Are you someone who thinks that you can change something?

Read this, in majority, people tend to stick with their status quo
(existing condition) if they were to given a choice whether to change to a new condition or keep the existing condition without compelling incentives.

Ok, maybe you think “That’s a common sense! Please give us more worth to read post!“

If you think like that, you have to take this “Embodied Economics and Cognition” course which was held today, from morning until afternoon, where everyone had their Culture’s Day National Holiday. This course was lectured by Prof. Yamagishi from Human Science Department and a guest lecture Prof. Maya Bar-Hillel, an Israel psychologist. Despite the Israel background of her (because I think the whole course and the theory had nothing to do with it – as you know there are still conflicts between Muslim and Jewish), this course explains about Status Quo Label Bias, a paper of her and her Doctoral Student which hasn’t been published yet. So I would say that I’m lucky to had attended this course and hear something that could be useful in making decision.

There was a research conducted by Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler 1991 which bring down a theory called “The Endowment Effect”. There are two classes, where students in class A were given a pen each, and class B students are given a mug each. In every classroom, the researcher offered the students to change for pen for the students in class A, and change for mug for students in class B. The students just have to ask the researcher to change their mug/pen. If the economy theory was true, that everyone wants to do a trade, so it is expected by the end of the class, 50% of students in each class holds a different goods than they have first, because the student is chosen at random to present their interest to mug or pen. But the result was, very few students want to trade their mug or pen.

Why? Is not hard to just raise your hand and ask for change, right? The students are experiencing psychological condition, which contradict the economic theory. Roughly to say, this theory said that once you have owned something, you start valuing it higher. So that’s why people prefer status quo rather than any change in status quo offered to them, if
the new condition has advantage and disadvantage, in other word, there’s a trade off between your status quo and the new condition. Of course, when the other choice is advantageous from any side – or in other word, compelling incentives – people would dare to leave their status quo looking for a better condition.

Why? Well there are a few reasons;

1. You have to pay for the transaction cost (I’d more like to call it switch cost, which I know that it is the correct term for a cost that you have to buy when you switch or change to other things, where transaction cost is a cost you have to spend for something that you can’t make by yourself – for example, contract fee to a new supplier).

   The simplest example is, when you want to change from mobile operator A to B, you have to pay cancellation fee to A, you would spend time, energy, and money to work for the administration even the new subscription fee for B is free, you may even have to spent another time to adjust with the new mobile operator system.

2. You don’t want to get out from your comfort zone; that is your existing condition now, because you’ve already familiar with it.
3. There is uncertainty or risk contained in the new condition. Even if that you have considered the effect for the alternative choice, the risk is still there. Maybe it comes from your miscalculation, and the environment itself cannot always posses’ certainty.

This behavioral approach of decision making is also brought by Herbert A. Simon on his book “Administrative Behavior”. The concept of Economy Man, who is always rational and see for the choice that brings the most efficiency to him, is criticized by Simon because there’s more than rationality to make a decision process. That is the behavior of the man itself. Sometimes, the man don’t have enough knowledge to analyze all the alternative choice so he would choose the choice that satisfy him enough, but that choice is not the one which bring maximum advantage. And there is lots of behavioral theory that should be considered along with the rationality theory.

Another thing, Prof. Bar-Hillel tells us an example of exam system is Israel and USA. In Israel, where most of the students work under military too, the exam system is scattered in the span of 5-6 weeks. And if they feel dissatisfied with the grade, or they can’t attend the first exam, another 5-6 weeks second exam is held. And if there’s still someone who just take the exam on the second period and still feel unsatisfied with the grade, he can take another remedial in the third exam period. But in USA, the exam is just held in one week according to the regular class schedule. No remedial but you can take a summer vacation sooner J

Then the Israel University student is asked, “Would you change your exam system now to the USA system?” and the USA university student is asked vice versa. The result was, both of them reject the system offered. Why? The Israel students argued that they won’t have a time to study and the remedial. The USA students argued that their summer vacation would be interrupted. If you examined closely, the Israel students would gain “a better summer vacation time” and the USA’s would have a lot of time to study and also chance to correct the grade if they accept the offer. So, why they won’t trade it? Simple, it’s because of the status quo. For Israel students, they would have to lose their chance to remedial and more time to study in order to gain better summer vacation. People tend to be risk averter
in gain, and risk seeking
in losses. It guided you to the concept of loss aversion, where the pain of losing 1000 yen, for example, is larger than the pleasure of 1000 yen. Losses loom larger than gains. Well it’s not just only the effect of loss aversion, but also some of terms like responsibility cost, judgmental bias, asymmetric regret, omission bias, and decision aversion.

