Lesson 6 - New Groups and Cultural Differences

New Groups

The first thing we did for the day was to get into new groups. While it was great working with our old group, it will be great to get a chance to work with new people. Additionally, we took some time to look at how our new group wanted to work, and wrote down a contract for that.

 

The things we wanted to do were to start working earlier in order to give us time to review and edit our work, as well as divide the work evenly to make it efficient. We decided that the Studenterhuset would be our place to work and that working in person would be the most efficient. We also acknowledged that we need to make sure to have fair debating and that we will need to compromise.

Nudging

The main concept we covered for the day was nudging, which is the idea that you can use positive reinforcement and indirect suggestions in order to influence people's behavior, without overtly telling them what to do. Nudging happens all of the time in business and advertising, as these companies want us to use their products and services.

Well-being In Products

In order to analyze cultural differences in products and companies, we went out into the city in our study groups and analyzed a difference US business that is also in Copenhagen. We went to KFC and looked at the differences there. We found that it was a lot cleaner and looked a bit more upscale. We tried some of the food there and found that the quality of the food was better. Additionally, we found the menu had some small changes, such as the addition of salads and shakes, and the exclusion of biscuits. These changes must have some significant or consequences in the well-being of people in Copenhagen who would come to the store. For instance, they might value the quality of the food and the atmosphere of the area more than in the US - for them, these things might increase their well-being.

When talking with the class afterwards, we each got into different groups to discuss the differences we saw throughout the different stores and shops. Some of the recurrent themes were of better quality products and healthier choices. From these observations, one could infer that quality and health may have more meaning to the well-being of Danes than to Americans.