3BI: Heat Waves, Sludge, and the Death of Partying
Welcome to my 3BI newsletter, where I share three insights from the world of behavioral science on psychology, decision-making, and behavioral change.
Did someone forward this newsletter to you? Sign up here to have every new edition delivered straight to your inbox.
Heat Makes Us Less Helpful
Temperatures across the US have finally dropped after an extended heatwave from the end of June through early July. If you felt grumpy during that time or noticed that others were less helpful than usual, then you weren’t imagining things. From Hidden Brain:
In a 2017 study, researchers found that uncomfortable heat significantly reduced people's willingness to help others.
The study looked at a few different scenarios. In one, mall employees were 59% less likely to help customers during a 2010 heatwave. In another, college students in stuffy classrooms answered significantly fewer questions on a (fictional) survey for an organization helping underprivileged children compared to students in an air-conditioned classroom. In a final experiment, people who simply imagined being hot – but remained in a normal temperature room - were less likely to take that same survey.
“The point of our study is that ambient temperature affects individual states that shape emotional and behavioral reactions,” said researcher Liuba Belkin.
Interestingly, cold weather brings the opposite effect:
…research from a 2012 lab experiment shows people were more customer-oriented when they were working in comfortably cold, but not comfortably warm, temperatures. The authors of that study speculated that in colder temperatures, people look for opportunities to form social connections as a way to feel literally warmer.
This makes me feel validated in my seemingly contrarian preference for midwestern winters over southern summers.
Read more at Hidden Brain and Quartz.
Sludge Is Wearing Us Down
The Atlantic has a great article digging into Sludge, which I’ve written about in previous newsletters.
To refresh, sludge is intentional friction designed to systematically impede individuals' actions or decisions. “Tortuous administrative demands, endless wait times, and excessive procedural fuss” are all forms of sludge that make our lives more arduous.
Sludge seems to be increasing and is wearing us down:
Researchers have shown how sludge leads people to forgo essential benefits and quietly accept outcomes they never would have otherwise chosen.
…
When I started talking with people about their sludge stories, I noticed that almost all ended the same way—with a weary, bedraggled Fuck it. Beholding the sheer unaccountability of the system, they’d pay that erroneous medical bill or give up on contesting that ticket. And this isn’t happening just here and there. Instead, I came to see this as a permanent condition. We are living in the state of Fuck it.
Some sludge is a natural consequence of complex and digitized systems, but more and more of it is either intentional or deliberately ignored. “Some companies may actually find it profitable to create hassles for complaining customers,” per Harvard Business Review. This may be explained by shifts in how companies operate:
Customer service is increasingly outsourced and those vendors prioritize short-term efficiency and costs over longer term value. “The goal is to put as much friction between you and whatever the expensive thing is. So the frontline person is given as limited information and authority as possible. And it’s punitive if they connect you to someone who could actually help.”
Companies also just operate differently:
There was a time when the happiness of existing customers was a sacred metric. CEOs saw the long arc of loyalty as essential to a company’s success.
That arc has snapped. Everyone still claims to value customer service, but as the average CEO tenure has shortened, executives have become more focused on delivering quick returns to shareholders and investors. This means prioritizing growth over the satisfaction of customers already on board.
Customers don’t punish bad service enough anymore. “We’ve gotten collectively worse at punishing companies we do business with,” says Amas Tenumah, a customer service expert. “It’s like an abusive relationship. All it takes is a 20 percent–off coupon and you’ll come back.”
All of this hassle makes us feel like our time isn’t valued and contributes to growing frustration with institutions.
What can we do about it? On an individual level, the best thing we can do is take our money elsewhere after being confronted with sludge. Otherwise, we may just need to give our support for regulation like the government’s “Time Is Money” initiative (which was, unfortunately, set back this week when a federal appeals court blocked the FTC’s click to cancel rule). Pressure from both angles would help incentivize organizations to invest in a less frustrating experience.
Read more at The Atlantic.
The Death of Partying
Here’s a stunning chart on the decline of social events in the US this century from Derek Thompson:
From Derek’s post:
Between 2003 and 2024, the amount of time that Americans spent attending or hosting a social event declined by 50 percent. Almost every age group cut their party time in half in the last two decades. For young people, the decline was even worse. Last year, Americans aged 15-to-24 spent 70 percent less time attending or hosting parties than they did in 2003.
This seems bad! Humans are social animals and it’s unlikely that the benefits of in-person socialization can be replaced by social media or digital entertainment. I think you can at least partially explain a lot of modern sociological phenomena by the fact that people are generally alone much more than they used to be.
Read the full article for more on the details, causes, and impacts.