HRW Shift Podcast

In the final segment of our 3-part podcast series, Saket Rao, Behavioural Scientist, shares findings from his master’s dissertation, focusing on suicidal ideation using linguistic analysis on the social media platform, Reddit.

We hope you enjoy, from HRW Shift and HRW Eavesdrop!

As part of our 3rd Annual Celebration of Behavioral Science webinar series, HRW Shift, our team of award winning, in-house Behavioural scientists, dug into your burning questions, from how you can implement Behavioural science within your work, to strategies designed for specific biases.

During the launch of the COVID-19 vaccine, a significant amount of content circulated expressing skepticism about the reliability and trustworthiness of the available vaccines.

As individuals, our tendency to be influenced by the actions and emotions of others becomes particularly pronounced when faced with uncertainties, which also extends to our perceptions of vaccines.

In our HRW Shift‘s latest podcast, Alexandra Petrache, Senior Behavioural Science Analyst and Dana Al-Juburi, Research Manager, explore the impact of language in vaccine distribution and discuss strategies including leveraging social identity, incorporating personal anecdotes and stories to evoke emotions, and the benefits of transparency about limitations and uncertainties of the vaccines.

Harvard data shows that over the years, implicit bias against race, sexuality, age, and disability have all decreased. However, implicit bias against those who are overweight is the only group bias that has become more severe over time.

It is plausible that exposure to more positive thin people and negative overweight people in society could be responsible for the strengthening of implicit anti-fat bias. Social media platforms are a key leader when it comes to the ‘thin ideal’, with the prevalence of photo manipulation, and the pressure to confirm to beauty standards and present this as an online highlight.

In HRW Shift’s latest podcast, Alex, Senior Behavioural Science Analyst, Millie, Research Executive and cofounder of HRW Eavesdrop, our innovative social media listening offering that is soon to be launched, are joined by @Emma, who is currently training to be a psychotherapist, with a background in Behavioural Science (specifically discourse analysis), as they share part 2 of our 3-part podcast series surrounding social media and mental health, discussing social media’s impact on the perfect body image, and how we can keep our biases in check.

Recommended reading:

-"What we don't talk about when we talk about fat" by Aubrey Gordon

The so-called reality or standards that social media continues to enforce is reshaping people’s social norms and attitudes, leaving more and more people left with either very poor self-esteem, or with the motivation to reach those standards take on very physically and mentally unhealthy behaviours and attitudes.

Join Alexandra Petrache, Senior Behavioural Science Analyst and Millie Morgan, Research Executive and cofounder of HRW Eavesdrop, our innovative social media listening offering, as they share part 1 of our 3-part podcast series surrounding the relationship between social media, mental health and the depiction around these social aspects online using linguistic analysis techniques.

References:

1.What we don't talk about when we talk about fat by Aubrey Gordon

2. Barry, C. T., Sidoti, C. L., Briggs, S. M., Reiter, S. R., & Lindsey, R. A. (2017). Adolescent social media use and mental health from adolescent and parent perspectives. Journal of adolescence, 61, 1-11.

3. Tankovska, H. (2021). Number of monthly active Instagram users 2013-2018. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/253577/number-of-monthlyactive-instagram-users/

4. Woods, H. C., & Scott, H. (2016). # Sleepyteens: Social media use in adolescence is associated with poor sleep quality, anxiety, depression and low self-esteem. Journal of adolescence, 51, 41-49.

5. Vogel, E. A., Rose, J. P., Roberts, L. R., & Eckles, K. (2014). Social comparison, social media, and self-esteem. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 3(4), 206.

6. Muralidhara, S., & Paul, M. J. (2018). # Healthy selfies: exploration of health topics on Instagram. JMIR public health and surveillance, 4(2), e10150.

7. Sidani, J. E., Shensa, A., Hoffman, B., Hanmer, J., & Primack, B. A. (2016). The association between social media use and eating concerns among US young adults. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 116(9), 1465-1472.

8. Neumark-Sztainer, D. (2005). I'm, like, SO fat!: helping your teen make healthy choices about eating and exercise in a weight-obsessed world. Guilford Press.

You know that moment when you think you might be releasing a podcast in March, but you postpone the recording once, twice...and a few more times, so it actually gets released in April? We do! Guilty!

Have a listen of our podcast to see what Agatha Christie, wills, and wine subscription may have in common (or may be tenuously stretched to have something in common). Find out why we may procrastinate and quick tips on how to avoid procrastination

We are happy to present part two of our series exploring the common biases that HCPs and patients face! In our latest we explored some of the biases that often crop up in HCP research and strategies to counter them. Today we'll be discussing the biases that we repeatedly encounter in patient research and how to best respond to them.

Tune in as our behavioral scientists help elucidate the patient experience and run through biases such as emotional overload, learned helplessness, illusion of transparency, and many more!

At HRW we do a lot of HCP research and as HCPs are affected by cognitive biases like all of us, we're put together this bite-sized podcast to explore biases that come up in HCP research and how they can be explored in market research and overcome.

This is part of a two-episode short series- join us in the New Year for the podcast where we discuss common biases that we've encountered in patient research!

"You scratch my back, I scratch yours". Standard economics considers individuals selfish, but behavioural economics explains that reciprocity (returning someone's actions)is an evolutionarily ingrained concept, which we see at play every day: have you ever bought or considered buying a product when someone offered you a sample? Have you put more effort into a work-out because the trainer was nice?

Join Tony Jiang, Behavioural Science Analyst, and Alexandra Petrache, Senior Behavioural Science Analyst, as they discuss reciprocity!

*Note: on the podcast, we talked about a study which identified a correlation between doctors being offered meals from sales rep, with the apparent effect of an increase in the prescription of branded drugs. We'd like to note that transparency provisions are now in place to preclude this, as well as to forbid provisions of meals or any gifts from pharmaceutical companies

Would you like strawberry or blackberry jam? What about the percentage of fruit in the jam? Sweetener, sugar? What brand?

Join us as we talk about choice overload- when "more" is not always "better", how it can affect our decision-making, where we've encountered it in the healthcare space, and what to do if you would like to ease it for your customers and give them a helping hand in making decisions