How Behavioral Psychology Helps Businesses Flourish

The American Psychological Association defines behavioral psychology as a scientific approach to studying human behavior within the limits of what is only observable and measurable. Can you still remember your Psych 101 class that tells you about Pavlov, B.F.Skinner, and Watson?Although at first glance you may think that all these behaviorists have nothing to do with how entrepreneurs must run their businesses. But, in reality, there is plenty to be learned from behaviorism that will serve as a tool for businesses to flourish. This is because if business owners have enough background about behaviorism, they will become better at understanding human behavior. This knowledge will help them how to elicit their desired productivity levels among their employees. Therefore, by knowing enough about human behavior business owners will also increase their chances of achieving success. Here are some tips on how you can incorporate your knowledge of human behavior to make your business reach greater heights.

Knowing the Six Basic Human Needs

These are the fundamental driving forces of all human behavior.

Comfort - this is the need for assurance that you can avoid pain and that you are capable of gaining pleasure out of something.

Significance - this is the need to feel unique, special or as someone needed

Love - strong need to be close or united with someone

Growth - the need to expand one’s capability or understanding

Contribution - the need to express one’s support by giving to others

Variety - the need to discover the unknown, experience change and other new things

Once you can completely understand these needs, it will become easier for you to come up with strategies to satisfy your employees and make them work towards achieving your company’s goals. If you’re a boss or anyone who runs a business or any company, you should know that taking these six basic needs into consideration whenever you make decisions; you increase the chances of it to be a “big hit” to everybody.

The “Different Strokes for Different Folks” Approach

A study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology showed that personalization could do wonders towards increasing productivity and sales. In this study, waiters used candy mints to elicit tips from restaurant customers. Some of the findings of the study showed that telling the customers that more mint candies will be provided in case they want some more gained the highest amount (i.e., 23 percent) of tips. The other groups had waiters pointing to the mint on the table while the other group just put the mint along with the check and made no mention of it. This strategy only increased tipping for 3 percent and 14 percent respectively.

Practicing the Golden Rule

It is pretty obvious. When you do something good to others, chances are they will also do something good to you. This principle of reciprocity can indeed work wonders in encouraging employees and customers to be loyal to you and your company. Simple gestures such as sending your employees a thank you note or giving your customers free 30-day trial for your products or services can make everybody feel worthy of being appreciated and thus such gesture of gratitude and appreciation must also be reciprocated.