Decision Science News

MANY THEORIES

One of the DSN editor’s cover sheets of staggering genius

Last week, we wrote about how setting printers to print double-sided by default saves paper. Kind of a no brainer. But we ended with a “counterintuitive coda” about how cover pages save paper. Counterintuitively, we were inundated with emails about the coda and none about the main finding. People wanted to know “How much paper did the cover sheets save?”, “Why does it work?” and so on.

HOW MUCH PAPER DOES IT SAVE?
According to a blurb by Microsoft IT “Our internal studies have shown that when banner pages are disabled, print volumes increase 15% to 17%”. That’s a big effect: That means you’re wasting a ream of paper every 6 reams you print. Interestingly, it’s quite close the paper savings associated with making double-sided printing the default (doubled sided: 15% decrease in paper consumption; cover pages:13-15% decrease).

WHY DOES IT SAVE PAPER?
Microsoft IT says it’s “because people end up picking up print jobs that don’t belong to them. When this occurs, missing print jobs are reprinted, which wastes time and money.”

While that sounds reasonable, we can imagine (with help from some comments from readers) some other reasons it might work. Here’s a running list of possibilities. Happy to add more if people think of them.

WHY COVER PAGES MIGHT SAVE PAPER

• Without cover pages, people pick up print jobs that don’t belong to them, causing reprinting (as mentioned)
• Without cover pages, orphaned print jobs left in the printer are thrown away instead of returned to their owners
• With cover pages, the threat of public shaming gives people an incentive not to forget to pick up print jobs
• With cover pages, the threat of public shaming makes people embarrassed about printing large jobs (or many jobs) in the first place
• With cover pages, people are less likely to print one page when they realize that one cover sheet will be wasted by doing so

Note that the cover sheet is simply a default here, and can be switched off for any one job as desired.

All this talk of counterintuitive effects reminds us of a recent talk by a member of the UK’s Behavioral Insights Team (Nudge Unit). In the presentation, the member showed several versions of a form letter and asked the researchers in the room to guess which one had the biggest impact. The letter the researchers guessed would have the largest effect turned out to have one of the smallest impacts. Admittedly, the effect sizes were small, but it showed the importance of randomized experimentation and going beyond armchair theorizing in behavioral economics.

MEASURING THE BENEFITS OF CHANGING DEFAULT PRINTER SETTINGS

Here’s a no-brainer application of benevolent defaults that has a provable, lasting change in paper consumption.

TITLE
Can Indifference Make the World Greener?

AUTHORS
Johan Egebark (Stockholm University) & Mathias Ekström (Norwegian School of Economics)

ABSTRACT
We test whether people’s tendency to stick with the default option can help save resources. In a natural field experiment we switch printers’ default settings, from simplex to duplex printing, at a large Swedish university. The results confirm that roughly one third of all printing is determined by the default alternative, and hence daily paper consumption drops by 15 percent due to the change. The effect is immediate, lasts throughout the experimental period, and remains intact after six months. We also investigate how the more conventional method of encouraging people to save resources performs, and find it has no impact. Recent theoretical and empirical contributions indicate that the default effect works through recommendation, depends positively on the number of alternatives in the choice set, and is reinforced for difficult decisions. We demonstrate that the default option matter in a simple, non-dynamic, decision task with only two alternatives, and where people have been explicitly informed about the recommended course of action.

COUNTERINTUITIVE CORNER
You would think turning off cover sheets on shared printers would reduce paper consumption. I mean, why waste a page every time you print? Well, Microsoft did an internal experiment. It turns out printing cover sheets actually reduced paper consumption. Boom. That’s why you’ve got to test your intuitions.

SAVE THE DATE: SOCIETY FOR CONSUMER PSYCHOLOGY (SCP) SUMMER CONFERENCE

JDM researchers may be interested in the “Advancements in Judgment and Decision Making in Consumer Contexts” track at the Society for Consumer Psychology (SCP) summer conference at the 122nd Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association (APA) from August 7th to 10th 2014 in Washington, DC. More information here.

SCP (Division 23 of APA) represents consumer researchers and psychologists interested in a broad range of consumer research issues united by psychological theories. This conference provides opportunities for direct contact with practitioners and policy makers as well as the benefits of the vast knowledge base of APA.

Further conference information can be found at: www.apa.org/convention. If you have any questions please feel free to contact the Division 23 conference chairs: Katherine Burson, Associate Professor of Marketing, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, kburson@umich.edu; Andrew D. Gershoff, Associate Professor of Marketing, McCombs School of Business, University of Texas, Andrew.Gershoff@mccombs.utexas.edu.

NEW JOURNAL, NEW ASSOCIATION (BSPA)

DSN readers may wish to take note of new association, the Behavioral Science & Policy Association (BSPA), devoted to bringing rigorous behavioral science into policy and practice. The Association includes an Editorial Board of more than 90 world-class behavioral scientists and policy analysts. They will work together to forward policy solutions that are derived from the study of individual, group, and organizational behavior. It was founded by Craig Fox and Sim Sitkin.

One practical thing this means for your lives is that there will be a new journal, called Behavioral Science and Policy, which should be a potential outlet for your research.

Read more about the new association and journal here (PDF).

BSPA hosts conferences, workshops, and briefings to cull timely information on the application of behavioral and social science and conducts policy briefings in collaboration with the Brookings Institution.

During this introductory period, annual membership to BSPA is $100/year for professionals and $50/year for students. Benefits include an annual subscription to Behavioral Science & Policy, pre-publication access to articles, discounts to conferences, workshops, and briefings, and waived submission fee for one article per membership year. More information about membership here.

CALL FOR PAPERS. DEADLINE DEC 15, 2013

What: Boulder Summer Conference on Consumer Financial Decision Making
When: May 18-20, 2014
Where: St. Julien Hotel, Boulder, CO

Submitting Abstracts
To submit an extended abstract (1 page single spaced), please visit the conference website http://leeds.colorado.edu/event/bouldersummerconference#overview and click on the Submit Paper Abstract link.

Conference Overview
The Boulder Summer Conference in Consumer Financial Decision Making, now in its 5th year, is the world’s foremost conference for discussion of interdisciplinary research on consumer financial decision-making. Consumer welfare is strongly affected by household financial decisions large and small: choosing mortgages; saving to fund college education or retirement; using credit cards to fund current consumption; choosing how to “decumulate” savings in retirement; deciding how to pay for health care and insurance; and investing in the stock market, managing debt in the face of financial distress. This conference brings together outstanding scholars from around the world in a unique interdisciplinary conversation with regulators, business people in financial services, and consumer advocates working on problems of consumer financial decision-making.

Our goal is to stimulate cross-disciplinary conversation and improve basic and applied research in the emerging area of consumer financial decision-making. This research can inform our understanding of how consumers actually make such decisions and how consumers can be helped to make better decisions by innovations in public policy, business, and consumer education. Please see the 2010 – 2014 programs on the conference website to see abstracts of research by scholars in economics, psychology, sociology, behavioral finance, consumer research, decision sciences, behavioral economics, and law. Our format allows a very high level of opportunity for conversation and interaction around the ideas presented.

BRING IT

Because many DSN readers are US passport holders who will be traveling from the US to Canada for the SJDM conference, and because the rules have changed in the past, and because a good friend asked us this question, we thought we’d cover this.

Yes, US Passport holders going from the US to Canada and back should bring their passports if they are flying.

Technically, US citizens don’t need a US passport to get into Canada (“a birth certificate, certificate of citizenship or naturalization, as well as photo identification” will do).

According to: http://www.cbsa.gc.ca/security-securite/admiss-eng.html

When you enter Canada, a CBSA officer may ask to see your passport and a valid visa, if one is necessary. If you are a citizen of the United States, you do not need a passport to enter Canada. However, you should carry proof of your citizenship, such as a birth certificate, certificate of citizenship or naturalization, as well as photo identification. If you are a permanent resident of Canada or the U.S, you should bring your Permanent Resident Card with you.

HOWEVER, getting back into the US without a passport, if traveling by air, won’t be easy.

