BS Story
Imagine staying in line at [insert the place] and seeing a lady cutting in the line without any explanation. What are your thoughts? What are your words? Your actions?
If I have to read your mind, you want to punch that lady or at least say something mean.” Is not fair!”
Let’s say that you are calm (meditating or just being non-conflictual) and let her pass, moving far in the line. But because she did that (I didn’t tell you that she was old, so the assumption was that she was more entitled to do that even was no rule about special priority), something else happened.
Another fellow did the same way!
If you didn’t feel how your heart started beating faster, be sure that now you have become outraged.” It’s so unfair!” You want to scream.” How dear you? We are all equal here; we all stay in line! Get back here, you b***h!”
Yea, sure, you don’t swear and talk only roses.
It’s called the unfairness bias. We expect that the world is justice, but the world doesn’t care about our expectations.
” Perceptions of unfairness are associated with negative emotions and attitudes, (…) cynicism, and negative behaviors such as withdrawal and antisocial acts. The adverse effects of injustice are substantially stronger than the positive effects of fairness.”
This happened to me this morning—system 1 thinking in action. I had to override it and move my attention to something else, like the last video about Happiness by Huberman Lab. And I decided not to let anyone mess with my mood and said nothing.
Tips.
Change the frame when something similar happens, and move your attention to something else.
Make your life better.
The Haunted House by Weekly Habit is the place where you can find out about the four most common sludge that websites/apps use not to help users make better decisions for them.
Sludges or Dark Patterns are: “any change to someone’s behavioral environment causing difficulties in taking desired actions, or facilitating choices that are misaligned to the individual’s wellbeing and interests.”
Roach Motel
Anything that makes it easy to enter but hard to leave. Think of increasing implementation costs via friction.
For example, please consider how hard it can be to cancel a subscription.
Complexity of information
This technique makes it harder to find the information you seek to make the desired decision. AKA as a search cost. This can include choice overload.
Lack of Info Transparency
Anything that complicates sorting pros from cons by obscuring relevant info. AKA as evaluation costs.
Missing Empathy
A psychological cost. Anything promotes urgency, stress, helplessness, or shame, which can contribute to making a decision too fast or not.
© Nedwriter1
Here you have a video with sludges.
E.g., For Amazon, you must search a lot, and it takes many steps until you can delete your account! See if you find out yourself sludges from now on.
I remember Binance, where I still have an account and money invested, where they make pop-ups every time I want to change a setting. The type of pop-up where I must enter my phone number to receive a security code each time! Binance is one of the worst when talking about sludges.
The Hall of Shame. Here you can find many, e.g., dark patterns used by websites like Instagram, Amazon, LinkedIn, Adobe, and many more.
LinkedIn can trick you into sharing your contact information if you don’t pay attention.
Source: personal archive
Many years ago, when I wasn’t tech-savvy, I clicked this Sync button from my Social Media accounts. LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook. At some point, I wondered how I had these personal details on my phone. Facebook made all the contact details available to me… and mine to others.
I don’t have Facebook for years.
Biases
The Endowment Effect.
It is when we value an object we own more because of our emotions than its actual value. Think about all the items that you have in your house. Will you sell your favorite cup for $5? What about your grandmother’s gold ring? Your lucky bracelet?
In my second job (I work as a Behavioral Designer for startups and a Corporate Trainer), I observe C-level managers (more rational people, would you say? 😊) getting attached to their ideas.
If they are, we are too. This is one of the reasons that changing someone else minds with arguments is hard.
Watch a short video about the Endowment Effect.
In a long video (11 min), you can see Dan Ariely, one of the most known Behavioral Economists in the world, explaining the Endowment Effect and the Loss Aversion (another bias that influences human behavior; I will explain it in another Behavio Edition).
Tip:
Imagine you wouldn’t own that item. How much would you be willing to pay for it?
Inspiration from Behavioral Economics
Conformity Group Experiment. Do you think you wouldn’t turn your back to the elevator like everyone else? I’m not sure. 😊
See you the next time ;)