This is the fourth in a series of five individual profiles of our summer 2015 student interns. This summer, Learning Life’s social enterprise partner, Signia Surfaces, has five interns who are working on marketing, sales and educational content. To learn more about interning with Learning Life or Signia Surfaces, email learninglife@letlearninglive.org.
Where were you born and raised?
I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, but while I was still an infant my parents moved our family to the suburbs of Philadelphia, and eventually into the city itself.
What is your current occupation?
I am an undergraduate student majoring in organizational sciences at George Washington University in Washington D.C.
What do you like to do in your free time?
I read novels (e.g., The Imperfectionists, Trainspotting, and currently, The Count of Monte Cristo), newspapers (e.g., Wall Street Journal) and magazines (e.g., The Economist) for pleasure. I also love being outside. In the summer I like to fill my days playing rugby and tennis, skateboarding, hiking, bike riding and running. I also enjoy languages and am currently studying German.
What is the most beautiful place you have seen on Earth, and why is it so beautiful?
I went skiing in Park City, Utah this year and the views from the top of the Rocky Mountains were amazing. On the same trip, I went to Antelope Island, a national park outside of Salt Lake, Utah. From the top of this island mountain, you can see across the great Salt Lake (which actually has no water, but glistens not unlike a mirage in the desert due to its salt deposits) upon the snow-capped Rocky Mountains.
Is there a particular life experience you have had that has shaped you as a person? If so, what was it, and how has it shaped who you are?
Growing up in Philadelphia was a formative experience. The mentality and character of the people in Philadelphia are interesting — blunt and honest, but also very friendly. If you are being obnoxious in a restaurant in Philadelphia, for example, someone will stand up and tell you to quiet down. The same person, however, will say hello to you on the street, a not so common courtesy in some East Coast cities, especially D.C.
Why did you choose to intern with Signia Surfaces?
Signia Surfaces presented itself as a productive outlet for my time and energy, while furthering my professional career skills and offering the chance to work and interact with new and interesting people.
What are your career plans?
I am pursuing a career in management consulting, but as a young person I realize that life does not always comply with our desired plans. As long as I am happy and healthy, I will be content.
Intern Spotlight: Areej Abu Radwan
This is the third in a series of five individual profiles of our summer 2015 student interns. This summer, Learning Life’s social enterprise partner, Signia Surfaces, has five interns who are working on marketing, sales and educational content. To learn more about interning with Learning Life or Signia Surfaces, email learninglife@letlearninglive.org.
Where were you born and raised?
I was born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Muscat, Oman. My parents are of Palestinian origin, but lived in D.C. while my father pursued his education, then moved to Oman.
What is your current occupation?
I am a full-time undergraduate student majoring in business administration at George Mason University in northern Virginia. I am also a part-time Seinfeld enthusiast and circus acrobat…I’m kidding about that last part, but I truly do like Seinfeld. It’s my favorite television show.
What do you like to do in your free time?
Long walks on the beach….just joking, though I do really like taking trips to the beach! I like to read, mainly classic books and anything that makes me reflect on life, like Great Expectations, Jane Eyre, and Catch-22. I also write poetry, short stories and reflections. I also follow current world events and like to study other cultures, especially Indian and African cultures.
What is the most beautiful place you have seen on Earth, and why is it so beautiful?
This is a difficult question to answer, as I have been to many a beautiful place, including Oman, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. In America, Montreal, Canada has beautiful trails and mountains, a lot of wide open space and crisp, clear air. Everything there is extremely picturesque.
Is there a particular life experience you have had that has shaped you as a person? If so, what was it, and how has it shaped who you are?
Moving back to America at age 18 for my studies has had a profound influence on my character and outlook on life. I learned to grow up quickly and how to handle responsibilities being on my own. I made mistakes (and still do) but came out of it stronger. As I like to say, experiences can either make or break a person, and I hope to always take the former path and make the most out of what is handed to me.
Why did you choose to intern with Signia Surfaces?
I chose to intern with Signia Surfaces because I was attracted to the creative way the company spreads knowledge to D.C. locals, using everyday surfaces. (It’s really cool, trust me. You should check out our Facebook page!)
What are your career plans?
I hope to gain a job in a management role after I graduate. My plan in the long-term is to open up a nonprofit organization that helps assist, educate and empower women and youth in need in the Washington D.C. area.
If You Hear Old, You’ll Walk Old: Building on the Psychology of Priming
The developing research on “priming” is fascinating and important for anyone who wants to improve human behavior and the world.
“Priming” refers to prompts or primes intended to influence people’s thinking and/or actions, and since the 1990s, social scientists have uncovered many ways that people respond to primes. In an earlier and now classic priming study, psychologists found that people primed with words associated with the elderly (e.g., retirement), walked more slowly upon leaving the experiment than those who had not been so primed (Bargh, Chen & Burrows 1996). In a different study, students primed with professor stereotypes answered more questions correctly on a knowledge test than those primed with supermodel stereotypes (Dijksterhuis et al. 1998). Another experiment found that visitors of an online auto market who had been primed on money with a green site background featuring pennies looked at pricing information longer than those who had been primed about safety (Mandel & Johnson 2002). In a more recent and troubling case, children and adults exposed to food advertising ate more, and in the kids’ case significantly (45%) more (Harris, Bargh & Brownell 2009).
