Neuroscience psychology applied to the workplace

The article addresses different neurological functions of the brain relating to procrastination and what are called “Mirror Neurons” and tries to apply the knowledge we know about them and use them to a managers advantage.
The article defines procrastination as “a self-defeating behavior that involves putting off actions that should be performed promptly given existing goals and information. This goal-directed behavior, neurologically, is involved and carried out in the prefrontal cortex. Procrastination comes from the “habit-based” structures in the brain and is slower at learning to change. This system is purely based on matching “situations to actions based on previous experience.” In other words these parts of the brain simply satisfy a current need as it has learned to in the past. This is why instead of getting work done for your long-term goals you put it off until the last minute. These two systems, goal-oriented and habit-based, are constantly in tension and the forces of habit-based often push the goal-oriented part out of the way. The article suggests that using neuroscience is a way to overcome these habit-based urges and strengthen the goal-oriented wants. The authors suggest that making the current status of values that an employee may have should be taken away “contingent upon progress toward new goals.” The example given is to freeze pay raises across the entire organization until progress toward a new goal or goals can be assessed. The employees will then have to change something about their goal-oriented behavior in order to keep their habit-based behavior where it normally lies.
The second topic covered in the article was the neurological phenomenon known as “mirror neurons” (MNS). In a study done with monkeys, an observer monkey was hooked up to a measuring device while the monkey was watching another monkey do a certain behavior. The results indicated that the monkey’s brain was exhibiting the same neurological responses from watching an action or behavior that it would normally experience by actually doing the behavior. The neurons “mirrored” the behavior being watched hence the name “mirror neurons.” The article said it best “humans also possess mirror neurons. The brain responds as if the observer were the person being observed. This phenomenon is proof of “learning vicariously.” In applying this to the workplace a manager must ensure that the policies and tasks implemented on employees are being carried out by what the article calls “group leaders.” This is where middle managers are very important to ensure that these group leaders are carrying out everything that the top managers implement. This in turn will lead to good qualities in other members of the employee group of the organization.

Little Albert Psychology Study

John Watson, the founder of Behaviorism and a native South Carolinian, conducted a famous study in the early 1900's that has great significance even in today's psychological world. Not only did this study break ground on a humans ability to be "classically conditioned" but it was also extremely controversial, especially in today's standards.

The study consisted of Little Albert, 3 years of age, who was exposed to a docile white rat. Albert at first loved playing with the rat showing this by laughing and smiling. The white rat in this case will be considered the "unconditioned stimulus" for the study. While Albert was playing with the mouse Watson then banged 2 pipes together every time Albert touched the rat, making a terrible sound and scaring Albert. After about 6 times of Albert being scared by the pipes while simultaneously touching the white rat, Little Albert began to show the same fear of the pipes banging together just by the mere sight/presence of the white rat. This response is called the "conditioned response."



The implications of this study are two fold 1) It shows the ability to evoke an automatic response (for the most part) in humans; the ability to classically condition a human. 2) After the study was concluded Albert began to associate his fear of the white rat to other things that were white (white hair, white horse, etc.) this concludes that humans also generalize things in terms of emotions and responses.

Minor League Baseball Marketing

When it comes to sports and sports marketing winning or losing can be one of the biggest factors in whether or not your team brand sells. In almost any professional league be it the NFL, MLB, NBA etc. Having a winning team is one of the easiest ways to sell tickets to your events and thus create more revenue for your company (team).

A study was done on minor league baseball teams to figure out what could be done to increase ticket sales. What they found was very interesting. While most sports teams that are successful athletically will also be successful financially, when it came to minor league baseball teams winning percentage did not correlate very strongly with the financial success, or attendance. It was found that almost 70 percent of the people leaving a minor league baseball game couldn't tell you who won and another large percent couldn't recall who was even playing.

The study found that minor league baseball and other sports in which people do not have a large emotional investment in were successful based on other promotions the team offers. This includes food, drinks, giveaways, family nights, etc. This is extremely interesting on the subject of sports marketing because before this study was done it was thought that "winning is everything". This opened up a world of change and new strategies when it comes to promoting certain sports franchises.

Psychology/Marketing in school lunch lines

I will be posting the majority of my new blogs from the American Journal of Psychology, however, for the blog this week I will address a current topic in the news dealing with Psychology.

This specific topic also deals with both my Major and Minor, marketing and psychology respectively.

The U.S. Department of agriculture is giving 2 million dollars to food behavior scientists to research methods of marketing and psychology to "trick" younger children into eating healthier foods in lunch lines.

Some of the current marketing ideas include putting chocolate milk behind, or out of eye level of regular milk. This strategy has been used by marketers of companies for years in order to promote certain products over others with placement on shelves. In fact, product manufactures actually pay more money to have their products located at eye level in certain stores.



On the more psychological level the researchers are coming up with visually appealing ways in which to get children's attention to healthier foods. For example, putting healthy fruits and vegetables in elaborate displays.


Although some of these ideas seem elementary, they do actually work both in marketing and psychology.