From the theory described above, it could explain why when you’re trying to establish a new policy, not everyone is willing to take it. Policy, differ by concrete goods, is something abstract that you can’t actually measure rationally because of the loss aversion and friends effect. People wouldn’t want to sacrifice the things they had now (loss) in change of new policy that actually advantageous for them (gain). If it runs the contrary, well, the company could have implemented any new system easily, no one would feel loss to the condition they’re having now.

But it’s too early to draw a conclusion that “Yes it’s hard to change something due to people’s status quo, so you have to give clear and compelling incentives to attract people get out from their status quo”. There’s something you can still do in order to make them get out from their status quo.

The paper done by Prof. Bar-Hillel and her student that I mentioned above is called status quo label bias. It shows empirically that you just have to make the people feel that the new thing you’re offering is their status quo, in other words, just label the new policy as status quo, and people will choose the status quo condition, which is the new policy.

Seems tricky, isn’t it?

She gave me an example comes from the Israel – Palestine war. Suppose that there is a land (I forgot the name, but it’s actually exists) where it was originally Palestinian’s, then taken over by Israel, and now civilized by Jewish. Israel and Palestine then want to deal for a peace treaty, but for that, the land must be given back to Palestine.

But, if the land was to be given to the Palestine, the Jewish civilian in that land had to choose an option between get out from that land, or to obey Palestine’s jurisdiction and law. The Israel chief then makes a referendum to the residents, whether they want to give away their land in order to attain peace.

“Would you give up our land
in order to attain peace?”

Of course, if the chief asked the people like that, the answer would be “NOOOOO!!” with all of the yells and cries. Unconsciously, the statement gives a label status quo to the “you have a land now” and label a gain for “peace”. So, based on the loss aversion theory, it’s obvious that they won’t give the land because they would feel loss if they want to gain peace.

But, how if it is like this;

“Do you want to give up for peace
just because you don’t want to give the land?”

Seems to be a better sentence, isn’t it? Well unconsciously, you’re giving a status quo label for “peace”, and if you don’t want to give the land, then you’re an obstacle to “peace”. You’ll lose the “peace” if you don’t want to give the land. If it’s like that, she stated that, probably there’ll be more people willing to give the land to Palestine.

So, when you want to change something, you have two options. One is to give the change with more force; more compelling and clearer incentives that everybody would love to lose their status quo now in order to get an appealing new policy. The other is, just to label the new change as the status quo, and then in majority, people would want to stay with the new option because in their head, they think that it’s their status quo.

There’s more than just listing out the advantages of new policies and tell the people about it. It’s not enough to change the people’s status quo in mind.

I hope this knowledge will not be used for you to change for something bad. I have a lot of friends who’s currently the decision maker and really willing to make a change, so I hope this bit of knowledge could help them out.

So, change is not dreadful, isn’t it? :p

Koudasai and Indang Dance

Koudasai is a Tokyo Tech Festival to celebrate Tokodai anniversary. This year, it was held in October 24-25^th, Saturday and Sunday.

There are a lot of stands, from Indonesian stand to Iranian stand, Lab stands, and also Japanese people’s stands. They sold anything from titanium key chain that you can draw and color (Metallurgy Lab), hit-a-head game operated by their own head, and of course foods (takoyaki, yakisoba, choco-banana, Malaysian martabak, Indonesian bakso, Vietnamese Soup, Iranian Kebab, etc).

