Behavioral Grooves Podcast

https://feed.podbean.com/behavioralgrooves/feed.xml

Stories, science and secrets from the world’s brightest thought-leaders. Behavioral Grooves is the podcast that satisfies your curiosity of why we do what we do. Explanations of human behavior that will improve your relationships, your wellbeing, and your organization by helping you find your groove.

Episodes

Sunday Mar 14, 2021

GAABS and Improving the Future for Every Applied Behavioral Scientist

Sunday Mar 14, 2021

GAABS is an organization that was recently founded to act as an accrediting body for applied behavioral scientists. GAABS is The Global Association of Applied Behavioral Scientists and is open for membership for those who demonstrate their ability to ethically apply behavioral science to their work.

In this episode, we spoke with co-founding members Nuala Walsh and Steve Martin. Nuala is a contributor to Harvard Business Review and is the founder of MindEquity – a behavioral science consultancy based in Dublin. And Steve Martin is the co-author, with Robert Cialdini and Noah Goldstein, of Yes! 50 secrets from the Science of Persuasion, which has sold more than a million copies and been translated into 27 languages. Nuala is a repeat guest that was featured in episode 203 about whistleblowers and fake memories, and Steve was featured in episode 110 with his co-author, Joe Marks. Together, they wrote “Messengers: Who We Listen To, Who We Don’t, and Why.”

In our conversation, we discussed what GAABS is and what they’re hoping to do to help both practitioners of behavioral science as well as the professionals and institutions that hire those services. On a more philosophical note, we steered into what is lacking in applied behavioral science these days and agreed that there are many fields that could benefit from a behavioral science lens. And across the board, we agreed that education for all parties is critical for the field to be successful.

On an educational note, Steve wryly noted that students could use more psychology and less geography in the classroom, and teed up the novel concept of prac-ademics. And, later, Nuala introduced the idea of leveraging trends, like big data, and noted, “if we marry behavioral science with data science, we actually have an in.”

We hope you enjoy our conversation with Nuala and Steve and that you’ll check out the Behavioral Grooves Patreon site at www.patreon.com/behavioralgrooves. Now go out this week and find YOUR groove.

Links

Nuala Walsh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nualagwalsh/?originalSubdomain=uk

Steve Martin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-martin-13832b5/

GAABS: https://gaabs.org/

Oxbow Lake: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/oxbow-lake/

Annie Duke Alliance for Decision Education: https://alliancefordecisioneducation.org/learn/about-the-alliance/team/board/annie-duke

Mya Shankar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Shankar

Robert Cialdini: https://www.influenceatwork.com/robert-cialdini-phd/biography/

Jennifer Lerner: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty/jennifer-lerner

Nuala Walsh – Episode 203: https://behavioralgrooves.com/episode/on-fake-memories-and-whistleblowers-with-nuala-walsh/

Steve Martin – Episode 110: https://behavioralgrooves.com/episode/steve-martin-and-joe-marks-the-messenger-is-the-message/

Steve Martin and Joe Marks “Messengers: Who We Listen To, Who We Don’t, and Why”: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/43522604-messengers

Harlow Gale, PhD: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/203619125_Harlow_Gale_and_the_Origins_of_the_Psychology_of_Advertising

Musical Links

Sinead O’Connor “Nothing Compares 2 U” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-EF60neguk :

Electric Light Orchestra “Don’t Bring Me Down”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATuX7V4XOlk

The Cranberries “Linger”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_5B14-VytM

Van Morrison “Into the Mystic”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0gvodQgu-Y

Fleetwood Mac “The Chain”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBYHwH1Vb-c

Rod Stewart “Maggie May”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2CQ0FvAZuw

Carly Simon “Nobody Does it Better”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaV-6qerkqI

Joan Baez “Diamonds & Rust”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGMHSbcd_qI

Mike + The Mechanics “The Living Years”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hr64MxYpgk

The Who “Eminence Front”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rx6Zgz0TZuA

Sunday Mar 07, 2021

Dessa: The Attention Shepherd on the Curious Act of Being Deeply Human

Sunday Mar 07, 2021

Dessa is a singer, rapper, writer, speaker, science and philosophy connoisseur, podcast host, and ice cream flavor inventor. (Her flavor is Dessa’s Existential Crunch which consists of crème fraîche, brown sugar ice cream, Jameson Irish Whiskey, Disaronno Amaretto Liqueur, and a cashew and praline pecan brittle crunch).

