Behavioral Grooves Podcast

Conscientiousness, perseverance and meticulousness are all words associated with perfectionism. But perfectionism comes from a deeper sense of inadequacy, of not feeling good enough. Constantly striving to prove yourself leads to anxiety, depression and burnout. Researcher Thomas Curran describes perfectionism in detail, why it’s getting worse and what we can do about it. Thomas Curran is a professor of psychology and behavioral science at the esteemed London School of Economics and author of The Perfection Trap: Embracing the Power of Good Enough, just released on August 8, 2023. In the book he explores the roots of perfectionism in wider society and explains how it affects our mental health and productivity. Perfectionism has risen sharply since the mid-2000s, which Thomas attributes to societal pressures like social media, smartphones, economic instability, and an emphasis on educational and career achievement. Collectively, these factors have led to increased feelings of not measuring up. Thomas argues th

Doing, doing, doing. We can get stuck in a perpetual state of busyness to get things done. But being in a chronic “performance zone” can lead to stagnation over time. The “learning zone”, however, is when we take a step back to reflect on our experiences and look for ways to improve. That’s where a growth mindset comes in - actually believing that we can get better. “In order to engage in learning, we need to believe that we can improve, we also need to understand how to improve and we need to have a reason or reason that we care to put in the effort to improve.” ~ Eduardo Briceño, Episode 374 Eduardo Briceño is a global keynote speaker, facilitator, and author who guides many of the world’s leading companies in developing cultures of learning and high performance. His TED Talks have been viewed over 9 million times. Alongside Carol Dweck, the leading growth mindset researcher, Eduardo has founded Mindset Works, an organization dedicated to fostering lifelong learning.  On this episode of Behavioral Grooves

Volunteering improves psychological well-being. Team Rubicon has researched this positive effect, not just on the communities it serves, but also on the well-being of its 170,000 volunteers. The organization applies military expertise and speed to provide fast response and social support to those who have suffered a disaster. We learn from David Burke and Patti Norberg about the many benefits they have found with volunteering.   David Burke is the Chief Program Officer at Team Rubicon, an organization that was founded by US armed forces veterans in 2010 with the purpose of voluntarily joining together to work on missions in the aid of regular citizens who are suffering because of natural disasters. Patti Norberg PhD is a Professor of Marketing at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, and also a good friend of Tim Houlihan.   Team Rubicon is a veteran led humanitarian organization that serves people before, during and after disasters and crises. It’s a movement of thousands of people that work domestically and

We all want to feel significant. This drive for significance ultimately fuels our cognition, emotions, and actions. Distinguished psychologist Arie Kruglanski discusses motivation, cognition, goal systems, radicalization, and his recent work on the ubiquitous quest for significance. Dr. Arie W. Kruglanski PhD is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland. He directs a lab that studies human motivation as it affects thinking, feeling, and behavior.  He is one of the leading voices in social psychology, being instrumental in understanding the motivation of uncertainty, goals,  radicalization and most recently on our quest for significance. Arie has over 500 research papers and articles and has won numerous awards for his work. Arie explains to us that all human behavior is propelled by motivation, with motivation being the driving force behind cognition, emotions, and actions. He discusses how goals are represented cognitively but serve motivational needs. The conversation also touche

This podcast will give you the tools and techniques to foster a learning culture in your organization. Whether you work at a junior level or are an executive, Sarah’s guidelines can equip you to utilize leadership, AI, context and habit formation to incorporate learning into your routine. Learning is like exercise. Once you develop a healthy habit, you need to keep going! But how do you foster a learning culture in your organization? In this interview, Sarah joins Kurt Nelson and Tim Houlihan to talk about her book "Learning Habits Drive a Learning Culture to Improve Employee and Business Performance". Sarah discusses how organizations can establish a learning culture by focusing on learning habits.  Based around the famous habit cycle of cue, routine and reward, Sarah adds in the important 4th element of context. Leaning on the excellent work of Wendy Wood, Sarah emphasizes the importance of creating an environment in which your desired habits are supported as a much more effective tool than relying on willp