Beside the stands, several labs also did an open-house-like in their building. For example, a lab from Electrical Engineering Major at the 8^th floor of my building (West 9) allows us to try a sound sensor and coloring a draw by using your own voice. I didn’t have much time to see all the labs open house, though, so I can’t tell you more. I even didn’t attend my lab party at Saturday because I was too busy to take care of the Indonesian stand.

Performing stages are also there. But again, because of my work in Indonesian Stand, I didn’t have time to see any performance; I even didn’t get the booklet of the shows!

Ah, and don’t forget the flea market. Flea market in Japan is organized by some organization and usually they have flea market schedule in their web site. In flea market, you can get a very cheap price for any goods (and bargain-able too!); it depends on what they sell though. Sometimes the goods are new but sometimes second hand. But what can I tell you is, even if it’s second hand, third, fourth, and so on, it’s usually still in a good condition because Japanese people are neat in caring the goods.

I buy a wallet since I haven’t found my lost wallet for 300 yen. I also bought a rami bag for 300 yen (And everyone say that it’s cute) and another cute pink bag for 150 yen only. Hehe.. *women really can’t stand for cute goods and low price *

Ok let’s stop talking about the goods I bought :p

PPI Tokodai opened an Indonesia Stand, and we obviously took a part in opening the stand. Our stand sold bakso (meatballs) and Toraja coffee. Skip the preparation story, at d-day, I have a job from frying pangsit to cook vermicelli and sing for a small charity concert for Padang Earthquake’s victims in front of the stand. The selling is quite good J.Grossly; we sold about 500 bowl of bakso. And lot of Japanese people asks for sambal too (very spicy one!). Unfortunately, we’re out of sambal at the second day so lots of bakso buyers a little bit disappointed.

I also dance Indang which was performed at Sunday noon with all Indonesian YSEP, one packet of Mas Teddy and Mbak Lyta, Mbak Akino the trainer and Mbak Ana.

Although my host lady, Qoo chan cannot come to our performance, and we’re a bit disappointed that we were not performing at the outdoor stage (we performed at indoor stage inside the gymnasium where not so much people knew), and I also made a mistake at the very beginning of the dance, we were relieved that we have done our first performance. We did practicing almost every week and almost everyday in the last week of performance, and it was paid off. We can’t say that it’s perfect, but it’s the best from all of our practices J Several YSEP students watched us too and I was very happy because of that (thanks friends! And I’m sorry for making such noises at the dorm every night, hehehe).

Ah. Can you see that I was wearing black costume while all the girls wear red? Due to a human error, we ordered 6 red costumes and 6 black costumes. Since the girls were 6 and the boys were 5, and I was in the center, I have to wear that black one.

 

After that, we were gonna perform again at Kawasaki City Festival, Welcome Party for Tokodai International Student, and I just heard today when I write this blog that we have another offer to perform at i-dunno-what-city. So what am I trying to say is, I’ll be coming back to Indonesia as a dancer instead of researcher. Haha…

 

 

Stay Updated from My Life in Japan

Yee-ha! I’m glad that my blog was read by Omura-san, a lady who works at Hub-office in Tokodai. She has a close relationship with everyone (I think), especially Indonesian fellows. We, the YSEP from Indonesia, were introduced to her by Asri a few days after we came to Japan.

Knowing that now my blog was read by many people in Tokodai since it has been listed on YSEP 2009 web lists; it encourages me to really write. I have some ideas in mind what to write (a month story is surely full of stories!) but I don’t have time to write.

And, apparently my room mate Fafa could write blogs almost everyday. So why don’t I?

I prefer to have a lot of talks with Mum and Yozzi, hehe… Ok, not just that. First weeks in here, I already have a lot of assignment given from my lab activity. It is to read some chapter of a book, make a resume, and then present it on an intern lab seminar. Also some reading task from my classes. Ah yeah and don’t forget to count PPI Tokodai activities, from meeting to perform a dance. All of it, makes me cannot have time to concentrate to write.

