Contagious Truth - behaviour change & social marketing

If you were to go fishing in the remote town of Dadal today, located along the idyllic shores of the Onon River in the north-east of…

“The science is just sitting out there in academia.” That’s why consultant, educator, and author Will Leach decided to package it up in a revolutionary new book. Marketing to Mindstates is about looking beyond traditional market...

When trying to curb behavior that contributes to climate change, we often target individual actions. But these approaches have too often missed the mark.

"Neighborhood effect syndrome" is a term referring to an entire community condition characterized by symptoms of extreme poverty including poor health, housing insecurity, racial segregation, trauma, violence, poorly performing schools, low social cohesion and support and environmental toxins. Health care providers frequently encounter challenges in caring for children from affected neighborhoods, and these children often experience poorer outcomes compared to peers in unaffected neighborhoods. Historically, institutions have been largely ineffective in changing these outcomes with one-chil...

The furor over whether brand attitudes predict or follow behavior made me take a step back and re-examine my own beliefs about how attitudes and behavior interact. Assuming that ‘it’s complicated’ is not helpful, I have tried to map out a framework for thinking about how the two affect each other.

Most global development programs still segment people by demographics when trying to change their behavior. We must learn from the private sector and segment people based on the reasons behind their actions, so that we can talk to them in ways they will listen.

WARC has released its report‘Cannes Lions 2018: Insights from the Creative Effectiveness Winners’, and while there are were some disturbing trends lurking in the analysis of campaign trends, Savlon’s Grand-Prix-winning case study is a delight.

Five steps to spur healthy behaviors in a practical way.

How environmental influences impact behavior change.

Over my years in advertising, I’ve probably sat through and listened online to hundreds of focus groups. And almost without fail, young people will say the same thing when asked about what will mak…

What motivates us to take up a cause, follow a leader, or create change? This hour, TED speakers explore stories of inspirational leadership, and what makes some movements more successful than others. Guests include high school history teacher Diane Wolk-Rogers, writer and behavioral researcher Simon Sinek, 2016 Icelandic presidential candidate Halla Tómasdóttir, professor of leadership Jochen Menges, and writer and activist Naomi Klein.

A campaign for young people in Kenya called Future Fab makes clear that using contraception is just a part of being cool.

In the last few years – and even more obvious in the last few months – there has been a spotlight on the role of non-profits and charities participating in, leading, convening, and contributing to public policy in Canada. This spotlight is in large part a result of the Canada Revenue Agency’s (CRA’s) review of

It's hard to change habits, but a gentle push can move us in the right direction. This episode, TED speakers offer deceptively simple "nudges" for managing our kids, our health, and our aspirations. Guests include behavioral economist Richard Thaler, psychiatrist Judson Brewer, psychologist Carol Dweck, Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani, and economist Sendhil Mullainathan. (Original broadcast date: June 24, 2016)

Richard Shotton challenges common objections to behavioural science in the business world.

New research finds that people tend toward appeals that aren't simply more positive or negative but are infused with emotionality, even when they're trying to sway an audience that may not be receptive to such language. The findings appear in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. "Beyond simply becoming more positive or negative, people spontaneously shift toward using more emotional language when trying to persuade," said researcher Matthew D. Rocklage, Ph.D., of The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. We might imagine that peop...

Today marks Day 1 of National Public Health Week and the focus is Behavioral Health. Get out your Theory of Health Behavior class notes, because we're discussing the story behind the Transtheoretical Model or Stages of Change Theory!

Whether or not you survived this flu season unscathed, here are the top 5 reasons you probably didn't get the flu shot.

There are some topics about which it seems no amount of data will change people's minds: things like climate change, or restrictions on gun ownership. Neuroscientist Tali Sharot says that's actually for good reason. As a general rule, she says, it's better to stick to your beliefs and disregard new information that contradicts them. But this also means it's very difficult to change false beliefs. In this favorite episode from earlier this year, we look at how we process information, and why it's so hard to change our views.

This is yet another serious blow to the social priming literature. But it’s also a success for non-adversarial science. By Alex Fradera

Better and More Profitable Services through Applied Behavioral Science

Check out how researchers are putting some of our favorite behavioral determinants into action.

Social psychologist Robert Cialdini helped Obama in the 2012 election. Influence, he says, can come down to the right word in the right place