Dessa has made a career of bucking genres and defying expectations — her résumé as a musician includes being part of the Doomtree collective, a solo artist with performances at Lollapalooza and Glastonbury, co-composer of pieces for 100-voice choir, performances with the Minnesota Orchestra, and top-200 entries on the Billboard charts. She also contributed to the #1 album The Hamilton Mixtape.

As a writer, she published a memoir-in-essays called My Own Devices which was released in 2018 in addition to two literary collections along with many articles in journals such as The New York Times and National Geographic Traveler.

And now she is the host of a new podcast that explores “why we do the things we do” called Deeply Human. The podcast is a fun exploration of a number of topics and brings in experts to help explain why we behave the way we do.

We wanted to talk to Dessa before we knew about her podcast. Here is part of the e-mail that we sent to her publicist to ask for an interview:

“While it may seem a bit off-brand for us to ask for an interview with Dessa, we think that it would be fascinating, and we’d love to talk to her about the intersection of music and emotion. While we typically interview behavioral science researchers and practitioners, we often interview what we call “accidental behavioral scientists.” These are people who are applying the aspects of behavioral science to their work without really knowing that they are doing it. Dessa captures a lot of our human experience in her lyrics and discussing that would be a wonderful way of exploring this concept. We would also love to talk to her about her experience with the scientific fMRI research that she talks about in her essay, “Call of your ghost.”

Our conversation with Dessa examined a wide range of topics – moving from her podcast, to music’s ability to create synchronicity between people, to how we can’t compare subjective experiences, to how emotional connection comes from dropping veils and getting out of our “practiced mirror face.”

This is an episode that you definitely don’t want to miss.

Links

Dessa: www.dessawander.com or www.doomtree.com

Deeply Human: wherever you get your podcasts from

Lute: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lute

The Diary of Ann Frank: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diary_of_a_Young_Girl

Alan Alda: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Alda

Helen Fisher: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Fisher_(anthropologist)

Barry Schwartz: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Schwartz_(psychologist)

Oxytocin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxytocin_receptor

EEG: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroencephalography

QEEG: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_electroencephalography

Autism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism

Epilepsy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epilepsy

Penijean Gracefire: https://penijean.com/home

Cheryl Olman: http://www.neuroscience.umn.edu/people/cheryl-olman-phd

fMRI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_magnetic_resonance_imaging

Neurofeedback: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurofeedback

Harry Haslow – Wire Monkey experiments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Harlow

Research on Emotion and Narrative - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325962169_Emotion_and_Narrative_Perspectives_in_Autobiographical_Storytelling

Drummer Boy (Military): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drummer_(military)

“Rock ’n’ Roll but not Sex or Drugs: Music is negatively correlated to depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic via reward-related mechanisms”: https://tinyurl.com/yw4v5avs

Pew Research (2016) The Joy and Urgency of Learning: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2016/03/22/the-joy-and-urgency-of-learning/

Common Biases and Heuristics: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XHpBr0VFcaT8wIUpr-9zMIb79dFMgOVFRxIZRybiftI/edit?usp=sharing

Musical Links

Dessa “Fighting Fish”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9bwKI-fb7k

Dessa “The Chaconne” (Kurt’s favorite version of the song with Aby Wolf and Jeremy Messersmith): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8dt8mY2WiQ

London Bulgarian Choir: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GEDbKe038o

Lady Midnight “Bloodsong”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRb6Uqsvq5w

Chopin’s Mazurkas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5D46aHhRDM

Erik Satie “Gymnopédie No. 1”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TL0xzp4zzBE

“Hamilton” soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPSWZUExZ8M

“Hamilton Mix Tape”: https://www.amazon.com/Hamilton-Mixtape-Explicit-Various-artists/dp/B01M3XVPL4

Dessa Live - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5n1lsfZI3A

Mayada “Haydn Sonata in D”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpTfxMmBsLY

Chopin “Mazurka Op. 68 n. 2”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL4_uD0Vp5U

Yann Tiersen “La valse d'Amélie”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj9BihmugmI

Tim Houlihan “I Get Lonesome, Too”: http://www.timhoulihan.com/music

Sunday Feb 28, 2021

Jonathan Mann: Is it Possible to Design an Experience?