Ok, so now I’ll just write down the outline of what I am going to write. So, for you, my fans, which cannot wait for my stories, I hope a little bit outlines could make you a bit more patient to wait for my writings. Believe me; this blog has not ended yet! Hahahaha…

 

COMING UP NEXT

Page : YSEP

Thanks to YSEP by Tokodai program that now I’m in Japan. So, what is it? I’ll create a new page that will explain this program, from how to apply until how to finish it. Stay update to this page because it will be updated as the time goes…

KOUDAISAI and Indang Dance

Koudaisai is a festival to celebrate Tokyo Institute of Technology Anniversary. More than 100 stands of foods, lab exhibition, and games, and also flea market and Performance stages all in one area of Ookayama Campus on October 24 – 25, 2009. Here at Koudaisai, PPI Indonesia presented Indang Dance which is performed by 11 Indonesian students, that’s including me!

Home Stay from Hippo Family Club

All foreign students in Tokodai are eligible to apply a one night home stay program organized by Hippo Family Member. My host lady, named Qoo-chan, is a nurse who really care for my favorite foods, that is, tuna sandwich, and she made it for my breakfast! Wait for my home stay story and also explanations about Hippo Family Club.

Lab life – Senoo Sensei Lab

My lab is under supervision of Senoo Sensei, which concentrates on knowledge management and friends and also organizational theory under Industrial Engineering and Management major of Tokodai. So, what am I doing in my lab and what it looks like? Wait for this writings to come up!

From Room 201 Umegaoka Dormitory

Umegaoka Dormitory is a dormitory provided by Tokodai to new foreign students. They can live there for 6 months until 1 year. My room number is 201, double room with all the facilities (including my room mate Fafa who facilitate my meal, hehe) provided is a place where I’ll live for the on going 1 year. Where it is located, how is the life there, advantages and disadvantages? Line up, fans!

Itadakimasu!

Japanese culinary is interesting! From 3 kinds of noodles to sakana (fish) foods, all of them are really interesting to be told! And if you’re asking me why Japanese people are small and thin, check out this upcoming post.

Japan day 8 : Lost my wallet (and skipped the stories of day 4-7)

It’s saturday and all of YSEP from Indonesia is invited as indang dancer at koudasai next three weeks. And for you who are not Tokodai students or don’t know about Koudasai, well, me too. It’s just some big party, big exhibition of Tokyo Tech where PPI tokodai will be one of the performers and also a stand participant.

So… all of us the YSEP from Indonesia and some of PPI tokodai member’s were invited, or it’s better to say “bounded” to join it. Hehe… Mbak Akino will be the instructor and yes, the practice session was held at her house in Tsukushino, 2 stations after Suzukakedai campus from Fujigaoka. Mbak Lyta who will guide the way, said that she’ll wait at Tsukushino station at 9.45, no later than that because Mbak Kino will have arubaito (part time) at 1 PM.

But me and Fafa kinda wake up late. And we cook breakfast too. So, what can I say, me and Fafa is late. It’s already 9:37 when we came to Fujigaoka Eki and the train has just closed its door.

Me and Fafa then sit on the chair next to the stairs. at 9:43, the train comes. We said goodbye to an old lady that greet us when we sat next to her.

I sat on the courtesy chair first. Then  Fafa said to me that it was the courtesy chair (and I don’t know about that), so I change my seat. Right in Aobadai, just 1 station after Fujigaoka, I figured that my wallet has gone. I’ve peeked to the courtesy chair where I sat before and it’s not there. So I just guess that maybe it’s dropped  on the chair at Fujigaoka station… then rushed back to Fujigaoka after getting out the train at Tana Eki (just differ by 2 stations from Fujigaoka). I had Fafa’s teikiken card with me to go out the station, and Fafa surely can’t get out.

Maybe, it’s just 15 minutes after I left Fujigaoka and when I got back there, my wallet is not on the chair. Certain about I still have it when I entered the station because I need to touch my teikiken card (commuter pass, paid for 3 months that cost 12.160 yen) which is inside my wallet, i rushed to the information booth of Fujigaoka.

I’ve asked them whether they know about my wallet, and had Bahar phoned them to explain the situation and asking them to give announcement at the train that I’ve just use… But there’s no good news. I came to the police station at Fujigaoka eki too and yes, there’s no answer. I don’t even given a paper or something that explains “My name is Laras and I just lost my wallet”.