For better or worse then, priming influences people. This generally holds true even for those who claim to be immune to priming because they are more informed or self-aware. The point though is not to deplore priming or people’s manipulability. Humans tend to be sensitive to contextual cues, consciously or not, and have always sought to influence each other, subtly or not. The fact that humans are responsive to priming is not an inherently good or bad thing. Much depends on whether priming is done to encourage good or bad behavior.
And the good news is that priming has been shown to encourage good thinking and behavior. In one experiment, subjects who heard music that urged helping others (e.g., the Beatles’ Help, USA for Africa’s We are the World, Michael Jackson’s Heal the World) were more willing to donate money to a nonprofit than those who had not heard such music (Greitemeyer 2009). In another study, restaurant customers who received the short quote “a good turn never goes amiss” printed at the bottom of their bill on average left larger tips than those who got the neutral quote “He who writes reads twice,” or no quote at all (Jacob & Gueguen 2012). And most recently, an experiment showed that consumers who ate an apple before shopping bought 25% more produce than those who did not eat an apple, and 28% more than those who ate a cookie (Tal & Wansink 2015).
This research suggests that there is promise in efforts to prime acts of kindness, civic engagement, voting, learning, saving, exercise, healthier eating, and a host of other good behaviors. There are questions about how long priming effects last, especially in the real world where people are exposed to so many and sometimes conflicting primes, rather than the carefully controlled experimental labs where most priming studies thus far have been done. The experience of real-world marketers focused on priming consumerism may hold at least some of the answer: it takes repeated, widespread and varied priming to yield the greatest impact on thinking or behavior. That, in turn, takes time and money, which most organizations have in quite short supply.
Still, for organizations interested in promoting particular good behaviors, the research on priming recommends developing and testing effective ways to prime people in everyday life. The evidence from marketing, in turn, recommends that organizations interested in nurturing the same good behaviors collaborate to enhance their capacity to carry out sustained, widespread and varied priming campaigns.
For the many business, nonprofit, academic and government organizations directly or indirectly interested in cultivating a wider culture of learning, a good first step may be to come together regularly to talk about what they are doing, and could be doing together to prime learning not just in schools, but in everyday life beyond schools. Monthly city, state, national or even international tele- or video-dialogues, for instance, may go a long way toward nurturing – and modeling – learning and collaboration in the service of better behavior, better communities, and better societies.
Jacob, Celine and Nicolas Gueguen. 2012. “Exposition to Altruism Quotes and Helping Behavior: A Field Experiment on Tipping in a Restaurant.” Annals of Tourism Research 39:3:1694-1698.
Kahneman, Daniel. 2011. Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Thaler, Richard H., and Cass R. Sunstein. 2009. Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness. New York: Penguin Books.
Intern Spotlight: Joseph Pelczar
This is the second in a series of five individual profiles of our summer 2015 student interns. This summer, Learning Life’s social enterprise partner, Signia Surfaces, has five interns who are working on marketing, sales and educational content. To learn more about interning with Learning Life or Signia Surfaces, contact us at email@learninglife.info.
Where were you born and raised?
I was born in Lake Ridge in northern Virginia. During my adolescence my parents moved to Fairfax, where I am still currently living.
What is your current occupation?
I am an undergraduate student at George Mason University in Virginia, near Washington D.C. I study information systems and operations management.
What do you like to do in your free time?
I enjoy spending quality time with friends, hiking many of Virginia’s Trails, and playing my guitars (I have two acoustic and two electric guitars). I have a passion for food and enjoy cooking and learning how to eat healthier. Throughout the summer, I enjoy going to the gym, running, and playing rugby.
What is the most beautiful place you have seen on Earth, and why is it so beautiful?
I regularly visit different regions of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, which have always been a favorite scenic location of mine. The views are spectacular during the fall when the leaves turn different colors.
Is there a particular life experience you have had that has shaped you as a person? If so, what was it, and how has it shaped who you are?
Going on mission trips in college to help others in various states, to learn about their cultures and how to interact with people from various backgrounds has been very influential in my life. I have been fortunate to have gone to New York and Tennessee. These trips have helped me to better appreciate my peers and mentors, develop a stronger knowledge of myself, and adapt to different locations.
Why did you choose to intern with Signia Surfaces?
I am excited to intern with Signia Surfaces because I believe it will provide me with valuable, real world experiences learned from working in a social enterprise, and I was very impressed with its unique brand of advertising clients and connecting metro D.C. locals with their community.
What are your career plans?
I intend to pursue a career as a business analyst or management consultant in the D.C. metro area. My long-term goals are still very open, and I intend to keep all my options open as I approach graduation. As long as I am near friends and am happy at my job, I will be content.
What do you like to do in your free time?