Sunday Feb 28, 2021

Can you design an experience for someone else? Jonathan Mann, the Vice President of User Experience at Renaissance Learning says, “Umm, not really.” Prior to joining Renaissance, Jonathan led user experience teams at Target Corporation and PayPal. And as a practitioner, he’s always valued good research to help him, and his teams, deliver better work.

Our discussion centered around the question, “is it possible to design an experience?” Jonathan’s research discovered that “an experience” is more than just what we think of as the element that happens in the moment we consider it an experience.

Jonathan reminded us that the totality of “an experience” combines three key elements: the anticipation of the experience, the experience itself, and the memory of the experience. A vacation is a great example of this: we plan and anticipate lots of experiences before we arrive at our destination. Then we are flooded with experiences in the moment, and afterward, we have photos to remind us and memories to interpret our experience after the fact. We know that the remembered self is one of the most important reasons we do anything: how we’ll remember it. So why shouldn’t we consider it identifying the experience in its broadest sense?

We talked about Jonathan’s meeting with Bob Cialdini and how Jonathan’s work with Bob’s crew brought incredible results to the initiatives they were working on at PayPal. We are always happy to see how nicely behavioral science and business results dovetail.

And maybe most importantly, this episode features a live fingerstyle guitar micro-concert by Jonathan. We asked him about playing and he instantly turned around, grabbed his guitar, and started playing for us. His fingerstyle abilities are very fine, and that part of the recording was nothing short of delightful – in every aspect of the word. Enjoy it!

We hope you enjoy our episode with Jonathan Mann and discover new ways that you can integrate his clever thinking on designing an experience into your own work.

Links

Jonathan Mann LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jdmann/

Jonathan Mann Album: http://jonathanmanndesign.com/music (with links to Spotify, Pandora, iTunes, etc)

Jonathan Mann YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVtiHkr4xdBzVZ6Oc3ybsUw

Jonathan Mann Woodworking: https://www.behance.net/fynedesign

Dan Gilbert, “Stumbling on Happiness”: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56627.Stumbling_on_Happiness

Robert Cialdini - Towel study: https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/dont-throw-in-the-towel-use-social-influence-research

Common Biases and Heuristics: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XHpBr0VFcaT8wIUpr-9zMIb79dFMgOVFRxIZRybiftI/edit?usp=sharing

The Dakota: https://www.dakotacooks.com/

Fingerstyle Guitar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingerstyle_guitar

Musical Links

Green Day “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Soa3gO7tL-c

Stone Temple Pilots “Interstate Love Song”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10MQY33cYCg

Leo Kottke “Last Steam Train”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E_s4vQJx-k

Tommy Emmanuel “Classical Gas”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S33tWZqXhnk

The Jimi Hendrix Experience “Voodoo Child”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFfnlYbFEiE

Sunday Feb 21, 2021

Why We Need Robots with Kind Faces with Bertram Malle

Sunday Feb 21, 2021

Bertram Malle, PhD teaches social cognitive science and social psychology at Brown University, he’s the author of dozens of articles and has focused his recent work on how humans feel about robots, and researches how the etiquette and facial abilities of robots impact how we perceive them.

His research indicates that the more human-looking a robot is – especially in its “face” – the more humans are likely to attribute emotions or moral codes to them. Bertram’s work reminds us that the context we experience robots in influences the relationships we build.

Maybe more importantly, Bertram reminded us that robots must be designed to exist in very specific contexts. The appearance and communication abilities of a robot that checks us into a doctor’s office needs to be very different from the robots we use to assist us with making an airline reservation.

While that may be intuitive on one level, it highlights the remarkable complexity required in the design and manufacturing of these robots. Each one needs to be built for a specific purpose – there is no one-size-fits-all with robots. Bertram reminded us that it’s difficult to imagine that robots will ever reach the complexity and flexibility of their human counterparts.

We also parsed out the differences between hope and optimism. This topic was particularly important to because we’re too often conflating the two. Hope, Bertram explained, is something we have when we lack confidence or influence in the outcome. And optimism exists where we might have some degree of influence over the outcome.

We hope you enjoy our conversation with Bertram Malle.

