Speaker 1: Of all that we offer as part of the Spiritual
Speaker 1: Habits program, there's one thing we do that time and
Speaker 1: time again we get feedback saying it was one of
Speaker 1: people's very favorite parts of the whole experience. It's the
Speaker 1: daily text message reminders. It's super simple, but super impactful
Speaker 1: when it comes to reminding and encouraging people to incorporate
Speaker 1: the things that are learning into their life. So now
Speaker 1: we've decided to offer this to all of you. During
Speaker 1: each week, I will be texting brief reminders to help
Speaker 1: you stay on track with what you're learning from the
Speaker 1: episodes that we release on Tuesdays and Fridays. The short
Speaker 1: text message reminders will be directly from me to you,
Speaker 1: and they will periodically prompt you to pause for a
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Speaker 1: out of autopilot and encourage you to engage with the
Speaker 1: week's podcast topics in a bite sized, short and simple manner,
Speaker 1: and maybe most of all, they will be reminders that
Speaker 1: you're part of this listener community and that there are
Speaker 1: like minded people all over this world receiving the same
Speaker 1: text message working on feeding their good wolf in the
Speaker 1: same way as you are. Reminders that I'm right there
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Speaker 1: sign up for these free text message reminders and bits
Speaker 1: of encouragement for me, go to when you feed dot
Speaker 1: net slash text live to people say they're going to
Speaker 1: live to the die by people think they're going to
Speaker 1: die by seventy same question, But just because labels bring
Speaker 1: to mind different things, you get very different answers. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the one you feed throughout time. Great tinkers have
Speaker 1: recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like
Speaker 1: garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think
Speaker 1: ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts
Speaker 1: don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Eric Johnson, the director
Speaker 1: of the Center for Decision Sciences, Columbia Business School at
Speaker 1: Columbia University. His research examines the interface between behavioral decision research,
Speaker 1: economics and the decisions made by consumers, managers and their
Speaker 1: implications for public policy, markets, and marketing. Today, Eric and
Speaker 1: Eric discuss his book The Elements of Choice, Why the
Speaker 1: Way We Decide Matters? Hi, Eric, Welcome to the show. Eric,
Speaker 1: So glad to be with you. Yeah, I am really
Speaker 1: excited to have you on. We're going to be discussing
Speaker 1: your book, The Elements of Choice, Why the Way We
Speaker 1: Decide Matters, which is a topic I am deeply interested in.
Speaker 1: But before we get into that, let's start like we
Speaker 1: always do with the parable. There's a grandparent who's talking
Speaker 1: with their grandchild in the sand life. There are two
Speaker 1: wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One
Speaker 1: is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and
Speaker 1: bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 1: the grandchild stops and thinks about it for a second,
Speaker 1: looks up at their grandparents and says, well, which one wins?
Speaker 1: And the grandparents says, the one you feed, So I'd
Speaker 1: love to know how that parable applies to you in
Speaker 1: your life and in the work that you do. Well.
Speaker 1: It's a great parable because I think it shows the
Speaker 1: power of feeding well. I think of attending to one
Speaker 1: side or the other, and so we have inner dialogues
Speaker 1: all the time, and we also make choices, and those
Speaker 1: choices aren't independent. That is, I don't make choice one.
Speaker 1: It doesn't affect choice to I get up in the morning.
Speaker 1: I decide what to eat, and I decide what exercise
Speaker 1: or not, and those choices are linked. They come into habits.
Speaker 1: And the other thing it strikes me is that in
Speaker 1: terms of what I care about, I care about how
Speaker 1: I pose decisions to other people. And that's a choice
Speaker 1: to feed one wolf or the other. I can either
Speaker 1: do something that isn't their best interest, or I can
Speaker 1: do something that's not in their best interest. And that's
Speaker 1: sort of an external version of which wolf you feed.
Speaker 1: And you and I were talking before the show that
Speaker 1: your work on choice architecture, and we'll talk more about
Speaker 1: what that is in a minute. Really, you might apply
Speaker 1: to listeners in three different ways. One would be, you know,
Speaker 1: how do we structure our lives to make the best
Speaker 1: choices for ourselves, how do we know how choice architecture
Speaker 1: works so we're not manipulated by others? And then finally,
Speaker 1: how do we, as you just said, structure the choices
Speaker 1: we offer others like our children? And so I think
Speaker 1: we may work our way through those three angles. But
Speaker 1: first let's talk about the fact that we think we
Speaker 1: are making choices completely based on what we want or
Speaker 1: what we think is best. But in reality, we are
Speaker 1: being influenced in a number of ways with every decision
Speaker 1: we make or choice we make. So let me share
Speaker 1: an example. Yeah that maybe make it a little bit
Speaker 1: more concrete. You go to Amazon and you think your
Speaker 1: job is to find the right toaster, but somebody in
Speaker 1: Amazon has made a bunch of decisions that could influence you. So,
Speaker 1: for example, do I order the toasters alphabetically. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to spend all day looking at all two toasters,
Speaker 1: so once that of the top of list, they're going
Speaker 1: to be more likely to be chosen. What information do
Speaker 1: I provide? Do I sort them perhaps by ranking or
Speaker 1: by price? Somebody, and I call that person designer has
Speaker 1: been there before you and made lots of decisions. The
Speaker 1: same thing is true of websites. Like Netflix or people
Speaker 1: when I asked my where do you want to go
Speaker 1: to dinner to night? Whether I know it or not,
Speaker 1: I'm making a set of decisions. What when I think
Speaker 1: of his tools that will influence her. They might be accidental,
Speaker 1: they might be haphazard. I might not know I'm doing it,
Speaker 1: but they will have an influence. Yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: you know, we're aware of it in things like a toaster,
Speaker 1: or at least more of us are aware of it. Right,
Speaker 1: we realize that Amazon is I mean, at this point
Speaker 1: they basically say here's the one you should buy. Amazon's choice. Right,
Speaker 1: it's even completely explicit at this point in that way.
Speaker 1: But talk a little bit more about how the sorts
Speaker 1: of things might influence you asking your wife about dinner,
Speaker 1: like what are some things that you might put into
Speaker 1: that that would influence that choice of hers? So there
Speaker 1: are a bunch of decisions I'm making, even if they're automatic.
Speaker 1: So one tool I mentioned earlier as order, So you
Speaker 1: would think that first is always better, But imagine it's
Speaker 1: a kind of long list. I give her half a
Speaker 1: dozen restaurants. By the time she gets to restaurant five,
Speaker 1: she's forgotten about restaurant. What yeah, so it actually is
Speaker 1: am I letting her remember turns out memories really important
Speaker 1: for trying to understand how choice design or choice architecture works.
Speaker 1: Another thing, of course, I can decide what act meets
Speaker 1: to talk about. I can talk about it being very romantic,
Speaker 1: or it's near the movie theater we're going to, or
Speaker 1: that her favorite dishes served there, or I could not.
Speaker 1: I can decide not to talk about the dishes that
Speaker 1: are there that is going to have an influence on
Speaker 1: her choice. So there are many more, but that's a
Speaker 1: good example, and I could even include my opinion or not. Yea.
Speaker 1: Let's start with the term choice architecture. What does that
Speaker 1: term mean. It reflects the notion that somebody constructs a
Speaker 1: place you make choices. That's the person I call the designer,
Speaker 1: and us who are making choices let's call the chooser.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit easier to keep that distinction. And
Speaker 1: the designer essentially has made these decisions before we ever
Speaker 1: make the choice. Whether it's airplane cockpit or dating site
Speaker 1: or Amazon, somebody has made a set of decisions about
Speaker 1: things like help many options to present? Which options present?
Speaker 1: It's the person that does that design who's the choice
Speaker 1: architecture or the diet designer. So what choice archcture is
Speaker 1: is how you pose the choices to people. I was
Speaker 1: struck by the idea that choice architecture is really important
Speaker 1: for everyone to learn because you said that these choices
Speaker 1: are being architected in a way even if the person
Speaker 1: doing it doesn't know that. And so we could use
Speaker 1: choice architecture for nefarious purposes, right, we drive people in
Speaker 1: the direction we want. We can also use it for
Speaker 1: good purposes. Right, Let's get people to default into their
Speaker 1: retirement plan. Right, that's the commonly cited example. But that
Speaker 1: if somebody isn't conscious of the factors that go into that,
Speaker 1: they are still influencing choice. They're just not doing it consciously.
