{"id":4483,"date":"2021-05-19T14:09:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-19T14:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wwwstaging.keesdeboekhouder.nl\/eva-van-den-broek-over-het-bromvliegeffect\/"},"modified":"2024-10-11T12:09:15","modified_gmt":"2024-10-11T12:09:15","slug":"eva-van-den-broek-about-the-bluebottle-fly-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.keesdeboekhouder.nl\/en\/eva-van-den-broek-about-the-bluebottle-fly-effect\/","title":{"rendered":"Eva van den Broek about the bluebottle fly effect"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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What do little flies that save cleaning costs and men that use dryer fluff to pick up women have in common? Well, behavioural scientist dr. Eva van den Broek (and marketing strategist Tim de Heijer) wrote a book about both: The bluebottle fly effect, how everyday phenomenons secretly influence your behaviour. The book will be in stores from 20 May.<\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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How do those womanizers use dryer fluff to pick up women? Or do we have to wait until the book is released for the answer to that question?
<\/strong>Haha, I\u2019ll let you in on this one. It\u2019s an example by Tim den Heijer. He wrote this wonderful piece in the book about womanizers. There are a couple of things you can do to make people like you. A lot has to do with giving something to someone or doing something selfless for someone. The specific example of the dryer fluff is about making people feel like you\u2019re doing something for them and touching them as well. So the womanizer takes some dryer fluff from his own pocket and pretends to pick it off the lady and shows it to her. It shows you\u2019re capable of doing something nice for someone and it also creates an awkward situation from which you\u2019re freeing the other person. A double hit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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Can you explain how you came about the bluebottle fly effect?
<\/strong>Actually it was a moment after Tim and I were introduced to each other by the publisher. The bluebottle fly effect was a term that didn\u2019t exist yet. It sounds good and is inspired by the butterfly effect where the wing beat of a butterfly on one side of the world can create a storm on the other side. That concept: a small phenomenon, a big effect is what we tried to capture, but aimed at the behaviour of people. Tim came up with the idea of a bluebottle fly. It\u2019s small, irritating and hard to beat off and you can squash it, but before you know it, there\u2019s another one flying in your living room.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
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How did you find out that our behaviour is actually being influenced all the time?
<\/strong>I studied artificial intelligence and I tried to predict human behaviour. And you find out that people don\u2019t behave very systematic or rational and they don\u2019t strive for efficiency. On the contrary, we\u2019re being distracted all the time. All these distractions have a huge influence on our behaviour. Actually all ministries, municipalities and companies are engaged in changing behaviour. Whether they want you to register in the donor registration, or getting mopeds to ride on the streets instead of the bicycle lanes or simply selling a product. The bluebottle flies are applied everywhere.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Why do you think it\u2019s important for people to be aware of this bluebottle fly effect?
<\/strong>Consider a topic that everyone thinks is important like climate change. You can try to solve it on an individual level, like the old Dutch promotional slogan: \u201cEen beter milieu begint bij jezelf\u201d (A better environment starts with you), but suppose you work for the government or in a company and you have the chance to make even more impact. The book gives you some handles to recognize the bluebottle flies so you can make small adjustments in your daily life.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Authors Eva van den Broek en Tim de Heijer<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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It sort of reminds me of manipulation.
<\/strong>Well, that\u2019s the slippery part of it, the ethical dilemma. The first thing you\u2019ll do when reading the book is recognize all the different bluebottle effects and maybe apply them to your partner, children or neighbour sometimes: \u201cOh wait, I shouldn\u2019t tell my children to do something, but I should offer them a choice.\u201d So instead of telling them: \u201cPut on your rain boots!\u201d, you ask them: \u201cDo you want to wear your red or your green rain boots?\u201d That will often lead to the result you want. Of course you can apply this principle to selling a product and also misleading people. I think everyone tries to influence another person sometimes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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