Iris Tzafrir is an inspirational and influential cross-functional leader in strategy and business development, deal making, value actualization, and merger integration. She grew up in a Kibbutz in the Negev Desert of Israel, the daughter of 2 Holocaust survivors, and emigrated to the US for graduate school where she studied virology. She loves to learn and is committed to making the world a better place. We asked her to join us to discuss her insights on anti-racism, recognition of the other, an...
Apr 26, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Ep 140•Transcript available on Metacast Anurag Vaish is the co-founder and director of The FinalMile in Mumbai, India. In building the company's practice of Behavior Architecture, Anurag led the conceptualization and development of digital games as a platform for research. Anurag brings over 17 years of experience in strategic planning, research and marketing communication. Our conversation with him allowed him to highlight some of the work FinalMile is doing with the Indian government. More importantly, Anurag and his team are buildi...
Apr 20, 2020•46 min•Ep 138•Transcript available on Metacast Artem Petakov is a co-Founder of Noom, a behavioral change and weight loss product that marries both psychology and AI to help people form more healthy behaviors and lose weight. You’re probably seeing Noom everywhere these days – on television, social media, YouTube – and with high frequency. The media exposure is generating terrific growth for the company and we wanted to talk to Artem about how Noom applies behavioral science to the core of their offering. Our conversation with Artem was ripe...
Apr 19, 2020•1 hr 7 min•Ep 139•Transcript available on Metacast Michael Boden is the Head of U.S. Crop Protection Sales at Syngenta, a global agrochemicals and seeds firm based in Basel, Switzerland. He joined the company in 1986 and has held global sales and marketing positions throughout his career. Michael grew up in Sioux City, Iowa, and is currently based in Syngenta’s North American headquarters in Greensboro, North Carolina. Michael shared a vivid image of his business: it’s what he calls belly-to-belly relationships his reps and agronomists have with...
Apr 17, 2020•37 min•Ep 137•Transcript available on Metacast Alessandro del Ponte is a research fellow at the National University of Singapore working in the Behavioral Change program at the Global Asia Institute. He recently earned his PhD in behavioral political economy from Stony Brook University in New York. His recent research uses simple video games to understand how people feel about making tradeoffs between jobs and paying off national debt, or between saving lives in the national healthcare system or paying off the national debt. We decided to co...
Apr 14, 2020•42 min•Ep 136•Transcript available on Metacast Stuart King designs evidence-based interventions for children and adults to change their behavior and manage their weight. He has worked with the UK’s NHS as an Obesity Lead, as a Senior Scientist in the Obesity and Healthy Weight Team, and is now the CEO and Head of Distraction at his company, BeeZee Bodies. The firm provides behavior change services across all of England. Our conversation was recorded just after the World Health Organization had declared the coronavirus a pandemic, but before ...
Apr 12, 2020•1 hr 21 min•Ep 135•Transcript available on Metacast Cristina Bicchieri, PhD is the S. J. Patterson Harvie Professor of Social Thought and Comparative Ethics, a Professor of Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, a Professor of Legal Studies at the Wharton School, the Head of the Behavioral Ethics Lab, the Director of the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Program, and is the Faculty Director of the Master of Behavioral and Decision Sciences Program at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research with UNICEF keeps her busy a...
Apr 11, 2020•1 hr 18 min•Ep 134•Transcript available on Metacast In this grooving episode, Kurt and Tim discuss Temporal Discounting and it’s closely related cousins. Temporal discounting is where we tend to value events in the near term more than similar events that are off in the distance. Another way to say it is that we discount – or reduce – our perceived value of events scheduled far off in the future. (The “timing” element is what gives it the name “temporal.”) This is a very common bias and is closely related to Hyperbolic Discounting, which is the te...
Apr 05, 2020•15 min•Ep 133•Transcript available on Metacast Aline Holzwarth is the head of Behavioral Science at Pattern Health in Durham, North Carolina and a writer who supplies work to Behavioral Scientist and Forbes and has well as her blog on Medium. And she is also Principal of Dan Ariely’s Center for Advanced Hindsight, where she is responsible for directing the strategy, operations and communications for the Duke University research center. Our conversation with Aline was relaxed and built on the underpinnings of abundance and gratitude. We talke...
Apr 03, 2020•48 min•Ep 132•Transcript available on Metacast Brad Shuck, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership, Evaluation and Organizational Development at the University of Louisville. He is also the Program Director of the Center for Human Resource and Organizational Development. Brad has been researching employee engagement for many years and is a featured speaker at conferences on employee engagement around the world. Talking to Brad was like having a friendly counselor talk you off the ledge while we covered meani...