Speaker 1: Until two thousand and six, companies did not default people
Speaker 1: in your drying plans. That doesn't mean they weren't influencing them.
Speaker 1: They were lowering people's save Oh I wish, wish, wish
Speaker 1: that had been in effect in nineteen ninety six. Wouldn't
Speaker 1: we all have been better off? My life would be
Speaker 1: so different, that's right. So somebody, haphazardly, without thinking, made
Speaker 1: you poor, Eric, I'm sorry to say. Yeah, So that's
Speaker 1: a great example. Right, they opted me out by default,
Speaker 1: and they may not have even known they were doing it.
Speaker 1: That just that, of course, that was how it's done. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so fascinating to read your book and really realize
Speaker 1: how often we're influenced by things that we are not
Speaker 1: aware of being influenced by. And the interesting thing is
Speaker 1: that you say that even when we present people with
Speaker 1: this information, we tend to default to going, well, that
Speaker 1: probably affects Bob and Sue, but me, that's not going
Speaker 1: to affect me. Say more about that. Right, So defaults
Speaker 1: are great example because it's this thing that's sort of
Speaker 1: the poster child for choice design, choice architecture, and simply
Speaker 1: let's make it clear to everybody. It's essentially is an
Speaker 1: option pre selected. Now, to go back to the retirement example,
Speaker 1: the option of zero was pre selected unless I made
Speaker 1: an active choice. I used to get zero as my
Speaker 1: percent of savings. Okay, So that's what we mean by default.
Speaker 1: And what's interesting is that you can actually do studies
Speaker 1: where you default people. Let's say you change your savings
Speaker 1: to three percent or six percent. You asked them were
Speaker 1: you affected by that? And they'll say I wasn't. Other
Speaker 1: people might be, but I wasn't when in fact we
Speaker 1: look at the data and we realize that we're influenced. Now,
Speaker 1: you might ask why that's the case, or people willfully
Speaker 1: being stupid, and I think no, I think we're so
Speaker 1: busy making the decision, we're not paying attention to how
Speaker 1: the decision is framed or how it's posed. So we're
Speaker 1: too busy trying to make a good choice as it's
Speaker 1: presented and not thinking about how it was designed, how
Speaker 1: it was presented. Yeah, a lot of what we talked
Speaker 1: about on this show, I think is about making things
Speaker 1: that are happening unconsciously a little bit more conscious, right,
Speaker 1: going off autopilot and considering things and considering our lives
Speaker 1: and making better choices. So the choice architecture could be
Speaker 1: really influential in lots of areas. So what are some
Speaker 1: ways that we as people who want to live let's
Speaker 1: say healthier for now, healthier lives might become choice architects
Speaker 1: that would give us a better chance of achieving that.
Speaker 1: So I think it's a great example, and there are
Speaker 1: Let me just keep it simple and say, there are
Speaker 1: foods you want to eat when you're thinking about it,
Speaker 1: and foods you don't want to eat when you're not
Speaker 1: thinking about it. And it's clear that if I keep
Speaker 1: the foods I want to eat in front of me
Speaker 1: and the foods they don't want to eat, I might
Speaker 1: still have them, but they're on the top shelf behind
Speaker 1: a closed door. That's a very simple self choice architecture.
Speaker 1: The things that will come to mind. Let say, g
Speaker 1: I'm hungry might be fruit or granolivar and not my
Speaker 1: own personal weakness. Chips. Yeah, I carefully take the bags
Speaker 1: of chips that I have in the house. After I
Speaker 1: have a few, I put them in a small bowl,
Speaker 1: wrap them up tight, the little clip on them, and
Speaker 1: hide them. Put them back in the drawer, put them
Speaker 1: in one of those safes that you set the time
Speaker 1: limit on and it doesn't open for another twenty four hours.
Speaker 1: I'm not that extreme, but that would be the idea.
Speaker 1: It's like the old, the old piece of financial advice
Speaker 1: of taking your credit cards and freezing them in a
Speaker 1: jar of ice that you have. Before you can use them,
Speaker 1: you have to melt them down and hopefully I'll put
Speaker 1: them in the right wave. That's a bad idea in
Speaker 1: the case of chips. Are producer Chris you'd actually probably
Speaker 1: have to eliminate all chips in the city of Columbus.
Speaker 1: Just get rid of them all is about the only
Speaker 1: way we're going to stop his chip consumption. I didn't understand. Sorry,
Speaker 1: sorry Chris, to give you advice. That's a great example,
Speaker 1: I tell you. The other thing that and working with
Speaker 1: coaching clients that has made this so difficult is door dash.
Speaker 1: It used to be like, just don't keep unhealthy foods
Speaker 1: in your house, and you're safe, right, not safe, but
Speaker 1: you've got to make effort. You gotta get up, you
Speaker 1: gotta go, get in your car, you gotta drive to
Speaker 1: the store. Now you just open your phone, click a
Speaker 1: couple of buttons and McDonald shows up at your door.
Speaker 1: It's a disaster, that's right, And it goes to show
Speaker 1: how really important small costs are as barriers. Having to
Speaker 1: go out to get something keeps you from getting it.
Speaker 1: But you know, free clicks and you're in. That's so easy.
Speaker 1: You do it right, right. We could think, though, even
Speaker 1: in terms of this, that you might favorite certain things
Speaker 1: in an app that you want to choose, you know,
Speaker 1: favorite the restaurants you want to order from, if that's
Speaker 1: what you're doing, or put them on the first page
Speaker 1: versus putting them ten pages back on your phone. And
Speaker 1: so let's now move to talking about what some of
Speaker 1: the elements of choice architecture are. Let's talk about what
Speaker 1: sludge is. It's a great word. I just like to say,
Speaker 1: it's sludge, and uh, what is it? So sludge I
Speaker 1: think is due to someone named Richard Taylor, who happened
Speaker 1: to win a Nobel Prize, and he's a clever wordsmith.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think he came up with a phrase
Speaker 1: choice architecture. By the way, he wrote a famous book
Speaker 1: called Nudge, which is about changing people's behavior. And so
Speaker 1: what is bad nudging? Sludge? It even rhymes. But sludge
Speaker 1: is choice architecture that is meant to hurt people. I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, help them do the wrong thing, which
Speaker 1: is but another way of saying that it hurts them.
Speaker 1: So let me give you one example, which actually also
Speaker 1: is called a computer science dark patterns, which is almost
Speaker 1: a better phrase, another great one. What that means is
Speaker 1: I subscribe to New York Times because I think it's good.
Speaker 1: I do that by one click and turns out they've
Speaker 1: already filled out the form for me. It's very easy
Speaker 1: when it comes time to unsubscribe because I've decided I
Speaker 1: don't read it. I can't do that on the web.
Speaker 1: I have to pick up the phone. I have to
Speaker 1: dial a number, and they actually asked me things like
Speaker 1: are you sure, and they put me on hold. The
Speaker 1: costs of pupping a subscription versus declining a subscription are asymmetric.
Speaker 1: In fact, computer science they sometimes call this the roach
Speaker 1: motel because customers come in and they can't check out
Speaker 1: the hotel California. Yes, would be another. So that's sludge
Speaker 1: and dark patterns. Let's talk about what plausible path means excellent.
Speaker 1: I mean when we make a decision, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of information. So for your concern So from going in
Speaker 1: a supermarket, there are literally tens of thousands of options.
Speaker 1: I'm only going to consider some of those, and so
Speaker 1: what determines which Once I look at one example I
Speaker 1: like a lot is a friend of mine who worked
Speaker 1: at Cornell Vile Hospital. She was a medical informatist that
Speaker 1: as she designs the systems that doctors use to prescribe drugs,
Speaker 1: what's called the electronic health records. And it turns out
Speaker 1: doctors could prescribe two kinds of drugs. One are generics,
Speaker 1: which are typically cheaper, and the other brand name drugs. Now, chemically,
Speaker 1: these are in most cases identical. It's exactly the same pill,
Speaker 1: the same outcomes. But about nine doctors we're prescribing the
Speaker 1: brand name drugs. Just to give you two facts about
Speaker 1: this which I think are intra the first is that
Speaker 1: generics are five times cheaper than brand name drugs. So
Speaker 1: I take a pill called Allegra, let's say cost a dollar.
