The Seven Essential Behavior Change Principles

Today's we are joined by Julie O'Brien Ph.D., a behavioral scientist working at the intersection of wellbeing and technology. Julie shares insider knowledge into how companies of all sizes can use science to improve their customer experience. Tune in as Julie shares the seven most important behavior change principles for Experience Strategists.

In This Episode:

• [01:58] Julie shares how behavioral scientists collaborate in the creation of successful products and services.
• [04:11] Elements necessary for an innovation to be successful.
• [06:41] Distinctions between behavioral mapping and journey mapping.
• [09:44] Why it is crucial for companies to integrate behavioral science and behavior change principles into their work.
• [11:44] Why human factors are integral to behavior science.
• [17:21] Quick summary of the seven behavioral change principals.
• [22:39] Julie shares her thoughts on agency and how it factors into behavioral change.
• [28:30] Environment is an integral factor in human behavior.
• [34:04] Julie shares advice for Experience Strategists and companies large and small.

Key Takeaways:

• Behavioral Science offers a methodology and approach that can help people better evaluate all possible solutions to choose the one that has a higher chance of success.
• Companies need to incorporate behavioral science into their process so that they can design solutions that actually make sense with the way that humans behave.
• Behavioral science is really a broad interdisciplinary field that draws on many different perspectives that all help us understand human behavior in general.
• It's important for behavioral scientists to understand that removing agency is ok when people are active participants in the removal of agency. It's not ok when it's done without consent or awareness or to push someone's behavior towards something that is actually not what they want or not getting to an outcome that they care about.

Bio for Julie O'Brien, Ph.D.

Julie O'Brien is a behavioral scientist working at the intersection of wellbeing and technology. She's spent her career designing and testing scalable solutions that close the gap between what people want to do and what they actually do.

She has spent her career bridging the academic world and the product world. She believes that basic research has enormous value to product and service design, and that everyone can learn to think like a behavioral scientist. To that end, she has developed a framework to introduce the underlying drivers of human behavior to product and service designers. She firmly believes that behavioral science can best solve real-world problems when integrated into existing systems in a holistic way, across multiple touchpoints and channels.

Julie has designed products, started two nonprofits, and studied the full range of human behavior from energy efficiency to racial discrimination to diabetes self-management.

She is the Head of Behavioral Science and Coaching at US Bank, a newly-elected member of the board of directors for the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and a faculty member at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. She holds a PhD in Social Psychology, created the behavioral research function at Opower, led the health initiative at Duke University's Center for Advanced Hindsight, and most recently built out Applied Behavioral Science at WW.

Learn more about her work and how to apply behavioral science at https://www.thinkbehavioralscience.com/