Humans have limited information processing abilities and cannot possibly evaluate all possible options when making a decision. However, describing people merely as irrational paints an inaccurate picture. There can be benefits to the biases we hold.  Author of Optimally Irrational: The Good Reasons We Behave the Way We Do Lionel Page PhD, joins Kurt Nelson and Tim Houlihan on Behavioral Grooves Podcast to talk about his book. Lionel is a French-born economist who is currently working as the Director of the Behavioural and Economic Science Cluster at the University of Queensland in Australia.  Among the topics Lionel discusses is the hedonic treadmill and how happiness is always just ahead of us. Our subjective satisfaction system is designed to keep us motivated by focusing on future goals. However, once we achieve those goals, we move on to the next. Anticipated utility and loss aversion become a powerful motivational combination. Our motivations for decisions are complex. But intentionality can help make up

How can we make better choices today to benefit our future selves? Hal Hershfield outlines strategies like visualizing your future self, writing letters, making commitments, and recognizing that your preferences will change over time. Hal is a Professor of Marketing, Behavioral Decision Making, and Psychology at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management and holds the UCLA Anderson Board of Advisors Term Chair in Management. His research, which sits at the intersection of psychology and economics, examines the ways we can improve our long-term decisions. He joins us on this episode to discuss his new book, "Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today". It was so tempting to make this conversation with Hal really philosophical. Is our future self the same person as today, or more like a stranger? Do memories make us who we are? How can we bridge the existential gap between our future self and current self? But listeners will be glad to know that Kurt and Tim also delve into the practical aspects of Hal’s re

The "cult of never enough" encourages the belief that more money, possessions and achievements will make us happy. But Manisha Thakor has learnt through personal experience that emotional wealth is more important than financial wealth. Listen to learn how to redefine your success.    Manisha Thakor is the author of the book Money Zen: Escape the Cult of Never Enough and Reclaim Your Life. In this episode of Behavioral Grooves, she discusses with Kurt and Tim how she chased the American dream of financial success for 30 years before realizing it had become a nightmare. She became a workaholic and lost sight of what truly brings happiness.    Manisha talks about how the "cult of never enough" encourages the belief that more money, possessions and achievements will make us happy. However, she realized that emotional wealth is more important than financial wealth. She discusses the importance of financial health over wealth, which includes having enough to meet your needs without stress.   How does society measur

The world of applied behavioral science has never been better. So how do you get your foot in the door to have a career in the field? You may be surprised to learn that it doesn’t have to involve getting a PhD. Merle van den Akker discusses her career journey from academia into the corporate world, and what we can learn from it. Merle van den Akker grew up in the Netherlands and studied in the UK before moving to Australia to start her current job at the Commonwealth Bank. Though she got a lot out of her PhD studies, she realized the academic system was not a good long-term fit for her. While in her PhD, Merle started the blog "Money on the Mind" which has allowed her the opportunity to interview nearly 200 leaders in the field of behavioral science and finance.  Having seen the world of behavioral science through the academic lens and now through the corporate lens, Kurt and Tim chat with Merle about how important a PhD is in the field (hint, it’s not!) But Merle gives her advice for all rising behavioral sc

What exactly is confidence? Peter Atwater describes it as the feelings of certainty and control that we have about our future self. He explains The Confidence Map framework and how our horizon preference and vulnerability first mindset change, based on our level of confidence.   Peter Atwater is an adjunct professor of economics at Williams and Mary University, and the President of financial insights, a consulting firm that advises global policymakers on how social mood affects decision making, the economy and the markets. He is known for coining the “K-shaped recovery” which is an economic term used by political and economic leaders. Most recently, he has examined the hidden role of confidence in the choices we make, in his new book “The Confidence Map: Charting a Path from Chaos to Clarity”.     Confidence is inherently forward-looking and involves imagining the future, which is inherently uncertain. To illustrate this, Peter introduces us to the Confidence Map, a two-by-two grid with certainty on the x-ax

