'Diversification' in Behavioral Science: Why is it important?
- Silvia Cottone
- Sep 16, 2021
- 3 min read
Behavioral Science is a discipline that tries to understand people and their behaviors. However, we are not all the same, and we do not act in the same ways, depending on the culture or the context. Why is it important to take it into account? Let's see it in this article đ§
We are not all the same: 'Sample diversification'.
Who are the people participating in behavioral science research? According to the article 'The weirdest people in the world' [1], most of the studies on psychology and human behavior use samples of people from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic societies (WEIRD).
In this paper, it is stated that within the field of psychology, the sample comes mainly from countries such as North America or Europe; countries with only 12% of the world's population. That is, the behavioral science database is drawn from an extremely narrow segment of human diversity [2].
Well, we could have several questions:
How representative are the members of these societies of the entire world population?
How much can we generalize about humans, given that scientific knowledge on human psychology is largely based on the findings of this subpopulation?
Can we say that cognitive biases and heuristics are universal?
Although it is difficult to give a comprehensive answer, it is possible to affirm that people from different cultures or societies share basic cognitive or behavioral aspects. For example, it is universal that we have a limited attention span since we all have bounded rationality. However, there is insufficient evidence to say that particular biases, behaviors, or psychological phenomena are universal because the studies are conducted primarily with samples from this single subpopulation.
The mental shortcuts we take are connected to psychological processes that are affected by the cultural context in which we grew up, and culture affects our decision-making. This highlights the importance of including a more cultural perspective, studying biases in different societies and experimenting with different samples.
Key Takeaway
It is important to understand how psychological and behavioral phenomena can work differently in different cultures.
This will also affect the way people make decisions and consequently how we apply behavioral science to change behaviors.
We do not act in the same ways, depending on the culture or context: 'Context diversification'.
For a better understanding of human behaviors, we should not only consider experimenting with different samples from different cultures, as the paper suggests, but also design or adapt interventions in different contexts.
In relation to this idea, the Busara Center for Behavioral Economics conducted some studies to understand whether contextualization is key to measuring biases. What they argue is that contextually appropriate and relevant measures need to be used to conduct effective experiments [3].
For example, if we consider the decoy effect, they argue that it is not possible to ask people from small towns in Kenya to buy a magazine subscription for $ 135, as they earn less than $ 100 per month on average. In addition, in relation to another study on the representativeness heuristic, they discovered that adjusting the measures to the local context can produce gains in understanding and produce better quality findings [4].
Key Takeaway
The discipline can greatly benefit not only from experimentation with different samples, but also in different contexts.
This is very important when we want to understand how psychological phenomena change in different cultures.
What is the solution?
One of the solutions that can help achieve this is that, when designing interventions, Behavioral Science experts act as tailors.
This example was explained by Dilip Soman during his talk at the NOW! Fest. He argued that behaviors cannot be studied regardless of context.
(D. Soman's presentation at the NOW! Fest)
It is essential to consider the context in which the interventions are implemented. Instead, when we 'blindly' apply behavioral principles which have been tested with different samples and in different societies, we implement "ready-to-use solutions" that may not always work.
Designing as tailors means not only selecting some principles and applying them to designing interventions, but also experimenting in the context in which the solutions are implemented to measure their effectiveness.
This is not as easy as it sounds. In these circumstances, practitioners must consider the trade-off between what they know about the scientific gold standard (what should be done to conduct good experiments) and what is actually feasible (what can be done considering the limitations of the real scenario).
One of the potential ways to achieve this is the collaboration between universities and local Behavioral Science consulting agencies, which would contribute in reducing the gap between academics and practitioners. That is, carry out projects in collaboration with locals to obtain a deeper knowledge of cultural and social factors that can influence decision-making and people's behavior.
Key takeaway
If we understand that Behavioral Science can benefit from experimentation with different samples and in different contexts, we will have a deeper understanding of human behavior to design better behavior change solutions.
Silvia Cottone
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