Links

Bertram Malle, PhD email: bfmalle@brown.edu

Social Cognitive Science Research Lab (Brown University): http://research.clps.brown.edu/SocCogSci/index.html

Bertram Malle, “Theory of Mind”: https://nobaproject.com/modules/theory-of-mind

Bertram Malle & Patty Bruininks “Distinguishing Hope from Optimism and Related Affective States”: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226421327_Distinguishing_Hope_from_Optimism_and_Related_Affective_States

Bertram Malle Selected Publications: http://research.clps.brown.edu/SocCogSci/Publications/publications.html

ABOT: http://www.abotdatabase.info/

MIT Lab on Automated Vehicles: https://www.media.mit.edu/research/?filter=everything&tag=autonomous-vehicles

“Her” film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Her_(film)

“Ex Machina” film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_Machina_(film)

TAY: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_(bot)

Isaac Asimov: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov

Jóhann Jóhannsson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3hann_J%C3%B3hannsson

Hildur Guðnadóttir: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildur_Gu%C3%B0nad%C3%B3ttir

Fritz Heider, PhD & Marianne Simmel, PhD, “An experimental study of apparent behavior”: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1945-01435-001

Common Biases and Heuristics: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XHpBr0VFcaT8wIUpr-9zMIb79dFMgOVFRxIZRybiftI/edit?usp=sharing

Minnesota Timberwolves: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Timberwolves

Musical Links

Radiohead “Hail to the Thief”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MdwaUtW_D4

Esbjörn Svensson Trio “Seven Days of Falling”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7KXq6RJ0PA

Bill Dixon “Motorcycle ‘66”: https://youtu.be/ZcO8zfp-FLg

Tyshawn Sorey “Unfiltered”: https://tyshawn-sorey.bandcamp.com/album/unfiltered

Sigur Ros “Brennisteinn”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc6zXSdYXm8

Hildur Gu∂nadottir “Unveiled”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzaxVFc9oIs

Anders Hillborg “Violin Concerto No. 1”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrJ7rhQDjsE

Daniel Lanois with the Venetian Snares: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9u93SDxNsk

Daniel Lanois with Parachute Club: https://www.discogs.com/The-Parachute-Club-Rise-Up/release/1209691

The Bad Plus “Never Stop II”: https://thebadplus.bandcamp.com/album/never-stop-ii

Iceland Symphony Orchestra, “Recurrence”: https://nationalsawdust.org/thelog/2017/02/16/playlist-9/

David Chesky, “Jazz in the new harmonic”: https://chesky.com/products/jazz-in-the-new-harmonic-david-chesky-download

Kings of Leon, “Sex on Fire”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF0HhrwIwp0

“Annihilation” soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9eidResq9g

“Tenet” soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVMkvCTT_yg

Sunday Feb 14, 2021

The Myth of the "Relationship Spark" with Logan Ury (featuring a guest appearance by Christina Gravert, PhD)

Sunday Feb 14, 2021

Logan Ury studied psychology at Harvard, was a TED Fellow, then became a behavioral scientist at Google, where she ran Google’s behavioral science team – which we now know as The Irrational Lab. She became a dating coach and is currently the Director of Relationship Science at the dating app Hinge, where she leads a research team dedicated to helping people find love. Her work has appeared in The New York Times and The Atlantic, among a variety of media outlets, including HBO and the BBC. And you should note that she’s a featured speaker at SXSW 2021.

Aside from those cool things, we wanted to talk to her because she is the author of How To Not Die Alone.

In our conversation with Logan, we talked about the challenges people face in getting prepared for dating, making the most of their dating experiences, and maintaining great relationships once they’ve landed in one. She shared her insights into how to overcome some of the common hurdles and to make the most out of each phase of the dating life.

We had an interesting discussion about why moving from ‘romanticizer’ or ‘maximizer’ to ‘satisficer’ can make a big difference in your relationships (and in life). We talked about the Monet Effect and how we need to work hard to overcome some of our biggest biases – like the fundamental attribution error and negativity bias.

She was also kind enough to share a little bit about her communal living conditions and her recommendation that we all need more significant others – OSO’s – in these turbulent times.

NOTE #1: The “F” word features prominently in our conversation since it’s in the title of one of her book’s chapters.

