00:00:02
we're here today with Wharton marketing
00:00:03
Professor giddy n to talk about some of
00:00:05
his latest research giddy thanks for
00:00:06
being here hi Rachel nice being here too
00:00:09
and so first of all could you just give
00:00:10
us a brief overview of your research
00:00:12
what you were trying to what question
00:00:13
you were trying to ask yeah well I came
00:00:15
to work on from a neuroscience
00:00:17
department and uh my work is mostly
00:00:20
focused on the biological basis of how
00:00:23
people make decisions uh we all know
00:00:25
that the way we make decisions is
00:00:28
influenced by our biological state
00:00:30
things like hunger sleep deprivation and
00:00:32
stress influence the process of
00:00:35
decision- making and I'm trying to study
00:00:37
this in a rigorous way using lab
00:00:39
experiments and uh some biological data
00:00:43
and what have been some of the key
00:00:44
takeaways from your research well one of
00:00:47
the things I study is hormones and how
00:00:49
hormones influence decision- making we
00:00:51
all know that there are many situations
00:00:53
in which different hormones fluctuate in
00:00:55
our body H stress is a good example uh
00:00:59
we all have a very uh clearly measurable
00:01:02
biological stress response that uh
00:01:05
consists of elevation of several
00:01:07
hormones in our body like neur
00:01:08
adrenaline and
00:01:09
cortisol H one of the things that I am
00:01:12
studying is how cortisol specifically
00:01:15
affect decision making and we do it by
00:01:17
pharmacologically administering this
00:01:19
hormone to people under a double blind
00:01:21
and Placebo controlled protocol H what's
00:01:24
interesting is that giving cortisol to
00:01:26
people is not stressing them out
00:01:28
cortisol is actually a TR response it's
00:01:30
something that make people more relaxed
00:01:33
H but the interesting thing that we find
00:01:35
is that even though people are not even
00:01:37
aware at the fact that they received
00:01:38
cortisol we see very clear behavioral
00:01:41
effects of this drug on how people make
00:01:44
decisions one thing specifically that we
00:01:47
take a look at is the tradeoff between
00:01:49
people's accuracy and speed when making
00:01:52
the decisions uh we have this uh
00:01:55
Paradigm called the cognitive reflection
00:01:57
test I don't know if you heard about it
00:01:59
but I can Give an example using one
00:02:01
question that'd be great you're going to
00:02:03
try to answer it but okay I can do that
00:02:05
all right so there is a bet and a ball
00:02:08
like a baseball bet and a ball and
00:02:09
together they cost
00:02:11
A110 so far we're good y yeah now the
00:02:15
BET costs a dollar more than the
00:02:17
bow right and again together they're
00:02:20
$110 now what's the price of the
00:02:23
bow 10 cents okay so you just gave me
00:02:27
your intuitive answer which is the in
00:02:30
answer of most people so if the ball is
00:02:32
10 cents and the bet is $1 more that
00:02:34
means that the bet is a do and 10 cents
00:02:36
so together there will be
00:02:38
a120 so the correct answer that you will
00:02:41
have to check yourself and get into some
00:02:44
more I'd say deliberate calculations is
00:02:47
$5 five cents and a
00:02:50
do5 what we see is that when you give
00:02:52
cortisol to people they're more likely
00:02:54
to do what you just did and say 10 cents
00:02:57
and not deliberate and think it's
00:02:59
through even even though they have some
00:03:00
incentives to really think it through
00:03:02
and they get paid for being correct
00:03:04
they're just giving their gut answer
00:03:06
faster as if they're in kind of time
00:03:09
pressure they're more likely to rely on
00:03:11
this incorrect but uh simple euristic in
00:03:15
the decision making process so I'm using
00:03:17
this
00:03:18
task uh many times uh I find it quite
00:03:22
interesting to study we have other
00:03:24
studies where I give testosterone to
00:03:26
people testosterone again is a hormone
00:03:28
that is involved in instinctive
00:03:30
behaviors in animals such as intale
