Behavioral Science
Bodies and Buildings Class 3: Health Systems and Open Data
We mapped the obesity systems of Japan, Mongolia, Korea, Columbia, and the NJ Path Conductors. Last week students not born in the US were surprised that the obesity epidemic “snuck up” on Americans. So students looked at other countries, and those that focused on their home countries were surprised to find the epidemic at its roots. Global trends in non US countries: Japan is the least obese country, but not uniformly. Read More
Products at the Center
For the rest of this course, 11 students will become obsessed with 11 things. How these things are made. Where they are made. Who makes them. Who consumes them. How people make money of of these things. How these things are marketed. How governments regulate these things. How activists and NGOs advocate to change the way these things are made. The greenhouse gas emissions that result from this thing being Read More
Forgot About the Carpet Mother
But really, this is the best example of sustainable design that I have ever seen. Harry Frederick Harlow’s experiments on rhesus monkeys demonstrated primate connection to fuzzy, soft objects in the absence of a real, actual mother monkey. Notice how baby monkey clings to carpet mother. When given a choice between food and terry cloth, monkeys who had soft, tactile contact with their terry cloth mothers behaved quite differently than Read More
Design to Influence Behavior Change
In prep for a panel talk at SXSW on Designing for Irrational Behavior organized by Robert Fabricant, these are emerging examples from design, tech, engagement marketing, not-for-profit, academia, social networking… telling the story of how people who design things are creating participatory platforms that lead to more conscious consumption and use of things. Backstories: Where does it come from, what’s in it, who made it, how did it get here? “where it Read More