Quantified Self projects have focused on tools and techniques. The assumption that info changes behavior is broken. Attention to psychological aspects of tracking, particularly wrt compliance, can transform the Quantified Self.

1. Psychological Dimensions of
Tracking
Motivation & Compliance
Quantified Self SiliValley Meetup Aug 11, 2011
Paul Whitmore Sas
outwit.pine@gmail.com

2. QSelf currently dominated by focus on tools &
techniques

3. Data Enuresis
QS activity to date assumes that information guides behavior
NYC has posted calorie information on all fast foods
“The effect is very, very close to zero.” Dan Ariely
Dale Larson at QS#13 described “LeanScale”
To be fair, it did increase lean mass & loss of fat
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4. Behavioral economists view Designers/Product Managers as
CHOICE ARCHITECTS
Opt
ion
A
Opt
io nB
“Many features, noticed and unnoticed, can influence decisions. The
person who creates that environment is, in our terminology, a
choice architect.” (Thaler & Sunstein)
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5. Motivational Context
Gamification is just lipstick on a pig
True integration of psychology with technology would
parallel the “GUI” that transformed tools from the
Homebrew Computer Club
Habit: “the enormous flywheel of society” (Wm James)
Maker community building an economy of whimsy
Hacker Dojo/NoiseBridge/Ace Monster Toys
Bootcamps morph into “Summer of Riesling” with tasting
workouts

6. Channel Factors
Persuasion not as important as removing behavioral barriers
WWII sale of bonds (Cartwright, 1949)
Tetanus shot messaging
Biggest impact (10X): providing a map to clinic + specifying appt time
Once this was seen to be “applied”, further psych research
stunted.
Now it takes place as “behavioral economics”
Well-chosen defaults (opt-out vs opt-in)
Reduction in choice overload
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7. People do not know what they want, since that gets constructed
Choosing for tonight Choosing for next Choosing for second
Thursday Thursday
Next week I will want things that are good for me…
7 slide adapted from Prof Russell James III, Texas Tech U

8. Automating Choice
Subscription to reduce friction of decision-making
Theater tickets / Gym membership
Amazon reduces cognitive load in multiple ways
PRIME
15% off if a purchase is transformed from a one-off purchase to a
subscription
Medical insurance –Seems irrational to choose high premium, low
deductible, yet many don’t want to make repeated calculations
about trade offs
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9. Understanding Preferences
Building a better Eliza (1966 computer program)
ELIZA mimicked a therapist by returning
whatever user typed with a question
> How does that make you feel?
> Tell me more about …
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10. How to get people to talk about themselves?

Hunch is
exemplary
at playing
“the
question
game”
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11. Beware that Q&A can just be pesky
Eliza tricked people into thinking that we are talking about me
Microsoft “Clippy” had much more computational intelligence,
but it only directed attention to Clippy
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12. Diminishing Returns (Weber-Fechner Law)
Response starts big, and with each additional increment, gives
less and less bang
Psychophysics of Value

13. Behavioral Economics can explain one way that games hook into motivation
Move from framing where response is flat into framing where the payoff is
still increasing.
Games do this by slicing infinite horizon into smaller intervals
The reverse occurs with Subscription, and explains how friction reduces:
Move many short, sharp shocks toward one smooth flat perspective.
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14. Beyond Boredom and Anxiety
Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of Flow (adapted by Jenova Chen, MFA)
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15. Peak and End Rule (Kahneman)
Experienced vs. Remembered Utility
Our mind does not make movies; it takes snapshots
Rather than guess the total amount of suffering, people recall the worst
instant, and the last instant.
If you increase the amount of suffering, but arrange for the last minutes to be
less intense, people report a longer period as less painful
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16. Next step for the Quantified Self Community
In QS experiments, focus should initially be on “compliance with
tracking” as the dependent variable
Manipulations to be experimentally delivered
Timing of prompt
Contextual cues of prompt
Reward for providing response to the prompt
Data collection can go from extrinsic imposition to intrinsic
Even interrupts could demand generation of a specific measure
Deliver a Heart rate change, arithmetic task or eye-hand coordination action
Humans will outsmart the interrupt, so the DV is still compliance
Gold: Experience as motivating as a Hollywood personal trainer
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