4. In our ideal world, behavior change would
work like this:
•By the way, smoking is
bad for you.
Oh my goodness!You are
right. I will never smoke
again.
5. In our ideal world, behavior change would
work like this:
•You know, exercise is
good for you.
Absolutely! I will now go for
a run.
6. I apparently can’t do a talk without the
elephant:
FromThe Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt
7. The Rider
• Thinks logically
• Controls impulses
• Plans for the future
• Uses conscious resources
(Kahneman’s System 2)
8. The Elephant
• Is concerned with what is
happening now
• Feels, rather than thinks
• Is impulsive
• Is automatic (Kahneman’s
System 1)
10. Planning for the future
• Not entirely a human trait, but we
seem to be the best at it.
• Specifically, our riders are good at it.
Western Scrub-Jay Image Credit: cc www.ingridtaylar.com
11. So, if they have this framework:
Future.
Now!
Now!
Now!
Noooooo
ooooooo
oow!
12. So, how do these two entities see the
world?
Rider (Future) Elephant (Now)
13. How would you like to go exercise?
Rider (Future) Elephant (Now)
That sounds like a great
idea.
If I work out hard, there
will likely be some
visible benefits in 6-8
weeks!
That sounds awful.
And, we need to save
our energy for
something important.
14. Would you like this donut?
Rider (Future) Elephant (Now)
Well, I would, but I’m
really trying to eat
better.
Swimsuit season is
coming up, you know.
YES.
Mmm, delicious.And
you never know when
calories will be available
so you better grab them
while you can.
15. Do you want to start working on that
paper that’s due in a few weeks?
Rider (Future) Elephant (Now)
Absolutely!
Getting a start on that
will make it much less
stressful.
What? Of course not.
There are Facebook
posts to read RIGHT
NOW.
16. We decide differently for our future
selves:
How much nasty stuff would you
drink?
How long would you wait for a
reward?
Pronin et al 2008
17. Variables that influence the Elephant
• How big is the reward in relation to
the effort?
• How immediate is the reward?
• How tangible is the reward?
Big!
Now!
Real!
20. How to use this: Saving for Retirement
Would you rather?
Give up 10% of your
paycheck to savings right
now?
Or would you rather?
Give up half of your next
few raises until you are at
15%?
Example from Nudge, by RichardThaler and Cass Sunstein
22. Making choices a bit less tangible and
immediate:
“in seven weeks, NewYork Googlers consumed 3.1 million fewer calories from M&Ms”
Source http://abcnews.go.com/Health/google-diet-search-giant-overhauled-eating-options-nudge/story?id=18241908
25. So let’s look at a few examples:
Managers need to use the
new performance
evaluation system, which
has several new evaluation
categories.
How does the elephant view:
• Size of the reward
• Tangibility of the reward
• Immediacy of the reward
26. So let’s look at a few examples:
Salespeople need to
switch from product-based
selling, to a consultative
sales approach.
How does the elephant view:
• Size of the reward
• Tangibility of the reward
• Immediacy of the reward
27. So let’s look at a few examples:
Project Managers have
access to a new risk-
analysis tool they can use
during the project
planning process.
How does the elephant view:
• Size of the reward
• Tangibility of the reward
• Immediacy of the reward
28. What happens when there’s a conflict?
PrepareTax
Information
Watch Game of
Thrones
29. But
The rider can drag the elephant along, but…
Shiv and Fedorikhin 1999 Heart and Mind in Conflict:The Interplay of Affect andCognition in Consumer Decision Making
30. When there’s no conflict, there’s no
problem:
Gardening!
Gardening!
31. So what can we do about this?
• Size of the reward
• Tangibility of the reward
• Immediacy of the reward
32. Increase the size of the reward?
• Sometimes you can’t
• Extrinsic rewards are problematic
48. Ways to help
• Make it more tangible / visceral / experiential
• Create more immediate / visible feedback
• Make it easier
• Creating a script
• Create belief (using experience or emotion)
• Make it social
• Make success stories visible
Performance Evaluations
Consultative Selling
New RiskAnalysisTool
50. References
• Haidt, Jonathan.The Happiness Hypothesis
• Raby, C. R., et al. (2007). Planning for the future by western
scrub-jays. Nature 445: 919-921.
• Suddendorf,T. & Busby, J. (2003). Mental time travel in
animals?TrendsCog. Sci. 7: 391-396.
• Pronin, E et al. (2008) Doing Unto Future Selves AsYou
Would Do UntoOthers: Psychological Distance and
Decision Making. Society for Personality and Social
Psychology, Inc.
• http://vhil.stanford.edu/pubs/2011/VHIL-technical-
report.pdf
• Johnson, Eric and DanielGoldstein. Do Defaults Save Lives
21 NOVEMBER 2003VOL 302 SCIENCE
www.sciencemag.org
http://www.dangoldstein.com/papers/DefaultsScience.pdf
• http://abcnews.go.com/Health/google-diet-search-giant-
overhauled-eating-options-nudge/story?id=18241908
• Shiv and Fedorikhin 1999 Heart and Mind in Conflict:The
Interplay of Affect andCognition in Consumer Decision
Making
• http://www.insurancefraud.org/IFNS-
detail.htm?key=17545#.VVgAU_lViko
• Social norm links:
http://usablelearning.com/2013/08/18/social-norms-or-hey-
what-are-they-doing-over-there/
• http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~jgreene/
• http://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Time-Based-
Productivity-protect-increase/dp/1505408091
• http://www.psych.nyu.edu/oettingen/Gollwitzer,%20P.%20
M.,%20&%20Oettingen,%20G.%20(2013).%20In%20%20
M.%20Gellman%20&%20J.%20R.%20Turner%20(Eds.).pdf
Editor's Notes
As predicted, the personal dilemmas preferentially engaged brain regions associated with emotion,
including the mPFC, PCC, and the amygdala (Greene et al., 2001, 2004). (As
noted above, this contrast also revealed preferential engagement of the
pSTS/TPJ). Also consistent with our dual-process theory, the impersonal moral
dilemmas, relative to “personal” ones, elicited increased activity in regions of
DLFPC associated with working memory (Cohen et al., 1997; Smith and Jonides,
1997) and cognitive control (Miller and Cohen, 2001)