The Behavioral Design Podcast

We've reached the end of season 1 - yay! 🎉 In this finale, we sit down and nerd out about all things behavioral as Aline is welcomed back from her baby cave. We explore the growing landscape of behavioral associations, the recent attempts to incentivize vaccine uptake, we languish on languishing, talk faulty risk perceptions, and, our course, complete a final round of overrated vs. underrated.  Relevant links Recently launched behavioral associations and groups (and their abbreviations):   GAABS - The Global Association of Applied Behavioural Scientists ABSA - Applied Behavioral Science Association UNBSG - UN Behavioural Science Group IBPPA - International Behavioural Public Policy Association Vaccination uptake Lottery-Based Incentive in Ohio and COVID-19 Vaccination Rates Going local with the COVID-19 vaccine Flourishing & languishing There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing The Other Side of Languishing Is Flourishing. Here’s How to Get There Dan Ariely on wine Support the podcast by joining Habit Weekly Pro 🚀 The song used is Murgatroyd by David Pizzaro.

Matt Johnson is a professor, researcher, and writer specializing in the application of neuroscience and psychology to the business world and Prince Ghuman is an experienced marketer with great experience of applying neuroscience to marketing and business strategy. Together they've written the book Blindsight: The (Mostly) Hidden Ways Marketing Reshapes Our Brain. In this episode, we have a fun conversation with Matt and Prince about what the heck "Blindsight" is and what it has to do with decision-making, we dive into the ethics around using behavioral science for good (and for less obviously good “marketing” purposes) and how we can solve the thorny problem of tech addiction. Links and resources: Matt's LinkedIn & Twitter Prince's LinkedIn & Twitter  Their book: Blindsight Their certification Their blog Support the podcast by joining Habit Weekly Pro 🚀 The song used is Murgatroyd by David Pizzaro. *This episode was recorded in Q1 of 2021

Kelly Peters, CEO and Co-founder of BEworks, shares her journey into behavioral economics, challenges related to COVID-19, understanding investor biases, veganism's environmental impact, and the role of regulation in behavioral economics.

Maya Shankar is the Senior Director of Behavioral Economics at Google and previously served as a Senior Advisor in the Obama White House, where she founded and served as Chair of the White House's Behavioral Science Team. For good measure, she also served as the first Behavioral Science Advisor to the United Nations. Most recently, Maya launched "A Slight Change of Plans," a fantastic new podcast with Pushkin Industries. In this episode, Maya shares her journey into behavioral science and highlights along the way, including the importance of her mentors, reminiscing about her time leading the White House's Behavioral Science Team, and whether it's harder to change minds or change behaviors.  Links and resources: Maya's website Social media: LinkedIn & Twitter Maya's podcast: A Slight Change of Plans Support the podcast by joining Habit Weekly Pro 🚀 The song used is Murgatroyd by David Pizzaro.

Logan Ury is a behavioral scientist-turned dating coach and Hinge’s Director of Relationship Science. She recently published How to Not Die Alone – a fantastic book on the surprising science that will help you find love.  We speak about all things behavioral science and modern love, including how Hinge designs the app to be deleted and common cognitive biases in dating. We also talk about how Logan became the lead of Google’s behavioral science and was later able to build a successful career combining her passion for behavioral science and relationship science. Hope you love it! Links and resources: Logan's website Social media: LinkedIn, Twitter & Instagram Logan's book: How to Not Die Alone The Three Dating Tendencies Quiz Modern Love - New York Times article by Logan OKcupid Experiment Rom-Com recommendation: Hitch Support the podcast by joining Habit Weekly Pro 🚀 The song used is Murgatroyd by David Pizzaro.

Interested in learning more about how Behavioral Economics can be used in practice? Great, this episode is for you! It features a fun conversation with Melina Palmer, one of the leading experts in applied Behavioral Economics. Melina is the founder and CEO of the Brainy Business, teaches Applied BE at Texas A&M University and recently published her first book, What Your Customer Wants and Can’t Tell You.  We speak about her journey and how she built her Brainy Business podcast and community, how she supports her clients to ask better questions, important principles regarding pricing, and we talk cookies! Enjoy! 🍪 Links and resources: Melina's website, LinkedIn and Twitter Her book What Your Customer Wants and Can’t Tell You FREE workbook: thebrainybusiness.com/habitweekly Right Questions Institute - Questionstorming Melina sings the national anthem Support the podcast by joining Habit Weekly Pro 🚀 The song used is Murgatroyd by David Pizzaro.

This episode features a profound conversation with world-renowned neuroscientist and psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett. Lisa is among the top 1% of most-cited scientists in the world, with over 240 peer-reviewed scientific papers contributing to her revolutionary research in psychology and neuroscience. Outside of the lab, she's a best-selling author and her popular TED talk has more than 6 million views. TLDR: Lisa is a rockstar 🤘. We cover several interesting topics, including why your brain is not for thinking, how prediction becomes reality, why most people are wrong in how they think about emotions, the best type of chocolate (spoiler: dark), and much more. Enjoy! Links and resources: Lisa's website and Twitter Latest book: Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain Previous book: How Emotions are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain Some of Lisa's selected journal publications and research papers Lisa's TED Talk: You aren't at the mercy of your emotions -- your brain creates them Jim Coan describing his heart attack on his Circle of Willis Podcast  Dharmakīrti buddhism  Books referenced:  Margaret Atwood books: Cat's Eye, Oryx and Crake & The Edible Woman Stuart Firestein books: Failure: Why Science Is so Successful and Ignorance: How it drives science Support the podcast by joining Habit Weekly Pro 🚀 The song used is Murgatroyd by David Pizzaro.

