If a baseball and a bat cost $1.10 together, and the bat costs $1.00 more than the ball, how much does the ball cost?
Solution
5 cents. System 1 thinking often leads to mistakes in this type of problem.
A father and son are in a horrible car crash that kills the dad. The son is rushed to the hospital; just as he’s about to go under the knife, the surgeon says, “I can’t operate—that boy is my son!” How is that possible?
Solution
The surgeon is the boy’s mother. This puzzle illustrates the persistence of gender discrimination.
In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake?
Solution
47 days. To answer correctly, you need to ignore your system 1 and use your system 2.
Alan is smart, hard-working, impulsive, stubborn and jealous.
Ben is jealous, stubborn, impulsive, hard-working and smart.
Who should you hire?
Solution
They are the same, but a priming effect often make people prefer the first candidate.
13-12-2020
In his book The Behaviour Business, our BVA Nudge Consulting colleague Richard Chataway highlights the importance of “test tube behaviors.” By this, he means that companies need to adopt a test-and-learn culture, in which they are continually introducing new ideas and learning from the actual behavior of their customers. To illustrate this point, he shares examples from Google, Amazon and Netflix, illustrating how these leading companies of 21st Century are applying behavioral science – and an ongoing commitment to experimentation, testing and data-driven decisions – to optimize services and encourage/influence specific customer behaviors.
Adopting a test-and-learn mentality and a data-driven culture is also critical from a more practical standpoint: Companies need to quickly gauge the impact of new ideas and interventions, in order to project their return on investment (ROI) and justify investments in rollouts. Without this process in place, many promising ideas and “nudges” will never be introduced.
Yet examples from the tech giants can only take us so far. That’s because these organizations have built-in advantages, as they are fully digital businesses with access to millions of customers. Thus, it is relatively easy for them to run continual A/B tests (on different home pages, offers and wording) and generate data in real-time.
But what about businesses in other sectors, such as Consumer Goods, Transport, Hospitality or Financial Services, which are running their businesses largely in physical environments?
Related: Introducing test tube behaviours – the mindset | Part 1
Of course, there’s not a single answer, as businesses that are both physical and digital require a toolkit of test and learn approaches. But from our experience, we can offer several guiding principles:
Consider the nature of the intervention itself
Digital interventions (such as texts, apps, messaging, etc.) are perhaps the simplest to consider, as they can often be A/B tested, either “live” or through controlled online studies.
Physical interventions, which will appear in stores, homes or other environments, can be more challenging, yet there are several approaches to consider:
The commonality across these approaches is that we are simulating or introducing a new situation – and documenting its impact on behavior. We are watching and recording what people actually do, rather than relying on what they say or claim.
Calibrate the rigor to the risk involved
In the academic world, where most Behavioral Science learning is rooted, the primary objective is to learn and determine causality. Therefore, its critical to isolate variables and document statistical significance, via randomized control trials (RCTs). But in the business world, where the goal is typically to guide a decision and/or to justify an investment – and cost/timing are always considerations – this level of rigor isn’t always necessary or advisable. In fact, the beauty of many nudges is that they are inexpensive to develop and execute. They don’t represent enormous investments nor risks – and thus, it doesn’t make sense to spend time and money testing them, nor to isolate the impact of each individual intervention. In these low-risk scenarios, we may recommend introducing combinations of nudges, launching them (via pilots or A/B tests) – and learning/adjusting from this real-world experience/feedback.
For example, through a series of “nudges” and A/B tests, we were able to increase the conversion rate at a non-profit web site from 2% to 24%.
Build “test-and-learn” thinking into the ideation and screening process
While businesses can (and should) be pragmatic in their approach, they should also be systematic in their processes. This means incorporating testing plans into their behavioral science initiatives from the start. This is not only a question of project planning, timing and budgeting, but also of how new ideas/interventions are developed and screened.
When creating nudges, there’s a need to outline how they will be tested, piloted and measured. In fact, this next step should be a criterion in evaluating a wide range of ideas – and selecting those in which to prioritize and invest further resources. After all, it makes no sense to invest time and energy in developing interventions, without a plan for documenting their potential impact – and justifying their introduction.
Related: Introducing test tube behaviours – the methods | Part 2
“Test Tube Behaviors” Make Behavioral Science Actionable
When most organizations think of behavioral science, they focus on the excitement of identifying new interventions, rooted in human heuristics. But adopting “test tube behaviors” – a commitment to experimentation and continually learning from customer behavior – is an equally important part of the equation. And while not all companies can be Google, Amazon or Netflix, they can adopt this mentality and apply it pragmatically, adopted to their own reality. In doing so, they will help ensure that the insights of behavioral science translate into successful interventions – and don’t “die on the vine” due to a lack of evidence or proof to support their introduction.
This article was written by Scott Young (scott.young@bva-group.com), Senior Vice President of the BVA Group, and Ted Utoft (Ted.Utoft@bvanudgeconsulting.com), Vice President of the BVA Nudge Consulting globally.