The Science of Behaviour Change

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Behavioural science has found that we don’t always act rationally or in our best interest, and simply being told what we need to be doing doesn’t work.
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Many problems that our society faces – climate change, poor health, depleted natural resources – require us to change the way we do things. To combat climate change we need to use less fossil fuel. To reduce obesity we need to eat less and move more. To reduce lung cancer we need to stop smoking. The list goes on.

So if we know what to do, why aren’t these problems solved?Understanding how people make decisions can help us design interventions that encourage people to change behaviour in beneficial ways. However, there is an important balance to be struck between personal freedom and helping people lead better lives.

Watch the Q&A:

Susan Michie is Professor of Health Psychology and Director of the Centre for Behaviour Change at UCL. Susan's research focuses on developing the science of behaviour change interventions and applying behavioural science to interventions. She's the co-author of "The Behaviour Change Wheel: A Guide To Designing Interventions" - https://geni.us/RcyI

Nick Chater has over 200 publications, has won four national awards for psychological research, and has served as Associate Editor for the journals Cognitive Science, Psychological Review, and Psychological Science.
Nick is the author of "The Mind is Flat: The Illusion of Mental Depth and The Improvised Mind" - https://geni.us/DRDQN5R

Toby Park leads the energy and sustainability work at BIT (Behavioural Insights Team), covering topics as diverse as domestic energy use, sustainable transport and wider pro-environmental behaviours including recycling, food consumption, air quality and water conservation.
The books that Toby suggested at the end of his talk are:
Thinking, Fast and Slow - https://geni.us/Efc43
Nudge - https://geni.us/eIO89Py
Inside the Nudge - https://geni.us/uL69aHA

The event is chaired by Stavroula Kousta, Chief Editor of Nature Human Behaviour

This talk and Q&A was filmed in the Ri on 17 July 2019.

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