It takes two to tango

Our two systems of the mind

Over the last twenty years, psychologists have suggested there are two different ways in which the brain works - how we think fast and automatically (System 1) and slowly and deliberately (System 2), also known as dual process theory.[1] These two systems run in tandem with each other, System 1 often leading, with System 2 on ‘stand-by’, supporting and ready to be called upon. In this way the two systems complement each other in order to make judgements, choices and decisions.

Our fast, automatic, intuitive System 1

System 1 is our more primitive, automatic side that launches into action with little or no effort, often subconsciously. It's the system we use most during an average day – indeed, it allows us to take in a huge number of stimuli - we actually absorb around 11 million pieces of information per second - but the dexterity of System 1 means this is an effortless process, and we are consciously aware of only about 40 of them. Rather than looking at all the stimuli, facts and information and processing these, System 1 is cleverer, or some might say lazier in that it generates impressions and emotions, it makes shortcuts, picks up cues in our environment, looks for associations, for patterns (even when they don’t exist) - all of which it then rapidly compares.  But it doesn't always come to the right decision.

Examples of our automatic System 1 at work are often things that we can do instantly with little or no effort. For example looking for a friend in a school photo, speaking in our mother tongue or working out the answer to a simple sum. We can generally do any of those sorts of things instantaneously without having to think hard.

System 1 is also at work in things we are expert in, so for example we can drive our cars without having to think about each move; a professional violinist will be able to read and play a page of familiar music straightaway, and an Olympic pole vaulter will execute the run, the vault and the landing all pretty much instinctively.

System 1 is also the source of what we sometimes call our intuition and ‘gut feeling’. Often these day-to-day intuitions are correct, making efficient and highly accurate judgements. For example, when we know someone very well, we can spot intuitively when they might be in a bad mood from tiny clues in their body language and nuances in what they say and how they say it.

However, because System 1 is intuitive, because it likes to take shortcuts where it can and is prone to pattern-spotting, it's not really surprising that it is not infallible and can make cognitive errors. It makes quick judgements, it relies on a wide range of cognitive biases in decision-making, and tends to reframe a complex question into a simpler question. Or sometimes it may rely on one piece of information and neglect another. For example, when reading this question a quick analysis may lead us to the wrong answer: “How many animals of each kind did Moses take into the Ark at a time?” System 1 might answer with ‘two’, failing to double check that it wasn't actually Moses who took animals into the Ark…. 

Further, System 1 can make errors by failing to acknowledge the context. In her TED talk 'On Being Wrong', Kathryn Schultz describes a simple mistake she made on seeing the image below during a drive in the US.

She was, she told her friend, confused by the signs with the Chinese characters….  Schultz had decided to try to make sense of apparently random, abstract lines which looked very similar (in the eyes of someone with no knowledge of Chinese) to a Chinese character, rather than set the symbol in its context and recognise the US National Parks Service roadside picnic symbol…[2] In case you're interested, the Chinese symbol for picnic is this:

野餐

Our slow, conscious, deliberate System 2

In contrast to our quick and responsive System 1, we tend to use System 2 for more challenging thoughts, choices and decisions. It engages in conscious and careful reasoning, is effortful, logical and slow, assessing facts and information, making mental calculations and working out different possibilities in an orderly way. So we use our System 2 when calculating the square root of 9801 (the answer is 99 by the way) or when working out how to say ‘Where can I have a picnic?’ in an unfamiliar foreign language. Learning new skills also requires System 2, so learning to drive a car, to play the violin, or pole vault will require considerable System 2 effort to begin with. Once the brain is familiar with these tasks though, it can rely on System 1 to continue them.

System 2 can also be triggered into action to regulate our more impulsive, short-termist System 1, using self-control to stop us from eating too much, or to make sure we finish an important piece of work instead of going for a drink with a mate, or to say no to the offer of a cigarette. System 2 might also police and monitor a System 1 answer to something, double check it and intervene in the final decision if System 1 has made an error.

System 2’s selectivity

Yet System 2 has limited resources and can therefore only engage in select decisions through the course of our day. We would be overwhelmed, literally paralysed into inaction, if we thought hard about everything.  So System 2 picks and chooses what is most sensible to invest its energy in and can sometimes be lazy - especially if something is not viewed as a very important decision.

For example, this petrol station offer – ‘2p off per litre of fuel if you spend £1 or more in the shop’ – might seem appealing at first glance ie based only on your System 1 analysis; however take the time to apply System 2 and you'll work out that at best, you would only break even from the deal.  Say you fill your car up with 50 litres of fuel at a price of 140p per litre, you would save £1 on fuel but to gain that you would have to spend at least £1 in the shop (and it's highly likely you would end up spending more).  But many might not attempt to make that calculation, simply using a rule of thumb that any fuel offer must be worthwhile.

