This is the second in a 12 part blog series, where I review CXL Institute’s ‘Digital Psychology and Persuasion’ Minidegree. Each week I share my learnings and opinions on the courses taken and take you along my journey. Today we will explore two new courses I took this week: i) Decision Making and Emotions, and ii) Learning and Memory. We will build an understanding on customer behavior and what drives them to make a decision.
Decisions, Decisions, Everywhere
As an adult we make decisions everyday. Some decisions seem important, whereas others might seem trivial. So how many such decisions do we make every day? A study from Cornell found that we make about 227 decisions every day, just about food! When extrapolated, this would mean that we make about 1 million decisions per month! That’s a whole lot of decision-making for one individual, and these decisions are essentially what guides an individual’s actions.
The ability to understand these decision making processes becomes a potent tool to strategize towards favorable customer behavior. This helps us to think and answer questions like:
- What decisions do we want a customer to make?
- How can we reduce the amount of energy required to make a decision?
- When is the customer most likely to make a favorable decision?
Our Brain is a Dual Processing Unit
Bart Schutz, at CXL Live 2016, gave a talk on ‘Persuasive Journey Mapping’. He is a consumer psychologist and one of the few international leading voices on online persuasion and consumer behavior. He discussed the concept of BIG.
Behavioral Intelligence Gap
This is the gap between the behavioral experiments we conduct on customers and our understanding of their behavior. Catch this fascinating and informative session by Bart below:
To interpret user behavior and how we can persuade it to our advantage, we must get a better understanding of the functioning of the brain. Our brain can be thought of as a dual processing unit, comprising of the following two systems:
| System 1 | System 2 |
| Subconscious, emotional brain | Conscious, rational brain |
System 1
This is the fully automated and emotional part of the brain and is always working. It is characterized by its associative and relative nature. Therefore, implicit/indirect associations can also invoke a desired response.
System 2
This is the voluntary part of the brain which gives us awareness, the power of imagination and logical reasoning by projecting itself in the future. However, system 2 is not always involved as it prefers to remain absent but when it is present, it needs complete focus and can deal with only a limited amount of information.
What actually drives our decisions?
We like to believe that we are guided by rationale while making a decision. But that can’t be farther from the truth. What’s causing this illusion is the fact that we post-decision rationalize. We come with rationales and reasons after we have already taken the decision. The System 2 is constantly trying to come up with the best logics to explain our decision. They are not the logics that caused the decision but are just a way to comfort ourselves that we are a rational being.
Therefore, when testing for conversions, both these systems must be kept in mind. System 1 is always at work; whereas, system 2 shows up every now and then. So our tasks are:
- To find out when System 2 is at work
- And, when and which system of the two is persuaded with what arguments
Master the Moment of Decision
At the moment of every decision the following factors must align:
It must grab your Attention, it must draw an Emotional Response from you and it needs to be loaded in your Memory.
Attention
How we actually see the world in front of us is a lot different than the visuals we are currently processing. Our brain only focuses on a certain subject in front of us, and the rest of the frame is blurry and not in color. The brain fills up the rest of the periphery from memory.
Similarly when a user visits a website, they only see a fraction of what is on the screen. It is our job to strategically draw attention where it is required and use visual cues to guide the website visitor.
Emotions and Feelings
Emotions are unconscious, a low level response and feelings are conscious. As the low level emotional response begins to rise and as you begin to become conscious of it, it becomes a feeling.
As has been discussed earlier, the decision making power largely lies with System 1, the emotional part of the brain. Drawing an emotional response is the key to influencing a favorable decision from the customer.
Memory
And finally, it must evoke a positive memory. Past experiences can impact future decision making.
Studies have shown that when something positive results from a decision, people are more likely to decide in a similar way, given a similar situation.
Psychology of Learning
Let’s explore some unique learning processes:
- Classical Conditioning: This is a process in which an association is formed between a previously neutral stimulus and a stimulus that naturally evokes a response.
- Operant Conditioning: This process attempts to modify behavior through the use of positive and negative reinforcement. For example, by rewarding or punishing a kid for some behavior, or by rewarding customer with loyalty programs.
- Observational Learning: Learning occurs through observing and imitating others. Requires: attention (degree to which the observer notices the behavior), retention (forms memory of the behavior), reproduction (ability to imitate the behavior), motivation (perceived rewards must outweigh perceived costs).
Psychology of Memory
Three major processes involved in memory:
- Encoding: This is how information is changed into a usable form.
- Storage: Once the information has been encoded it is stored in memory for later use.
- Retrieval: Stored memory is brought into consciousness when it is to be used.
How to apply this to online marketing?
When users visit a site, the information on the web page must be dispensed in such a form that it is easy to process and acquire. The effectiveness of these marketing strategies can later be understood by testing how well the users were able to retrieve that information from their memory.
With all the access to this new knowledge on behavioral psychology of customers, there is a new gap that is emerging. The gap between your knowledge about customers’ behavior and the customers’ knowledge, where they still believe they are in control. Therefore, the ethical thing would be to openly share this ever evolving knowledge of user behavior with everyone.
Next week, I will further discuss my learnings and opinions from the next few courses I take in the Minidegree. To stay updated with my weekly blogs and explore the ‘Digital Psychology and Persuasion’ Minidegree with me, subscribe to my blog.
Until then, explore the various programs offered by CXL, by clicking on the link below: