56,481 research outputs found

    Right here, right now: situated interventions to change consumer habits

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    Consumer behavior-change interventions have traditionally encouraged consumers to form conscious intentions, but in the past decade it has been shown that while these interventions have a medium-to-large effect in changing intentions, they have a much smaller effect in changing behavior. Consumers often do not act in accordance with their conscious intentions because situational cues in the immediate environment automatically elicit learned, habitual behaviors. It has therefore been suggested that researchers refocus their efforts on developing interventions that target unconscious, unintentional influences on behavior, such as cue-behavior (“habit”) associations. To develop effective consumer behavior-change interventions, however, we argue that it is first important to understand how consumer experiences are represented in memory, in order to successfully target the situational cues that most strongly predict engagement in habitual behavior. In this article, we present a situated cognition perspective of habits and discuss how the situated cognition perspective extends our understanding of how consumer experiences are represented in memory, and the processes through which these situational representations can be retrieved in order to elicit habitual consumer behaviors. Based on the principles of situated cognition, we then discuss five ways that interventions could change consumer habits by targeting situational cues in the consumer environment and suggest how existing interventions utilizing these behavior-change strategies could be improved by integrating the principles of the situated cognition approach

    Situating interventions to bridge the intention-behaviour gap: A framework for recruiting nonconscious processes for behaviour change

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    This paper presents a situated cognition framework for creating social psychological interventions to bridge the intention–behaviour gap and illustrates this framework by reviewing examples from the domains of health behaviour, environmental behaviour, stereotyping, and aggression. A recurrent problem in behaviour change is the fact that often, intentions are not translated into behaviour, causing the so-called intention–behaviour gap. Here, it is argued that this happens when situational cues trigger situated conceptualizations, such as habits, impulses, hedonic goals, or stereotypical associations, which can then guide behaviour automatically. To be effective in changing such automatic effects, behaviour change interventions can attempt to change situational cues through cueing interventions such as priming, nudging, upstream policy interventions, or reminders of social norms. Alternatively, behaviour change interventions can attempt to change the underlying situated conceptualizations through training interventions, such as behavioural inhibition training, mindfulness training, or implementation intentions. Examples of situated behaviour change interventions of both types will be discussed across domains, along with recommendations to situate interventions more strongly and thus enhance their effectiveness to change automatic behaviour. Finally, the discussion addresses the difference between tailoring and situating interventions, issues of generalization and long-term effectiveness, and avenues for further research

    Understanding safety-critical interactions with a home medical device through Distributed Cognition

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    As healthcare shifts from the hospital to the home, it is becoming increasingly important to understand how patients interact with home medical devices, to inform the safe and patient-friendly design of these devices. Distributed Cognition (DCog) has been a useful theoretical framework for understanding situated interactions in the healthcare domain. However, it has not previously been applied to study interactions with home medical devices. In this study, DCog was applied to understand renal patients’ interactions with Home Hemodialysis Technology (HHT), as an example of a home medical device. Data was gathered through ethnographic observations and interviews with 19 renal patients and interviews with seven professionals. Data was analyzed through the principles summarized in the Distributed Cognition for Teamwork methodology. In this paper we focus on the analysis of system activities, information flows, social structures, physical layouts, and artefacts. By explicitly considering different ways in which cognitive processes are distributed, the DCog approach helped to understand patients’ interaction strategies, and pointed to design opportunities that could improve patients’ experiences of using HHT. The findings highlight the need to design HHT taking into consideration likely scenarios of use in the home and of the broader home context. A setting such as home hemodialysis has the characteristics of a complex and safety-critical socio-technical system, and a DCog approach effectively helps to understand how safety is achieved or compromised in such a system

    The role of simulations in consumer experiences and behavior: insights from the grounded cognition theory of desire

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    What are the mechanisms by which extrinsic and environmental cues affect consumer experiences, desires, and choices? Based on the recent grounded cognition theory of desire, we argue that consumption and reward simulations constitute a central mechanism in these phenomena. Specifically, we argue that appetitive stimuli, such as specific product cues, can activate simulations of consuming and enjoying the respective products, based on previous learning experiences. These consumption and reward simulations can lead to motivated behavior, and can be modulated by state and trait individual differences, situational factors, and product-extrinsic cues. We outline the role of simulations within the grounded theory of desire, offering a theoretical framework for understanding motivational processes in consumer behavior. Then we illustrate the theory with behavioral, physiological, and neuroimaging findings on simulations in appetitive behavior and sensory marketing. Finally, we outline important issues for further research and applications for stimulating healthy, prosocial, and sustainable consumer choices

