Behavioral Grooves Podcast

One of the ways we find our groove is through knowledge – sometimes new ideas, sometimes repeated ideas that are presented in new ways. Sometimes, it’s just reminders of old ideas that deserve a new look. And we love the fresh ideas that we’ve read about this year in the very notable Behavioral Science books of 2022. Kurt and Tim sit down, in this episode, to discuss the highlights of the books they’ve read in 2022. To save you some time, they have compiled a summary of why they liked each book, and what you can expect to get from reading it. We’d love to hear about your favorite books of the year. What stood out for you on your book shelf? Have any of your reads this year helped you find your groove? Share your thoughts with Behavioral Grooves on social media: Twitter: @behavioralgroov LinkedIn: Behavioral Grooves Instagram: @behavioralgrooves Facebook: Behavioral Grooves   Links Robert Livingston, “The Conversation: How Talking Honestly About Racism Can Transform Individuals and Organizations”: https://amzn

Want to start a journaling habit but worried you won't stay motivated? Having the right journal, that is designed using behavioral insights to keep you engaged, is the key. In this unique Grooving Session, our very own Kurt Nelson takes the hot seat along with his Lantern Group business partner, Ben Granlund to talk about their highly anticipated new product - the Brain/Shift Journal. This new journal is seeped in behavioral insights that help you clearly define and then actually reach your goals. Previous Behavioral Grooves guest, Katy Milkman, has highlighted that a distinct time in the calendar, like the New Year, is a great time for a fresh start when you can embrace a new habit. And journaling is a popular daily practice that is known to enhance your wellbeing and focus your energy on reaching your goals. In this episode, you will learn: How the Brain/Shift journal came about. Who the journal is for. What you can expect to get out of using it. Whether you are new to journaling, or you have tried before

We know human behavior isn’t rational. But this episode illustrates behavior using a surprising concept - game theory. This eye opening conversation with Erez Yoeli delves into what game theory is and the remarkable way it can be used to explain the things we think, feel and do. Our guest, Erez Yoeli has co-authored a new book, alongside Moshe Hoffman, called “Hidden Games: The Surprising Power of Game Theory to Explain Irrational Human Behavior”. Erez is a research scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management and he teaches the undergraduate Game Theory course at Harvard. His research focuses on altruism: understanding how it works and how to promote it.  To explain what exactly game theory is, we have turned to Britannica’s user-friendly definition;“economics is much like a game, wherein players anticipate each other's moves, and therefore, it requires a new kind of mathematics, which they called game theory.” This explanation opens the door to exploring how our behavior is influenced by our anticipation

Exercising your courage muscle every day and pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone, can have remarkable effect on your mindset and really influence those around you. Pushing through the uncomfortable feeling of simply talking to a stranger, or bravely climbing a ladder to clean your gutters, can make you more prepared for the scary moments in life that you can’t control. For instance, you’ll be more likely to speak up at work when someone says something inappropriate.   Our guest on this episode has transformed his own life by pushing himself out of his comfort zone everyday. And he is passionate about helping others spark this change in themselves. Scott Simon was a shy, quiet child who was once told by a music teacher that he should just mime the words in a school concert. Scott continued to feel invisible until a life-changing moment, years later, on a flight to Tel Aviv. He shares this heartwarming story of how he embraced a new way to live, in this very personal interview.   Scott Simon is a happ

If you were sent an exclusive invite to a secret society, would you accept? If you knew only a few people in the world had been approached to join, would it spark a scarcity curiosity? What is more alluring: the society itself or the mere fact that it’s a secret? Creating hype is the forte of our returning guest on this episode, Michael F. Schein. In our previous chat with Michael back in episode 212, he was telling us about his book “The Hype Handbook: 12 Indispensable Success Secrets From the World’s Greatest Propagandists, Self-Promoters, Cult Leaders, Mischief Makers, and Boundary Breakers”. Since writing it, his marketing business has been inundated with clients wanting “in on” some hype! So as a unique way of creating hype, Michael has created a new secret society with only a few (secret) members. Kurt and Tim spend time discussing the allure of a secret club - why they have been successful in the past, what continues to make them enticing, and how businesses can potentially use them to create hype.  Th

