There is a recent article in Science, Harvard behavioral scientist faces research fraud allegations, where it was stated that, “Data sleuths say they have found evidence of possible research fraud in several papers by Francesca Gino, a behavioral scientist at Harvard Business School. The publications under scrutiny include a 2012 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) paper on dishonesty that has already been retracted for apparent data fabrication by a different researcher. Anonymous researchers first found signs of fabricated data in the influential PNAS paper in 2021. The authors of the work had independently conducted different studies on the same question: whether signing an honesty declaration at the top of a form rather than the bottom made people behave more honestly.”
The problem of behavioral science is also a problem of psychology. There could be a study that says brushing one’s teeth and the ensuing fresh breath helps mental health. The data and findings—using the scientific method—could be accurate but the basis may be unclear.
What is the certainty that anything improves mental health, when the way the mind works is unknown? If something helps mental health, why does it not work all the time? Why does it not work for everyone?
This applies to behavioral economics, with studies on heuristics, bias, irrationality and so forth. It is possible to spot bias or preference, but is bias always genuine? What biases are personal and which ones are of a group? Why does bias change? Why isn’t rationality uniform? Can rationality and irrationality be compared to thought order and disorder?
The situation in behavioral economics with ‘signing on-top’ showed the dependence of the science of behavior to what is external, which should not solely be the case. In education for example, where grades determine who knows, it is fairly enough for key players to rely on those. In behavioral science however, where what is external is incomplete without considerations of the internal, observations could be decoys from what is real, including for majority, at times.
The human mind is the provenance of all behaviors. The improvement of behavioral science and economics research has to proceed from how the human mind works, to base all external observations with mental proportionality to close accuracy.
Conceptually, the human mind is the collection of all the electrical and chemical impulses of nerve cells, with their features and interactions. It is the features and interactions that decide all the outputs of the mind that include reactions, actions or behaviors, memory, feelings, emotions, sensations, perceptions, consciousness, intelligence, modulation, thoughts and so forth.
Happiness, for example, is a property of the human mind. Happiness is not necessarily a function of external observation, which may or may not correspond. Happiness is real and dominant, when the property moves into the principal spot. The principal spot is a feature of a set of chemical impulses, where they go to have the most domination.
There is no mind process where impulses are not involved. One the mind, there is no label where one is for this and the other for that, it is just impulses, their features and interactions, exceeding the types of neurons or brain circuit.
How do impulses bring bias about? How do they bring about heuristics and irrationality? This is a path to improve behavioral science and economics research.
All research in behavioral science accompanied with how impulses bring them about would not just make findings about observations, but link them to mechanisms of sets of impulses.
Features of sets of electrical and chemical impulses involved in every process include sequences, early-splits or go-before, pre-/prioritization, bounce points, thin and thick shapes, drifts or stairs, principal spot and others.
What is termed as prediction as a mind process is simply splits of electrical impulses in a set, where some go on to acquire chemical impulses like before, such that if accurate, fine, if not, the incoming ones go to the right chemical impulses, correcting the prediction error.
Splits are also responsible for holding something in mind or knowing what might come next, explaining the mechanism of working memory, speaking, signing, typing and others. Sequences are the paths—where sets of electrical impulses take—to strike sets of chemical impulses. This defines procedures or how things should be, for grammar and so forth. It is also a component of rationality.
Bias is a set of chemical impulses or properties acquired by electrical impulses, in splits or in full. Bias, as a property, sometimes moves partially or fully into the principal spot defining how extreme the individual might be.
Observations in behavioral science research should be explained with the sets of impulses of mind to improve accuracy, which is important in the era of LLMs.
Tech companies are racing to ship, but generative AI may not be like any technology in the past. If AI can train people for some roles and the job is digital, AI maybe able to do it, sooner or later. This makes AI a threat to the labor market. There are policies in microeconomics and macroeconomics that may find a way for people, but behavioral economics may hold the cards, in how people confront situations.
There are roles where people will have to compete with machines. Some may win, some may not. The people who won’t—already with status and an education—may not take it easy, even if they may still do OK, elsewhere or with something else.
How does behavioral economics shape the understanding of behavior directly from the human mind, in this era, for companies and for individuals, especially on how to approach and handle the impact of this tech of unknown potential?
How is it also possible to accompany generative AI products with a conceptual display of the human mind, to place where the mind is, in moments, against automatic drives?
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