Splashy headlines, sensational findings and world-first results grab our attention but they also leave us vulnerable to deception. Constantly being skeptical of research is an impractical stance, so how do we avoid being fooled by fraud? Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris tell us exactly how.   If you’re one of the 13 million viewers of the Monkey Business Illusion video on YouTube, you are already familiar with the work of our guests on this episode, Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris. As long time experts in the areas of deception and fraud, they have just published an excellent new book on the topic; Nobody's Fool: Why We Get Taken In and What We Can Do About It.   In our discussion with Dan Simons and Chris Chabris, we discuss ways to avoid being fooled and scammed based on insights from behavioral science. They talk about how habits and appealing information can make people vulnerable to deception. While being skeptical of everything all the time is impractical, people should be more skeptical when

Between disinformation and misinformation, it’s difficult to know what and who to trust, especially during a crisis. When disaster does strike, it is critical that scientific information is communicated clearly. Oceanographer Christopher Reddy discusses his experiences relaying vital information during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010.   Scientists are bathing in uncertainty. It is the basis of their work. As Chris says “if I’m certain about something, I’m not going to research it.” But during a disaster, people crave answers, not a comprehensive research paper published 5 years after the event! So a huge challenge for scientists is how to communicate effectively to both the media, the public and all of the stakeholders involved in disaster relief.    In this episode, we’ve reached outside of our traditional box of guests and are talking with a sharp, witty and very informative scientist, Christopher Reddy. Chris is a chemist, but for reasons he explains in the podcast, he most often refers to himself

When we pretend to know something that we don’t or start a comment with “everyone knows that...”, we create an atmosphere where answers become irrelevant. It closes off our openness to new ideas, ways of thinking and discovering new information. This is the curse of knowingness.   On this episode of Behavioral Grooves, Jonathan Malesic discusses the concept of "knowingness" - the tendency people have to act like they already know something when in fact they don't. This false sense of knowledge can prevent learning and understanding. Overcoming knowingness requires maintaining a healthy skepticism and openness to new evidence.    Knowingness afflicts all corners of our politics. And I think that it's a real problem when it starts afflicting people whose job is to inform us.   Jonathan Malesic teaches writing at Southern Methodist University and creative nonfiction at the University of Texas at Dallas. He’s a philosopher and scholar and cares a lot about something we do every week: science communication. And

We all get stuck. In relationships, in jobs or in creative endeavors. It’s a universal experience, yet most people feel incredibly lonely when they’re stuck. By shedding light on the latest research, bestselling author Adam Alter expertly unravels the psychological and practical steps you need to get unstuck.   Adam Alter PhD is a professor of Marketing at New York University's Stern School of Business with an affiliate appointment in the Psychology Department. Adam has spent the past two decades studying how people become stuck and how they free themselves to thrive. He is the author of bestsellers Drunk Tank Pink and Irresistible but we talk with him on this episode about his latest book, Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to Get Unstuck When It Matters Most.   As someone who has kept decades of notes on interesting observations from his life, Adam peppers all his work with relatable personal stories. One of the trends of Adam’s observations from over the years is that music has provided a stream of interesting

Saying yes to tasks that we want to say no to is a common problem. But how do we decide which requests to turn down? Dr Vanessa Patrick PhD strategically breaks down asks into 4 useful categories. Learn to say yes to requests that align with your identity and how to communicate an empowered refusal.    “A no that stems from your identity is a much more empowered no”   Dr Vanessa Patrick PhD is a Professor of Marketing and the Associate Dean for Research at the Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston. Her recent book “The Power of Saying No: The New Science of How to Say No That Puts You in Charge of Your Life” is an extremely practical guide in how to turn down the requests that don’t align with your identity.   While Vanessa’s academic research is rigorous and interesting, it is her poetic ability to translate her findings into useful frameworks and practical advice that makes her work resonate so powerfully. Her analogy of persistent askers being like a walnut tree evokes beautiful imagery

