City University.
April Vellacott
April has been studying the field of human behaviour for nearly a decade, and holds degrees in Psychology and Behaviour Change. She is a behavioural consultant at Cowry Consulting, where she helps global clients to apply behavioural science in their organisations.
Glossary
affect – Our emotions, known in behavioural science as affective states, can have profound effects on our behaviour.
ambiguity aversion – We have a preference for risks that are associated with known probabilities over those with unknown probabilities, and we tend to avoid decisions where the choices and commitments are ambiguous.
anchoring – Once we’ve been exposed to one piece of information (the anchor), it influences our subsequent judgments.
availability heuristic – Our probability judgments are affected by the ease with which we can recall examples from memory.
authority bias – We’re influenced by cues of authority and we’re more likely to trust the guidance of those who are authorities in their field, such as doctors or lawyers.
broken windows theory – Small examples of lawlessness encourage more law-breaking behaviour.
choice architecture – Altering and influencing people’s decision-making context.
chunking – The process of grouping many pieces of information into smaller chunks to make it easier to process.
cognitive dissonance – The uncomfortable mental feeling of holding two conflicting beliefs at the same time.
cognitive miser – Just as a miser is stingy with money, our minds are inherently lazy and prefer to avoid expending cognitive energy.
cognitive overload – When our working memory is overloaded with too much information.
commitment bias – Once we’ve made a commitment to do something, even if it’s small, we’re then more likely to continue investing in it.
conformity – In social groups, we have a tendency to conform towards the behaviour of the majority; see also social proof.
confounding variables – These are the factors which have hidden effects on the outcome of an experiment.
consistency bias – We like to see our current behaviour as consistent with our previous behaviour and we are motivated to behave in ways which maintain this consistency.
default bias – We prefer to stick with the default option and go with the flow, as this requires less cognitive effort; see also status quo bias.
ecological valence theory – Our colour preferences are influenced by our previous emotional associations.
effort heuristic – We associate the amount of effort taken to make something with its quality.
ego/superiority bias – We like to behave in ways that make us feel good about ourselves.
embodied cognition – Our bodies and their sensory inputs influence our mental state.
empathy gap – We underestimate the influence of emotions and urges on our future decisions and on other people’s decisions.
endowment – We value the things we own more than things we don’t.
facial mimicry – When we see another person smile, we simulate the smile in the form of a micro-expression.
frame dependence – Our choices are affected by context and their relation to available comparisons.
Hawthorne effect – Research participants behave differently if they know they’re being watched.
hot/cold affective states – We underestimate the extent to which our behaviour and decisions depend on our mood; see also empathy gap.
incentives – Things which are used to motivate behaviour; these can be financial, but are more broadly defined as the benefits or costs of a given behaviour.
joint attention – From infancy, we have the inclination to follow people’s eye gaze.
loss aversion – We feel the impact of losses twice as much as equivalent gains.
mere exposure effect – The more familiar we are with things, the more we like them.
messenger effect – When evaluating a piece of information, we are significantly influenced by its messenger.
optimism bias – We tend to think we’re more likely to experience positive events in the future and underestimate the chance of negative events.
p-hacking – The practice of manipulating a data set in order to acquire a specific p-value.
p-value – The level of significance of your statistical analysis. A small p-value indicates that there is a low probability you got the results of your experiment by chance, so a small p-value means you can trust your results.
picture superiority – Our brains process images in just 13 milliseconds compared to the 300 milliseconds it takes to read a word, and up to 400ms to understand what that word means. Therefore, images are an efficient way to communicate information.
power of because – When people provide us with a reason for a request, we tend to automatically comply, even when the reason is specious.
power of free – Zero is a special number when it comes to price and we are irrationally drawn towards things which are free.
pratfall effect – People come across as more likeable once they’ve made a small mistake.
present bias – We are impatient and biased towards decisions that give us instant gratification, rather than ones with delayed gratification.
primacy effect – We find it easier to remember the beginning of a list, rather than the middle. The beginning of an experience can shape peoples’ overall impression of it.
priming – Our decisions can be subconsciously influenced by environmental cues.
realistic conflict theory – A psychological model of conflict between groups. Hostility between groups comes from competition for scarce resources.
recency effect – We find recent information easier to remember.
reciprocity – We are social animals and form networks of trust by making reciprocal commitments to each other. When we are given small gifts or tokens, we are motivated to rebalance this debt.
relativity bias – We make perceptual judgments relative to their surroundings.
salience – We pay more attention to things that are salient and those to which our eyes are drawn.
scarcity – We value objects and resources that are scarce more than those in abundance.
serial-position effects – We find it easiest to recall things which come at the beginning
