Social Engineering Blogs

You all have probably heard the saying “a quitter never wins and a winner never quits.” It’s a social trap: a situation in which not quitting produces a small, immediate positive outcome at first (i.e. pride), but eventually results in a larger negative outcome after a delay. It’s become so ingrained that we don’t even think about it anymore.We are looking to help with some small problems which can eat away at people’s time and resources. For example, reading the whole of the book just because they started it and are determined to finish it despite not enjoying it. Herein lie the two concepts: sunk cost (the money they spent on the book and the time they have spent reading it, which they cannot get back and must not use as a reason to continue) and opportunity cost (they could spend the time on a book they enjoy more). We created a website where people would look to solve these small dilemmas. Here’s the website’s map:We weren’t able to compare if the coin toss or the deciding for themselves led to a higher chance of following through with quitting the behaviour, but we hope that we have created a positive change in people’s lives through freeing them from wasting their time on rewardless and costly endeavours.Ande Milinyte & Jacob Barker

The aim of this project was to promote altruistic behaviour. Not only do altruistic behaviours make our environments a better place, a great deal of past studies have found that engaging in altruistic behaviours have great benefit to our physical as well as mental health (Post, 2005, Thoits & Hewitt, 2001)!We came up with the idea of forming chains of people helping one another. We named those chains Chains of Altrusim. A number of persuasive techniques have been employed in this project.We created a webpage to promote the idea of our project and also a Facebook group for people who are interested to get involved and start chains. How to start a chain? All you need to do is to do something nice for another person. That can be a friend, your neighbor, your flatmate, or a total stranger. Once you’ve done something nice for someone else, take a picture or write a post and tag them in the Facebook group – Warwick Chains of altruism. Ask them to return the favor, not to you, but to another person. That way good deeds are passed from one person to the next! In order to get the project rolling, we cooperated with the societies ‘Warwick Effective Altruism’, as well as ‘Warwick RAG – raising and giving’. We got the agreement of their respective presidents and promoted the project on their facebook group pages.We uploaded a post in the Warwick effective altruism group Webpage:  http://warwickchainofaltruism.webstarts.com Facebook group page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/592217860930771/References Post, S. G. (2005). Altruism, happiness, and health: It’s good to be good. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 12(2), 66-77.Thoits, P. A., & Hewitt, L. N. (2001). Volunteer work and well-being. Journal of health and social behavior, 115-131.Cindy ChanNickie ChingRobert Jagiello

Problem:There are over 23,000 students at the university but only enough facilities for a small fraction (Warwick University, 2015). Seat hogging is therefore a common occurrence in the library, as well as using computer desk spaces for written or laptop work and talking on silent floors. This is inconsiderate and an urgent problem. A change is necessary in order to maximise the availability and efficiency of the limited library space. The upcoming exam period justifies this as talking on silent floors disrupts the learning of students who require silence in order to work efficiently. Further justification resides in the fact that certain courses may require specialist software which are exclusively available on Warwick computers (e.g. SPSS).Solution:Our project aimed to promote ‘library etiquette.’ In an attempt to change the said behaviour, we dispersed posters promoting the proper ‘library etiquette’ – that is, the opposite behaviour to the common problem behaviours exhibited. These posters were placed around the library and within the Psychology common room. They included various persuasive techniques known to be effective in influencing behaviour. Rhetorical questions, social proof and guilt/fear are just three examples of techniques which have been used due to evidence showing their success in influencing behaviour changes (Cialdini, 2009; Burnkrant & Howard, 1984; Dillard & Anderson, 2004).We also created a Facebook page to share the posters online. This allowed us to reach a wider audience and reinforced the messages we were promoting. This follows the mere exposure effect, a technique which indicates individuals prefer, and are more receptive towards, familiar faces (Zajonc, 2001). Group Members: Nazarene Sutherland, Helen Munt & Damola Adebari. ReferencesBurnkrant, R. E., & Howard, D. J. (1984). Effects of the use of introductory rhetorical questions versus statements on information processing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 1218-1230.Cialdini, R. B. (2009). Social Proof: Truth Are Us. Influence: Science and Practice USA: Pearson Education Inc.Dillard, J. P., & Anderson, J. W. (2004). The role of fear in persuasion. Psychology & Marketing, 21,909-926. Warwick University. (2015). Retrieved from https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/about/profile/people/Zajonc, R. B. (2001). Mere exposure: A gateway to the subliminal. Current Directions in Psychological  Science, 10, 224-228.