Speaker 1: The generic, which is called effexofenadine hydrochloride, is twenty cents.
Speaker 1: Now the cause of that cost difference, it turns out
Speaker 1: it's not only good for hospitals for people to do
Speaker 1: the generic, but for people who can't afford drugs, the
Speaker 1: generic is essentially life saving. Instead of cutting the pill
Speaker 1: in half, or skipping every other day, or other ways
Speaker 1: of scrimping, they actually can afford the generics and comply
Speaker 1: what doctors called take your medicine. And what's interesting about
Speaker 1: that is it's actually a case where you want, from
Speaker 1: both the hospital s perspective and the patient's pubspective to
Speaker 1: get people to subscribe generics. Now, it turns out when
Speaker 1: she looked carefully at what doctors are doing. It's because
Speaker 1: they remember the name of the brand name, you know, Allegra,
Speaker 1: and partly because when it came on the market that
Speaker 1: was advertised. They got pens with the name Allegra on it,
Speaker 1: the supprision pads at Allegra, and long story short, they
Speaker 1: couldn't remember the name. And I've had to practice it
Speaker 1: to be able to say effects affinity and hydrochloride. Very impressive. Well,
Speaker 1: it's taken a lot of practice. But what's true is
Speaker 1: that she changed the system. So when I typed a
Speaker 1: Leegra I type A l L, it auto populated fects
Speaker 1: affinity and hydrochloride. It did the memory for the doctor.
Speaker 1: And so rather than go through some compendium to find
Speaker 1: out what the right name of the drug is, or
Speaker 1: say hey Harry or hey Beatrice, what's the name of
Speaker 1: the generic, the computer did that for them, so instead
Speaker 1: of considering all the possible information, it just pops up.
Speaker 1: And it turns out doctors actually prescribe as written. They
Speaker 1: don't change back to the brand name, so it wasn't
Speaker 1: really a preference. It was something they did because it
Speaker 1: was easy. There's even one click to say prescribe is
Speaker 1: written and almost nobody does that, and that doubled from
Speaker 1: about percentage of prescriptions that were written for generic drugs.
Speaker 1: Small change in the interface, big change in behavior. It's
Speaker 1: an amazing how little changes make such a difference, and
Speaker 1: we truly underestimate them. We think, well, no, it shouldn't
Speaker 1: affect me that much. The example I've used on this
Speaker 1: show countless times is playing the guitar, Like, the difference
Speaker 1: between my guitar on a stand and in the case
Speaker 1: is ridiculous. Like, every time I think about this, I'm like,
Speaker 1: am I really that lazy? That opening the guitar case,
Speaker 1: which takes two and a half seconds deters me from
Speaker 1: doing it. It's, in my experience absolutely true that if
Speaker 1: things are out, I'm going to do it more likely.
Speaker 1: And having it out does something else as well. Not
Speaker 1: only does it make it easier, which clearly does, but
Speaker 1: it also reminds you. It serves as a reminder, so
Speaker 1: memories are really important role. That's sort of the other
Speaker 1: way that designers work their magic, you know, One is
Speaker 1: by changing the information you look at. So having something
Speaker 1: right in front of you makes it easier to look
Speaker 1: at another food example. Turns out a friend of mine
Speaker 1: did some studies in the nineties, and it's delightful actually
Speaker 1: interviewing him, and he took the same ground meat and
Speaker 1: called it either fat or a seven percent lean. Now,
Speaker 1: if you add those up, that's all the ground baby
Speaker 1: can be lean or fat, and so it's exactly the
Speaker 1: same meat, just with two different labels. And people who
Speaker 1: were shown the lean would pay more for it and
Speaker 1: thought it tasted worse than if they saw the fat,
Speaker 1: which they thought was juicier, tasted better, but they didn't
Speaker 1: want it as much, at least at the time. And
Speaker 1: what he argues and has evidence for, is that people
Speaker 1: think about different things with fat, they think about how
Speaker 1: juicy it is, how tasty it is. With leaning, they
Speaker 1: think of it building muscle, and it's exact same meat.
Speaker 1: And he actually would cook it up in the lab
Speaker 1: and have people taste it, and the fat would taste
Speaker 1: better to people. And it's not because it's any difference,
Speaker 1: because what they think about as a consume it is different.
Speaker 1: So your guitar cases not just making it easier, it's
Speaker 1: also reminding you that you could be playing music now.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Now I feel better about myself. Let's talk
Speaker 1: more about memory, though, because it is an important part
Speaker 1: of all this. And you say that what we say
Speaker 1: we prefer depends upon what we recall. So the phrase
Speaker 1: that I like is assembled preferences that often we go
Speaker 1: into a situation not knowing exactly what it is we
Speaker 1: want in a restaurant, um, since you're talking about food
Speaker 1: a lot today. In a restaurant, I may have three
Speaker 1: or four things I think about eating, and I have
Speaker 1: many goals. I want to be thin, I want to
Speaker 1: have delicious tasting food, and sometimes those are in conflict.
Speaker 1: So one of the way the choice architicial works is
Speaker 1: fairly simple. It brings to mind one goal or the other.
Speaker 1: So the Hamburg example deliciousness versus health. Things like order
Speaker 1: of options can change what it is we want. Because
Speaker 1: you can see one option first, it brings to mind
Speaker 1: a whole set of things. Let's say I saw the
Speaker 1: healthy option first, wouldn't be there. So by constructing or
Speaker 1: assembling our goals, we're deciding what to choose, and that's
Speaker 1: gonna be determined by the choice architecture. Let me give
Speaker 1: you an example that I'd rather like. It turns out
Speaker 1: that I can ask you how long you're going to
Speaker 1: live to or I can ask you what you will
Speaker 1: die by. Now, clearly those are gonna be the same question, right,
Speaker 1: you should name the same year in each case. And
Speaker 1: what happens if I say what you will you live to?
Speaker 1: You think about your aunt Harriet, who lived in two.
Speaker 1: You think about the fact that you were running earlier
Speaker 1: in the week. You think about the fact that modern
Speaker 1: medicine is actually doing amazing things, and there are so
Speaker 1: many new treatments that you'll be fine. If I say
Speaker 1: die by, the same person will think of different things.
Speaker 1: We'll think of Uncle Ernest who died at fifty five
Speaker 1: massive heart attack. We'll think about the fact they smoked
Speaker 1: for a couple of years in college. They might think
Speaker 1: about the fact they're slightly overweight. The same person is
Speaker 1: going to assemble very different facts about themselves. And when
Speaker 1: we then ask people when we live to versus when
Speaker 1: you'll die by, this is about a tenure difference. Live
Speaker 1: to people say they're going to live to eighty five,
Speaker 1: they die by people for they're gonna die by se
Speaker 1: same question. But just because labels bring to mind different things,
Speaker 1: you get very different answers. There's a cognitive bias called
Speaker 1: the recency biased. Does this is this sort of a
Speaker 1: similar idea in some ways. Well, recencly is usually applied
Speaker 1: to memory to say that you're going to remember the
Speaker 1: last thing that you saw and yep. So let me
Speaker 1: give an example of how important choice arteger can be.
Speaker 1: If I give you a menu with ten things on
Speaker 1: it and it's written, you'll probably show a primacy bias.
