Hacking health and savings: Ting Jiang

In today’s episode, we are joined by Ting Jiang, Principal at Center for Advanced Insight, a behavioral science lab at Duke University, researching and designing interventions and products for behavioral change. Ting is an experimental economist by training, a philosopher at heart and a psychologist in action. Previously, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, conducting research on diagnostic tools for social norms and interventions for norm change. For the past two years, a substantial portion of her time has been dedicated to conducting field studies and designing product solutions to help low-income Kenyans improve their financial and health decisions.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How a dice game that Ting designed on cheating got her into behavioral science*
• The calendar that was redesigned to promote financial health
• More healthy living projects: The Hidden Gym project and Nappiness
• Evidence versus intuition in designing interventions: Why the biggest challenge is trusting the evidence, rather than our own intuitions
• How to foster a culture that embraces risk-taking and experimentation
• Understanding the mechanisms that drive effects is the key to “good” research
• Why businesses must start prioritizing consumer well-being
• From fin-tech to behavioral tech: optimizing automation and engagement for products/services
• How to become an applied behavioral scientist