Behavioral Grooves Podcast

In 2021, people started to trust business organizations more than governments, NGOs or the media, according to global research by the Edelman Trust Baraometer. The Covid pandemic has seen people around the globe question their trust in all forms of leadership. What impact does this have on business leaders? Can organizations rebuild trust? What are the building blocks of trust? Sandra Sucher, co-a...

If we are open minded, we challenge our beliefs and accept that our thinking can, at times, be misguided. After all, our thoughts are merely a function of our personal habits, experiences and internal communication. Dr Howard Rankin PhD encourages us to recognize the value of critical thinking, and become more aware of our own consciousness. To conclude our November series on Conspiracy Theories,...

Need some respite from the work day grind? Join the fun on this episode for a light-hearted take on workplace humor. Dan Hill delivers a real tongue-in-cheek take on the corporate lingo and jargon that infiltrates our workplaces. But with every joke he makes, there is a pang of truth: “emojis; the feelings you would be having at work if they were allowed.” Dan’s new book; “Blah, Blah, Blah: A Snar...

What makes us more likely to believe in conspiracy theories? Can our religious beliefs or political affiliations determine whether we're less likely to believe in scientific facts? Why are health conspiracy theories some of the most widely believed notions? We revisit a conversation with Eric Oliver who talks us through the factors that drive people towards conspiracy theories. Eric Oliver, PhD is...

Misinformation is like a virus, spreading quickly and propagating in a way that doesn’t benefit its host. Andy Noman describes harmful ideas as acting like “mind parasites” that deploy clever tactics to infect our thinking by circumventing our mental immune systems. And we’re even more susceptible to bad ideas than we realize.  So how do we immunize ourselves against mind parasites? Can we reach h...

How do you respond to someone who says “the earth is flat” or “Covid is a hoax”? Before we can try and reason with conspiracy theorists, we must first understand the reason they have ventured down that path. Lee McIntyre has spent years researching science deniers and has found a common set of traits in their behavior. He also argues that we shouldn’t sit back and assume conspiracy theories are ha...

Host of Hidden Brain podcast, Shankar Vedantam talks with us about the powers: both useful and harmful, of our delusional thinking. Nations are an example of useful delusions; they are an entirely human-made construct, yet they can present us with a unifying, shared identity.  There is a tipping point, however, at which our beliefs can become harmful to someone else. Shankar defines conspiracy the...

Listen to Kurt and Tim’s spooky Halloween Special about some common biases that can seem a bit scary. But don’t fear, the scariest thing about this episode is actually Kurt and Tim’s jokes! Find out why some biases are a bit spooky, what makes us susceptible to them, and most importantly how we can overcome them.  Thanks for taking the time to learn a bit about how to overcome the biases you may f...

Rudeness is contagious, in a similar way to a virus. When experiencing a rude encounter, our brain perceives it like a threat. And once we’ve tuned in to this low-level threat, we’re more likely to notice it around us, and therefore more likely to display rude behavior ourselves. Our guest on this episode is Dr Trevor Foulk PhD, Assistant Professor of Management & Organization at the University of...

How do we make decisions? What factors influence the final outcome? Do default settings change our preferences? Every decision we make; from choosing something on a menu to deciding whether to be an organ donor, is influenced by our environmental context and the default selections presented to us.  Professor Eric J. Johnson has distilled the latest behavioral science research into his newest book,...

Anxiety in the workplace has always been present, even pre-pandemic but rates of anxiety, particularly among young employees, have worsened since 2020. So what obligation do organizations have to their employees' mental health? How can managers recognize the signs of anxiety, and how can we help our colleagues with those feelings? Following our incredibly popular first episode with Chester Elton i...

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. To mark World Mental Health Day on Sunday, Oct 10, 2021, we decided to delve into the science behind mental health. And who better to...

The clearest indicators of our financial solvency are based on the behaviors we exhibit with our investments. Dr. Daniel Crosby PhD is a psychologist, behavioral finance expert, asset manager and bestselling author of four books including “The Behavioral Investor”: https://amzn.to/3Bl4s3t . We examine with him the question of whether financial success ultimately brings us happiness? Surprisingly i...