Understanding how we think can change our thinking. From confirmation biases, to uncertainty, to overconfidence, we are all blessed with the same thinking patterns that affect our decision making. Yale professor, Dr Woo-kyoung Ahn walks us through the latest cognitive research on “thinking problems”, and most importantly, how we can overcome them.   Woo-kyoung Ahn is a psychology professor and the director of the Thinking Lab at Yale University. Recently she wrote a riveting book titled “Thinking 101: How to Reason Better to Live Better.” On this episode of Behavioral Grooves, she joins Tim Houlihan and producer Mary Kaliff to make the case that there are some good reasons behind our ways of thinking. For example, confirmation bias can save us energy and help bring consistency to our lives.    Dr Ahn illustrates her book and this discussion with many relatable, personal stories that illustrate our patterns of thinking. Our favorite is that she recently updated her lecture notes for her class at Yale on the pl

If you compare executive pay of men and women in C suite jobs, you will often not find a discrepancy in their wages. You will also be completely missing the point. The gender pay gap exists because it is more difficult for women to reach executive level success. Throughout their career progression, but particularly early on, women face more discrimination than men, and so fewer women are ultimately promoted to the highest level of an organization.   Gender discrimination is one of the recent topics covered by Alex Imas PhD, in his research. Alex is a behavioral economist with a focus on dynamic decision-making. His research explores topics related to choice under uncertainty, discrimination, mental representation, and how people learn from information.    Most recently, Alex has been the recipient of the 2023 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship which seeks to stimulate fundamental research by early-career scientists and scholars of outstanding promise.   Alex’s work on discrimination in the workplace sheds vi

Want people to comply with rules at work? Stop assuming that they are going to break the rules. The vast majority of people want to do the right thing. So if you’re finding that people aren’t complying, you’ve got a rule problem, not a people problem.    Our expert guest and friend of the show, Christian Hunt turns compliance on its head in this episode:    “I thought compliance was all about rules and regulations, which it is, but that is the organization's perspective on it. The organization needs to comply with these rules. That's the organization’s challenge. But to get that solved, you’ve got to be thinking about things from the perspective of the people that are going to deliver or not deliver that mission.”   Thinking about the people behind the rules is the crux of Christian’s new book “Humanizing Rules: Bringing Behavioural Science to Ethics and Compliance”, which we are thrilled to be discussing on this episode of Behavioral Grooves.   We’ve had the pleasure of recording with Christian a number of

Between setting your goals and reaching your goals, there is a void that we assume willpower can fill. But to achieve success, it takes more than willpower alone. Thankfully there are some well researched tools that we can set in place to help us flourish. Hosts of Behavioral Grooves Kurt Nelson and Tim Houlihan sit down for a succinct Groove Track episode summarizing the myths about willpower, what other factors are at play when striving for our goals, and the tools we can use to help us succeed.    Key takeaways: Willpower is not enough on its own. Your environment - both your physical and social contexts - influence your behavior. Routines can help you achieve your goals. And routines work best when they: Fit into our lifestyle. Focus on the steps to the goal. Fuel consistency. Provide intrinsic or extrinsic reward. And tools are useful to: Help remind and motivate.  Assist with planning and strategizing. Track and measure our progress.   © 2023 Behavioral Grooves   Links Mazuch & Rona (2005), “Crea

Earning your 10th cup of coffee for free isn’t nearly as satisfying as being randomly awarded a free coffee from your barista. These uncertain rewards are a genius way of enforcing new habits, which our guest Richard Shotton outlines in his fantastic new book. In fact, Richard’s book “The Illusion of Choice: 16 ½ psychological biases that influence what we buy" is a treasure trove of research and anecdotes which bridge the gap between the very technical world of academia and the “wild” application of behavioral science in real world marketing. Kurt and Tim don’t delve into all 16 ½ psychological biases from the book, but their conversation with Richard jumps into some fascinating topics. Among them are the seemingly contradictory chapters in Richard’s book that are titled “Make It Easy” and “Make It Difficult”. So which is it - should we add or remove friction to products? In fact, it’s both! And (as we love to say on Behavioral Grooves) it depends on the context and ultimately what your marketing goal is. “