The web was intended to be a way of creating genuine connections with others, but we’re all sadly familiar with the detrimental ways it can be used to spread misinformation. A team of experts at Prosocial Design Network is now using evidence-based behavioral insights to redesign social media interactions, to bring out the best of us online. We’re honored to be joined on this episode by two of the designers of the Prosocial Design Network - John Fullot and Philipp Lorentz-Spreen. John Fallot is a user experience and graphic designer based in the New York City Metro Area. He co-founded the Prosocial Design Network with colleague Joel Putnam in late 2019, in order to better explore ways that the web could be optimized for prosocial behaviors. Dr. Philipp Lorenz-Spreen is a research scientist based in Berlin, Germany. His work focuses on decision making online, and finding ways to improve online democratic discourse through environmental interventions. There are certainly no silver bullets in the effort of minimi

Would you help change a stranger’s tire? How about if they offered you $20? Or, what if instead of money, they offered you some candy?  We often think these types of exchanges are financial in nature - but this study explored how there is actually a different type of exchange going on here - a social exchange. When we help a friend move some furniture, invite friends over for dinner, help a stranger out who is in need - these are social exchanges in a social market, one that is separate from the financial market. And what’s even more interesting is that if you bring money into the social exchange, it falls apart. James Heyman and Dan Ariely explored this phenomena in their landmark study called, “Effort for Payment: A Tale of Two Markets” and is the basis for Kurt and Tim taking a deep look in this Groove Track.  Listen to find out the backstory to the study and the implications from the findings. You can also watch a special video recording of this Groove Track with Kurt and Tim on the Behavioral Grooves You

We find it easy to condemn wrongdoers, after they’ve been called out. But why do we often let unethical behavior occur around us, and not speak out? If we take a step back from the idea of there being one “bad apple”, we realize that with any wrongdoing, there is a collection of people who have been complicit in the behavior. Why is there so much fear about speaking up? “We've created too much fear in speaking up, when in fact, there's so much value in avoiding harm in that process.“ ~ Max Bazerman Our fascinating conversation with Max Bazerman aligns with the publication of his excellent new book, “Complicit: How We Enable the Unethical and How to Stop”. Our discussion is rich with insight, in particular we delve into the reason that we hold people, including ourselves, more responsible for errors of commission than omission. So how can we avoid errors of omission? Max Bazerman is a world famous behavioral scientist. He is the Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business

How we think about the world can drastically influence how we navigate through it. Cutting edge research proves that reframing our mindset to be more positive, even in the light of negative events, can significantly alter how our brain responds. Discussing one of our favorite books of the year, author David Robson explains how our expectations can secretly meddle with almost every aspect of our lives. And by understanding their effects more thoroughly, we can unlock some powerful ways of living a more positive life. This is a special episode, not only because we are talking with David Robson about his fantastic book “The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Change Your World”, but we are co-hosting this episode with one of our favorite podcasters, Christian Hunt of Human Risk Podcast. And just to top it off, the interview is recorded in none other than the iconic Abbey Road Studios in London! Now that your expectations are set suitably high, we hope we don’t disappoint you with what we think is a fantasti

Cheating is all around us. Is it on the rise? It appears to be so, but why? Christian Hunt, the founder and host of Human Risk Podcast, and Koen Smets, a London-based behavioral scientist, discuss the dodgy travails of the human condition using examples of cheating in chess, walleye fishing, cycling, and even among behavioral scientists.  Join us for an invigorating discussion on why we cheat - and we all do - from Abbey Road Studios in London.  Human Risk Podcast: https://www.human-risk.com/podcast  Koen Smets on Medium: https://koenfucius.medium.com/ Fishing Scandal: https://youtu.be/xSta3wFK15Y  Chess Scandal: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/05/1126915049/hans-niemann-is-accused-of-cheating-in-more-than-100-chess-games-hes-playing-tod  Bike Race Scandal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_doping  DataColada on Bad Behavioral Science: https://datacolada.org/98     