According to http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1082.html

Entry into the United States: When traveling by air from Canada, U.S. citizens are required by U.S. law to present a U.S. passport book, except as noted in the few exceptions provided on the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website.

We tried to find out the “few exceptions”. It was exceptionally confusing. Bring your passport.

Some objections you may have:

• But I got in and back with my US driver’s license before Yeah, but that was before 9/11
• But I have an “enhanced” US driver’s license that allows passage to and from Canada Yeah, but not by air. We tried it once.
• But I belong to Global Entry Yeah, but that requires you scan your passport and show it at the customs exit point
• But I have a Global Entry card Yeah, but that works for land and sea ports, not airports. See http://www.globalentry.gov/faq.html

So. You might be bummed about having to bring your passport. Maybe yours is expired and you will have to scramble to get it renewed before the conference. To cheer you up, we’ll provide you with this useful tip.

USEFUL TIP:
If you’ve cleared passport control (e.g., at JFK) and you are waiting at baggage claim and need to use the bathroom, which is back on the other side of passport control (e.g., at JFK), you don’t have to worry about it. You can just go backwards through passport control and return to the baggage claim again without having to wait in line. You don’t even need to ask. No one will stop you.

“How is this possible?”, you ask. “What keeps people from just strolling right into the country without a passport?”

Because, grasshopper, without a stamped US Customs Declaration form, you’re simply not getting out of the baggage claim and into the USA. There are agents collecting forms at the exit.

IF YOU KNOW SO MUCH, CAN YOU TELL US WHY WE CAN’T USE OUR SMARTPHONES TO READ EMAIL WHILE WAITING FOR OUR BAGGAGE?
No, there is no explanation for that.

SOCIETY FOR JUDGMENT AND DECISION MAKING NEWSLETTER

The quarterly Society for Judgment and Decision Making newsletter is ready for downloading:

http://sjdm.org/newsletters/

It features jobs, conferences, announcements, and more.

This one features the 2013 conference program (the conference is happening in Toronto, Canada, at the Sheraton Queen Center Hotel, November 15-18, 2013).

See http://sjdm.org/ for conference details.

Enjoy!

Decision Science News / SJDM Newsletter Editor

POSTDOCS IN COMPUTATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE, ONLINE EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL SCIENCE, ECONOMICS AND COMPUTATION, MACHINE LEARNING

Microsoft Research NYC [ http://research.microsoft.com/newyork/ ] seeks outstanding applicants for 2-year postdoctoral researcher positions. We welcome applicants with strong quantitative and computational skills and a strong academic record in the following areas:

* Computational social science: http://research.microsoft.com/cssnyc
* Online experimental social science: http://research.microsoft.com/oess_nyc
* Economics and computation: http://research.microsoft.com/algorithmic-economics/
* Machine learning: http://research.microsoft.com/mlnyc/

We will also consider applicants in other focus areas of the lab, including information retrieval. Additional detail about these areas is included below. Please submit all application materials by December 13, 2013. Instructions are here: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/jobs/fulltime/postdoc.aspx#NYC

SPECIAL NOTE TO DECISION SCIENCE NEWS READERS

• MSR-NYC is a highly quantitative place. For the social science postdocs, applicants should have strong competence in computer programming, math, or statistics at the level of someone with a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in CS, math, or stats. Simply meeting the stats requirements in a social science PhD program would not be enough to be considered.
• In additional to having computational or mathematical skills, only applicants with computational or statistical research interests will be considered.
• These are thoroughly academic positions. They are good preparation for a career in academia (often taken to defer starting a professorship by a year or two) and are not intended for students looking to move into industry.

COMPUTATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE
http://research.microsoft.com/cssnyc

With an increasing amount of data on every aspect of our daily activities — from what we buy, to where we travel, to who we know — we are able to measure human behavior with precision largely thought impossible just a decade ago. Lying at the intersection of computer science, statistics and the social sciences, the emerging field of computational social science uses large-scale demographic, behavioral and network data to address longstanding questions in sociology, economics, politics, and beyond. We seek postdoc applicants with a diverse set of skills, including experience with large-scale data, scalable statistical and machine learning methods, and knowledge of a substantive social science field, such as sociology, economics, psychology, political science, or marketing.

