An Interesting Conversation with a Behavioral Scientist (Decoded!)

I was listening to the FM radio while driving some months ago and the host of the show was having an interesting conversation with a behavioral scientist who operates http://www.brief-case.co/.

Some parts of the conversation as recollected by me (probably well known!)

• Food
• Small radii plate makes you eat less (understand the human tendency is to fill a plate - especially buffet!)
• Greater contrast between the plate and food makes you -see- food and hence eat less (dark blue plate is the best!)
• Red color increase appetite (McDonalds, KFC example)

• Travel
• He just gave up on Mumbai local train travel
•  More dust bin, better lighted could lead to Swaach Bharat! (experiments in Finland - footsteps marks leading to brightly lit dust bins increased its usage by 43%)
• Traffic signals a poorly designed (you see more than 1 signal and hence people do not think about stopping before the zebra line)

• Education is not to do with human behavior

• Retail
• Prime space in retail store is 30 deg below the eye level
• Suggest to fill your stomach and then head to super market (leads to buying less junk!)

• Work
• Round table increases (everyone facing the other) collaboration and everyone works for common goals (no personal agenda)

• Social Media
• More likely you will "like" something that has  "many likes"
• Human tends to go where there are more people (we see this all the time - the classic case is in airports departures!)
• More recently during our visit to Shiveneri Fort! (There was this pond that was not attractive - no one was paying attention, when one person went to show his son the tadpoles, slowly but surely the crowd built up!)

• apparently brushing teeth every day was not a habit - someone made sure it was made a habit (sale of brush and paste!)

• http://www.behaviouraldesign.com/2016/09/06/know-the-basics-of-creating-habits/ has more details

• http://www.behaviouraldesign.com/2016/08/31/how-reframing-choices-changes-our-decision/ (this is eye opener!)