    Enactivism, other minds, and mental disorders

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    Although enactive approaches to cognition vary in terms of their character and scope, all endorse several core claims. The first is that cognition is tied to action. The second is that cognition is composed of more than just in-the-head processes; cognitive activities are externalized via features of our embodiment and in our ecological dealings with the people and things around us. I appeal to these two enactive claims to consider a view called “direct social perception” : the idea that we can sometimes perceive features of other minds directly in the character of their embodiment and environmental interactions. I argue that if DSP is true, we can probably also perceive certain features of mental disorders as well. I draw upon the developmental psychologist Daniel Stern’s notion of “forms of vitality”—largely overlooked in these debates—to develop this idea, and I use autism as a case study. I argue further that an enactive approach to DSP can clarify some ways we play a regulative role in shaping the temporal and phenomenal character of the disorder in question, and it may therefore have practical significance for both the clinical and therapeutic encounter

    Alcohol representations are socially situated: an investigation of beverage representations by using a property generation task

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    Previous research suggests that people's representations of alcoholic beverages play an important role in drinking behavior. However, relatively little is known about the contents of these representations. Here, we introduce the property generation task as a tool to explore these representations in detail. In a laboratory study (N = 110), and a bar field-study (N = 56), participants listed typical properties of alcoholic beverages, sugary beverages, and water. Each of these properties was then categorized using a previously developed, hierarchical coding scheme. For example, the property “sweet” was categorized as referring to “taste”, which falls under “sensory experience”, which falls under “consumption situation”. Afterwards, participants completed measures of drinking behavior and alcohol craving. Results showed that alcoholic beverages were strongly represented in terms of consumption situations, with 57% and 69% of properties relating to consumption in the laboratory and the bar study, respectively. Specifically, alcoholic beverages were more strongly represented in terms of the social context of consumption (e.g., “with friends”) than the other beverages. In addition, alcoholic beverages were strongly represented in terms of sensory experiences (e.g. “sweet”) and positive outcomes (e.g. “creates fun”), as were the sugary beverages and water. In Study 1, the extent to which alcoholic beverages were represented in terms of social context was positively associated with craving and regularly consuming alcohol. The property generation task provides a useful tool to access people's idiosyncratic representations of alcoholic beverages. This may further our understanding of drinking behavior, and help to tailor research and interventions to reduce drinking of alcoholic and other high-calorie beverages

    Schizophrenia and the Scaffolded Self

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    A family of recent externalist approaches in philosophy of mind argues that our psychological capacities are synchronically and diachronically “scaffolded” by external resources. I consider how these “scaffolded” approaches might inform debates in phenomenological psychopathology. I first introduce the idea of “affective scaffolding” and make some taxonomic distinctions. Next, I use schizophrenia as a case study to argue—along with others in phenomenological psychopathology—that schizophrenia is fundamentally a self-disturbance. However, I offer a subtle reconfiguration of these approaches. I argue that schizophrenia is not simply a disruption of ipseity or minimal self-consciousness but rather a disruption of the scaffolded self, established and regulated via its ongoing engagement with the world and others. I conclude by considering how this scaffolded framework indicates the need to consider new forms of intervention and treatment

    Being-in-the-world-with: Presence Meets Social And Cognitive Neuroscience

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    In this chapter we will discuss the concepts of “presence” (Inner Presence) and “social presence” (Co-presence) within a cognitive and ecological perspective. Specifically, we claim that the concepts of “presence” and “social presence” are the possible links between self, action, communication and culture. In the first section we will provide a capsule view of Heidegger’s work by examining the two main features of the Heideggerian concept of “being”: spatiality and “being with”. We argue that different visions from social and cognitive sciences – Situated Cognition, Embodied Cognition, Enactive Approach, Situated Simulation, Covert Imitation - and discoveries from neuroscience – Mirror and Canonical Neurons - have many contact points with this view. In particular, these data suggest that our conceptual system dynamically produces contextualized representations (simulations) that support grounded action in different situations. This is allowed by a common coding – the motor code – shared by perception, action and concepts. This common coding also allows the subject for natively recognizing actions done by other selves within the phenomenological contents. In this picture we argue that the role of presence and social presence is to allow the process of self-identification through the separation between “self” and “other,” and between “internal” and “external”. Finally, implications of this position for communication and media studies are discussed by way of conclusion
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