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.
12-02-2020
Suzanne Kirkendall, Consultant, BVA Nudge Consulting US
The BVA Nudge Consulting had the fantastic opportunity to spend two days at the Pharma Market Research Conference on Feb. 5-6 in Newark, NJ. There were several hundred attendees, over two dozen vendors, and a schedule packed with fascinating presentations. The BVA Nudge Consulting even got to present to an audience of almost 50 people on the topic “Designing Your First Nudge.” Participants fed back that this interactive session was a great way to end the conference, as it gave them a hands-on, workshop-style way to apply and consolidate two full days of learning.
We also got to attend many of the other talks and hear directly from the experts in their fields about the latest and greatest market research approaches and technology. From our behavioral science view, there were 3 key takeaways from PMRC:
“Behavioral Economics” is a buzzword – beware!
At least half-a-dozen of the presentations throughout the conference mentioned Behavioral Economics, and each seemed to define it differently. Some focused exclusively on cognitive biases, some on habit, and still others on broader behavioral science. As practitioners, we need to agree on a consistent definition for the sake of ourselves, our clients, and the science itself. For those looking to engage a practitioner, make sure you don’t take for granted that Behavioral Economics isn’t a universal concept – really drill down to make sure all parties are clear about the definition and what you can expect.
Big Data + AI – will the robots take over Behavioral Science, too?
Big Data and AI were inevitable topics of conversation when the opening keynote was given by Sachin Nanavati, from Google, to a room full of researchers and data enthusiasts. The question for us, which is still very open to debate, is: how will this technology impact Behavioral Science?
We think an interesting possibility is using natural language processing and other linguistic analyses to identify decision-making patterns in qualitative research, which can form the basis for whole new levels of psychological segmentation.
From a quantitative perspective, being able to identify if, and when, unconscious vs conscious decision-making is happening based on response times, consistency over time, and other hard measures is likely going to eventually become a standard offering. Together, this will give us the information we need to decide when it will be most effective to intervene, how to do so, and with whom.
How can market researchers Nudge for Good?
This was a common question – what is a consulting company doing at a market research conference? But in fact, there are 3 key ways that market researchers could benefit tremendously from incorporating behavioral science into their work.
The BVA Nudge Consulting is a consultancy that specializes in applying behavioral science to nudge effective behavior change. To learn more, please contact us at contact@bvanudgeconsulting.com and follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter.