Behavioral Grooves Podcast

Grooving on Priming: How Your Socks Influence Your Behavior

Priming is a technique whereby exposure to one stimulus influences a response to a subsequent stimulus without conscious guidance or intention. In other words, it’s a subconscious influence on our behavior. And it’s powerful.

In this grooving session, Kurt and Tim discuss the power of priming and how the socks you wear can influence your day. We discussed how replicability of many studies has been a challenge for several research projects; however, the effects of priming are no less robust.

We talked about the amazing research that Gary Latham, PhD and his colleagues conducted on how a watermark on a tip sheet had dramatic effects on the results achieved. Amazing stuff.

CONTEST ALERT! If you’d like a free pair of Einstein “Today I am smart!” priming socks, share this episode on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook with: #IWANTSOCKS. We’ll pick randomly to identify 3 winners and we’ll be in touch by the end of the September.

Behavioral Grooves 

Grooving on Goals: The Magic of Goals

Goals are as common and as misunderstood as mobile phones. We think we know how to use them, but we don’t get it right every time. And if we were asked to explain how they work, we’d be clueless.

In this grooving session, Kurt and Tim discuss the magic of goals and how to best utilize them. We discuss some goal-setting studies – both published and unpublished – and some fundamental reasons why goals are important. We also get into some complementary research on the illusionary progress to goal and the goal gradient theory, both linked to the work of Ran Kivetz, from Columbia University. It’s a quick discussion of some important applications of how to make goals work better for YOU!

CONTEST ALERT! And as a special thank-you, we’re going to select a single listener to be our special guest on a future podcast. To let us know you’re interested in being our special guest, use #IWANTTOBEYOURSPECIALGUEST when you forward this episode on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook and we’ll select a winner by the end of September. We want YOU to be our special guest to hear YOUR questions about behavioral sciences.

Behavioral Grooves 

Ruchir Sehra on The Behavioral Effects of Sleep

Ruchir Sehra is an entrepreneur, cardio physiologist, MBA and a curious and caring human being. Our interview with Ruchir was set in the discussion of Resonea, Inc’s new product, Drowzle. This phone-based app analyzes sleep patterns in the comfort of their own homes, without electrodes and invasive cameras – just a microphone.

 

We found this behavioral approach very interesting and our conversation reflected it. We discussed the behavioral effects of current sleep technology and how making a cpap machine look more like a Darth Vader mask might increase usage because it had some style!

 

Sadly, sleep apnea is a hub disease for a variety of conditions including obesity and erectile dysfunction and the behavioral implications include poor job performance, absenteeism, ineffective decision making and hazardous driving, among others. Ruchir is focused on helping people with sleep apnea whether they know it or not.  It’s difficult to be an engaged employee if you’re tired all day.

 

Our discussion with Ruchir offers enlightening ideas on how to solve behavioral challenges with a good night’s sleep or some time on the didgeridoo.

Facial Muscles Speak Louder Than Words with author Dan Hill

Dan Hill, PhD, researcher, author and founder of Sensory Logic, shares his wit, wisdom and insights into behavioral sciences in our interview. Dan's work is in facial coding - a diagnostic methodology that connects emotions to the expressions of the 42 facial muscles. It is a fascinating field and might cause you to think about what you're saying with your face, not just your words.

Our conversation flowed from Rembrandt to the Minnesota Timberwolves to Haiku to Happiness ("Happiness makes up in height what it lacks in length," according to Woody Allen.) We also discussed how emotions are undervalued in corporations today and how effectively we detect genuine, or disingenuous, emotions in other people's faces. Charles Darwin believed. as Dan noted, that emotions are critical to human survival, otherwise they would have been weeded out through evolution. 

Dan has authored 6 books and has two new titles releasing on September 12, 2018. We talked a bit about one of the new books, Famous Faces Decoded, as it is ripe with musical references. We recommend it for good entertainment and good science. 

April Seifert on Digital Exhaust Analysis and Gender Stereotyping

April Seifert, PhD considers herself a multi-passionate person. In this episode, our conversation with her covered skydiving, motherhood, data nerdery, implicit bias assessments, gender stereotyping and, of course, digital exhaust analysis. April's dissertation was on gender stereotyping which is what we spent most of our time on, between references to the Millennial Falcon. April offered two key ways we deal with the out-of-context or contradictory stereotype images: 1. We adjust our stereotype to include this new image (which is rare because it's hard) or 2. We claim the image is an exception to the rule. By gum, we humans are fascinating beings! We also talked about some of April's favorite books including Carol Dweck's seminal work Mindset, Martin Seligman's work on positive psychology and Tara Mohr's exciting book, Playing Big. We discussed music and it's important contribution to priming and got into power-woman bands including No Doubt, headed up by Gwen Stefani, and a Scottish synth-pop band named Churches.

We hope you enjoy our conversation with April Seifert - that's "SI-fert" - on all the topics we covered. And please note, this discussion contains language you might not want your kids to hear. 

Grooving on Self Identity

In this episode on the mysterious world of self-identity and self-schema, we offer 4 tips on how you make the most of your self-identity. 1. Fake it 'till you make it.  2. Insure your self talk is positive and future focused.  3. Create small wins and acknowledge your progress.  4. Get a partner to help keep you on track. 

Grooving Sessions are for Kurt and Tim converse about topics that are near and dear to their hearts. Grooving sessions make for short listening and we focus on practical take-aways.

 

Grooving on Cash vs. Non-Cash

Kurt and Tim have experience in designing and implementing rewards programs for sales reps, channel partners and loyal customers as well as corporate recognition programs. In this episode, we discuss the not-so-intuitive value of non-cash rewards for a variety of reasons. We serve up research from Dan Ariely, James Heyman, Scott Jeffrey, Ran Kivetz and Richard Thaler. If you have doubts, listen in! If you are a believer but need more cognitive ammunition for your boss, listen in! And if you have stories you'd like to share, drop us a line at www.behavioralgrooves.com. 

Grooving on Applying Behavioral Sciences at Your Office

Kurt and Tim have decades of experience applying BS (behavioral sciences) in corporate environments (and non-profits) and this episode walks through some tips that YOU can use to apply BS (behavioral sciences) to your workspace. We talk about sales incentives, employee recognition and general ways to get the BS (behavioral science) stuff going at your company. We outline some best practices: the need to start with a business problem, how to convince your boss (and your boss' boss), start small by creating a pilot, measure what is meaningful, and live with the results.  If you have stories to share or questions you would like answered, fill in the form at www.behavioralgrooves.com or drop us a note in your review and we'll plan a follow-up podcast to share. 

The Teaspoon Hustle - Part 2 with Rob Burnett

This podcast is Part 2 of a 2-part podcast. Our interview with Rob Burnet, founder of Well Told Story in Nairobi, Kenya went so well and so long that we decided to break it into two separate podcasts.

Part 2 begins with a Seth Godin story and gets into sociologist James Coleman’s working model of how social change occurs. Often referred to as Coleman’s Boat, Rob brought it up as a way to recognize the power of every individual’s behavior on social change.

Rob also detailed some research projects he’s embarked on with Tulane University and Cambridge University and how they’re gathering data from social media posts to measure the change in teenage attitudes toward (unprotected) sex.  We expand the story of the Teaspoon Hustle and discovered that Scotsman living in Nairobi for 25 years still loves The Blues Brothers!

Thanks to Well Told Story for giving us permission to use "The Hustler" theme music from Shujazz!

The Teaspoon Hustle - Part 1 with Rob Burnett

This podcast is Part 1 of a 2-part podcast. Our interview with Rob Burnet, founder of Well Told Story in Nairobi, Kenya went so well and so long that we decided to break it into two separate podcasts.

In this episode, Part 1, we tee up the work that Rob did with the Ford Foundation and leading into the creation of Shujazz, the Nairobi-based graphic novel (or comic book). Shujazz means 'hero' in Sheng, the slang spoken by Kenyan youth. Rob shared the challenges he and his team faced in creating ways to improve the lives of the largely disenfranchised population of teenagers in a country where poverty and corruption run high. Shujazz – the hero – was their mythical creation to inspire healthier living. It’s a wonderful story and we end Part 1 of our podcast with the true tale of Winnie, a teenager hustling her own path to becoming bulletproof – a term used to signify she’s practicing safe sex and has a foot firmly planted on the ladder of success.

There is no musical grooving session at the end of Part 1 as we end with "The Hustler" theme music from Shujazz!