Talk about a unique career path! From performing at Woodstock before Jimi Hendrix, with his band Sha Na Na, to now being a Forensic Linguist, testifying for infamous court cases, one theme runs throughout the life journey of our guest Rob Leonard; his love of language. Rob Leonard started his unique career as a band member of Sha Na Na, one of only 32 bands who played at Woodstock in August of 1969. He played at the request of Jimi Hendrix and was the last band to go on to perform before Jimi we...
Jun 20, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Ep 229•Transcript available on Metacast This episode is a Behavioral Grooves first: we bring you our first ever joint podcast! Mid-way through the episode the tables turn and our guest interviews us! Our guest is the amazing Kelly Leonard, host of the great podcast called “Getting to Yes, And…” presented by Second City Works and WGN in Chicago. This unique conversation with Kelly, Kurt and Tim gives us a glimpse of the people behind the podcasts. It is a light-hearted, raw conversation scattered with some really personal, touching sto...
Jun 13, 2021•1 hr 23 min•Ep 228•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode of Behavioral Grooves we chat with the founder of the engaging new app PIQUE. Bec Weeks is a behavioral scientist turned accidental entrepreneur! By joining forces with some of the brightest minds in behavioral science, including partners Sendhil Mullainathan, Eldar Shafir and Mike Norton, they have developed an amazing app that accompanies your favorite books. Pique takes users' interests in books to a new level with their slogan: Don't just read the book. DO the book. By using ...
Jun 06, 2021•54 min•Ep 227•Transcript available on Metacast The GodFather of Influence, Robert Cialdini joins us again on Behavioral Grooves to share his motivation for expanding his bestselling book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion ( https://amzn.to/3tyCpZ6 ) which now includes a completely new Seventh Principle of Influence: Unity. This additional principle can help explain our political loyalties, vaccine hesitancy and why media headlines can be so inflammatory. Another motivation for the revised edition to the book is to include more applicati...
May 30, 2021•1 hr 19 min•Ep 226•Transcript available on Metacast Linnea Gandhi is one of our favorite people to talk with and we had the pleasure of welcoming Linnea back to Behavioral Grooves recently. We last spoke to her in 2018 when she confessed to having a crush on statistics (a crush she clearly still harbors!) Since that time though, she has made a significant contribution to the infamous new book Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment by Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass Sunstein ( https://amzn.to/3heyr5r ). Linnea served as the chief of staff; proje...
May 26, 2021•58 min•Ep 225•Transcript available on Metacast NOISE is set to be the next behavioral science bestseller. Daniel Kahneman, Cass Sunstein and Olivier Sibony describe noise as the unwanted variabilities in our judgments. In our exclusive interview with co-author Olivier Sibony ( https://oliviersibony.com/about/ ) we delve into the fundamentals of noise. What different types of noise are there? Where do we find noise? Why does bias get more attention than noise? And finally, Olivier’s favorite topic; how we can mitigate noise by using decision ...
May 23, 2021•1 hr 26 min•Ep 224•Transcript available on Metacast Allison Zelkowitz seized the opportunity to use behavioral science at Save The Children to make a big impact on global projects. By building a world-first “nudge unit” within the organization, her story is an inspiring example of how application of behavioral science principles can make a real difference in the world. Allison Zelkowitz is the Founder and Director of the Center for Utilizing Behavioral Insights for Children (CUBIC) https://www.savethechildren.net/cubic , part of the internationa...
May 19, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Ep 223•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, we are delighted to welcome Shankar Vedantam, host of the wildly popular podcast, Hidden Brain and esteemed author of the new book Useful Delusions ( https://amzn.to/2PUkzlv ). Before reading Shankar’s book and interviewing him for this podcast we were, as Shankar describes himself, card-carrying rationalists. We were firmly in the camp of believing rational, scientific findings and believing that lies and deception are harmful to ourselves and to our communities. However, Shank...
May 16, 2021•1 hr 22 min•Ep 222•Transcript available on Metacast Tim Kachuriak is the founder and Chief Innovation and Optimization Officer for NextAfter ( https://www.nextafter.com/) , a fundraising research lab and consulting firm that works with businesses, nonprofits, and NGOs to help them grow their resource capacity. By his own admission, Tim is not a behavioral scientist, but what we love about Tim’s work is that he is using knowledge and research from the world of behavioral science and applying it to improve the efficiency of gift giving for nonprofi...
May 12, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep 221•Transcript available on Metacast Our guest, Jon Levy, is arguably one of the most influential behavioral scientists in the world. Over 10 years ago, Jon founded The Influencers Dinner, a secret dining experience for industry leaders ranging from Olympians, Nobel laureates, executives, to musicians. Over the course of the last decade, these dinners have developed into a wide community of influential people. Our opening speed round with Jon did not disappoint. We learn his unique perspective on which Star Trek Captains was the be...
May 09, 2021•1 hr 17 min•Ep 218•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode we are thrilled to be discussing our two favorite topics: human behavior and music. We learn that music, more than any other activity, can help lift our mood, during COVID. Our guests Pablo Ripollés PhD and Ernest Mas Herrero have spent years studying how the brain responds to rewards, learning and memory. Early in the pandemic, they decided to conduct research on a long list of activities that people were doing at home to manage their stress and increase the pleasure in their li...