FYI, I used many drawings to explain  the station officer and the policemen what was happening to me. They nodded their head everytime I drew pictures. BUt when Bahar phoned them, he said that they actually don’t understand what I drew. Geeks… 

All my leftover paper money I brought fromIndonesia, 46.000 yen (I’m sure about it), Indonesian credit card, Indonesian driving license and ID card, student ID card of Tokyo tech and ITB, National Health Insurance Card (and I just got it for 1 day only), my dormitory pass card, were all in there.

I just have about 1200 yen left.

And i still have to go to Tsukushino.

I borrowed money from few friends.

I dont have any money to pay reissuing fee of my Tokodai ID card and dorm pass card.

I could pay 80% of my iPhone price (since I have to pay about 51000 yen when I returns to Indonesia) with the money I loose.

Ah, get out of it. Money isn’t everything, right? Maybe it’t time for me to have diet…

Thanks God I have my referigerator filled up with some food for 2 days or more, and I have Fafa who still have money to buy food and cook it… My scholarship will be sent to me next week (but Ms. Ohgushi said that she’s arranging so I could receive my scholarship sooner).

 

Let’s just hope everything will be fine to me, here now and then forever…

 

*and Yozzi, I loose all of your picture. But thanks, you’ve sent me the softcopy which I transferred it to the iPhone thereafter.

Japan day two and three

Lyta Liem, another PPI Tokodai member who has just graduated from her master program invited us to come to her place. Fellow YSEP members left many things in her house for us, from frying pan to winter jacket. She invited us by emails sent when we’re still in Indonesia. The trouble was, none of us remembered what the exact time of her invitation was! And her house also.. we just remembered that her house located in Nagatsuta.

So, we decided to wake up early, had a breakfast and ask our dormitory tutor named Yu Fang
(PhD student in Chandra’s lab) and hoped she would allow us to borrow her internet to open the email once again. But none of us woke up until 9… me and Fafa wake up in 7 something (we don’t know the exact time because none of us has a clock) only to pray late Subuh and sleep again. Hehe…

After breakfast, me and Risi who had taken a bath come to Yu Fang’s room but no one inside. While Fafa and Dita took a bath, we came downstairs and found Mbak Lyta and Pak LUrah Teddy (head of PPI Tokodai) greeted us. It’s almost 11.30 and they said the plan changed. That noon, after dzuhur, we were invited to come to Kang Asep’s place (another Master who has just graduate in the same time with Mbak Lyta). We knocked Chandra’s room – whose has not wake up yet, but he’s ready in just 15 minutes. What a blast!

We left Umegaoka dormitory at 12 past something. We went to Miyamaedaira Eki from Fujigaoka Eki. Buy boxes of tissues at Inagaya supermarket for me, and others bought few things too, then to Kang Asep’s place, where we met a lot of other PPI Tokodai
members. They’re nice people and very warm (especially Mbak Lyta, she’s like a truly caring guide – or could be called as Mom I think – she’ll make sure that everything is okay and never refuse to not take us somewhere we’ve requested.

Oh the food in Kang Asep’s place is sooo Indonesian! There’s even bala-bala, or bakwan, or pia-pia, my favorite fries from Indonesia. All of the foods were made by Mbak Anti, a dentist and also Kang Heri’s wife. Her family will come back to Indonesia next week since Kang Heri’s (mbak Anti’s husband) study has finished.

After so much tongue-blasting food treats, and we’re also bloated too, we rushed from Miyamaedaira to Nagatsuta Eki at 5 PM. We visited Kang Alvian’s place first, to pray Maghrib – something that’s could not be done without Mbak Lyta and Mbak Rachma’s help – that’s why I said PPI tokodai’s members are undoubtfully veerrrryy nice.

And if you’re looking for second hand goods, there’s one that I visited in Nagatsuta. It shop called “Hard-off” or something. If you know Babe, yah it’s similar like that but all the goods here are almost in 95% condition. And it has evertything, from electronics, winter jacket, knife, cooking utensils, furniture, books, toys… it’s just like an ordinary hypermarket store, you can get almost anything you want there, as long as you want to use it. The price varies depends of the condition, though, I look for a rice cooker. It has two similar rice cooker but with different price, one for 5200 yen and other for 4800 yen. But I don’t know new rice cooker price so I decided not to buy it. We got one from former YSEP members anyway, but the condition is really poor. I can peel its Teflon layer!

