Quotes About Behavior

The linkages between emotion and behavior can be more subtle, though. For instance, a secondary effect of being angry, which was recently discovered by researchers, is that we become more certain of our judgments. When we're angry, we know we're right, as anyone who has been in a relationship can attest.

To change someone's behavior, you've got to change that person's situation.

the core of the matter is always about changing the behavior of people, and behavior change happens in highly successful situations mostly by speaking to people's feelings.

Tweaking the environment is about making the right behaviors a little bit easier and the wrong behaviors a little bit harder.

Contrast Disney with Subway. Like Disney, Subway has created a metaphor for its frontline employees. They are "sandwich artists." This metaphor is the evil twin of Disney's "cast members." It is utterly useless as a guide to how the employee should act. Disney expects its cast members to behave like actors, but Subway does not expect its counter help to behave like artists. The

sometimes in times of change, nobody knows how to behave, and that can lead to problems.

Programs that reduce drug use employ interactive methods, while ineffective programs don't.

Behavior is contagious.

In this chapter, we've seen that what looks like a "character problem" is often correctible when you change the environment.

That's why scripting is important—you've got to think about the specific behavior that you'd want to see in a tough moment, whether the tough moment takes place in a Brazilian railroad system or late at night in your own snack-loaded pantry.

These results are shocking. The mere act of calculation reduced people's charity. Once we put on our analytical hat, we react to emotional appeals differently. We hinder our ability to feel.

The more instinctive a behavior becomes, the less self-control from the Rider it requires, and thus the more sustainable it becomes.

once a small step has been taken, and people have begun to act in a new way, it will be increasingly difficult for them to dislike the way they're acting.

When people try to change things, they're usually tinkering with behaviors that have become automatic, and changing those behaviors requires careful supervision by the Rider. The bigger the change you're suggesting, the more it will sap people's self-control.

Because identities are central to the way people make decisions, any change effort that violates someone's identity is likely doomed to failure. (That's why it's so clumsy when people instinctively reach for "incentives" to change other people's behavior.)

researchers have found again and again that people act as though losses are from two to four times more painful than gains are pleasurable.

You'll direct the Rider, motivate the Elephant, and shape the Path.

trainers set a behavioral destination and then use "approximations," meaning that they reward each tiny step toward the destination.

Knowledge does not change behavior

What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage," became the most e-mailed article on the Times website in 2006, and it led to a book on the same topic.

The error lies in our inclination to attribute people's behavior to the way they are rather than to the situation they are in.

What do you expect?" she said. "Kids get to their teen years, the hormones kick in, and they spend a few years operating without a frontal lobe.

Let's replay that scene, where things were working for you. What was happening? How did you behave? Were you smiling? Did you make eye contact?

Also, cognitive dissonance works in your favor. People don't like to act in one way and think in another. So once a small step has been taken, and people have begun to act in a new way, it will be increasingly difficult for them to dislike the way they're acting. Similarly, as people begin to act differently, they'll start to think of themselves differently, and as their identity evolves, it will reinforce the new way of doing things.