Speaker 1: You'll stop too soon, you'll actually order one of the
Speaker 1: things that's first on the list. Well, let's take that
Speaker 1: same menu given to Eric the waiter, who's going to
Speaker 1: read it to you. Now, when I read it to you,
Speaker 1: just like we talked about earlier, I'm going to forget
Speaker 1: the first five things on that list, and something towards
Speaker 1: the end will be remembered. That's when you get a
Speaker 1: recency bias. So it just shows you it's a place
Speaker 1: where the plause will pass. Say I stopped too soon
Speaker 1: if it's written, but if it's given to you early,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna only remember the last things. And it turns
Speaker 1: out to understand the effective order, you have to understand
Speaker 1: which of those two things is going on. Right, you
Speaker 1: talk about depending on how we're sort of prompted, then
Speaker 1: different things come forward. You say this means our preferences
Speaker 1: are not always stable and fixed, but rather improvised, constructed
Speaker 1: haphazardly from a large set of relevant memories. And I
Speaker 1: love that idea of the fluidity of things being improvised
Speaker 1: constructed haphazardly. Maybe not the haphazard part, but I like
Speaker 1: the concept that things are not stable and fixed we
Speaker 1: think of preferences that way. I was in l A
Speaker 1: this last weekend and we went to an ice cream
Speaker 1: place and they had lots of great choices. But it
Speaker 1: was so interesting to me because I could sort of see,
Speaker 1: you know, having been reading your book and thinking about
Speaker 1: this stuff, I could sort of see how like you
Speaker 1: could get three flavors if I picked one, then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, the other ones that I was going
Speaker 1: to choose were very related to the one that I
Speaker 1: had already decided on. Right, certain ones all of a
Speaker 1: sudden became so of out for me. I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I am not going to put brambleberry crisp with chocolate.
Speaker 1: In my mind, those two don't go together. So it's
Speaker 1: this idea that you know our preferences. I might say, well,
Speaker 1: I like chocolate ice cream. I prefer that, But it's
Speaker 1: gonna be modified in context of where I am, who
Speaker 1: I'm around, other things that are presented to me. So
Speaker 1: how do we know what we really want? How do
Speaker 1: you think about that question? It's really tough, and I
Speaker 1: think a challenge to people who study choices is knowing
Speaker 1: when someone's making a good choice. So one way of
Speaker 1: doing it is are people consistent? So I take you
Speaker 1: to the gelato place, because will be thirty six different
Speaker 1: nice gelato's there, and you know, I sort them one
Speaker 1: way and you pick the brambleberry cream, and I sort
Speaker 1: me another way and you picked the bambleberry cream. Then
Speaker 1: I think you have a real preference, but sort them differently.
Speaker 1: Now you're choosing chocolate or the hazel nut. Then I
Speaker 1: think your choice is actually going to be pretty flexible,
Speaker 1: that it's actually not that strong preference. And it's interesting
Speaker 1: you may experience both of those choices being strong preferences
Speaker 1: and not be aware that the order of the ice
Speaker 1: creams change your choice, like it if it's consistent. Another
Speaker 1: way is we can say, let me move to a
Speaker 1: place because I don't want to be as judgmental as
Speaker 1: you might be with ice creams. But let's say you're
Speaker 1: you're buying a credit card. Some credit cards are worse
Speaker 1: than others on every dimension. We want to make sure
Speaker 1: you don't buy the really bad credit card. So that's
Speaker 1: another way we can tell whether it's a good choice
Speaker 1: or not. Finally, for the sake of studies and I
Speaker 1: think to understand choice architecture, I can give you a goal.
Speaker 1: Let's say I was telling you buy the credit card
Speaker 1: that's best for this kind of person, someone who never
Speaker 1: carries a balance, that always pays off and spends a
Speaker 1: lot monts lots of points. Then I can know what
Speaker 1: the right credit card would be for you. I think
Speaker 1: if it's a little bit like a flight simulator that
Speaker 1: is in flight similar, I can say, Okay, you get
Speaker 1: to land in Charles de gaul Airport. Now you get
Speaker 1: to land in Portland, Oregon, or Portland, Maine. You know,
Speaker 1: if you can land in all those places, the cockpit
Speaker 1: is a good But if you start crashing in places,
Speaker 1: then I know it's not such a good one. I
Speaker 1: want a way of presenting you choices that's going to
Speaker 1: let you find the right thing for you, no matter
Speaker 1: what it is you're looking for. You talked earlier about
Speaker 1: something that is so foundational to a choice, but we
Speaker 1: don't often think about which is. We're often presented with
Speaker 1: competing goals. So if we're talking about the meat, right,
Speaker 1: do I want to be healthier or do I want
Speaker 1: the delicious taste? These two are both goals that I have.
Speaker 1: I actually have both goals. I want delicious flavor and
Speaker 1: I want to be healthy. How do we go about
Speaker 1: thinking through those two and balancing or prioritizing those two,
Speaker 1: and how do we watch for choice architecture that may
Speaker 1: push us one way or the other. So it's exactly
Speaker 1: the case where there's conflict that I think choice archer
Speaker 1: has the biggest impact. That is, if I know, look,
Speaker 1: I know I don't like liver, sorry, um, And no
Speaker 1: one choice architecture is going to make me eat liver,
Speaker 1: even if I put it first on the list in
Speaker 1: defaulting list, I choke. If someone gives me a sea
Speaker 1: Urchin wrote booney as a sushi, choice circuit won't work there.
Speaker 1: But where I'm deciding, you know, they want the yellowtail
Speaker 1: or the tuna, or do I want you know, vanilla
Speaker 1: ice cream or pistachio, Where it's close, that's when choice
Speaker 1: arctor is going to have an influence. The second thing
Speaker 1: that I think is really important to think about is
Speaker 1: it's great if you can resolve those ahead of time
Speaker 1: before you get to the choice architecture, or look at
Speaker 1: the choice over time and see which of those is
Speaker 1: really important to you. So if chorcharch diaractor is changing
Speaker 1: your choice, it's an indicator. It tells you you must
Speaker 1: be doing something wrong that you really haven't resolved the struggle,
Speaker 1: so you don't have clarity going in and you are
Speaker 1: at that point doing what you said, which is you're
Speaker 1: sort of haphazardly improvising. And in those moments you're most
Speaker 1: at the mercy of choice architecture. You're being consistent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the choice arch chancers determing your choice. And I'm
Speaker 1: not going to tell you it's a cure, but helps
Speaker 1: if you know what you want. So if you're thinking
Speaker 1: about going to college, to use one example, and you're
Speaker 1: deciding whether I want to go away or you know,
Speaker 1: stay home, you know it's one decision you should have
Speaker 1: to think about that goal independent of the schools. My
Speaker 1: niece is making these choices now, and you know, if
Speaker 1: her friend is going to um a different school, so
Speaker 1: she's not going to see the friend or the friend
Speaker 1: is staying home. That's not really relevant because the friends
Speaker 1: on the point. She needs to think hard in the
Speaker 1: abstractor about that trade off, what's going to make her happier,
Speaker 1: or at the very least, like you said, recognize that
Speaker 1: the friend is influencing and determine whether being close to
Speaker 1: my friend is what I want to prioritize. You talk
Speaker 1: about Ben Franklin in the book, and you know, Ben
Speaker 1: Franklin is known for many things, but one of which
Speaker 1: is the pro and con list. But you say that
Speaker 1: the way that that information is given to most of
Speaker 1: us is only partially what Ben Franklin taught us. You know,
Speaker 1: for years I've seen that list. You know, you're supposed
Speaker 1: to write down all the pros, then all the cons.
Speaker 1: And whenever you see that quote, there's usually dot dot
Speaker 1: dot and ellipse and then it says then you count
Speaker 1: them up. Now it turns out I was reading that
Speaker 1: and said, what is that dot dot dot? What is
Speaker 1: censored if you will, by the people who quote that,
Speaker 1: And turns up Ben Franklin understood the role of memory.
Speaker 1: He said, the things that come to mind on one
Speaker 1: occasion will be different than others. So he suggested you
Speaker 1: walk away and then come back to the list and
Speaker 1: write down other things that come to mind after you've
Speaker 1: written the list first. And I think that's actually very
Speaker 1: good advice. And so, you know, one thing that about
Speaker 1: memory is when you're thinking about why you want to
Speaker 1: go away to school, it's hard to think about reason
Speaker 1: why you'd want to stay. And so actually, after I've
Speaker 1: stopped thinking about why I want to go away to school,
Speaker 1: I'll start to be able to think about the reasons
Speaker 1: I would want to stay it. Actually, it turns out
Speaker 1: there is a phenomena called inhibition that means if I
Speaker 1: think about one thing, it's harder to think about other things.