After Hard off store, we go to buy groceries in OK store. It said to be the cheapest supermarket, but I don’t really know. Then we went to eat at Kura-sushi! Almost all plates and dishes for 105 yen
included tax, consist of two sushi in average or beverages or desert. I don’t care, because it’s paid by all of ppi tokodai except us, the YSEP, as a welcoming dinner, hehe. But it’s cheap J I ate all of fish, squid, and tako sushi and they’re all taste good. Risiana on the other side, can’t stand for the raw food so she just ate some of them which were cooked, but of course there are not so much of them.

Because it’s already 11 after we ate sushi and the last train to fujigaoka is 12 pm, we decided to spend the night in Lyta’s house. We inherit so many clothes, including winter jacket, cooking utensils (and the rice cooker I mentioned before), also cosmetics from former YSEP members. The next morning, we have to bear all of the goods we brought from Lyta’s house, dragging it all up the slope, to Tsukushino station until the dormitory. It was such a pain! But Asril was such a great help, he’s another member of PPI tokodai who lives next to Lyta’s house.

We arrived in the dormitory around 7.30 AM and at 9.15 we have gone again to Shibuya. Risiana got to pray at the curch in Shibuya at 11 AM. Fafa didn’t join us, though, because she suddenly feel stomacache. We were guided by Mas Bayu
to explore Shibuya until Harajuku. It’s a long walk!

But we stopped at TEPCO museum
(Japan’s electric national company is Tepco), FREE ENTRANCE! There we can see nuclear reactor miniature by 1:3 scale, mind balls (we control the balls by our mind, though its sensor just measure or relaxing brain, the most relaxed person or the further the ball away from you is the winner), and even Aibo show! But Aibo only shows in weekdays and it was Sunday so we can’t see Aibo L

When we walked across a path near NHK and Shibuya stadium, we saw a moslem mother waving at us. She walks about 10 m form her seat just to greet us and say salam, and ask whether we were Indonesian… I was speechless, and I think she’s kinda want to cry. Maybe she’s just too happy to see another moslem in Japan J

We went to Yoyogi park. Well don’t imagine a small park with only 10 trees, but it’s a huge place – sorry – HUGE park like FOREST! We were lost there also, cannot find the nearest exit to Harajuku. There are a lot of people there who were dating (normal), jogging with the dog (still normal), practicing a really cool guitar play (you can’t find it in Indonesia), and even practicing a play so seriously with loud voices, in front of the passing people(you would never find like that in Indonesia)!

After finally find the exit (though it’s not the nearest), we finally find Takeshita street. If you want to see people dressing so odd (because they’re actually doing a costume play or cosplay for short), that’s the street. It’s noon so not many of them wearing costumes like Lolita girl or school girl, Mas Bayu and Bahar (yeah, Bahar, Ipul, and Risiana met us at that place) said that there will be more in the night.

Crowded, reminds me of Dalem Kaum in Bandung, haha

We kinda confused whether a group of Men in Black suits were doing cosplay, but nothing’s more than a group of people wear gothic costume. One of the girl even wear just a latex underwear, a white bra, and all of her body was covered by web like cloth, with boots also.

We ate at Hanamari Udon, pays 534 yen for a reallllly big bowl – actually it is medium size – of udon (me and Dita can’t finish it up while there had TWO couples changed beside us eating from the same size bowl) and 30 cm – 3 feet of tako tempura.

We still have the energy to go shop at 100 yen shop, DAISO – the biggest one is in Harajuku, you also can find Daiso in Paris Van Java, Bandung where the price is all 22.000 rupiah) and get the adaptor plug there! Finally, I can charge my cell phone and laptop.

Then we went to Meiji jingu (a temple). It’s located next to yoyogi park. When we came there, there were 3 couple of brides coming to the temple. Their kimonos were beautiful!