BS Story
Here’s some friendly advice. I had to suffer a lot to come to this conclusion.
Let the doors open. Don’t close them in anger.
Breakups, dismissals, resignations, ghosting, betrayal, etc.
I know. You want revenge, to show that person…
But what’s the point of that? Does it change your current situation? Does it bring added value to your life?
Often, it doesn’t.
You think that you make the other person suffer. Maybe. Maybe not.
But you suffer in the process. Don’t you have enough suffering already?
Don’t worry. Life has a way of getting to people who harm others.
As again, I learn this the hard way.
One day, as many things in our life (good or bad) wouldn’t matter anyway.
Tips:
Hold still until then.
Make your life better
Studies show that we retain things more quickly if we invest time and energy in planning them. The information stays in our memory for longer.
In addition to this trick, which you can use at any time, you need cues.
Combining these two tricks increases your chances of doing what you set out to do and carrying out your intentions.
Triggers can sound like this: "when X happens, I will do Y.”
Random nudges to becoming much wiser
If you want your employees to return to the office faster, reduce the paperwork/files waiting for them to deal with. One study showed that the rate of on-time return to work increased by 27%.
My add: Do this when you want to convince someone to start something; reduce their workload and make it easy to make the first step.
If you want people to pay their taxes on time, send them reminders a few days in advance (or to companies).
My add: do this in other contexts because people forget. Remind them.
The "automatic enrollment" plan helps employees save for retirement. In principle, the most vulnerable benefit from this because the educated tend to choose proactively, although a nudge is helpful to them too.
My add: Automatic Enroll (Opt-out) people that could benefit from something that was changed or implemented, like a new course, software, gathering, etc. Explain to people how they could benefit from it.
Source: centerfinplan.com
If you want people to use less electricity, show them their neighbors’ consumption (if the average consumption is lower). Cialdini has shown that this nudge works because it appeals to social norms.
My add: if you are a product manager, you know how important it is to show people progress and, when the situation requires, to show their progress compared with their peers.
Source: macadamian.com
Biases
Anchoring Bias
The anchoring effect is a cognitive bias whereby an individual's decisions are influenced by a particular reference point or 'anchor.’ (Wikipedia)
What does it mean?
We tend to evaluate a price compared with another number (not necessarily the cost of the same item).
First, e.g., Have you bought a discounted item recently? Black Friday?
We judge the price of a t-shirt as being a good deal if we $10 reduced it from $25 (the anchor price).
We can also be convinced to buy the t-shirt for $10 if we were anchored by a random number we recently discussed with a friend or saw in a paper, like $78.
Another way to anchor someone is when you ask:
a) How many countries are in the world? More or less than 50?
b) How many countries are in the world? More or less than 500?
The answer would differ based on your anchor number (50 or 500).
The third, eg. The Cocktail
You are going to a bar and see a cocktail priced at $52. You think it’s outrageous!
What about one for $30? Would you buy it? Compared with the first, e.g., it’s cheaper.
But if the vice versa would happen, like seeing a $12 cocktail for the first time and then another for $30, the second one would be less appealing.
Tips:
Be aware of numbers when you negotiate a salary, buy a discounted item or look for prices of a house. You know you can be anchored by a number you set as a point of reference and sabotage yourself when buying and negotiating.
Take a look at this explaining video about the Anchoring Effect:
Inspiration from Behavioral Economics
Stanford Prison Experiment
Do people behave differently when you assign them a unique role?
In 1971, Philip Zimbardo set an experiment in the basement of Stanford University. He recruits college students to play two roles: prisoner and prison guard. The experiment was planned for two weeks but ended in… six days with so much harm done.
Zimbardo wanted to see if the personality traits of the prisoners and prison guards influence abusive behavior in prisons.
Why did the experiment stop? Because the "prison guards" started to harass the" prisoners." The prisoners retaliate. The students forgot what there their role was and integrated the role that was given to them.
Do you think of an e.g. of when people start acting weird based on the label that someone put on them?
Conclusion of the experiment
"According to Zimbardo and his colleagues, the Stanford Prison Experiment revealed how people will readily conform to the social roles they are expected to play, especially if the roles are as strongly stereotyped as those of the prison guards. Because the guards were placed in a position of authority, they began to act in ways they would not usually behave in their normal lives." (Simply Psychology)
Do you think you could act differently? Remember the last time when someone (a person or a group) named you? Mostly, this happens in childhood. You can easily forget your manners and start retaliating.
This experiment (and many others I will post here in future editions) shows that we don’t know ourselves very well.
Extraordinary Inspiration
(unique for you! ✨)
One of the people that I admire the most is Richard Feynman. He was a theoretical physicist and received the Nobel Prize in 1965 for his contribution to the development of quantum electrodynamics.
More than that, he was full of life and had crazy ideas and experiments. I heard dr. Andrew Huberman spoke about him many times.
* He experimented with art: drumming, painting, dancing
* He experimented with social life: constantly testing and improving his methods
* He had much fun playing pranks on others
* He was persistent in solving complex problems
* Exposed himself to many different contexts
* Had fun with foreign languages or learned them when appropriate (Portuguese, Japanese, Italian)
* Had a perfect sense of humor
* He has some books that make you laugh with tears in your eyes. I couldn't say that about many books.
Watch here a short video to understand how unique and special it was:
If this convinced you, here you have the entire video, one of the rarest.
See you the next time ;)