIKE’ creator may have pointed to a solution: "there may be a case for state regulation of “psychologically manipulative advertising”....“If we only care about profit maximisation,” he says, “we will go rapidly into dystopia.”

This does refresh my thinking in my last two blogs of going into a little finding about how a business with social innovative architecture or gene may survive and sustain the unpredictable movements in tech applications and the society. These movements, in my understanding, are referred to the “Paradigm Shift”.

Allow me to use Chris Cox of Facebook Chief Product Officer’s remarks to end this blog:

“We’re getting to a size where it’s worth really taking a careful look at what are all the things that we can do to make social media the most positive force for good possible.”

Reference:

{1}Putting a finger on our phone obsession--Mobile touches: A study on humans and their tech. https://blog.dscout.com/mobile-touches {2}https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Kuhn

{3}ParadigmShift://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shifthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift

{4}https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transdisciplinarity

{5}Ref 3: Piaget, 1972, p. 144.basarab-nicolescu.fr/Docs_articles/Worldviews2006.htm#_ftn3

{6}Baumeister, Roy F., and Brad J. Bushman. "The Self." Social Psychology and Human Nature. 2nd ed. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning, 2011. 57–96. Print.

{7}http://www.thebookoflife.org/the-problem-of-psychological-asymmetry/

{8}http://www.defendingthefreemarket.com/

{9}https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/27/facebook-2-billion-users

{10}https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/05/smartphone-addiction-silicon-valley-dystopia

{11}How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every daywww.ted.com/talks/tristan_harris_the_manipulative_tricks_tech_companies_use_to_capture_your_attention

{12}Google fined record €2.4bn by EU over search engine resultshttps://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jun/27/google-braces-for-record-breaking-1bn-fine-from-eu

#CTEC 500 #CTEC503 #503

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