Talk done on the Mystery Shopping Providers Association. European Annual Meeting in Sardinia, May´12. Focusing on Neuropsychological aspects of the Mystery Shopping. What influences you when evaluating others and places.

1. Sardinia- Annual Event-
The Neuropsychology of the Mystery
Shopping
What influences you when
evaluating others and places
by
David Camps

2. And the question should be…
• ¿What does not influence us?
• - A continous stream of information, both
consciously and unconsciously is
influencing us

3. What If I …
• Professional Experience
• 2006-Director, Sage Center for Study of
Mind, University of California, Santa
Barbara
• 2005-2006 President, American
Psychological Society 2002-2004 Dean of
the Faculty; Dartmouth College
• 1996-David T. McLaughlin Distinguished
Professor (2004, title changed to David T.
McLaughlin Distinguished University
Professor); Director, Center for Cognitive
Neuroscience; Dartmouth College 1993-
Founder, Cognitive Neuroscience
Society 1992-1996Director, Center for
Neuroscience; Professor of Neurology and
of Psychology; University of California at
Davis (Overscale)

4. Important Lesson
• Words are never words alone, images are
never images alone, music is never music
alone,…
• We always add
meaning/traits/associations to the world .
• Reality it´s a subjective experience even
our memories.

5. The big conscious picture
• Theory of mind –
David Premack &
Woodruff, 1978

6. ¿What we look for?
• Social Warm
• Harry harlow experiment- Cloth
mother vs wired mother
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2M6XBJE

7. Fooled by our senses
• Vision : The shepard table visual illusion
• http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/sze_shepardTables/index.html
• Attention : Attentional Blindness concept
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGQmdoK_ZfY
• Sound : The shepard tone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugriWSmRxcM
• And sensory combinations : The McGurk effect
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-lN8vWm3m0&feature=re

8. The must have resource…
• “Anyone can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person at the right time, and for
the right purpose and in the right way - that is not within everyone's power and that is not easy.”-
Aristoteles
• A Brief History of Emotional Intelligence
• 1930s – Edward Thorndike describes the concept of "social intelligence" as the ability to get
along with other people.
• 1940s – David Wechsler suggests that affective components of intelligence may be essential to
success in life.
• 1950s – Humanistic psychologists such as Abraham Maslow describe how people can build
emotional strength.
• 1975 - Howard Gardner publishes The Shattered Mind, which introduces the concept of multiple
intelligences.
• 1985 - Wayne Payne introduces the term emotional intelligence in his doctoral dissertation
entitled “A study of emotion: developing emotional intelligence; self-integration; relating to fear,
pain and desire (theory, structure of reality, problem-solving, contraction/expansion, tuning
in/coming out/letting go).”
• 1995 - The concept of emotional intelligence is popularized after publication of psychologist and
New York Times science writer Daniel Goleman’s book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter
More Than IQ.

9. Reading emotions…
• The fake smile test
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/smile
• Microexpressions samples
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8LJAeg9YJ4&feature=rela

10. Mind Habits
• The 16 Habits of Mind identified by Costa and Kallick include:
• Persisting
• Thinking and communicating with clarity and precision
• Managing impulsivity
• Gathering data through all senses
• Listening with understanding and empathy
• Creating, imagining, innovating
• Thinking flexibly
• Responding with wonderment and awe
• Thinking about thinking (metacognition)
• Taking responsible risks
• Striving for accuracy
• Finding humor
• Questioning and posing problems
• Thinking interdependently
• Applying past knowledge to new situations
• Remaining open to continuous learning

11. Cognitive Distorsions – David Burns
• All-or-nothing thinking – Thinking of things in absolute terms, like “always”, “every” or
“never”. Few aspects of human behavior are so absolute.
• Overgeneralization – Taking isolated cases and using them to make wide generalizations.
• Mental filter – Focusing exclusively on certain, usually negative or upsetting, aspects of
something while ignoring the rest, like a tiny imperfection in a piece of clothing.
• Disqualifying the positive – Continually “shooting down” positive experiences for arbitrary,
ad hoc reasons.
• Jumping to conclusions – Assuming something negative where there is no evidence to
support it. Two specific subtypes are also identified:
a. Mind reading – Assuming the intentions of others.
b. Fortune telling – Predicting how things will turn before they happen.
• Magnification and Minimization – Inappropriately understating or exaggerating the way
people or situations truly are. Often the positive characteristics of other people are
exaggerated and negative characteristics are understated. There is one subtype of
magnification:
Catastrophizing – Focusing on the worst possible outcome, however unlikely, or thinking
that a
situation is unbearable or impossible when it is really just uncomfortable.
• Emotional reasoning – Making decisions and arguments based on how you feel rather than
objective reality.
• Making should statements – Concentrating on what you think “should” or ought to be rather
than the actual situation you are faced with, or having rigid rules which you think should
always apply no matter what the circumstances are.
• Labeling – Explaining behaviors or events, merely by naming them; related to
overgeneralization. Rather than describing the specific behavior, you assign a label to
someone or yourself that puts them in absolute and unalterable terms.
• Personalization (or attribution) – Assuming you or others directly caused things when that
may not have been the case. When applied to others, blame is an example.

12. The nuns Case Study
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw2lafKIEio
• Let´s put it simple now, lets figure out, the
influence that a positive thinking plays in
your daily life and work, compared to a
negative thinking style. This impact also
could surpass and go beyond the
emotional, or behavioural states, to reach
even your biology, your health.

13. Tools for “untwisting” your thinking
• B.R.E.A.T.H.E Acronym by Dr. Margaret
Chesney
• Be in the moment
• Realist -- set realistic goals
• Each day -- notice positives
• Acts of kindness for others
• Turn negatives around -- find the silver lining
• Honor your strengths
• End the day with gratitude

14. Unconscious Influencers
• The big picture : Dr. John A. Bargh

15. Important Lesson
• The unconscious approach is no longer
treated as something magical, and can be
treated as theorically as the conscious
processes.

16. ¿Who´s in charge?
• Libet Experiment revisited :
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ4nwTTmc
• John Dylan Haynes experiments :
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player

17. Back to the conscious world…
• Unconscious imitation precedes any
cognition, in the development of a human
being
• Neonate imitation
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2YdkQ1G5
• Still Face Experiment,Dr. Edward Tronick
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apzXGEbZh

18. Socials from the womb
• Paul Bloom
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WABzcRMQ
• Mirror Neurons- Neural correlates of
Empathy
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPVNAESO

19. Priming Effects
• Ash experiment- Social Conformation-
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRh5qy09nN
• Primer explanation and examples, by
Malcom Gladwell
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_mVFPCa

20. Heuristics and biases
• Availability Heuristic explained
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_wkv1Gx2
• Representativeness Heuristic example
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kcg53k7k7d

21. • Peak End theory by Dr. Kahneman
explained
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA6nciKpqi
• Predictably Irrationality by Dan Arielly
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ5baAOrx

22. Thanks….
• David Camps
• Twitter : @DavidCamps
• Email : davidcampspons@yahoo.es
dcamps@client-experience.com