Speaker 1: And really, what the thing that choice starchers can do
Speaker 1: is exploit inhibition. That is, I will end up saying
Speaker 1: why do you want to go away? Why do you
Speaker 1: want to go away? Why do you want to spend
Speaker 1: the money on this fancy piece of jewelry whatever it is.
Speaker 1: And it turns out that if you take a breather
Speaker 1: and maybe even think about what else you can do
Speaker 1: with the money, or if you're going away to school,
Speaker 1: if I stay at home my local community college, what
Speaker 1: else could I do with those thousands of dollars I'm
Speaker 1: not spending on private college. You know, you might come
Speaker 1: to very different decisions. So what Briend frankly anticipated is
Speaker 1: an inhibition and the role of memory. And so I
Speaker 1: was actually really pleased to find that quote was when
Speaker 1: it's complete, actually very good advice about choice architecture. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that idea of giving ourselves time and more context to
Speaker 1: make a decision is so important. I generally have a
Speaker 1: rule of anything over say about a hundred dollars, like
Speaker 1: I will not buy it at the moment that I
Speaker 1: think I want it, you know, I'll make myself go
Speaker 1: away usually overnight, or leave the store, you know, and
Speaker 1: all those things. I mean, that simple thing saves me
Speaker 1: a ton of money on stuff I really don't need.
Speaker 1: And then there are times that I leave and after
Speaker 1: twenty four hours, I'm like, I still really want to
Speaker 1: go get that thing. That Okay, you know, I've I've
Speaker 1: had a little more time to contemplate it. And every
Speaker 1: decision to buy something is implicitly and I teach marketing,
Speaker 1: so forgive me, but every decision to buy something is
Speaker 1: a decision not to buy something else. And so thinking
Speaker 1: about what you would do with the money instead helps
Speaker 1: you think about what economists called opportunity costs. What are
Speaker 1: the other things you could do with the money? Doesn't
Speaker 1: prevent it from buying it, but it makes it a
Speaker 1: better acknowledgment of the trade offs you're making. So buying
Speaker 1: a car that is a gas guzzler means I'm not
Speaker 1: going to be doing something else, like, you know, spending
Speaker 1: money on a bike or a vacation. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: that speaks to this idea of context, and I often
Speaker 1: think that we make decisions out of context or we
Speaker 1: don't consider all the context. So an example might be
Speaker 1: somebody who just always said yes. Somebody be like, hey,
Speaker 1: do you want to do this? They'd be like yes,
Speaker 1: and hey, would you be on the board of this Yes.
Speaker 1: In the moment, all they thought about is do I
Speaker 1: want to do this thing or not that they're asking me.
Speaker 1: But then when that same person would later have to
Speaker 1: start looking at their life, they'd be like, why on
Speaker 1: earth did I add another thing? It's because in the moment,
Speaker 1: all they were thinking about was whether do I want
Speaker 1: to do this one thing? Oh? Yes, this one thing
Speaker 1: sounds good, But the context of the larger hole was
Speaker 1: completely lost. If you ask them what they're doing that day.
Speaker 1: They have a long list of things. There's too much
Speaker 1: to do. You ask them, do they want to be
Speaker 1: on this board? They say, well, that would be nice.
Speaker 1: I didn't get to meet If there's nice things about that,
Speaker 1: they're not thinking about out the fact they're giving up
Speaker 1: time with their kids or hobbies or spouse. With time,
Speaker 1: it's actually even harder to think about the other things
Speaker 1: that we do because when we think about the future,
Speaker 1: we don't think about the fact that we're gonna be
Speaker 1: as busy in three weeks as we are today because
Speaker 1: those things don't come to mind. It's called by some
Speaker 1: friends slack. We always think we'll have more slack in
Speaker 1: the future, and the reality is we don't. Just like
Speaker 1: with money, with our allocation of time, we neglect the
Speaker 1: opportunity costs of agreeing to do things in the future.
Speaker 1: Is there anything that you can think of that might
Speaker 1: be general rules of thumb that we might use that
Speaker 1: would help us make better choices. I think there's a
Speaker 1: simple one that's coming out of our conversation. We just
Speaker 1: think about what are the alternative uses of the resource?
Speaker 1: So if you're buying something, what else could you do?
Speaker 1: With the money, and how would you feel about giving
Speaker 1: that up? Or time? What else could you do with
Speaker 1: the time? So you know, I get an invitation or
Speaker 1: any chapter or write a book, and I said, oh,
Speaker 1: that sounds like fun. What I don't think about is
Speaker 1: the fact that that means I'm not going to go
Speaker 1: on a hike on Thursday, or in three weeks from now,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna be able to take a long evening
Speaker 1: off to watch the music. So I think the general
Speaker 1: principle is to actually make your memory work to come
Speaker 1: up with those things that's harder to generate. We have
Speaker 1: a theory called careery theory that's all about this, because
Speaker 1: when I'm thinking about writing that chapter or buying that
Speaker 1: nice new phone, it's very hard for me to think
Speaker 1: about the other uses of money or time are. So
Speaker 1: I think that would be the general principle. And I've
Speaker 1: had friends who have come back to me after reading
Speaker 1: our research and say, you know, my clothing budget just
Speaker 1: went down by half because I simply asked myself, what
Speaker 1: else can I buy with this money? And these are
Speaker 1: some of the best dressed people I know. I don't
Speaker 1: want to try and make them worst dressed, but I
Speaker 1: think I've saved them some money. That's a great general idea,
Speaker 1: which is consider the alternatives, right, consider what else you
Speaker 1: would do with the time or the money. That concept
Speaker 1: of slack is a really interesting one too, thinking we're
Speaker 1: gonna have more time in the future. Boy do I
Speaker 1: fall prey to that one, because I just look at
Speaker 1: my week and I'll be like, all right, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna kick that to next week, assuming that next week
Speaker 1: is somehow going to be better, And like you said,
Speaker 1: more often than not, it really isn't. I'm always busy.
Speaker 1: I remember this in software project management, you know, it's
Speaker 1: just the first few years of my career. You know,
Speaker 1: the people in charge would be like, we just gotta
Speaker 1: get over this hump and then it'll be easier. And
Speaker 1: I just after a couple of years that I was like, Nope, no,
Speaker 1: it won't. It simply won't. We're always going to have
Speaker 1: deadlines that feel unattainable. It's always gonna be this way.
Speaker 1: We actually built in that term slack. You know, as
Speaker 1: a project manager, I learned to start going, all right,
Speaker 1: you know what my people said, it's going to take
Speaker 1: a week. I'm gonna budget two weeks just because I
Speaker 1: know that we need that slack, And the nice thing
Speaker 1: is there are going to be times that are more
Speaker 1: or less busy. I'm in the middle of a very
Speaker 1: busy semester. I know come May I'll have more time,
Speaker 1: but it's not that I'm going to have infinite time.
Speaker 1: In fact, I know that be a little bit more time,
Speaker 1: But then, you know a nasty little thing. I have
Speaker 1: to catch up with everything I'm not doing now, yep, yep,
Speaker 1: So there'll be lots of things that fill up that time.
Speaker 1: I think when I schedule my week, by the way,
Speaker 1: one of things I try and do is is allocate,
Speaker 1: not just I'm going to write this paper and the
Speaker 1: meet with the student and say I'll do that sometime
Speaker 1: later this week, actually try and schedule how long it's
Speaker 1: going to take. By allocating the time, I end up
Speaker 1: being a little bit less ambitious and probably hopefully a
Speaker 1: little a little bit less stressed out. I agree, I
Speaker 1: try and do something similar and then just put my
Speaker 1: to do list away, like, don't even think about it,
Speaker 1: it's not happening in this window. Another corollary of this
Speaker 1: idea is I often think to myself, am I ever
Speaker 1: going to want to do this thing right, because there's
Speaker 1: a tendency to think, oh, I'll feel more like doing
Speaker 1: it tomorrow, right. And I asked myself like, am I
Speaker 1: ever going to feel like it? And if the answer
Speaker 1: is no, I try and do it as quickly as possible.
