Or we can overinterpret scientific findings

And apparently, we can do it in the other direction as well. As the folks over at Freakonomics illustrate, when the science seems to agree with our instincts or politics, we can take a very complex situation and oversimplify it to make a point that we would like to be true, whether it is or not. In their example, the relationship between environmental causes and the disappearance of honeybees is tenuous at best. But there are many environmental groups that claim it is clear as day - because this advances what their hearts believe to be true.

It is not just environmentalists that make this error. Many domains are very complex. Economies, ecologies, political systems, religions . . . . In most cases, there is not a direct link between any one input and one output. But if we WANT it to be true, we can find some scientific finding that we can take out of context and use to make our preferred point.

The general public just doesn't get science

Another example of how valid and reliable scientific evidence is often discounted or ignored by the general public.

A new study by researchers at Tulane University found that spanking leads to increased levels of aggression in children. They controlled for a "host of" factors such as depression, alcohol and drug use in the mother, natural levels of aggression, and more. They followed the childrens' behavior over many years, several ages, and 20 US cities.

And then in an interview, some TV talking head says the study is BS because he was spanked and he grew up just fine. This is a sample size of just 1, has no controlling factors, may not even be true (maybe he would have been even less aggressive if he hadn't been spanked), etc. etc. But I am sure that half the audience just nodded their heads and agreed with him. The insights provided by the science are wasted.

I guess we get what we deserve, don't we?

Power and hyporcrisy

Dan Ariely points to another great piece of research (full paper PDF linked on his blog). He describes a study that provides more evidence that our ethics are much more malleable than we think. Basically, this research finds that when you are in a position of power, your ethical expectations of yourself get easier and your ethical expectations of others get stricter. It further found that when your power came illegitimately, the opposite happens.

This illustrates what is commonly referred to as a licensing effect. It is the same as when you order a healthy meal at a restaurant and then reward yourself with a big dessert or side dish. Our logical/rational brains may want to do what is right, but our emotional brains feel entitled to maintain a balance. So if your power is legitimate, you are entitled to more unethical deviations than others are as a "balance." But if your power is illegitimate, you are entitled to even less unethical behavior than others - also to "balance" the power.

What I find very interesting is that the researchers were able to induce the effect just by getting their participants to imagine stories and situations where they had legitimate or illegitimate power. It doesn't take much to get these effects going. This reminds me of the study I blogged about recently where even imagining that you order a healthy meal gives you license to order dessert. I guess it is pretty easy to fool ourselves into doing what our emotional brains wanted all along. Face it - we are suckers.

imaginary licensing effect

The licensing effect happens when individuals engage in something that boosts their self-image (giving to charity, dieting), they are more likely to engage in something self-indulgent subsequently. And vice versa (being self-indulgent leads to subsequent self-image boosting behaviors).

An article in the latest Sloan Management Review reports on some research that this also happens when people just imagine the self-image boosting behavior. If you plan to go on a diet next week or imagine yourself giving to charity, you are more likely to be self-indulgent. Yet another example of us fooling ourselves so that we can do whatever we want. In this case literally having our cake and eating it too.

They suggest some good marketing ideas. If a store puts donation bags or charity collection messages at the entrance of a store/web site, it would allow visitors to imagine giving or planning to give later and then they would buy more or higher margin stuff. It's a little hypocritical, but it would work.

Social Media Advertising

A recent study by Psychster had some interesting findings on web ads. What I want to focus on today was the one that surprised me. The ad types that were most perceived as ads (banner ads and signing up for company newsletters from an ad link) were in the mid-range in "I would buy products from this brand". And banner ads were also among the highest in "I would recommend this brand to a friend." So users in the study were receptive to the ads, despite all that has been said about them.

Of course, it was a very artificial task, so the results have to be taken with some huge grains of salt. The users did not interact with real pages or ads. They watched a video of someone interacting with the ad with a narrative explaining what was happening. So there was no possibility of banner blindness and all users had to interact with the ad because they had to watch the video to the end.

Divine politics

Another great article from Dan Ariely. You have just GOT to read this.

The obvious finding: We have similar views about divisive issues like gay marriage or the death penalty as we assume G-d does.

But is this because we create a G-d in our own image or because we gravitate towards a religion where the G-d already agrees with us? That is the fascinating part of this study.