This episode features an insightful conversation with Dr. Clare Purvis, Director of Behavioral Science at Headspace. Clare is a clinical psychologist with extensive experience working in health technology, translating clinical evidence into commercially viable, engaging, and innovative digital products. We cover several interesting topics, including how Clare transitioned from academia to the start-up world, how we can building systems of behavior change in organizations, what makes a good onboarding, and how to design for mindfulness. Enjoy! Links: Clare's website and LinkedIn Clare is the founder of WELL, Women Entrepreneurs & Leaders Laboratory, which is the first professional organization for women clinicians and scientists leading the way in digital health.   Aline's previous interview with Clare Habit Weekly Pro 🚀

This episode features an insightful conversation with the fantastic Nina Mažar. Nina has been part of founding BEworks, BEAR (Behavioral Economics in Action at Rotman center), and the World Banks' behavioral science team. She is currently professor of marketing and co-director of the Susilo Institute for Ethics in the Global Economy at Boston University.  We cover several interesting topics, including how Nina got started in the field, three pieces of advice for starting a behavioral science unit, nudging for diversity and honesty, plus what to get next time you're ordering Balkan food. Enjoy! Links: Nina's website, LinkedIn and Twitter Nina's TEDx talk on honesty and intentions Habit Weekly Pro 🚀 Timestamps 00:23: Episode overview 01:41: Interview begins 02:02: Nina details her background in behavioral science 04:29: How Nina’s work in both industry and academia shaped her view on behavioral science research 08:49: Nina discusses setting up the World Bank’s behavioral science unit 11:59: Nina’s advice on setting up a behavioral science team in an organisation Get shared buy-in within the organisation Data collection capacities and well-functioning internal systems Have a legal team on board 17:01: Reflecting on studies on dishonesty and nudging people via signature at the top 22:04: Why is the “bad apple” narrative so persistent? 24:16: How can behavioral science help counter discrimination and racism? 28:22: Countering gender bias in news reporting in Sweden via transparency 32:42: Underrated vs Overrated Revealed preferences Rationalisation Replication studies Crotian cuisine Bosnian cuisine Place’s Nina has lived Origami 39:02: How Nina applies behavioral science in her own life 41:03: Concluding remarks ––––– Timestamps & shownotes compiled by Keith Broni 🏆 The song used is Murgatroyd by David Pizzaro. –––––

This episode is special. It features a conversation with the world-renowned habit researcher, Wendy Wood. Wendy has devoted the last 30 years to researching how habits work and recently published the fantastic book Good Habits, Bad Habits. The episode is packed with insights, and we cover all things habits, from the difference between habits vs. routines to the impact of reward and context on habit formation. If you're curious to understand habits better, this episode is for you! Links: Wendy's website (where you can find here book) and her Twitter Wendy's labs habit research  Habit Weekly Pro 🚀 Key points: Changing attitudes is often not enough – even when we change people's attitude, their behavior doesn't always follow. And it's the behavior we care about, what they do.  The average person rarely distinguish between habits, behavior, intentions, beliefs and attitudes. "It's all all the same, all part of me and my decision making". It's important to differentiate these things as our brains consist of different systems that helps us accomplish different things. There's a habit learning system designed specifically to pick up repetition of behaviour in a given context that generated some form of reward. We can think of reward as not money, but what makes you feel good. Habits are the context response associations that you form in memory, when you repeat a behaviour, often enough for the for it to become automatic. Additionally, routines are simply sequences of habit. We can can change people's attitudes and beliefs for short periods, but these changes can disappear once they go back to real life if we fail to change the system. We need to understand the broader influences on someone's behavior in order to design contextual cues and rewards that helps them respond in new ways long-term. Timestamps: 00:16: Episode overview 01:33: Interview starts 02:00: Wendy details her background and how she got started researching habits 03:55: Differentiating habits and behavior 06:50: Distinguishing between routines and habits 08:10: The automaticity of bias associations compared to the automaticity of habits 10:50: Can one-off trainings really be used to create new habits 13:16: Changing day-to-day environments and systems to change habits 16:28: Sam tells an anecdote about the influence of context on habits 18:30: The temporal dynamic of habit activation 20:42: Recurring contextual associations with a habit 21:27: Internal states as context cues for habits 23:52: Incentivising habits with rewards 26:54: Case study: encouraging use of an office’s stairs over an elevator 29:40: Best way to incentivise new habits 33:57: How is frequency related to establishing a new habit 35:30: The generalisation of habits 37:10: Overrated vs Underrated Having a car Experience sampling Behaviorism The clean plate club Paris The marshmallow study Sidewalks Rituals Mise en place 44:47: What bad habit has been Wendy’s greatest nemesis in her personal life 47:36: Concluding remarks ––––– Timestamps & shownotes compiled by Keith Broni 🏆 The song used is Murgatroyd by David Pizzaro.