We all know we need a good night’s sleep but sleep researcher, David Creswell PhD has studied how our performance is actually affected by sleep. He has even found a predictive correlation between student’s college GPA scores and their sleep duration. David Creswell is a professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon University and has published numerous studies on mindfulness-based interventions and their impact on well-being. He is a prominent researcher specializing in health psychology, mindfulne...
Oct 30, 2023•50 min•Ep. 380
Connect behavioral science theory and research to practical applications. Connor Joyce founded the Applied Behavioral Science Association and he shares his perspectives on different behavioral science roles. This podcast episode features Connor Joyce discussing his career journey and involvement with the Applied Behavioral Science Association (ABSA) . Connor began his career as a human capital analyst at Deloitte, where he was first exposed to behavioral science. He then earned a Master's degree...
Oct 23, 2023•56 min•Ep. 379
What life habits keep our brain healthy? How does our mind respond to trauma? And why does the way we talk about suicide and mental health make such a difference to those who are struggling? We discuss all these topics with neuroscience researcher Dr Daniel Almeida. World Mental Health Day has recently shed a spotlight on our psychological wellbeing. So we decided to republish the sound mental health advice we learnt from our guest Dr Daniel Almeida from episode 255 in October 2021. Daniel has b...
Oct 16, 2023•59 min•Ep. 378
Why is work so difficult for so many of us? Why are we not connected to the organization in ways to help us advance our careers and garner the best assignments? Dr. Michelle P. King is a researcher and author who answers these questions and more. She joined us to discuss strategies from her book, “How Work Works: The Subtle Science of Getting Ahead Without Losing Yourself.” Michelle is a globally recognized expert on inequality and organizational culture. Based on over a decade’s worth of resear...
Oct 09, 2023•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 377
“Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” Are you tired of that ditty? We are. How are you supposed to know what you love if we don’t 100% know who we are? “Know thyself” is a maxim that has been central to Western civilization for the last 2500 years. It has been pervasive in philosophy over the ages and more recently in psychology. Who are we? Who am I? These questions blend nicely with understanding why we do what we do, a foundational question in behavioral science. And it...
Oct 02, 2023•42 min•Ep. 376
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 Th...
Sep 25, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 375
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 h...
Sep 18, 2023•58 min•Ep. 374
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 organiza...
Sep 11, 2023•47 min•Ep. 373
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 lead...
Sep 04, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 372
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...
Aug 27, 2023•48 min•Ep. 371
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 Direc...
Aug 21, 2023•43 min•Ep. 370
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, exa...
Aug 14, 2023•1 hr•Ep. 369
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 fi...
Aug 07, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 368
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 ...
Jul 31, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 367
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, th...
Jul 24, 2023•47 min•Ep. 366
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 l...
Jul 17, 2023•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 365
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 dur...
Jul 10, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 364
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...
Jul 02, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 363
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 ...
Jun 26, 2023•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 362
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 Univers...
Jun 19, 2023•55 min•Ep. 361
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...
Jun 12, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 360
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 topic...
Jun 05, 2023•55 min•Ep. 359
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 t...
May 30, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 358
Goals are as common and as misunderstood as mobile phones. We think we know how to use them, but we don’t get it right every time. And if we were asked to explain how they work, we’d be clueless. In this Grooving Session, Kurt and Tim discuss the magic of goals and how to best utilize them. We discuss some goal-setting studies – both published and unpublished – and some fundamental reasons why goals are important. We also get into some complementary research on the illusionary progress to goal a...
May 25, 2023•21 min•Ep. 357
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 succee...
May 15, 2023•21 min•Ep. 356
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” applica...
May 08, 2023•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 355
Interested in a secret, underused marketing trick? Use rhyme in your design! You may easily recall examples like “Bounty: the quicker picker upper” or “Duracell: no battery is stronger, longer”. By including rhyming words in your marketing, your content is actually more memorable and more believable. This is just one of the 25 behavioral science tips that our expert guest, Nancy Harhut outlines in her comprehensive new book, “Using Behavioral Science in Marketing”. Nancy Harhutt is Co-Founder an...
May 01, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 354
Is a happy life one that is abundant with pleasure? Or one without pain? Or one that overcomes struggle? The quest for a good life may go beyond the scope of a psychological study. But bestselling author, Paul Bloom does believe that psychology can help us maximize the circumstances that contribute to our happiness. In the second part of our interview with psychologist Paul Bloom we delve more into his book “ Psych: The Story of the Human Mind ”. Not only do we discuss the factors that lead to a...
Apr 24, 2023•52 min•Ep. 353
Ask someone to name a famous psychologist and there’s a good chance they’ll say Sigmund Freud. Describing a person as “anal” or rebuking someone with “I'm not your mother”, are both references to Freud’s work. Since many of his outlandish theories have long been debunked, should he still be part of psychology teaching? Author Paul Bloom lays the case for why he has dedicated a whole chapter to Freud in his new book Psych. This is the first of two episodes with Paul Bloom, who we are warmly welco...
Apr 17, 2023•1 hr•Ep. 352
With curiosity we can figure out what we actually want. Sometimes what we desire makes us feel uncomfortable, and as a therapist, our guest Charlotte Fox Weber makes space for that discomfort. Join us as she highlights her observations from the therapist's chair. “I think curiosity is a life force. It engages us, it galvanizes us, it's inspiring, and it gets us to pay attention.” ~ Charlotte Fox Weber Many people see a therapist to help them work through psychological issues. But have you ever c...
Apr 10, 2023•50 min•Ep. 351