They use a common manipulation to shift participants views about these subjects (by having them give a speech on camera arguing for the other side) and then measure how their view of G-d's opinion changed. When their opinion moved, their assumptions about what G-d believes moved too. Not because G-d was convinced by their speech, but because G-d always thought this way.

Disclosing Conflicts of Interest

As usual, Dan Ariely (one of my favorite behavioral economists) has a great take on an important topic. When companies or individuals disclose their conflicts of interest, it actually makes the situation worse!!! For some very interesting reasons too.

The most interesting to me are:
1. When people disclose their conflicts, their behavior gets more conflicted because they feel it is more acceptable because of the disclosure.
2. The public has less suspicion of the conflict because the person must be honest if they are disclosing.

So in sum, the situation gets worse!!!!

Effective Elementary School Teaching

I read a research study today that investigated how to improve elementary school teaching. The study looked specifically at 5th grade math, but there are some important generalizations that can be made. The major findings:

• Experience teaching that grade (5th) for that subject (math) led to higher student achievement. Other experience did not lead to better student achievement. Apparently, experience in one area or grade doesn't translate well to other areas or grades.
  
• Connections from one team (i.e. all the 5th grade math teachers) to another team (e.g. 8th grade math or 5th grade English) didn't improve student achievement either. Again, the practices of one don't translate well to others.
  
• When one teacher (among the 5th grade math team) had an advanced degree, all of the other teachers in that team (other 5th grade math teachers) were able to learn from and use what he/she had learned. Any additional investments in formal higher education for the team did not lead to better student achievement.
• Strong ties from a teacher to the principal led to better student achievement of his/her students. But the benefits of these ties did not spread to students of other teachers on the team like the advanced degree did.
• Strong connections developed between effective teachers so that they shared best practices and both improved. But the less effective teachers required the whole team to have a strong social network among all of the teachers in the team. Apparently, the effective teachers don't share as much with the less effective teachers unless the entire social network among the team is strong.

Implications:

• Schools should invest in formal higher education for one member of each team, but not more. Additional funds should be used to provide incentives and tools to help teams develop strong ties and a dense social network so that all of the teachers can benefit from the insights and abilities of each.
• Once a team is formed, stability is important. The school should try to identify where a teacher is best suited and keep them in that position for a long time.
  

The researchers note that the study is relevant to elementary school teachers, but not for other domains. The boundary conditions are likely to be very important. For example, University teaching best practices are probably more generalizable between years and subjects.

Heat of the Moment Decisions affect future behavior too

This is a really important new finding from my favorite behavioral economist. Most of us realize that in the heat of the moment, we often make poor decisions. When we are feeling particularly good, we are more generous, kind, compassionate, etc. When we are feeling bad, we are more snappy, curt, stingy, and mean.

But this new finding shows that the impact of these decisions sticks with us. Even after our emotion chills out, we are still more likely to be generous, kind and compassionate or snappy, curt, and stingy for a longer time period. This particular study is more medium term than long term, but I am going to extrapolate to the even longer term potential impact that it suggests. Because of the really dangerous implications, it's worth thinking about seriously, not just speculatively.

Because we now have a past behavior, the experience becomes part of our long term schema. To avoid cognitive dissonance (which includes the desire to be consistent in our behaviors over time), we look at our past experiences, even when they are out of character, and rationalize them (come on - you know you have all done this!!). So if you act more generous, kind, or compassionate at one time - the memory of this act will make us more generous, kind and compassionate in the future. Same thing for snappy, curt, and stingy. Even when the original act was out of character and we know it was out of character.

So this is even more reason to be careful about your emotional reactions. You may be willing to act out of character once. But are you willing for this to become part of your permanent self-image? It will!!

new model for apartment living

One of the benefits of apartments is that they can leverage the common areas to save residents (owners, renters, whatever) money, time, and space.

For example, instead of 100 different driveways, you can have a single parking lot/garage. It takes much less space and everyone can chip in for cleaning, maintenance, snow removal, security, etc (usually through association fees).

You can have one big pool instead of lots of individual ones. Again, residents can combine on cleaning, maintenance, capital costs, etc. Each person gets a better pool and it costs less.

