From Darwin to DesignStuart Church

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tsevis/3288860652

@stuchurch

Applied Behavioural Science Meetup, Bristol 19 February 2015

A tale of two careers

Academic Research User Experience

(Other) Animal Behaviour (Human) Animal Behaviour

Today…

1. What can we learn about design & innovation from evolutionary systems?

2. What can we learn about behaviour from evolutionary thinking?

Evolution & adaptation

Evolution is the change in the inherited characteristics of (biological) populations over successive generations.

“The survival of the fittest”

Variation

ReplicatorsSelection

Genes

Predators

Pathogens & disease

Physical environment

Competition

Prey

Mating

Memes

Meaning

Motivation

Utility / function

Social factors

Technological environment

Biological evolution(social learning)

Cultural evolution

Fitness landscapes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitness_landscape

What can we learn about design & innovation from evolutionary systems?

Designs are ideas that are culturally inherited. Good designs serve a purpose and persist. Poor designs get forgotten.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dvanzuijlekom/7324829530

The unit of selection is the idea rather than the design itself.

Designs as memes

Species #fail

99.9% of all species that have ever existed are extinct

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bugmonkey/2844115494

Product #fail

80-95% of new products fail in the first year (Source: Acupoll)

Failure is the norm

http://www.flickr.com/photos/quasimondo/4108216751

Evolution is experimental

“The Creator, if He exists, has an inordinate fondness for beetles"

JBS Haldane

Design and innovation as experimentation

41 Shades of Blue

Can design be replaced by experiments?

“If you double the number of experiments you do per year you’re going to double your inventiveness”

Jeff Bezos, 2004

(Amazon runs 1000+ experiments per year on its website)

By Steve Jurvetson (Flickr: Bezos’ Iconic Laugh) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Fitness landscapes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitness_landscape

Most successful ideas & innovations tend not be that different from what already exists.

On a fitness landscape, feasible steps are the closest steps in gene space or meme space.

The ‘adjacent possible’

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33134305@N04/3090115697

1992 2007

Can ideas be too innovative?

“There was no mental slot in people’s heads that the Newton could glide into….Consumers are willing to

overlook technical glitches if they have a firm grasp of what a product is and what it’s supposed to do. “

“What’s important is that, for the first time, so many great ideas and processes have been assembled in one

device, iterated until they squeak, and made accessible to normal human beings.  That’s the genius

of Steve Jobs; that’s the genius of Apple”. Bruce Tognazzoini

https://vimeo.com/14912890

What can we learn about behaviour from evolutionary thinking?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wantet/305431220

Behaviours are subject to natural selection, so animals will tend to behave in ways that are close to optimal

Optimality theory & evolutionary psychology

Cialdini’s ‘pillars of persuasion’

Social proof Reciprocity Authority Likeability Commitment & consistency Scarcity

Cialdini’s ‘pillars of persuasion’

Social proof Reciprocity Authority Likeability Commitment & consistency Scarcity

Reciprocity & cooperation

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22280677@N07/3527622458

"Grooming monkeys PLW edit" by Muhammad Mahdi Karim (www.micro2macro.net) Facebook Youtube (original photograph), Papa Lima Whiskey (derivative edit) - Own work. Licensed under GFDL 1.2 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grooming_monkeys_PLW_edit.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Grooming_monkeys_PLW_edit.jpg

The Prisoner’s Dilemma

Played once Only sensible strategy is to DEFECT

For Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma Best strategy is TIT-FOR-TAT (be nice, then follow opponent). i.e. the best possible strategy in the long term is a cooperative one.

A classic example of ‘Game Theory’

• 2 suspects, arrested on suspicion of a crime • Put in separate cells and asked to testify against the other • So, can either testify (defect) or stay silent (cooperate)

‘Raising the stakes’What if we can vary the amount of we invest in altruistic acts? (e.g. amount of time spent grooming).

Some possible strategies are:

• Give as good as you get • Non-altruistic • Raise the stakes • Short changer • Occasional short changer • Occasional cheat

‘Raise the stakes’ is an ESS - start low and, if matched, invest more next time

Roberts & Sherratt (1998) Development of cooperative relationships through increasing investment. Nature 394: 175-179

Reciprocity is powerful & deeply embedded

Start with small, low risk acts of kindness….

Implications

‘Giving’ (in whatever form) to people/customers etc elicits a strong desire for others to respond in kind

Short changers…

To download a white paper….

Social proof - copying as a behavioural strategy

‘Copying’ is a successful strategy

Science. 2010 Apr 9;328(5975):208-13. doi: 10.1126/science.1184719. Why copy others? Insights from the social learning strategies tournament. Rendell L1, Boyd R, Cownden D, Enquist M, Eriksson K, Feldman MW, Fogarty L, Ghirlanda S, Lillicrap T, Laland KN.

Rendell et al (2010) set up a computer tournament to explore how successful social learning strategies are in the long term.

The scenario was a ‘restless multiarmed bandit’ - 100 behaviours, each associated with a different payoff. Aim is to maximise payoff over the long run. 108 teams entered different strategies.

Strategy options are to: innovate, copy or exploit.

The winning strategy relied almost exclusively on social learning!

“In an environment where the world is changing, the best strategy is a lot if imitation”