digital psychology

The increasing importance of ‘Digital Psychology’ as a strategic toolkitApril 18, 2023

A little about me (@simonnash)

• Digital planner and content strategist

• Passionate about optimising services and experiences and an advocate for

digitally-led organisational change

• Helped Arts Council England, Pernod Ricard, Visit England and London

Business School transform the way they work with digital.

• Interested in emerging digital technologies and their impact on culture and

society meetup.com/Digital-Conversations

Introduction

Hat tip to Dr Chryssa Stefanidou

• Leading the introduction of behavioural sciences disciplines

(Behavioural Psychology, Experimental Psychology, Social Cognitive

Psychology and Behavioural Economics) at Reading Room in the UK

• PhD research involved extensive experimental research into the

strength of human relationships with media and how those

relationships are shaped and established within a psychological

framework

• Currently working with Nationwide Building Society, UN FAO

Introduction

What I’m talking about...

Two things

• What do we mean by the term

‘digital psychology’?

• How we think it can be applied to

digital strategy?

Introduction

Everybody is talking about psychology

What is digital psychology?

“”

Apparently psychology is the ‘secret sauce’.

So what’s the fuss about?


Psychologists attempt to understand the role of

mental functions in individual and social behavior,

while also exploring the physiological and biological

processes that underlie cognitive functions and

behaviors. Wikipedia

Enter the computer


Followed by the social network


Now mobile is upping the ante


http://www.dubberly.com/topics/design/1_personal_expression.html

Digital technology now as much a part of culture as culture is a part of technology


Tech Culture

Fertile ground for media psychology


Inspiration for new specialisms


So web psychology is a thing?


http://moz.com/blog/web-psychology-whiteboard-friday

“”

Yes.


Psychology applied to digital


Understanding rational and emotional factors in house purchases

Psychology applied to digital


Understanding how to engender trust in a financial services brand concept

“”

But...


“”

We think ‘Digital Psychology’ should mean more than the simple application of

psychology principles to digital channels.


Complex systems demand more scientific and experimental approaches


The great advantage of the experimental method is that the causal relationship between variables can be determined with much greater certainty.

This is done in two ways: by controlling all factors except the independent variable and by randomly assigning people to condition.

Changing contexts

1. Established principles

2. v.s. new contexts


Changing behaviour


Established principles vs. new contexts

Innovative applications

New channels

Challengesestablished thinking

Changing behaviour


( )

So what is digital psychology...

Behavioral

Sciences

New Contexts

Experimental

Approaches

2 Digital Disciplines

X

DP =


“”

Simples!


For example…

Sonja Song’s experimental research examined the psychological aspects of sharing content on social networks and found evidence of Daniel Kahneman’s ‘Fast and Slow Thinking’. http://blog.sonyasong.com/

Sharing Fast and Slow

Applying digital psychology?


Sonja Song found that users’ unconscious attention (system 1) can be gained through larger images, use of capital letters and phrases like Breaking News.



However she also found that more complex text could introduce cognitive strain and shift the reader into conscious attention (system 2). Her investigation indicated this may lead to fewer but higher quality engagements.



In other words whilst we should use impactful communications to grab the user’s casual attention (System 1), more complex messages can then be introduced to engage more thoughtful attention (System 2) and thus increase the likelihood of response/action.


Understanding multi-tasking & media


Encouraging adoption of new technologies


Designing the Internet of Things


“”

To summarise…


The fundamental question is ‘how will human relationships with technology develop over time?’

Simon – Jaquin and the O/S

Closing thoughts

Digital Psychology brings together digital disciplines and the behavioural sciences whilst introducing more sophisticated experimental approaches to audience research.

We believe that ‘Digital Psychology’ offers us a hugely useful toolkit to explore and understand the emerging challenges posed by new technologies, devices and platforms.

So we’re going back to first principles to challenge our methodologies to extract deeper insights from our research so that we can conceive more sophisticated strategies and design better services and experiences.

Hopefully today’s event will start you thinking about how to apply ‘digital psychology’ to your own challenges?

Closing thoughts

So where’s the potential?

digital psychology

Technology

term digital psychology

experimental psychology

behavioural psychology

media psychology

web psychology

digital channels

digital technology

digital strategy