You can reduce the size of residents' living rooms by having a really nice social area that could be rented for entertaining more than 5-10 people at a time. Instead of getting your own living room dirty, you could reserve the buildings social room. In case many people want to entertain at the same time, you could have some partitions and a reservation system for different sized parties.

So what else could be combined in this way if we use our imagination? How about the kitchen? How often do you use your oven on average? 60 minutes per week? That seems ripe for sharing. What if we created a shared cooking space on each hallway (say for 10-20 apartments). It would require much less space than 10-20 separate kitchens and still could accommodate a kick ass industrial size and strength oven, range, microwave, convection oven, grill top, pressure cooker, and perhaps more. You would never have to clean the appliances or the cooking area (but you still would your dishes!!) because that could be taken care of centrally. And if you are the type of person who likes to reheat leftovers at 2am in your pajamas, you could still have a microwave or toaster oven in your own pantry in your apartment. Maybe a wet bar too for plumbing. You would still come out ahead. This shouldn't resemble a dorm kitchen because you are sharing with other people like yourself - families, professionals, and so forth. Not 18-year olds who are away from home for the first time.

And even better, we can make use of technology. We could have a log-in on the appliances so if someone abuses their privileges, we would know who and could make them fix it/pay for it.

How about bathroom facilities? Not the master bath. Even though it is still not a college dorm, I think I would prefer my morning shower with more privacy. But how about the second bathroom? That could be out in the hallway and shared - big enough to accommodate the needed demand. It would cut down on the household chore that people hate the most - cleaning the bathroom. You would only have to use it when your house is busy. And it would be your guests that have to use it ;-D.

Would any of these be attractive to you? It could make apartment much cheaper (to buy or rent), reduce your household cleaning chores, give you better equipment and facilities, and more.

Double Blind Vote Counting

There are a lot of design modifications that can improve our voting systems. One example I am a big fan of is instant runoff. In this form, you don't just vote for your first choice, but also your second, and perhaps third and fourth depending on how many people are running. If no one gets 50% of the vote, the bottom candidate is eliminated and his/her supporters' second choices are used. This continues until someone has 50%. What this does it prevent anyone from winning with less than 50% of the vote. It prevents a minor candidate who gets a small minority of votes to swing the election from one major candidate to another (Nader, Perot, etc).

But today, I want to share the idea of double blind voting. In many countries, voting is mostly counted by hand and it is impossible to recruit people who are unbiased as to the result. So how do you prevent them from skewing the results? Well, what you do is have two rounds of counting, both of which are blind (hence "double blind"). Each district is designated by a number that the counter can not associate with the actual location. The order of the candidates is changed for each district and designated by a number so the counter doesn't know for any district which candidate is which number.

In the first round, the counter who types in the district has no way to cheat because he/she doesn't know if the person voted for candidate X or Y. Changing the district number could just as easily be switching his favored candidate for the other one.

In the second round, the same thing happens. The counter doesn't know what district the ballot comes from, so he doesn't know if his favored candidate is A or B. So switching the vote could again just as easily be going in the opposite direction of his bias.

This is a great example of using process design to deal with a vexing challenge with significant implications.

Semantics and Customer Experience

Semantics are often a very important part of how customers view a company's product or service. Sometimes, the label is meaningful because it indicates something real about the product. Calling a health insurance evaluation committee a "death panel" is important because it suggests that these individuals can be making life or death decisions about your access to care.

But more often, the semantics don't change anything tangible, but still have a huge impact on the customer experience nonetheless. One example is something I have been aggravated about for quite some time. Business Week magazine has a habit of publishing "double issues" once in a while. These issues aren't any longer or more substantial in content than the regular issues. They do give BW an excuse to take a week off following these publications, so I am sure it is a money saving exercise. I feel cheated because I am losing an issue without getting anything in return (so I guess this one is tangible to some extent). If they would just be honest and say that they are going broke because of a weak advertising market and have to do this to cut costs, then fine. I would still feel like I am losing an issue, but at least it would be honest. I think I am more annoyed by the dishonesty than I am by the loss of the issue.

