Nudgesicle 6/4

Today we get to talk about... capitalism!!

(Not really.)

Psychology is essential to businesses. If you want to market a product, you need to know who your target is and how to make them want your product. Manipulating people into thinking or feeling a certain way is all about psychology.

We explored businesses in Denmark that we're used to seeing in the United States, like McDonalds, Burger King, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, and KFC. We looked at similarities and differences, noting how the aspects of the business that we see in Denmark and not back home may reflect the Danish people's view of wellbeing, which may be different from ours.

My group looked at Burger King. I want to say it was mostly the same, but the biggest difference I saw was tragic: the fries were bad. It's possible they were cooked with less oil or less salt, which could reflect Danish wellbeing, since they may be healthier than we are. They also didn't have toys, which was interesting. Toys were listed on the menu (you can buy a separate toy for 15 kroner which is pretty cool) but there was no toy display. The employee told me "we do not have toys", but I couldn't tell if that meant they don't carry toys or if they were out. I was mostly interested in finding out if they have the unnecessarily gendered toys like we have in the United States. (Because, you know, only boys like cars and only girls like animals. I love traditional gender roles. Capitalism is good. The government is here to protect us. All hail the patriarchy.) Unfortunately, I didn't find anything. But I suspect Denmark is equally as obsessed with gender essentialist garbage as the U.S. is. But I digress.

Anyway, we also discussed nudging in terms of positive reinforcement. To "nudge" somebody to do something, you don't want to just tell them to do it. You want to gently push them to act. Positive reinforcement is a great way to do this; you train a dog by giving it a treat for doing a trick, so that it associates doing the trick with the taste of the treat. You train a human by giving it money for recycling a bottle in Denmark. Psychology is amazing.