Learning ALL the parts of our country’s history can be very uncomfortable. Not just in the US, but around the world, there are usually very dark parts of our past that many of us would rather brush over because it doesn’t marry up with the sterilized version of what we were taught when we were younger.   While many of us are willing to take the next step, to unlearn our history and dismantle the unjust systems that our forebears built, few of us actually know how to go about it effectively. Our wonderful guest on this episode, Dolly Chugh admits to her own story of how she inadvertently taught her kids a polished version of history. And in her own personal reckoning around this experience, wrote the book that she found herself needing to read. And we are delighted to be talking with her about “A More Just Future: Psychological Tools for Reckoning with Our Past and Driving Social Change” because it is now a valuable tool for all of us.   Dolly Chugh is a Harvard educated, award-winning social psychologist at t

People don’t hate change, they hate the ambiguity that comes with change. Organizational psychologist, Dr Debbie Sutherland PhD, shares the tools we can use, both in business settings and in our personal lives, to overcome our discomfort with ambiguity and to thrive in uncertain environments.  Debbie is an academic executive coach with both a masters degree and doctorate degree from Columbia University. She has recently written a well researched book, The Business of Ambiguity: Demystify the Unknown with Five Key Thinking and Behavior Strategies, which gives business leaders a blueprint for making better decisions in ambiguous situations. After all, ambiguous and uncertain situations aren’t going away, so we might as well figure out how to deal with them! Thank you to all our listeners of Behavioral Grooves, we enjoy sharing unique insights with you. If you have enjoyed this episode, please consider writing a review on your podcast player. Or you can contribute financially to our work through our Patreon page

Walking away is never easy. Whether it’s quitting a job, a relationship or an expedition to the peak of Mount Everest, we have a real problem with knowing when to stop. And ironically, when we do quit, we often wish we’d done it earlier. So why do we find it so difficult to quit? Annie Duke addresses the psychological reasons that prevent us from quitting, and how we can overcome them.    Annie needs little introduction to the Behavioral Grooves Podcast as she is now the only guest to have been on the show 4 times! Most people know of her as a poker champion and bestselling author but we are lucky enough to call her a friend. One of the reasons we are so fond of Annie is her ability to use relatable stories to explain the complex concepts around decision making. She has emerged as one of the leading thinkers in the field, and is truly an intellectual powerhouse. So we are thrilled to be talking to Annie about her excellent new book, “Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away”.   We don't like ambiguity. W

Conversations are vital to our existence - after all, we talk with people every day. But have you ever dissected what makes a conversation effective? When we are more conscious of how we are talking with others, we can nurture more productive connections, and avoid common pitfalls that often derail our conversations. In this episode, we explore the importance of conscious conversations, with author Chuck Wisner, whose new book The Art Of Conscious Conversations: Transforming How We Talk, Listen, and Interact is coming out in mid October 2022. Chuck’s insights are built on a fascinating mix of careers: from architect to personal coach, with a stop-off as a mediator at the Harvard Law Mediation Program.  With Chuck, we discuss the four sequential stages to an effective conversation:  Storytelling Collaboration Creativity Commitment We explore the role our identity plays in shaping the stories we tell ourselves, why leaders’ authority can make their voice louder, and how some of our best ideas happen when we ar

Racism is solvable, but that doesn’t mean we will solve it. To close the gap between the probable and possible, we need to have meaningful conversations. “Conversation is one of the most powerful ways to build knowledge, awareness, and empathy and ultimately, impact change.” In his award winning book, “The Conversation: How Seeking and Speaking the Truth About Racism Can Radically Transform Individuals and Organizations”, Dr Robert Livingston PhD provides a compass and a roadmap for individuals and for organizational leaders to solve racism. As a leading Harvard social psychologist, he expertly combines his research and narrative for an audience who is eager to be part of the solution. Robert talks with us about the lightbulb moment he realized storytelling was a powerful way to engage an audience. By building relationships and using narratives, you can change people’s behavior in a way that facts and graphs simply don’t. Our conversation with Robert gives us the tools to firstly define racism and recogniz