NOTE #2: Christina Gravert joined for our Grooving Session as our first-ever Grooving Partner, and you’ll hear her in the introduction, as well. We’re pleased that our good friend was named by Forbes magazine as one of the top behavioral scientists you ought to know. Christina teaches Economics at the University of Copenhagen, is a co-founder of Impactually, a behavioral consultancy, she has been a guest on Behavioral Grooves (episode 16 on creating a Nudge-A-Thon), and was a speaker at Nudge.It North 2021.

Links

Logan Ury: https://www.loganury.com/

“How to Not Die Alone”: https://www.loganury.com/book

Ira Glass: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira_Glass

Dan Ariely: https://danariely.com/

Esther Perel: https://www.estherperel.com/

John Gottman, The Gottman Institute: https://www.gottman.com/

Eli Finkel: https://elifinkel.com/

Daniel Gilbert: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Gilbert_(psychologist)

Jane Ebert: https://www.brandeis.edu/facultyguide/person.html?emplid=0fd6834b65b0eddec69f2ab77539fd341d63b270

Alain De Botton “School of Life”: https://www.theschooloflife.com/about-us/faculty/alain-de-botton/

Reiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reiki

“Algorithms to Live By”: https://algorithmstoliveby.com/

John Nash “A Beautiful Mind”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Forbes_Nash_Jr.

Nicole Prause: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicole_Prause

36 Questions That Lead to Love: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/style/no-37-big-wedding-or-small.html

The School of Life books: https://www.theschooloflife.com/shop/us/books/

Shelley Archambeau – Episode 204: https://behavioralgrooves.com/episode/how-shelley-archambeau-flies-like-an-eagle/

Christina Gravert – Episode 16: https://behavioralgrooves.com/episode/nudge-a-thon-with-dr-christina-gravert/

Christina Gravert, “Online Dating Like a Game Theorist”: https://behavioralscientist.org/online-dating-like-a-game-theorist/

Christina Gravert – Impactually: https://impactually.se/

“10 Behavioral Scientists You Should Know”: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alineholzwarth/2020/10/29/10-behavioral-scientists-you-should-know/?sh=36ad80b442e0

Musical Links

“Hamilton” soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPSWZUExZ8M

Chance the Rapper “Coloring Book”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeChAs-bI3A

Bush “Glycerine”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvXbHN5Gijw

Sunday Feb 07, 2021

How Shelley Archambeau Flies Like an Eagle

Sunday Feb 07, 2021

Shellye Archambeau is the author of “Unapologetically Ambitious: Take Risks, Break Barriers, and Create Success on Your Own Terms.” It’s part memoir, part inspiration, and career guidebook. While Shellye argues it’s for everyone, we reckon it’s really best suited for the most ambitious among us. In the book, Shellye shares how she went from being the only black girl in her high school to being the CEO of a Silicon Valley tech firm, MetricStream. And it’s an amazing tale of an amazing woman.

In our conversation with Shellye, she talked with us about the challenges she faced growing up. But what was more interesting to us was talking with her about the way she makes decisions. She has this ability to see how things fit – or don’t fit – into her personal and business goals. And then she acts on them with amazing conviction. She is one remarkable person.

We talked about how she has a strong inclination to set lofty goals – that we call BHAGS (big, hairy, audacious goals) – that never changes over the course of her career. These BHAGS gave her a North Star to navigate by. But the BRICKS (the steppingstones to needed to achieve long-term goals) she used along her journey were flexible and changed as her situation changed.

This flexibility is something we wanted to call out, because it wasn’t just being flexible that got her where she is today. Her incredible ability to create plans and execute those plans is what really set her apart from her peers. And we can imagine that all of her peers at IBM were talented, skilled, smart, and driven. Just not as much as Shellye.

INTERESTED IN BEING A PART-TIME INTERN FOR BEHAVIORAL GROOVES?

If you’d like to pursue being a part-time intern with Behavioral Grooves, please contact Kurt or Tim directly.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: kurt@lanterngroup.com

Tim Houlihan: tim@behavioralchemy.com

“Transfiguration” by Jonathan Benson is used for the interstitial music in this episode.