Speaker 1: I just try and be like, look, it's something I'm
Speaker 1: never gonna want to do, I'm always going to do
Speaker 1: doing it the sooner I do it, the less time
Speaker 1: I have to dread it. I think that's nice advice.
Speaker 1: We talked about it a little bit. But let's talk
Speaker 1: about screening. First, what is it? How is it used
Speaker 1: in choice architecture? And then to make it a three
Speaker 1: part question, how might we use it in making better
Speaker 1: choices for ourselves? And when not to use it is
Speaker 1: the other component, so four part question. Yes, So my
Speaker 1: wife reads the New York Times Vale's column, and you
Speaker 1: know this is a habit on Sunday. It used to
Speaker 1: be the paper. Now it's her iPad. You'll say who
Speaker 1: married whom? And as a result, I started looking just
Speaker 1: to see what she's looking at. And it started that
Speaker 1: they about maybe eight years ago, the New York Times
Speaker 1: started mentioning what dating services people met on Wow, and
Speaker 1: there are lots of them, and they're very different and um.
Speaker 1: One of the things that's true is one of the
Speaker 1: ways they differ is how many dates they show you
Speaker 1: at a time. There's a dating service and it's called
Speaker 1: Coffee meets Bagel that was started by three sisters and
Speaker 1: they want to build a website for women, and they
Speaker 1: made the decision to only show you one person a day.
Speaker 1: Now they show you a few more, but it's still
Speaker 1: a very limited list. Compare that to other sites like Tinder. Tinder,
Speaker 1: of course, shows you an infinite number of possible dates.
Speaker 1: And there's even in um. The Urban Dictionary has a
Speaker 1: line about Tinder thumb, which is the pain you feel
Speaker 1: after scrolling too much, and and the onui is the
Speaker 1: phrase they use of realizing no one's exactly right now.
Speaker 1: There's something up that goes on that. It really illustrates
Speaker 1: this idea of screening. If I see one person day,
Speaker 1: I'm going to read about them, not just look at
Speaker 1: the picture. I'm going to read about their hobbies, movies,
Speaker 1: what they're looking for. I'm going to consider lots about
Speaker 1: the person. However, on Tinder, I've been told that people
Speaker 1: tend to look at one attribute you know, they sort
Speaker 1: of say who's most attractive, or it turns out people
Speaker 1: have researched this. Many women look for men who are
Speaker 1: told than they are in heels, so they use height,
Speaker 1: and if you're one inch too short, you're gonna lose
Speaker 1: perhaps the right person. You're so not going to make
Speaker 1: the kind of trade off we're talking about. Screening, you know,
Speaker 1: as an advantage lets you go through lots of options quickly,
Speaker 1: but it also can lead you astray because you end
Speaker 1: up deleting people who would be perfect. So one of
Speaker 1: the things that I think screening can do is actually
Speaker 1: prevent you from picking somebody in the dating context that
Speaker 1: actually would be perfect for you. And you overweight whatever
Speaker 1: thing it is you're using to screen, So height turns
Speaker 1: out to be very important, even though I've been told
Speaker 1: that many men lie about their heights. So you end
Speaker 1: up basically picking people in our criteria that is actually
Speaker 1: not that important. And more importantly, you end up doing
Speaker 1: it even though it's not very predictive because people misrepresent themselves.
Speaker 1: So when I started looking at these columns and vows,
Speaker 1: I noticed that people who would use coffee meets bagel
Speaker 1: tend to be more different from each other. They often
Speaker 1: end up being interesting couples, couples that you wouldn't expect
Speaker 1: to be together. And I think that's because instead of
Speaker 1: just looking for somebody who meets one criterion, they actually
Speaker 1: thought about the person as a whole. That's really interesting
Speaker 1: to think about what we're screening for. And I think
Speaker 1: it gets back to this idea we've been talking a
Speaker 1: little bit about about deciding what's kind of important, right,
Speaker 1: because then you are screening based to some degree on
Speaker 1: what's important. In the same section that you're talking about screening,
Speaker 1: you talk about screening might well eliminate options that are
Speaker 1: good balances between two important but negatively related attributes. Can
Speaker 1: you say more about that piece? Yeah, So, I mean,
Speaker 1: let's go back to the dating example on height. I
Speaker 1: might actually be screening on height and George Clooney is
Speaker 1: one inch below my criteria. How he might be from
Speaker 1: many people a perfect balance between height. So maybe I'll
Speaker 1: put up with it having to wear one inch shorter
Speaker 1: heels if I were a woman. Basically, you can eliminate things,
Speaker 1: and particularly for negatively correly. So the interesting about lying
Speaker 1: about your height it means when you're actually choosing on height,
Speaker 1: you're probably picking people are less honest. The people why
Speaker 1: the most are the people you pick acute sort of
Speaker 1: dad okay. Have in the book is these are people
Speaker 1: who don't measure up. Literally, you're picking people who are
Speaker 1: not as well as they say they well and actually
Speaker 1: misferb their hight the most. Probably not a good recipe
Speaker 1: for finding misser. Mr. Wright. There was a study near
Speaker 1: the end of the book that you talked about that
Speaker 1: I've heard of, and it's the old study that says,
Speaker 1: once upon a time, people at a movie theater were
Speaker 1: flashed images of say, coke at one second, and by
Speaker 1: doing that, subliminally, all of a sudden, coke sales went up.
Speaker 1: And the idea is that they're happening faster than your
Speaker 1: conscious brain can read them, but your subconscious brain is
Speaker 1: internalizing them. And that's a study that I mean, I've
Speaker 1: heard it. It's a pretty well known study, but apparently
Speaker 1: it's not what we thought it was. Well. One of
Speaker 1: the nice things about writing a book is you get
Speaker 1: to do research. And it turns out the theater is
Speaker 1: not very far from where I live. It's infortunately, and
Speaker 1: I didn't go to it, but it is a small
Speaker 1: theater and in fact it's a small theater that in
Speaker 1: some accounts didn't even have a concession stand that the
Speaker 1: consultant who wrote that study up actually never did the study,
Speaker 1: and it turns out it was basically a gimmick to
Speaker 1: get clients. Now there's an important point here that I
Speaker 1: think is true. Whenever you look at this wonderful world
Speaker 1: and what we call behavioral science, you know, it's become
Speaker 1: very influential. There are lots of people who are writing
Speaker 1: about it, and it's gratifying. At the same time, we
Speaker 1: know that not every study replicates that. You can do
Speaker 1: the same study and it doesn't work. So one of
Speaker 1: the challenges in writing a book actually is trying to
Speaker 1: separate the studies that you think people might have gotten
Speaker 1: lucky or god forbid, even been dishonest, versus a phenomena
Speaker 1: that happens time after time for time that you literally
Speaker 1: can take it to the bank. So, for example, defaults,
Speaker 1: when we look at that it's pretty strong, you get
Speaker 1: a strong not always, I mean there's a big range
Speaker 1: of default effects sizes. Sometimes it will be sometimes it
Speaker 1: will be two, but usually get a default effect in
Speaker 1: the correct direction. Other things not so much so. Writing
Speaker 1: a book is actually a challenge because you want to
Speaker 1: tell the cute story, the equivalent of the flashing coke story,
Speaker 1: but you wanted to stand for a bunch of evidence.
Speaker 1: After all, that's how science works, and so I want
Speaker 1: the stories to be rememberable. But the one thing we
Speaker 1: learned from the Coke study, the siblinal advertising study, is
Speaker 1: that people are really worried about being influenced without their awareness,
Speaker 1: and that actually caused congressional investigations were based on that study.
Speaker 1: The FEC made it illegal to broadcast subliminal messages over
Speaker 1: television and fact, it turns out you can't do what
Speaker 1: the technology doesn't allow with screens don't refresh quickly enough.