We might think that when it comes to processing large amounts of information, especially for important decisions, we would definitely rely mainly on a System 2 approach. And yet because it has limited capacity, this may not actually be the case. If there is too much information to process in order to reach any sort of decision quickly, our System 2 might decide not to intervene, a fact that can help to explain why the sub-prime credit crisis occurred. Warren Buffett, one of the most successful investors of our time once said, "If you take one of the lower tranches of the Collateralised Debt Obligations (CDO) and take 50 of those and create a CDO squared, you're now up to 750,000 pages to read to understand one security.”[3] Most people, even professionals, just didn’t have the time, or the energy to do that – it was simply too much effort. So, the more stuff we have to deal with, the more likely we are to do the exact opposite of what would serve us best in the long run, and instead of applying a conscientious System 2 approach we revert to System 1, taking shortcuts and relying on rules of thumb (such as doing what others are doing, or relying on authoritative sources – in this case often the Credit Rating Agencies) to make a judgement for us.

Consequences of System 2 Depletion

If investors had attempted to read those millions of pages it is highly likely that their System 2 would have become worn down. System 2 can become tired for many other reasons too. Simply having to use our self-control on consecutive occasions can wear it down. Research has shown that we are prone to licensing effects where behaviour in one situation can affect our behaviour in a later situation. This can often be due to exhausting our System 2 in one scenario which requires us to be more reliant on System 1 in a later scenario.  For example, having to fight temptation in one situation can lead to a decreased resolve in a following situation. A study conducted by Roy Baumeister, Professor of Psychology at Florida State University and his colleagues found that people who had to resist eating chocolate chip cookies (they were offered radishes instead) who were then asked to solve an unsolvable geometric puzzle made fewer attempts to crack it and quit faster. They had been worn out by the effort it took to resist the cookies.[4] Resisting tempting food is not the only thing which can deplete our energy and focus. Suppressing emotions (eg anger or desire) or making a complex choice can make us more susceptible to later reversions to System 1. System 2 can recover – but it needs food and rest.

The need to give your System 2 a break was demonstrated very convincingly by researchers at Ben Gurion University and Columbia Business School. Israeli judges deliberating parole decisions had to choose between the default option (ie the easy System 1 choice) to keep the offender in prison, or to change the status quo and grant parole (the more difficult System 2 choice).  Sessions ran through the day with a mid morning break and another break for lunch.  It was clear from the offenders' point of view that the best time for their parole hearing to be scheduled was immediately after the judges had taken a break, when they had more energy to tackle a parole granting decision and indeed, the proportion of favourable decisions rose to 65% at these times.  As the court sessions went on, however, each of the eight judges they tracked tended increasingly to stick with the default option, presumably as they became tired or hungry. In fact, towards the end of each session (ie before the breaks) offenders were most likely to have their parole requests turned down.

It should come as no surprise then, that when we are tired and needing sleep we fall back on System 1 mechanisms more heavily; reverting to defaults and habits rather than thinking laterally. Research has suggested that being tired can impair our creative thinking, as well as our ability to deal with complex and unexpected issues, or to problem solve with innovative solutions, or to see the bigger picture, or assess risk.[5] Worryingly, Hank Paulson, former US Treasury Secretary, reportedly had only a few hours sleep the week Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008 when he was trying to rescue the US (and to some extent global) economy. Compare that to President Obama, who before deciding whether to give the go ahead for the raid which ultimately killed Osama bin Laden, had a good night’s sleep, and made the decision in the morning.

Obama’s strategy of literally ‘sleeping on it’ is one that Maarten Bos, a researcher at Harvard Business School, can see sense in. Bos has illustrated how for complex decisions this is often a vital action. In long, exhaustive negotiations or investigations, System 2 falls under more and more strain, so giving it some rest and getting a full night’s sleep could be the best thing to do.  He advises the use of both System 1 and 2 for optimal decision-making – combined with sleep or another non-stressful activity (such as listening to music or going for a walk). The best approach to a difficult decision is:

• to review the real facts and information using your System 2;
• to sleep on it - which relaxes, rests and distracts your System 2 and lets your subconscious System 1 mind mull over the problem; and
• to return to the problem to review it once more using your System 2 before making a final decision.[6]

Warren Buffett's ‘distraction task’ (in between super successful investment decision-making) is to do the crossword.  He describes his investment style as 'lethargy bordering on sloth'.  