Close your eyes and visualize a horse. Most people can picture the outline of the body, the color of the horse and the unique features of the animal. But some people simply don’t see any image at all. This lack of a mind’s eye is known as aphantasia.    To help explain exactly what aphantasia is, and how it can affect behavior, we talk with Professor Adam Zeman who actually helped identify and name the neurological condition. Adam has a medical degree and a PhD in philosophy from Oxford University. He’s been a lecturer and professor of cognitive and behavioral neurology and has published extensively on visual imagery and forms of amnesia occurring in epilepsy. Adam has also published an introduction to neurology for the general audiences called, A Portrait of the Brain. But the reason we are talking to Adam on this episode is about his research on our “minds eye”. He discusses how a lack of visual imagery (aphantasia) or overly vivid imagery (hyperphantasia) can be identified and what effects it has on our be

“The primary source of unconscious priming…is your conscious experience.” Our consciousness is where we bring everything together, where we integrate and form a rich integration of our experience. This result is that this experience gets spread out to all the processes of the mind which is pivotal to how priming, an unconscious effect, actually works. Dr John Bargh PhD is a researcher and professor at Yale University and is probably the leading researcher on behavioral priming and has been studying this topic for almost 40 years. Not only that but he is a long term friend of Behavioral Grooves Podcast. In this episode with John, we explore with him both the past and future of priming as well as some of the controversies surrounding it.  “The more important the goal, the more primable it is”   Topics (4:36) Welcome and speed round questions. (7:50) Why priming gets a bad rap. (13:01) What exactly is a prime? (16:17) Where does future research in priming need to go? (19:46) How does priming differ from expectat

Psychology and neuroscience have proven that our minds do things on autopilot. These shortcuts (or heuristics) are laden with unconscious biases, which are juxtaposed to our self identity as a “good” person; one that isn’t racist, sexist or homophobic. Dolly Chugh believes we should set a higher standard for ourselves by being good-ish people. By implementing a Growth Mindset, a concept pioneered by Carol Dweck, we don’t hang on too tightly to our identity. We learn to change, and to be taught and to grow.   Dolly Chugh is an award-winning associate professor and social psychologist at the Stern School of Business at New York University. Her research focuses on the “psychology of good people”. How and why most of us, however well-intended, are still prone to race and gender bias, as well as what she calls “bounded ethicality.”     Kurt and Tim sat down with Dolly for this episode in Spring 2021 to talk about the concept of “good-ish” which is a central theme to her book The Person You Mean to Be: How Good Peo

For many years, the general consensus by many researchers and practitioners was that providing people with short-term extrinsic rewards sapped their long-term motivation. This led to some organizations reducing or not using short-term rewards at all. However, this perspective has always had some detractors and now even more research shows that this belief is misleading. In this episode, Kurt and Tim explore the research paper by Indranil Goswami and Oleg Urmisky with the lovely title of “The Dynamic Effect of Incentives on Post-Reward Task Engagement” that shows that while short-term incentives drive an immediate reduction in task engagement, this only lasts for a short time and that engagement rebounds to the baseline relatively quickly.   We examine some of the backstory to this belief, what the study showed, and review the implications of this.       Links The Dynamic Effect of Incentives on Post-Reward Task Engagement: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312100138_The_dynamic_effect_of_incentives_on_

Priming studies have had some negative press over the past ten years - some of it justified, some of it not. In this groove track, Kurt and Tim examine a 2018 study done by Alexander Stajkovic, Kayla Sergent, Gary Latham, and Suzanne Peterson called “Prime and Performance: Can a CEO Motivate Employees Without Their Awareness?”  This field study, with real-world implications, demonstrated that the choice of words had an impact on company performance. The impact was not just statistically significant, but it had real-world significance as well. The researchers replaced 12 words in a company President’s e-mail message to his employees. The impact that those 12 words had on performance was wild.   Kurt and Tim examine how the study was set up, the type of priming used, how performance was measured, and explore some of the key findings. We try to peel back the reasons why the interventions worked as it did, and discuss both the positive implications of this study, as well as things we should be wary of.   Listen n