Apr 01, 2020•1 hr 7 min•Ep 131•Transcript available on Metacast Eugen Dimant, PhD is an Associate Professor of Practice in Behavioral and Decision Sciences, which is part of the new Center for Social Norms and Behavioral Dynamics under Cristina Bicchieri, Ph.D.’s leadership at the University of Pennsylvania. Much of his work is focused on how social norms are formed and impact our lives. We talked about how social norms drive individual behaviors in different ways and how research on coronavirus-related behaviors is being completed at record speeds – but not...
Mar 31, 2020•48 min•Ep 130•Transcript available on Metacast Wendy Wood, PhD is a social psychologist whose research addresses the ways that habits guide behavior. She researches and teaches at USC both in psychology and in the business school and is a world-renowned expert on breaking old habits and creating new ones. Her book, “Good Habits, Bad Habits” is a New York Times bestseller and delivers a terrifically readable and scholarly approach to habits. In our conversation with her, she shared what habits are and how habits get formed. We talked about ho...
Mar 30, 2020•39 min•Ep 129•Transcript available on Metacast Deborah Small, PhD is a professor of marketing in the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research crosses the intersections of psychology and economics, examining fundamental processes that underlie human decision making. In recent years, her work has focused on both altruistic and self-interested motivations for philanthropic behavior. She has examined impediments to effective altruism, bragging about prosocial behavior, and the downsides of conspicuous consumption. A NOTE TO...
Mar 29, 2020•1 hr 16 min•Ep 128•Transcript available on Metacast Rodd Wagner is a Forbes columnist and bestselling author of books on leadership, employee engagement and collaboration. Rodd’s books have been published in 10 languages and his articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, USA Today, ABC News, as well as Globe and Mail in Canada. One of his books was even parodied in Dilbert. In our conversation, we discussed how humans perceive risk, regulation (by the self and by the government), and cumulative proba...
Mar 28, 2020•1 hr•Ep 127•Transcript available on Metacast Annie Duke is an author, corporate speaker, and consultant in the decision-making space. Her most recent book, Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts, quickly became a national bestseller and landed on the Behavioral Grooves Top 10 list for 2018! Prior to her career as a professional poker player, Annie was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship to study Cognitive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the co-founder of The Alliance f...
Mar 27, 2020•1 hr 17 min•Ep 126•Transcript available on Metacast Ali Fenwick, PhD is a Professor of Organizational Behavior at Hult International Business School in London and Dubai. He specializes in applying behavioural traits and behavioral interventions for business improvement, government policy design, communication effectiveness and, among other things, psychographic profiling. According to Ali, “Bulk buying is caused by various psychological and environmental cues which throw rational-thinking out of the window. When in survival mode, we let mainly ou...
Mar 25, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Ep 125•Transcript available on Metacast James Brewer is the Director of Marketing Platforms and Global Customer Operations for Eli Lilly and Company. Over the years, Kurt and Tim have worked with James on applying behavioral science insights to his work, and many of his colleagues’ work, at Eli Lilly. James is an avid behavioral science practitioner and also a friend. We started our discussion with James about how his views have shifted from being someone who thought the media was overhyping the pandemic, to being someone who is takin...
Mar 24, 2020•59 min•Ep 124•Transcript available on Metacast Christian Hunt is the founder of Human Risk, a Behavioral Science consulting and training firm specializing in risk, compliance, conduct & culture. Previously, Christian was the head of Behavioral Science at UBS and Chief Operating Officer of the Prudential Regulation Authority. He is an expert on risk and how people perceive risk. We wanted to talk to Christian about how we perceive risk and whether or not our human biases are overblowing (or undervaluing) the current pandemic. We also chatted ...
Mar 23, 2020•59 min•Ep 123•Transcript available on Metacast Barry Ritholtz is the CIO of Ritholtz Wealth Management and the host of the Bloomberg podcast Masters in Business, where he talks almost as much about markets, investing and business as he does about the behavioral science behind WHY we do what we do. Our first conversation appears in the ever-popular Episode 47. This week, we discussed the financial implications of the financial crisis resulting from the pandemic. It’s not, as Barry notes quite clearly, a one hundred year flood. The market is r...
Mar 22, 2020•57 min•Ep 122•Transcript available on Metacast Liz Fosslien was our guest on Episode 56 and we asked her back to kick off our series on the behavioral aspects of how life is changing with quarantines, sheltering in place and working from home. Liz is the Head of Content at HUMU, a firm that combines people science and machine learning to create breakthroughs on a wide variety of people-centric measurements. Liz is also the co-author and illustrator of No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work . We discussed how this cr...
Mar 21, 2020•45 min•Ep 121•Transcript available on Metacast This is an episode originally produced for Weekly Grooves. We hope you enjoy! Coronavirus and the disease it’s created – Covid-19 – is alive and well and getting stronger every day. How bad is it? It’s difficult to say with any certainty in part because it’s constantly changing and it’s very complex. However, when presented with ambiguous information, our minds draw conclusions based on our biases and the decision-making heuristics our ancient brains rely on. In this episode, Kurt and Tim discus...