ONLINE EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL SCIENCE
http://research.microsoft.com/oess_nyc

Online experimental social science involves using the web, including crowdsourcing platforms such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, to study human behavior in “virtual lab” environments. Among other topics, virtual labs have been used to study the relationship between financial incentives and performance, the honesty of online workers, advertising impact as a function of exposure time, the implicit cost of “bad ads,” the testing of graphical user interfaces eliciting probabilistic information and also the relationship between network structure and social dynamics, related to social phenomena such as cooperation, learning, and collective problem solving. We seek postdoc applicants with a diverse mix of skills, including awareness of the theoretical and experimental social science literature, and experience with experimental design, as well as demonstrated statistical modeling and programming expertise. Specific experience running experiments on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk or related crowdsourcing websites, as well as managing virtual participant pools is also desirable, as is evidence of UI design ability.

ECONOMICS AND COMPUTATION
http://research.microsoft.com/algorithmic-economics/

Market design, the engineering arm of economics, benefits from an understanding of computation: complexity, algorithms, engineering practice, and data. Conversely, computer science in a networked world benefits from a solid foundation in economics: incentives and game theory. Scientists with hybrid expertise are crucial as social systems of all types move to electronic platforms, as people increasingly rely on programmatic trading aids, as market designers rely more on equilibrium simulations, and as optimization and machine learning algorithms become part of the inner loop of social and economic mechanisms. We seek applicants who embody a diverse mix of skills, including a background in computer science (e.g., artificial intelligence or theory) or related field, and knowledge of the theoretical and experimental economics literature. Experience building prototype systems, and a comfort level with modern programming paradigms (e.g., web programming and map-reduce) are also desirable.

MACHINE LEARNING
http://research.microsoft.com/mlnyc/

Machine learning is the discipline of designing efficient algorithms for making accurate predictions and optimal decisions in the face of uncertainty. It combines tools and techniques from computer science, signal processing, statistics and optimization. Microsoft offers a unique opportunity to work with extremely diverse data sources, both big and small, while also offering a very stimulating environment for cutting-edge theoretical research. We seek postdoc applicants who have demonstrated ability to do independent research, have a strong publication record at top research venues and thrive in a multidisciplinary environment.

AAAS FELLOWSHIP DEADLINE NOVEMBER 1, 2013

What is the AAAS? As their website puts it: “The American Association for the Advancement of Science, ‘Triple A-S’ (AAAS), is an international non-profit organization dedicated to advancing science around the world by serving as an educator, leader, spokesperson and professional association”

Craig Fox let us know about this great opportunity:

I have been asked to draw your attention to the AAAS Science Technology Policy Fellowship that now has placement opportunities for the new U.S. Social and Behavioral Science Team. This is an outstanding opportunity for would-be Nudgers to bring our science into practice serving the public interest through various government agencies.

The application deadline is Nov 1st for a fellowship that can last up to two years. Only individuals with a doctoral-level degree can apply.

https://fellowshipapp.aaas.org/applications/

SOCIETY FOR CONSUMER PSYCHOLOGY 2014 WINTER CONFERENCE, MARCH 6-8, MIAMI

The Society for Consumer Psychology (SCP) will be holding its Annual Winter Conference from March 6 – 8, 2014 at the Intercontinental Miami Hotel in Miami, Florida . The Society for Consumer Psychology conference provides opportunities for a high level of interaction among participants interested in consumer research and in advancing the discipline of consumer psychology in a global society.

Call for papers

HOTEL INFORMATION:
The Intercontinental Miami Hotel is located at 100 Chopin Plaza, Miami, FL 33131. The telephone number is: 800 496 7621. When making reservations you must mention that you are with the Society for Consumer Psychology to obtain the group rate of $269.00

Visit the hotel website at: www.intercontinental.com/hotels/gb/en/miami/miaha/hoteldetail/
If you have questions, please email the conference co-chairs at: scpmiami2014@wharton.upenn.edu