Links

Shellye Archambeau on Twitter: @ShelArchambeau

Shellye’s web site: https://shellyearchambeau.com/

“Unapologetically Ambitious”: https://shellyearchambeau.com/books

Carol Dweck – Growth Mindset: https://www.mindsetworks.com/science/

George Bernard Shaw: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw

Stephen Curtis, Episode # 148: https://behavioralgrooves.com/episode/covid-19-crisis-stephen-curtis-on-neuroplasticity-and-creating-the-ideal/

Locke & Latham on Goals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goal_setting

Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler, “The Spread of Obesity in a Large Social Network over 32 Years”: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmsa066082

Musical Links

Steve Miller “Fly Like an Eagle”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a6lAwbE1J4

Spinners “I’ll Be Around”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq5VXTO3HDI

Marvin Gaye “What’s Going On”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPkM8F0sjSw

The O’ Jays, “Love Train”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECZr3-a_rDA

Teddy Pendergrass, “Turn Off the Lights”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK4wofMj5-k

Alfie Pollitt, "Say It (Over and Over)": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTaDr1lq8mY

Earl Klugh, “This Time”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7fF_eRYM5k

Dave Koz, “You Make Me Smile”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cshiIac91U

Brian Culbertson, “Colors of Love”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MM5hSddIcg

Praful, “Don't Fight with Life/Om Namah Shivaya”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D51CbCMY10

George Benson, “On Broadway”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ef0kThw5VY

Elton John, “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncuiQAfPhTg

Audrey Hepburn, “Moon River”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uirBWk-qd9A

Sunday Jan 31, 2021

On Fake Memories and Whistleblowers with Nuala Walsh

Sunday Jan 31, 2021

Nuala Walsh is a strategic adviser with MindEquity, working with organizations to create reputation, commercial and cultural change. She is a global leader, an award-winning marketeer, and a behavioral scientist. Nuala has nearly 3 decades of strategic, commercial, and governance experience in asset management, investment banking, and consulting. All her strategic solutions are informed by decision science & behavioral frameworks.

Nuala is also the Non-Executive Director of GAABS, the Vice-Chair of UN Women, and she has been the Chief Marketing Officer, Standard Life Aberdeen. In short, she’s a remarkable person whose insights are worth paying attention to as both a practitioner and a researcher.

We spoke with Nuala recently about some investigations she completed on two topics. The first was to understand the impact that fake news has on our ‘remembering’ self. What she discovered is that our memories don’t discriminate between true or false information – we tend to remember it all roughly the same way, when we believe it at the start.

The second area we discussed was about whistleblowers in modern corporations. Without the proper environment, whistleblowers don’t act or can be maltreated within an organization when they do raise their hands. Nuala’s got some ideas on how to change that. Here’s her list of tips for improving your corporate culture to support whistleblowers:

Reframe. The word whistleblowing is a negative word, so reframing it as “speaking up” could be more positive. There's a shift in how companies can rewrite how they message to employees.
Economic. Scandalized companies earn 4% less than firms that have not experienced major scandals. So by definition, a company could earn 4% more if it’s clean and could impact employees' wages should they go to another firm.
Rewards. Rewarding employees with relevant incentives and she is quick to recommend against financial, such as appropriately recognizing people, sharing salient stories of courage, talking about people in the company, people outside the company as role models…all of these can contribute positively to better company culture.
By taking bad behavior out of the shadows or removing the Social Norming effect of removing it from secrecy is a powerful tool. But you can't just point to somebody internally to highlight their courage, leaders need to appropriately highlight teams that have called out errors that prevented disasters. It’s best to not pinpoint an individual because of personal risk and a lot of potential threats.
Make it Normal. Employees won’t speak up in a dangerous work environment. The more you make the environment open and communal and part of the cultural norm, the less fear that is induced on people and the greater likelihood they’ll point out bad behavior when it happens.

We hope you enjoy our conversation with Nuala as much as we did. If you like it, please don’t hesitate to give Behavioral Grooves a quick rating on your listening app.

How Chaning Jang Works Around Not Being WEIRD

Sunday Jan 24, 2021

Chaning Jang is the CSO of the Busara Center for Behavioral Economics and has helped lead the organization since 2013. He is responsible for strategy, and a portfolio of projects, primarily focused on research. Prior to joining Busara, Chaning worked as an English teacher in the Czech Republic and an equities trader in Los Angeles. Chaning completed a Postdoc at Princeton University in Psychology and Public Affairs, holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Hawai'i with specialization in Behavioral Economics and Development, and a bachelor's in Managerial Economics from the University of California, Davis. He is also a CFA level II holder.