00:03:32
aggression and mating behaviors again it
00:03:35
typically rises in context where it's
00:03:37
better to act fast and we see again that
00:03:40
men that receive testosterone are more
00:03:42
likely to fail in questions like the BET
00:03:46
and the ball ones uh so this is
00:03:49
one topic that uh I'm currently studying
00:03:53
H yeah so other than my questionable Mas
00:03:56
skills what can we what what can
00:03:58
businesses take away from this I mean I
00:03:59
can can imagine there's lots of
00:04:00
different applications from this from I
00:04:02
mean Human Resources departments dealing
00:04:04
with their employees to businesses
00:04:05
dealing with their customers I mean it
00:04:07
would really want the gamut I would
00:04:08
think yes so for start failing in this
00:04:11
question is not necessarily bad if you
00:04:12
have a good intuitive response you will
00:04:14
answer it faster after when you're
00:04:16
stressed or uh having high level of
00:04:19
testosterone but there are some
00:04:21
situations where deliberation is needed
00:04:24
and there are some situations and some
00:04:27
people that are more vulnerable to make
00:04:29
fatal m takes in these situations and I
00:04:31
think it's important that we pay
00:04:32
attention to these situations and make
00:04:35
sure that these won't happen for example
00:04:39
once you're stressed if you're put in
00:04:41
environment that you know well perhaps
00:04:44
you'll respond good but if I put you in
00:04:47
in a completely novel environment and
00:04:49
give you some easy to fail uh questions
00:04:54
you may be worse off traumatically
00:04:56
because of being stressed so I think
00:04:58
it's important that we're know when and
00:05:00
where to expect these uh fatal mistakes
00:05:04
and it also seems to me like it would
00:05:06
also for I mean for the point of like a
00:05:07
retailer for example like the idea of if
00:05:09
you can try to figure out what state the
00:05:12
customers are when they come in your
00:05:14
door that you can try to sort of adjust
00:05:15
your environment accordingly to either
00:05:18
you know to make them less stressed or
00:05:19
to sort of Point them towards the
00:05:21
decision you might want them to make
00:05:22
that's true one would say that maybe you
00:05:24
can manipulate people easily more um
00:05:28
when they're stressed on when they this
00:05:29
boost of testosterone on the other hand
00:05:31
I don't know if that's what you want to
00:05:32
do because overall we want customers to
00:05:35
be satisfied and if they're more likely
00:05:37
to make mistakes they more likely to
00:05:39
regret their purchase and let enjoy it
00:05:41
and not come back so I think that again
00:05:45
it depends on the situation but uh on my
00:05:48
side I think it's better to know and
00:05:51
also for me as a customer it's better to
00:05:52
know for example that when I'm stressed
00:05:55
I'm not going to go to the
00:05:57
supermarket or hungry or hungry right I
00:06:00
mean hunger is sort of a stressful
00:06:03
situation true and so what's next for
00:06:05
you what's next for This research well
00:06:08
we we're living now in a time when we
00:06:11
can measure and we can manipulate a lot
00:06:13
of factors that we couldn't in history
00:06:17
and it's not only hormones I'm talking
00:06:18
about brain activity we can look at the
00:06:21
where you're looking at eye tracking
00:06:23
data we can look at the brain images uh
00:06:27
meaning the anatomical structure of the
00:06:29
brain we can look at gin all of these
00:06:31
things are measurable nowadays and uh we
00:06:33
can learn a lot from about individual
00:06:35
differences between people from these
00:06:38
measures and I think it's a very
00:06:39
exciting time now uh to be working on
00:06:42
this intersection between biological
00:06:44
science and Behavioral Science and
00:06:47
obviously the best type of Behavioral
00:06:49
data we can get is now coming from
00:06:51
marketing and from online Behavior great
00:06:54
thank you so much for being here thank
00:06:55
you
00:06:58
Rachel
00:07:07
[Music]