An example that I think is purely about the semantics and has no real tangible loss is the terminology for alcoholic drinks that are served in martini glasses, but have no relation with the classic martini. I am talking about Appletinis, Chocotinis, Razztinis, etc. The original martini is a sophisticated and pure drink. It is supposed to be ordered because you like the taste of the alcohol going down. There is a reason it was the drink of choice of the Sean Connery James Bond. Can you imagine him ordering a Chocotini? Perish the thought!!!! I have nothing against people ordering a drink with Godiva liquor, vodka, and chocolate shavings around the side. In fact, they taste pretty good. But it ruins my experience of ordering a real martini when it shares the name with this concoction. Now, the word martini more often refers to a drink ordered by barely legal girls trying to get drunk in a dance club without tasting any alcohol. These are all the opposites of the experience I am trying to have. At home, I can think whatever I want and what other people call other drinks is irrelevant. But if I order a martini in a bar and the bartender gives me a list of these foofy fruitinis (term I got from an NPR commentary this morning), it ruins it for me. Instead, I just order a gin, served neat. Different glass, but better experience.

The science behind the research

My last post about this paper summarized the results. I want to talk briefly about the science behind it. I am not going into serious detail, but just to present an idea. So forgive any oversimplifications for those of you who know a lot about neuroscience.

When we make something up - not just lies or exaggerations but also daydreams and that kind of stuff - we use mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are a place where we can create simulations that do not become part of our long term memories. But they are of course connected because we need to use our basic cell assemblies to construct the simulations. It is in this connection that we get into trouble.

Over time, our brain is not able to differentiate which of these connections was part of a simulation and which ones were real. The simulations are weaker, so they have less of an effect on long term memory construction than real memories. But they still have the effect and over time can build up if you exaggerate (or lie, or daydream) a lot.

And knowing that this is happening doesn't help. We can't access the specific neuronal connections and delete them. Unfortunately, we can't control our brains to this level of detail. So our long term memories are stuck with the bad data.

And in order to be convincing in our exaggeration, we create supporting arguments. Even though we know these to be exaggerations too (otherwise, the exaggeration wouldn't be an exaggeration), we have multiplied the strength of the mirror neuron structure many times over. So whatever impact it has on long term memory is multiplied.

Another factor that makes this work is called cognitive dissonance. This is when two thoughts that we have are in conflict. For example, when we exaggerate we know that it is dishonest. And we don't like to think of ourselves as dishonest. So unconsciously, our brains try to convince ourselves that the exaggeration is really true. We feel better as a result. But then, the mirror neuron schema is treated more like a real one and has an even stronger impact on long term memory. The problem just gets worse.

Financial regulations can't work if we don't even know we are biased.

There is a lot you can learn about bias and lying from reading this. I will stick to just one point today. I found the most striking result to be that when you exaggerate, that exaggeration sticks with you and pulls at what you know to be the truth. And you don't know how powerful this is, so you can't stop it.

Basically, what they did was ask subjects to give advice on financial transactions. In some cases, there were financial incentives to make the advised price as high (for the seller) or low (for the buyer) as possible. Then they offered these same individuals a financial reward for giving their true estimate of the value. This last part was done in private so they wouldn't feel obligated to continue their exaggerations to avoid looking like liars. What they found was:

• after exaggerating to the low side, their "true" opinions were still too low (although not quite as much as their exaggerations). They couldn't ignore what they had said previously, even though they knew they were exaggerating and were being paid extra for being accurate this time.
  
• after exaggerating to the high side, their "true" opinions were still too high. Same thing.
• they admitted that they were probably influenced by their previous advise, but significantly underestimated the actual impact.

Then they replicated the study for business pressure (trying to make a client happy by exaggerating something's value, rather than trying to make more money). The same thing happened. Even stronger!!

The authors discuss the implications here for financial regulations. Create big fines or strong regulations can't work if the auditor or broker doesn't even realize they are giving bad advice because of these unconscious influences. The only way would be to prevent the original conflicts. Auditing would have to be completely separate from advising. Brokers would not be allowed to work on any kind of volume commissions.

There are also implications in many other industries - legal, education, etc.

Questionable research

I just read the abstract of a paper that critiques an older paper because it reported a strong effect from its research, but "there are serious methodological concerns, which make the overall findings questionable." The original study should never have been published. Reporters just quote these results without understanding that methodology is everything. You can find any relationship if you bias your methods accordingly, and then get that relationship into the public domain.

Drug companies do this with new drugs. The anti-climate change lobby does this with warming studies. Food companies do this with junk food studies. Health food companies do it with health food or supplements. And again, and again.

The study in question here linked childhood consumption of candy with adult violence.

Mature Thinking

I was reading a great paper (academic, so I won't bore you with the details) that discussed how we mature in our thinking through three stages.

We start out as an absolutist. Thinks are black and white, right or wrong, good or bad, true or false.

Then we become multiplist, which is more nuanced. We realize that it is OK for different people to have different opinions. I can like Coke and you can like Pepsi. We can both be right.

Finally, we become evaluationist, which is even more nuanced. I can have one opinion and you can have another opinion. And while they are both valid, one is normatively better than the other. I support one political party and you can support another political party. Both positions are valid, but one party really might have better policies than the other.

The paper goes on to describe the epistemology of the theory and use an example from jury deliberations to describe the impact. People at the absolutist stage come to opinions about innocence or guilt and then are either/or. The more mature thinkers are able to look at variations (i.e. manslaughter) and intervening circumstances. They are more likely to use specifics of the verdict definitions and specific pieces of evidence in their arguments.

The more mature thinkers are also more likely to take charge of the deliberation, use more meta-arguments (describing why they think what they do), and are more likely to convince the others.

when product usability conflicts with industry usability

The new Google Buzz highlights and worsens a significant usability challenge in the social networking space. On one hand, it makes sense for Google to add social networking functionality to its suite. If users have a need to these tools and capabilities, it makes their product more usable to integrate them into popular programs like Gmail. It also made sense for Facebook to integrate twitter-like microblogging functionality. LinkedIn and Twitter are doing this too. All of these additions makes each of these systems more powerful and more able to satisfy the diverse needs of diverse users. In theory, you can get all the social networking you need in just one system.

The problem arises because social networking requires you to use the same systems as your friends/colleagues/coworkers/etc. So if some of your friends are on Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc, then in order to socially network with them, you also need to be on all of these and check them all and use them all. For example, to make sure my friends can read this blog, I announce new posts on Facebook, LinkedIn (when relevant) and Twitter. And sometimes I post the blog on Facebook in the first place, and then would have to announce it and link to it here.

In the end, every time an individual system enhances its usability, it makes the entire industry less usable because of all the cross posting and cross linking. If a third party creates a way to consolidate all of this in one place, then I need to learn and use another one!! Uggh.

Donating for Disasters

It is remarkable how generous we are. Despite the bad economy here at home, everyone I look there are collections going on for Haiti. At my condo building the mailroom fills up every week. At work, there are piles of food and clothing waiting to go.

But it is also remarkable how clueless many of us are about the best ways to give. Today, I saw a case of Cup O' Noodles in one of the collection sites. The size of this case compared to the amount of food it carried, suggests that it will probably cost more to ship it over to Haiti than it will be worth to the aid agencies. Same thing for the loose cans of Vienna Sausages, I suspect.

On the other hand, if you donate money to the UN, they purchase staples like rice in huge volumes (at steep discounts) and contract out for special nutrition bars that have a days worth of vitamins and calories in a small package. The gains in efficiency from ordering this way can feed a family of 5 for an entire day for the same price as one can of Campbell's soup shipped from the US.

So please continue to be generous. But don't use this as an excuse to clean out the pantry of things you don't want anymore. Be smart about it. Donate money to reliable organizations like the UN or the Red Cross. And if you have to give food, give something compact and calorie/nutrient dense, like dried beans or grains.

Words to live by

Words to live by from Bryan Caplan (at the bottom of the post):

1. Don't think less of people who sincerely disagree.

2. Do think less of people who insincerely agree.

3. Do think less of people who think less of people who sincerely disagree.

Better usability through supply and demand

The Boca Raton library has a new loan system for its best-sellers. They are charging $5 for a small set of really hot titles. It's good because most people don't need the new releases so fast, so they are happy to get other books for free. But if you REALLY want the new release, they are much more likely to be available (because the less passionate don't borrow them) and these folks are willing to pay. And it makes the library a little bit of extra cash at a time when they really need it.

This is a great example of using basic economics to improve the usability of a business model. I love it.

Not enough usability practitioners apply their expertise to improving business models.