We spoke to Chaning one night (for him) from his office in Nairobi, Kenya and we focused our discussion on context and how so much of psychological research has been focused in WEIRD countries (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic). Because of this focus and how behavior can be linked to cultural and social norms, countries that are not WEIRD are often unable to successfully apply the research that was executed in WEIRD cultures. Chaning is trying to change that.

The work that the Busara Center is doing is important on many levels, the most significant is trying to eliminate poverty at the heart of where it is the worst on earth: Africa. Chaning’s work is fascinating, his ideas sparkle with intensity, and his comments are inspiring. We hope you enjoy our conversation with Chaning Jang.

We are grateful to Allison Zelkowitz from Save the Children for connecting us.

The Counterintuitive Persuasion of The Catalyst with Jonah Berger

Sunday Jan 17, 2021

Jonah Berger is a marketing professor in the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the internationally best-selling author Contagious and Invisible Influence. He consults with some of the largest corporations in the world and derives great insights from his interactions with business leaders wrestling with strategic issues.

In this episode, we caught up with Jonah to discuss his most recent book called The Catalyst. His book takes a counter-intuitive view on persuasion by focusing on reducing barriers to change rather than learning just the right lines, information, or coercive measures to use. Jonah advocates for first understanding why people are doing what they’re doing before we try to get them to do something else.

He shared his REDUCE model with us - Reactance, Endowment, Distance, Uncertainty, and Corroborating Evidence – and we dove into Reactance as a major component of how we resist change. The harder you push on someone to change, the more likely they are to push back. It’s natural for us to push back and to illustrate, just try this little experiment with someone in your household (another adult).

Ask your adult counterpart to hold up their hand at shoulder level and have your palms meet. Tell them you’re going to push on their hand, then do it with some force. Do they push back to slow the advance of your hand or do they just go limp and let you push their hand as far as you can? It’s likely that they’ll push back. The same is true of any behavior change.

And that’s okay. Our natural tendencies serve us well in many situations, but not all. Jonah’s perspective on how catalysts change behavior will open your mind to new ideas. We hope you enjoy it and, this week, find your groove.

Links

Jonah Berger, PhD: https://jonahberger.com/author-bio/

Jonah Berger Additional Resources: https://jonahberger.com/resources/

Lee Ross, PhD: https://profiles.stanford.edu/lee-ross

Mark Lepper, PhD: https://psychology.stanford.edu/people/mark-lepper

Kurt Lewin, PhD “Force Field Analysis”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Lewin

Musical Links

Whitney Houston “I Will Always Love You”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ardglr9MVVQ

Queen “We Will Rock You”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvKkIttJLcc

Tim Houlihan “Thinking About You”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS-PsjRktUk

Dolly Parton “I Will Always Love You”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0bEZH6ZqG4

Wednesday Jan 13, 2021

Time is Money – How Do You Value It?

Wednesday Jan 13, 2021

Recently, NPR’s Planet Money penned an article about how much our time is worth based on some research that was sponsored by the rideshare company Lyft. According to the article, Lyft economists tried to determine how much people were willing to pay to save some time.

After crunching data from nine different cities, Lyft estimated the average value of time is $19.00 per hour.

In this episode, Kurt and Tim discussed Ashley Whillan’s new book, “Time Smart: How to Reclaim Your Time and Live a Happier Life,” some of the fundamental errors humans experience with time such as temporal discounting, loads of stats you’ll probably never need.

We discover that better time management leads to greater happiness and combining habits and mindset is critical to wellbeing. By the way, the US Department of Transportation’s official value of people’s time is $14.00 per hour. Go figure.

Links

Planet Money (NPR): What Is Your Time Worth?:

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2020/12/08/943812834/what-is-your-time-worth

Big Think – Life in Numbers: https://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/how-many-days-of-your-life-do-you-have-sex-your-lifetime-by-the-numbers

Ashley Whillans, “Time Smart: How to Reclaim Your Time and Live a Happier Life”: https://www.amazon.com/Time-Smart-Reclaim-Your-Happier-ebook/dp/B0842X6L2C