Speaker 1: But it had huge consequences, and I think one of
Speaker 1: the things that I would urge everyone listening to think
Speaker 1: about is is that just one study or there are
Speaker 1: a bunch of them that actually show that that may
Speaker 1: be a bit of a hairy detail, but I think
Speaker 1: it's really an important lesson. You don't take us a
Speaker 1: pill because it's been found in one study. Yep. And
Speaker 1: it is hard as a consumer or a lay person
Speaker 1: to know what's real and what's not, particularly the way
Speaker 1: that science journalism works, right, A lot of science journalism
Speaker 1: takes what's most, the most exciting findings they can or
Speaker 1: the most you know, headline were the studies and puts
Speaker 1: them out and then you know who has time to
Speaker 1: go in and research them? I mean most people don't.
Speaker 1: And so even as someone like me who has read
Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these books and does
Speaker 1: this in a professional semi way, I still am like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know. And then you get into questions of
Speaker 1: how many times does it need to be replicated, how
Speaker 1: many people actually is in a study before becomes valid.
Speaker 1: But that one of subliminal just amazes me that the
Speaker 1: guy just completely made it up. We can feel fairly
Speaker 1: certain he would mark six ft three on any dating site, right,
Speaker 1: he's at least that tall. That's right, That's right, he's
Speaker 1: at least that tall. Is there any data to show
Speaker 1: this subliminal advertising ability? Has there been any studies that
Speaker 1: show that we can actually be influenced in that way?
Speaker 1: So I think we need to step back and say,
Speaker 1: are there influences of our behavior that we're not aware of?
Speaker 1: That's very different than the notion of flashing coke on
Speaker 1: the screen will change what you buy, right, right, I'm
Speaker 1: asking about the latter. I think the former. We've this
Speaker 1: entire conversation has been about the former, that there are
Speaker 1: influences on our behavior that we are not aware of,
Speaker 1: you know, the order things are presented in and the
Speaker 1: defaults and all that. I'm just kind of curious that
Speaker 1: subliminal thing I have to assume other people than try
Speaker 1: to do it and couldn't replicate it. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: the best answer is it's mixed. If there's an effect,
Speaker 1: it's very small. And if you look at the numbers,
Speaker 1: and one of the things I think is a good
Speaker 1: guide is if the numbers look too good to be true,
Speaker 1: they probably are. So if you see a very small
Speaker 1: effect that changes choices by that's probably not right. I
Speaker 1: mean defaults. We've been very lucky that we've had some
Speaker 1: great examples, and that's partly because of the context, the
Speaker 1: way it's posed. So the thing about organ donation, so
Speaker 1: probably the thing I'm most known for his studies, we
Speaker 1: did where you basically we looked at countries where you
Speaker 1: were a donor for organs upon your death by default.
Speaker 1: So for example, that's what happens in Austria, and Germany,
Speaker 1: you're not a donor and you have to change actively.
Speaker 1: Now in those studies we get about a fifty or
Speaker 1: sixty per cent difference. Now, there are two things that
Speaker 1: are key to that recipe. One thing is that you
Speaker 1: don't like thinking about what happens to your body after
Speaker 1: you've died, So people don't like to make that choice,
Speaker 1: so they get it over with quickly. The second thing
Speaker 1: is you only make that choice once typically at all.
Speaker 1: De faults work particularly well when you're not making the
Speaker 1: choice often. So what we've done is research that say
Speaker 1: how big are default to fix someone? Do they happen?
Speaker 1: And there's a recipe for getting a big default effect.
Speaker 1: On one part of that recipe, it has to be
Speaker 1: much easier to pick the default. Another thing is it
Speaker 1: has to be something you don't make decisions very frequently,
Speaker 1: So defaults will be very big for some things but
Speaker 1: not for others. So the way science works is it
Speaker 1: shows that hopefully you have an effect and you understand
Speaker 1: when it's gonna be big, like in the case of
Speaker 1: organ donation and small. Let's say like in the case
Speaker 1: of which box you check for Amazon shipping. By the way,
Speaker 1: we'll say the other thing about organ donation, just to
Speaker 1: be clear, is that's about an agreeing to be a donor.
Speaker 1: That's not the end of the process. Often your family
Speaker 1: has to make a decision afterwards, and that can make
Speaker 1: things much more complicated. As I talk about, Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: always wondered about that. I feel like I hear that
Speaker 1: a lot about families deciding. I'm like, but I thought
Speaker 1: I decided when I renew my driver's license. Yes you did,
Speaker 1: but for habit, for reasons of not wanting to be
Speaker 1: in litigation. Almost every hospital in most countries, your family
Speaker 1: is asked. Notice your family being asked is also a
Speaker 1: choice architecture. That is, whoever is doing the asking is
Speaker 1: a designer. And it turns out there are a very
Speaker 1: big difference in Spain, which is sort of a boaster
Speaker 1: child for huge amounts of organ donation. That's very good.
Speaker 1: Part of the thing is they have a doctor who's
Speaker 1: trained in how to ask you the question, do the asking.
Speaker 1: So it's not just the driver's license question, but it's
Speaker 1: actually what happens afterwards that's important. You talk in the
Speaker 1: book about subject that has become increasingly near and dear
Speaker 1: to my heart, which is the choices we make around
Speaker 1: end of life, share a little bit about what you've
Speaker 1: seen in choice architecture in this area. So this is
Speaker 1: a place where, if you believe what I've just told you,
Speaker 1: you'd expect a big default effect because it's something you
Speaker 1: don't want to think about. I mean, is one of
Speaker 1: the reasons people don't have end of life statements. Just
Speaker 1: came from my annual zsical today and you do you
Speaker 1: have an end of life statement? And I said, and
Speaker 1: I felt very embarrassed because the last time I did
Speaker 1: that was many years ago, and the answer is not
Speaker 1: very pleasant. And so researchers and this is actually I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: it's a little bit of a depressing story, but it's
Speaker 1: a real study. They took over a hundred people who
Speaker 1: were terminal cancer patients and they gave them two different
Speaker 1: end of life statements. Let's keep it simple and say
Speaker 1: there are procedures that are life prolonging and those that
Speaker 1: are for comfort care. And that well, they did for
Speaker 1: that set either the life prolonging which are ones that
Speaker 1: actually are very invasive and often unpleasant, or comfort care,
Speaker 1: which means you won't feel pain, but you may die sooner.
Speaker 1: And of those hundred plus people, there was a huge effect.
Speaker 1: I'm going to roughly say, pick the comfort care when
Speaker 1: the life extension was the default, six when the comfort
Speaker 1: care was the default. So there's a very big preference difference.
Speaker 1: That's because we've conflicting goals that we haven't thought about
Speaker 1: this much. Now, what's interesting about the point of assembling preferences?
Speaker 1: They then, being good scientists, said, look, you're in a study.
Speaker 1: You've randomly decided which set of faults you've got. Now
Speaker 1: do you want to change? And I think only three
Speaker 1: people change their mind that after having constructed or having
Speaker 1: assembled their preferences in the study, they didn't want to
Speaker 1: revisit the decision. And so that's a good example. Someone
Speaker 1: is making decisions about what the fault should be, and
Speaker 1: most of the u s it's actually the life extension.
Speaker 1: And whoever's doing that wittingly or unwittingly, haphascidly perhaps is
Speaker 1: actually deciding for people what kind of care they'll have
Speaker 1: at the end of life. Yeah, I'm a big proponent
Speaker 1: of being able to make more choices about how your
Speaker 1: life ends, and that one default. Think of how much
Speaker 1: potential money and suffering that one unthought about default could
Speaker 1: be the follow on that you said there, which I
Speaker 1: find fascinating is that only a couple of people changed.
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering if this is just a topic where
Speaker 1: people are like, I do not want to think about
Speaker 1: this again, or do you think it's become as we
Speaker 1: really don't want to believe that we've been influenced, and
Speaker 1: we want to believe that our choices came from us.