May 02, 2021•53 min•Ep 219•Transcript available on Metacast Our guest this week, Sandra Matz PhD exposes the truth behind our online presence. In our conversation, Sandra reveals that with simple analytics, the digital footprints we leave behind online (our Facebook Likes, our credit card transactions, our Google Map searches) add up to paint a very revealing picture of our personality and state of mind. Sandra Matz PhD is an associate professor at Columbia Business School. She takes a Big Data approach to studying human behaviour. Her methodologies use ...
Apr 25, 2021•1 hr 13 min•Ep 218•Transcript available on Metacast Research is showing that there are four broad groups of people who are the most vaccine hesitant: African Americans Latinos Women between the ages of 20 and 36 Rural Americans and Republicans Many of us have a family or friend who feels hesitant about the vaccination. In this episode, Kurt and Tim address how you can have a positive conversation with them, using proven behavioral science techniques. Compassionate curiosity Listen with compassion Understanding motivations Be genuine with curiosit...
Apr 21, 2021•15 min•Ep 217•Transcript available on Metacast Dr. Melanie Green is a professor at the University of Buffalo. She joined us on the podcast to explain how the power of a compelling narrative, including the effects of fictional stories, can be used to change beliefs and attitudes. Her theory of "transportation into a narrative world" focuses on how immersive storytelling is a mechanism of narrative influence. It was an in-depth conversation that explored concepts around how stories move us, the power of narrative to affect both cognitive and e...
Apr 18, 2021•1 hr 14 min•Ep 216•Transcript available on Metacast Leidy Klotz is the Copenhaver Associate Professor of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Virginia. His research fills in underexplored overlaps between engineering and behavioral science, in pursuit of more sustainable environmental systems. He has published over 70 peer-reviewed articles in venues that include top academic journals in built environment engineering, engineering education, and design, as well as imprints of both Science and Nature. We explored t...
Apr 14, 2021•1 hr 11 min•Ep 215•Transcript available on Metacast Rohit Bhargava is on a mission to help everyone in the world become a non-obvious thinker. In this episode, he talks with us about how intentionality is the key to seeing the non-obvious and how he uses The Haystack Method to gather insights from the world. He also shared how he has become a speed-understander and the benefits that go with it. In 2011, Rohit embarked on the annual task of documenting the digital trends of the year, which after a decade, culminated in his book on megatrends in 20...
Apr 11, 2021•1 hr 18 min•Ep 214•Transcript available on Metacast Tim Ash is a very interesting guy. He is both an authority on evolutionary psychology and digital marketing, which puts him in pretty rarified air. He is the bestselling author of Unleash Your Primal Brain and Landing Page Optimization (with over 50,000 copies sold worldwide and translated into six languages). He has been identified by Forbes as a Top-10 Online Marketing Expert, and by Entrepreneur Magazine as an Online Marketing Influencer To Watch. Our conversation with Tim focused on his most...
Apr 04, 2021•1 hr 16 min•Ep 213•Transcript available on Metacast Michael F. Schein is a hype specialist and the author of The Hype Handbook: 12 Indispensable Secrets from the World’s Greatest Propagandists, Self-Promoters, Cult Leaders, Mischief Makers, and Boundary Breakers. He is also the founder and president of MicroFame Media, a marketing agency that specializes in making idea-based companies famous in their industries. We caught up with Michael recently to talk about his book about how hype can be a very good thing. In and of itself, hype can be a power...
Mar 31, 2021•1 hr 23 min•Ep 212•Transcript available on Metacast AJ Jacobs is an author, journalist, lecturer, and human guinea pig. He has written four New York Times bestsellers, including The Year of Living Biblically, that combine memoir, science, and humor with a dash of self-help. AJ has said that he sees his life as a series of experiments in which he immerses himself in a project or lifestyle, for better or worse, then writes about what he learned. His most recent book, Thanks A Thousand: A Gratitude Journey, starts with wanting to thank the people wh...
Mar 28, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Ep 211•Transcript available on Metacast Linda Thunstrom, PhD is a Swedish economist working as an assistant professor of economics at the University of Wyoming. (That’s in Laramie, Wyoming, not Wyoming, Sweden.) Her research interests include behavioral, experimental, public, and health economics. Her interests merged after Hurricane Florence when she became curious about the effect that offering thoughts and prayers might have on potential donors to natural disasters. She set up a study to see if potential donors might feel like they...
Mar 21, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Ep 210•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
Mar 14, 2021•1 hr 13 min•Ep 209•Transcript available on Metacast 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 L...
Mar 07, 2021•1 hr 16 min•Ep 210•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
Feb 28, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Ep 207•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Feb 21, 2021•1 hr 27 min•Ep 208•Transcript available on Metacast 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 yo...
Feb 14, 2021•1 hr 29 min•Ep 206•Transcript available on Metacast 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 o...
Feb 07, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Ep 205•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jan 31, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Ep 204•Transcript available on Metacast 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 B...
Jan 24, 2021•1 hr 15 min•Ep 203•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jan 17, 2021•48 min•Ep 202•Transcript available on Metacast 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 Happi...
Jan 13, 2021•16 min•Ep 195•Transcript available on Metacast 
