Stickiness, theLocked Door, and

Monkey See, Monkey Do

The Locked Door: The Secret Life of Snap DecisionsPrimed for Action & Scrambled Sentences:(1) aggressively, bold, rude, bother, disturb

intrude, infringe

(2) respect, considerate, appreciate, patiently,

yield, polite, courteous

Steel & Aronson’s “Stereotype Threat”Race identification and educational performance

The “Stickiness” FactorSesame Street as an “educational virus” that triggered a

learning epidemic

The “stickiness” of a message is a measure of how memorable it is.

e.g., Yale University tetanus shot experiment and the “clutter problem”

e.g., UR’s 2005 “be careful when walking” email after it snowed

“Stickiness” Factor & Sesame Street• Kids don’t watch t.v. when they are stimulated and look

away when they’re bored. They watch when they _________ and they look away when they’re __________.

• Sesame Street’s innovative blend of Muppets and adults grew out of a desperate desire to be sticky.

• each show’s “success” was based on eye-tracking research

“Stickiness”Blue’s Clues

How are “Sesame Street” and “Blue’s Clues” different?

The Wisdom of Crowds: Independence“finding the party” on Friday

and Saturday nights and the

“herds” of UR students

wandering around campus in

something of a “circular mill”

“herding” and NFL coaches’ 4th down decisions

“imitation” and “social proof”

e.g., Milgram’s “staring into the empty sky” experiment

crowd sizes and responses ( 1 person = tiny fraction of public)

( 5 persons = 4 times as many)

(15 persons = 45% stopped and stared)

(20 persons = 80% stopped and stared)

The Wisdom of Crowds: Independence“information cascades” (aggregate information like the Stock Market or casinos or voting systems)

e.g., plank roads (8 vs. 4 years durability)e.g., telecoms and 1,000% annual growth

good information cascades

e.g., the humble screw

Collective decisions are most likely to be good ones when they’re made by people with diverse opinions reaching independent, non-sequential conclusions, relying primarily on their own private information.

Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink” and Thin SlicingOur brain uses two very different strategies to make sense of many situations and

to process the extraordinary amount of data we are

constantly processing: (1) conscious and (2) unconscious

The latter operates entirely below the surface of consciousness.

“Fast and Frugal”: you often know something and respond

accordingly before you fully understand and can explain it

Speed-Dating, the Storytelling Problem, and Group Decision-Making

Task: (1.) break into teams

of 2 students

(2.) come up with 1 question that you would want to ask everyone you met in a speed-dating scenario

(3.) vote as a class (“crowd”) on the 4 favorite questions

(4.) try to come up with reasons for your preferences-votes