You might describe System 2 as a form of procrastination, a postponement of a decision to be made.  But Professor J. Keith Murnighan of Northwestern University and his colleagues have found in their research that the delay actually allows for more complex reasoning via your System 2 mechanism. He explains:

“Immediate, automatic moral intuitions tend to be selfish, given that self-interest is a basic, instinctual response to external stimuli. In contrast, conscious, deliberative thought adds social concerns, setting off a battle within the individual that pits the strength of self-interested intuitive desires against the constraints established by social learning."[7]

When confronted by clear choices between right and wrong, people are five times more likely to do the right thing when they have time to think about it than when they have to make a snap decision.[8]

Another scenario can occur when System 2 takes the lead in setting up a process, in order to rely on System 1 later. Some innovative products and services have devised ways in which our behaviour can be improved by making use of System 2 initially, when we are in a calm, rational state, for example, in order to set up a useful behaviour change mechanism which the impulsive, quick reacting System 1 is actually ideally suited to running in the long term. The Australian bank Westpac launched an ‘Impulse Saver’ app in New Zealand which people could download to their smartphones. Having set up a nominal amount to transfer to their savings account (for which System 2 had been required to understand and set up the app), all they had to do to save in the future was press a large red button displayed on their phone whenever they felt the urge and impulse to save (which System 1 could handle automatically).

Conversely, in other situations System 1 might take the lead, later engaging System 2 to support it. One example might be choosing a house to buy. When viewing a house initially, System 1 dominates for most of us. We tend to know as soon as we’ve walked in the door whether we like it or not. We might view a house and find it light, airy and spacious - and our gut reaction is that we absolutely love it. This is our emotional System 1 talking through heuristics like affect bias.  As we spend more time wandering round, our System 2 might be looking for rational, supportive evidence that it is a good choice and not trying too hard to look for faults, optimistically overlooking any real problems we might come across. Conversely, we might view another house that we instantly decide we don’t like, then look round with our System 2 to find rational faults and problems with the house.

Uncovering these systems in research

The varied examples above illustrate just how complex the interaction between our two systems can be. So, in consumer research, we need to think hard about the existing and potential relationship between System 1 and 2 and to analyse the many different interplays, pushes and pulls between the two in order to make better sense of our behaviour. Some people advocate only focusing on System 1 and others are much more focused on System 2.  Both are key though: at different times and for different contexts or touch points a particular system may be more relevant.  To fully see this and in order to map out System 1 and 2 involvement and how they might be impacting on behaviour, we need to understand the complete consumer journey. More specifically we need:

• To be conscious of time and its potential impact on the consumers we seek to understand  –  analysing the time context and considering whether System 2 is likely to be worn out from any previous activity and when it is likely to be more engaged. When might System 1 be impulsive? When might System 2 might be more alert and engaged?
• To be aware of individual differences between people – some people will be more or less prone to relying on System 1 thinking. For example, we could make use of people’s Cognitive Reflection Task scores which quickly measure the degree to which people rely on System 1 in decision-making  –  potentially even recruiting against these scores.
• To consider the different environmental contexts which could influence behaviour  – and in these different contexts, where might system two be triggered into action?  Or where is System 1 likely to be the most active?

Effecting behavioural change and behavioural goals

We can also be empowered by thinking strategically about how to ‘leverage’ this deeper understanding of how System 1 and 2 are or could be operating and to consider how we might use this understanding to achieve a particular behavioural goal or to effect behavioural change. For example:

• We might acknowledge that if we rely on System 2 to a large degree in one area, it may have bad knock on effects in a later situation as we revert more to System 1, having worn out our System 2.
• Since we have limited System 2 resources we might need to work within an assumed quota, thinking about how most efficiently to allocate the few System 2 resources we have.
• We might consider how we could save people time and energy using nudges, automatic defaults, framing and heuristics – shortcuts that System 1 responds to. We might then find that they have more energy left to use their System 2 so that they can engage in more considered behaviour change.
• Or consider whether we can use different heuristics to keep people in a System 1 state rather than needing to revert to System 2.
• We could also consider how and when we might want System 2 to kick in and how better to enable people to engage their System 2 to make a good decision. For example, priming people to think about and concentrate on one key little thing, or chunking and breaking down the steps to do this so that they are manageable and help to guide people's thinking, always remembering that when confronted with too much information we have a tendency to rely on System 1.
• We might also consider when System 1 is likely to make mistakes and expect and pre-empt these mistakes. And like the savings schemes and the house buying examples above, we could think how we might be able to lead with System 2, later reverting to System 1 or vice versa. Strategically we might want people to stay with the current default, so want them to rely on their System 1 but in other occasions when we might want them to challenge an existing default behavior we would want them to engage their System 2.

When we approach any marketing task, from innovation to communication, just spending a little more time thinking about the behavioural journey, the different contexts and how System 1 or 2 might be operating, can be extremely enlightening. Then to consider how we might strategically use this understanding to achieve our objectives - potentially playing to System one or challenging it, tapping into precious System 2 resources when we feel it could have the most impact and considering where different ‘dual system strategies’ might be needed for different stages and contexts of the behavioural journey – has the potential to add significant strength to a strategic insight.

Read more from Crawford Hollingworth.