To be influential you do not require power, but wielding your influence is powerful. Vanessa Bohns, social psychologist and professor of organizational behavior at Cornell University, joins us to discuss her enticing new book “You Have More Influence Than You Think”: https://amzn.to/39vCDIN . She draws from her research to illustrate why underestimating our influence can lead us to miss opportunit...

Employee burnout, The Great Resignation, Office Covid Regulations; these are all major concerns for leaders in the workplace right now. But how can managers successfully navigate these stresses, while still maintaining productivity among staff? At the start of the pandemic, Behavioral Grooves began a series of podcasts with researchers and practitioners to understand the organizational shifts we w...

[NOTE: This episode is republished from #178 in October 2020.] Kwame Christian, Esq. is the author of “Nobody Will Play With Me: How to Use Compassionate Curiosity to Find Confidence in Conflict.” He is the host of two podcasts, “Negotiate Anything” and “Ask With Confidence.” He is a professor at The Ohio State University Law School and is the director of the American Negotiation Institute. Kwame’...

How can behavioral science aid the mammoth task of vaccination the world against Covid? What common barriers cause vaccine hesitancy in populations around the globe? And how can behavioral design overcome them?  Born out of frustration, while trying to eliminate Polio from Pakistan, the global behavioral design agency Common Thread ( www.gocommonthread.com ) was born. They use findings from psycho...

Few psychologists in the world have contributed more to scientific discovery than our guest Richard E. Nisbett. He joins us to discuss his latest book, the title of which embodies one of his favorite activities: Thinking: A Memoir. Thinking weaves Richard’s personal story through his research journey, painting a richer sense of the thought process behind his discoveries.  Richard E. Nisbett is the...

Can we control our unconscious behavior? How much does the situation we’re in control us? Can we prime people to behave a certain way? Is it even ethical to try? To what degree do cultural identity and stereotyping impact the automaticity of our actions? Following on from our discussion with Dr Philip Zimbardo PhD, in our last episode (#247) about the Stanford Prison Experiment, we reached out to...

The Stanford Prison Experiment has been the topic of movies, newspaper articles, textbooks and TV shows. Extensively published controversy has surrounded the social psychology experiment ever since it was conducted in 1971. Now on the 50th Anniversary, we invite you to listen to a very unique interview with the man who orchestrated it all; Dr Philip Zimbardo PhD.  Was the Stanford Prison Experimen...

The truth is we divulge more information to Google that we do to our friends, our family or even our doctors. Our social media persona can paint a very different picture to what we secretly search for on Google. So what do search trends in Google tell us about ourselves and our society? Does it matter that we are different on Google than in person? Author of bestseller Everybody Lies ( https://amz...

This follow-up episode is a free-flowing Grooving Session where Tim and Kurt chat about their discussion with Seth Stephens-Davidowitz (Episode 246). You’re more than welcome to listen to this as a stand alone episode, but we recommend first tuning in to our interview with Seth, and then joining us here for some banter about Seth’s work.  Questions we discuss:  Are we more likely to be untruthful...

What link is there between happiness and income? Does winning the lottery make you happier? What does the research say about poverty and our mental health?  Our guest on this episode has researched the psychological effects money has on our wellbeing and on our society. Johannes Haushofer is the Assistant Professor of Economics at Stockholm University and has taught at Princeton University for the...

Kurt and Tim discuss the links between poverty and mental health, how higher income is linked to better well-being, and the idea of a Universal Basic Income. This is a free-flowing discussion delving into the insights from their most recent interview with Johannes Haushofer (episode #244), Assistant Professor of Economics at Stockholm University. While you are welcome to listen to this episode as...

What does your customer want but can’t tell you? What effective marketing techniques use behavioral economics? If only you had a way of understanding how your customer’s brain made decisions. Well our guest, Melina Palmer sits down to discuss exactly that.  Melina Palmer is the founder of The Brainy Business, which provides behavioral economics consulting to businesses of all sizes from around the...