Speaker 1: I'm asking you to speculate here, of course. Yeah. There's
Speaker 1: a third, slightly more nuanced version of that, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, I've made that decision once I thought about
Speaker 1: what I want. Yeah, I don't want to revisit that decision. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's related to both of those things. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: think you know, once I formed a preference, if I
Speaker 1: remember it, why we visit it? Yep. And I think
Speaker 1: that is so important to everything we're talking about today,
Speaker 1: which is sometimes that obstinacy about preferences can be really
Speaker 1: problematic because those preferences were made under very specific circumstances,
Speaker 1: and we're influenced by things that we are completely unaware
Speaker 1: they were influenced by. And so I think the more
Speaker 1: often we ask ourselves questions about what's really important what
Speaker 1: really matters to me. The more clear will be in
Speaker 1: the less will be influenced by either current choice architecture
Speaker 1: or choice architecture that influences in the past that we
Speaker 1: weren't aware of. But it's so hard once a preference
Speaker 1: gets established. So let me give you a little speculative
Speaker 1: hint of how you might detect choice architecture. You go
Speaker 1: to most websites and they actually will allow you to
Speaker 1: sort the options. So a very famous study, in my mind,
Speaker 1: took people and gave them wine lists. This was in
Speaker 1: a store that was actually run. It turns out a
Speaker 1: duke with their NBA's and the list was either ordered
Speaker 1: by price or by quality. As you might guess, if
Speaker 1: it was sorted by price, people chose cheaper wines. Was
Speaker 1: sorted by quality, they would choose more expensive, better tasting wines.
Speaker 1: That's a case where choice sartor is influencing. People didn't
Speaker 1: think they were affected. Now imagine you go to the
Speaker 1: websites and you can actually click the sort. You can
Speaker 1: sort by price or served by quality. If you do
Speaker 1: that and you pick the same wine, you're fine. But
Speaker 1: if you look at that and you say, you know,
Speaker 1: I'd like the expensive Bordeaux in one site, or like
Speaker 1: the five buck truck in the other site. You know
Speaker 1: you're being influenced by the choice architecture. YEP, I know
Speaker 1: about myself. I feel like I'm very influenced by choice architecture.
Speaker 1: Like I've often said, like I don't want to watch
Speaker 1: commercials on TV, mainly because they're annoying and they're loud,
Speaker 1: but I also just recognize that I think they influenced
Speaker 1: me in ways that I'm just not aware of, or
Speaker 1: sometimes I am aware of, you know, you know, I
Speaker 1: think I'm somewhat easily influenced by that. So this book
Speaker 1: has been really interesting in getting me to think about
Speaker 1: even that very thing right there, Like you know what
Speaker 1: am I sorting on a recent example, as we as
Speaker 1: a podcast have had to make a decision about it's
Speaker 1: a good decision, but about what podcast network we want
Speaker 1: to be part of, and so we were fortunate enough
Speaker 1: to get a variety of offers and they were all
Speaker 1: good in different ways. What was helpful was we had
Speaker 1: decided ahead of time what our priority for the year was,
Speaker 1: and knowing that allowed me to look at each of
Speaker 1: those offers through that lens and look at them through
Speaker 1: that lens one became very clear, like that's the right
Speaker 1: one based on that lens. Now that's not the only
Speaker 1: lens to look at, but we had done the work
Speaker 1: ahead of time to think about what's our most important
Speaker 1: thing this year, and thus only we're able to evaluate
Speaker 1: decisions through that lens, right, And I would call that
Speaker 1: lens base. He's saying, what's the most important attributes and
Speaker 1: what are you willing to give up to get that?
Speaker 1: Or at what point would you switch? And I think
Speaker 1: that's wise advice, and it's trying to do that away
Speaker 1: from any specific choice, any specific representation, any specific design
Speaker 1: that makes it a better way of making decisions. You
Speaker 1: tell a story near the end of the book about
Speaker 1: a magician. Can you relate this? I think it's fascinating,
Speaker 1: maybe as a way of us getting near wrapping up here.
Speaker 1: Turns out i've seen him live. His name is Darren Brown.
Speaker 1: He's a British mentalist and if you don't know magic,
Speaker 1: are very impressed because he actually manages to pick the
Speaker 1: card that somebody uses. Now, it turns out I went
Speaker 1: with a friend of mine and she is a member
Speaker 1: of the Brotherhood of Magicians. Turn is out there as
Speaker 1: a society of professional magicians, and she was very unimpressed
Speaker 1: because she knew how the trick was done. So in general,
Speaker 1: I think if we know how choice architecture works, we
Speaker 1: tend to be less sensitive to it. So let me
Speaker 1: tell you about this trick. I didn't believe it was
Speaker 1: done this way until I started doing it in class.
Speaker 1: What Darren Brown does He walks in and says, I
Speaker 1: want you to pick a card, Imagine it, don't tell
Speaker 1: me what it is, and then he does a set
Speaker 1: of things to make you think about the card. He says,
Speaker 1: imagine the card as a screen. He holds up his
Speaker 1: fingers and it looks not quite like a screen untilted,
Speaker 1: so it's actually looks a little bit like a diamond.
Speaker 1: And then he says, imagine right and vivid in your mind.
Speaker 1: And what is more vivid? Black? Red, and the numbers
Speaker 1: are in the corner. And with his hands he draws
Speaker 1: a squiggle which happens to look like the number three,
Speaker 1: And by doing that, he's making more available to you
Speaker 1: red diamonds and three. And in class you can actually
Speaker 1: there are people who have done the video of that
Speaker 1: little demonstration with hand gestures and without the hand gestures
Speaker 1: and terms in class, I just have people look at
Speaker 1: one or the other, and they're much more like to
Speaker 1: have the three of diamonds when they see the gestures
Speaker 1: and the vividness prompt. Now, what's interesting about that is
Speaker 1: that means that Darren Brown is not a mind reader
Speaker 1: as much as he is a mind writer. He's having
Speaker 1: you think about certain things that you wouldn't have thought
Speaker 1: about otherwise. And I was totally aghast at this trick
Speaker 1: worked as well as it did. It's actually, uh lovely
Speaker 1: demonstration of how accessibility, what we comes to mind influences
Speaker 1: our choices. Now, how often do your students figure out
Speaker 1: how they were influenced because they've assumed they've learned a
Speaker 1: fair amount about choice, architecture, you're you're putting them through this.
Speaker 1: Are they able to see what was going on? More often?
Speaker 1: What makes all the difference in the world is whether
Speaker 1: they show them both films or just the one film.
Speaker 1: If they see the one and they see the difference
Speaker 1: as they go, oh, of course, but even I've seen
Speaker 1: that one of the scruggles they have some hint and
Speaker 1: the research let's look at this. They ask people, were
Speaker 1: you influenced by anything? And people will have guesses, but
Speaker 1: those guesses aren't related to the actual choice of the
Speaker 1: three of diamonds. I think you need to see both
Speaker 1: and then once you see the comparison, you go, ah,
Speaker 1: that's what did it. And in life, we don't go
Speaker 1: to a lot of different websites, they have a lot
Speaker 1: of defaults. We're not told how choice architecture, how designers work,
Speaker 1: so it's a lot harder than you'd like it to
Speaker 1: be to actually understand the influences of choice architecture. They're
Speaker 1: also just a nice way of doing it, which is
Speaker 1: look at different choice architectures and see if you make
Speaker 1: the same choice as we talked about earlier. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love that idea of a mind writer instead of a
Speaker 1: mind reader, because you know, the more you learn about
Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff, you realize so much of
Speaker 1: that is going on the way that you know we're
Speaker 1: influenced in a certain direction, or the way we're led
Speaker 1: via a series of questions to certain conclusion. Jans, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for coming on. You and I are
Speaker 1: going to talk for a couple of minutes in the
Speaker 1: post show conversation because we did not get to the
Speaker 1: one area that we wanted to talk about, which is
Speaker 1: how we might present better choices to the people in
Speaker 1: our lives. So we'll talk for a couple of minutes
Speaker 1: in the post show conversation about that. Listeners, if you
Speaker 1: would like to get access to the post show conversation
Speaker 1: as well as some ad free episodes and a special
Speaker 1: episode I do each week called Teaching Song and a
Speaker 1: poem that I love and get the joy of supporting
Speaker 1: the show, you can go to one you Feed dot
Speaker 1: net slash join. Thank you again, Eric so much for
Speaker 1: coming on. It's been a real pleasure to have you.
Speaker 1: It's been fun to do the Eric Show. I've enjoyed
Speaker 1: talking to you. If what you just heard was helpful
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