Mar 17, 2020•14 min•Ep 120•Transcript available on Metacast Chiara Varazzani, PhD is the Principal Advisor at the Behavioral Insights Unit in the Victorian Government's Department of Premier and Cabinet in Australia. Chiara is Italian born, French-educated, and employed in Australia, adding her to the list of Italian-born behavioral scientists we’ve had on our show (Cristina Bicchieri, Francesco Gina, and Silvia Saccardo, in case you’re counting). She blew us away with her passion for behavioral science as well as her comments about the way our brain cal...
Mar 15, 2020•1 hr 7 min•Ep 119•Transcript available on Metacast John Fuisz is co-founder of Veriphix and a marketer who believes in building great brands. He does so with a sophisticated system that, on the surface, appears simple and direct; however, it’s built on his astute observations of consumer behavior, the clever use of data, and most importantly, it’s related to Annie Duke’s use of bets to measure future behaviors. We wanted to talk to John because his work tracks the seemingly subtle, yet extremely powerful, ways our buying and voting behaviors can...
Mar 08, 2020•1 hr 15 min•Ep 118•Transcript available on Metacast Author and economist Andrew Wagner’s new book, The Economics of Online Gaming, shares how economic decisions get made by players of online games. We discuss how reputations and player behaviors impact success in the game. For instance, a very positive reputation could lead other players to work with you, but it also could lead them to take advantage of you. Andrew discovered, in this game, that while a bad reputation sets people against you, it also provided unforeseen benefits in the game, econ...
Mar 01, 2020•1 hr 11 min•Ep 117•Transcript available on Metacast In this special edition, bestselling author and Forbes contributor, Rodd Wagner, organized a question-and-answer session with Kurt and Tim in front of a live audience to discuss whether behavioral sciences could be applied to corporate environments in ways that allow leaders to manipulate their employees. And, if so, where does that land on the ethical spectrum? Rodd has grown increasingly intrigued and sometimes concerned that behavioral science has reached a point of refinement and adoption th...
Feb 23, 2020•1 hr 9 min•Ep 116•Transcript available on Metacast As a new product and innovation professional, Adam Hansen has always believed in the power of possibility – accepting new approaches, questioning conventional wisdom, and being open to anything. This impulse led him to a career in developing new products for innovative companies such as Mars, Melaleuca and American Harvest, before joining the innovation firm, Ideas To Go, in 2001. Now as a facilitator, Adam is passionate about helping clients understand their own possibilities—even beyond the sc...
Feb 16, 2020•1 hr 13 min•Ep 115•Transcript available on Metacast For this episode, we’re republishing a terrific conversation we had with economist and author, Caroline Webb, PhD (in episode 33). We loved her book, How to Have a Good Day, and still do, and we loved talking to her about her work both as an economist and as a musician. On top of that, Caroline is just one of those people that is great to hang out with. Caroline was educated at Oxford, Cambridge, and the Levy Economics Institute. She has worked at McKinsey & Associates, performed at Carnegie Hal...
Feb 09, 2020•1 hr 4 min•Ep 114•Transcript available on Metacast In this grooving session, Kurt and Tim share how to conduct a behavioral diagnosis. A behavioral diagnosis is a tool we use to uncover the underlying drivers of behavior inside an organization to bring about meaningful change, all with the use of applied behavioral science. Kurt and Tim have been conducting behavioral diagnoses for many years and have found that leaders often don’t understand why their employees behave the way they do – particularly when it comes to employees response to changes...
Feb 02, 2020•29 min•Ep 113•Transcript available on Metacast Kurt and Tim are producing a new podcast called Weekly Grooves, launching January 31, 2020. Weekly Grooves is the weekly podcast that offers insights into the headlines through a behavioral lens. Kurt and Tim will be applying their more than 40 years of combined experience in behavioral work to give the headlines more relevance and meaning. We are going to put more meat in your sauce! Check it on Podbean or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. We want YOU to be one of first the Weekly Groove...
Jan 30, 2020•5 min•Ep 112•Transcript available on Metacast Stephen Martin and Joe Marks, PhD dive deep into one of the most important eye-openers about communication in our world today: the importance of WHO delivers the message. Their book, “Messengers: Who We Listen To, Who We Don’t, and Why,” is a major revamp on the claim made by Marshall McLuhan in 1964 that, “The Medium IS the Message.” While Steve and Joe are hard-pressed to say McLuhan’s refrain is dead, it’s being outsized by a more contemporary and relevant one: “The Messenger IS the Message.”...
Jan 26, 2020•1 hr 21 min•Ep 111•Transcript available on Metacast 
