The BIT podcast

In many countries, the approach to tackling violent crime has been dominated by two ideas for generations. On the one hand, use bigger sticks, like longer prison sentences; on the other, use bigger carrots, like more economic opportunities, to make crime a less attractive choice. Both of these pillars of policy - enforcement and opportunity - rest on a fundamental assumption - that people are making rational decisions before they act. What if, for the vast majority of violent incidents, that assumption is wrong? What if the story of violence is less about good vs. evil, or poverty vs. wealth, and more about the way the human mind reacts to pressure? In this episode of the BIT Podcast, recorded at the Safer Streets Conference in London, Michael Hallsworth, BIT's Chief Behavioural Scientist explores a different way of thinking about violence - one rooted in behavioural science. We hear from: 🎙️ Jens Ludwig, University of Chicago Professor and co-author of the book Unforgiving Places - on the stubborn problem of violence and challenging the status quo 🎙️ Dr Chico Tillmon, Executive Director of the Community Violence Intervention Academy at the University of Chicago - on programmes designed to reduce serious violence 🎙️ Oeindrila Dube, Professor of Global Conflict Studies at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy - on working with the Chicago Police Department to train officers in de-escalation skills 🎙️Jennifer Doleac, Executive Vice President at Arnold Ventures - on which interventions will have the greatest impact The BIT podcast Discover the fascinating and surprising world of behavioural insights by listening to the BIT podcast, brought to you by the Behavioural Insights Team. Find out how understanding the ways people really think and behave through behavioural science can help deliver a fairer society for us all. Links To learn more about BIT's work visit our website: www.bi.team

Global inequalities are widening and the Covid-19 pandemic, polarisation, geopolitical conflicts and technological disruptions have exposed institutional fragilities worldwide. Understanding what drives successful governance and innovation is critical to addressing these challenges. Join Mónica Wills Silva, BIT's Director of International Programmes, as she sits down with Nobel Prize-winning economist Professor James Robinson, to hear his insights on how inclusive political institutions and innovation drive sustainable economic growth. Professor Robinson's expertise provided a rare opportunity to connect theoretical insights with practical policymaking, and offered actionable strategies for tackling global challenges, including inequality, climate change, and digital transformation. The BIT podcast Discover the fascinating and surprising world of behavioural insights by listening to the BIT podcast, brought to you by the Behavioural Insights Team. Find out how understanding the ways people really think and behave through behavioural science can help deliver a fairer society for us all. Links To learn more about BIT's work visit our website: www.bi.team

The Behavioural Insights Team have spent the last 10 years developing solutions that are informed by behavioural science. These insights do not emerge overnight. Instead, they are grounded by a firm understanding of the systems in which we operate. Reading academic (or policy) papers is an important step to developing evidence based interventions, but it will only get you so far if you want to understand the context in which you want to implement an intervention. Instead, we argue that you need to leave the office and try to experience the context as closely as you can, either by directly experiencing it, or by directly speaking to the people that do. To try to convince you that you should step away from our desk, we've created a podcast which we think will give you a much better sense of why you can't read your way out of a complex policy problem. In this podcast, Alex Gyani and Rory Gallagher from BIT's Sydney office speak to Zoe Powell, Saul Wodak, Allison Wong, Edwina Crawford and Sophie Munroe about their experiences of going out into the field and some of the insights they took from that process. We'll describe projects that have tackled domestic violence, unemployment and the health and safety of gig economy workers. If you want to know more about those specific projects, just follow the links posted in this description. Note: that this podcast describes the court processes involved in domestic violence cases. While no acts of violence are described in the podcast, if you are affected by domestic violence or abuse, there are a number of services you can reach out to. Australia: Call 000 if you are in immediate danger. To access 24/7 counselling and support call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732. New Zealand: Call 111 if you are in immediate danger. Call 0800 456 450 free from any phone, 9am to 11pm every day. UK: Call 000 if you are in immediate danger. For free and confidential advice, anytime call 0808 2000 247. US: Call 911 if you are in immediate danger. For free and confidential advice, anytime call 1800 799 7233. Musical credits Intro: Next to you by Jessie Villa Outro: Cassette Deck by Basketcase Additional music by Enrize Studio

Behavioural science has made a major impact on important issues over the past decade, such as antimicrobial resistance, educational attainment, and sustainability. But it's also clear that applied behavioural science needs to evolve to fulfil its true potential. BIT has just published A Manifesto for Applying Behavioral Science - a landmark guide to the future of applied behavioral science. This Manifesto takes a clear-eyed look at challenges facing the field and offers 10 proposals to address them: Use behavioral science as a lens that can help us see all issues better, rather than as a tool for limited challenges. Build behavioral science into the design of organizations' standard processes, to give it scale and sustainability. Step back, understand the system, and use behavioral science to make targeted changes that lead to wider results. Improve randomized controlled trials to better deal with the complexity of the real world. Approaches successful in one context can fail in another – find out why, and how we can adapt them better. Don't just think about biases in behavior – aim for practical theories that offer reliable ways of solving real-world problems. Predict what people will do, confront when you were wrong, and change your views accordingly. Be humble about what you know, more curious about why people do things, and help others use behavioral science to improve their own lives. Use data science to identify, understand and reduce inequities. Be realistic – recognize that behavioral scientists always bring their own values to whatever they do, and help the field to broaden its range of perspectives. In this episode the Manifesto's author and Managing Director of BIT in the Americas, Michael Hallsworth, takes to the streets of New York City to explain more about what point 3, the importance of 'understanding the system' means in the context of behavioural science. The journey will take him from Times Square to Governors Island, discussing oysters, pedestrian crossings, plastic bags and much more. The full Manifesto for Applying Behavioural Science is available now for free on our website at https://www.bi.team/ Credits This episode was recorded in and around New York City by Sabeena Singhani. Our thanks to Pete Malinowski of the Billion Oyster Project and Rebecca Taylor of the University of Sydney for kindly agreeing to be interviewed.

This episode looks at recent work from the team in the areas of road safety, online fraud, conflict resolution and synthetic data. Over the past decade, car crash death rates in the US for pedestrians rose by 36%, even as death rates fell for drivers and passengers. Over a third of San Francisco's traffic deaths are caused when drivers make left turns and don't see the person in the crosswalk. BIT's Lis Costa is joined by Maximillian Kroner from our US office to discuss a pilot study conducted by BIT on the roads of San Francisco that reduced average speeds of cars approaching potentially dangerous turns by 17%. If you're not familiar with the concept of synthetic data you are not alone but its potential in the fields of behavioural science and policy research is considerable. BIT's Head of Data Science and Technology Dr Paul Calcraft spoke to BIT's Aisling Colclough to explain more. Boko Haram in Nigeria has been conducting a violent campaign against the authorities for many years but increasingly members are turning away from the militant group, expressing remorse and asking to rejoin the society they were previously terrorising. BIT's Dr Antonio Silva talks about the work the team have been doing to help with this reconciliation and reintegration challenge. Finally this episode features a project from BIT France looking at how to help protect people from the ever present risk of online fraud. This project was run with and financed by the DITP - France's Département for Public Transformation. Tom McMinigal from BIT France speaks to BIT's Andrew Schein about his experience pretending to sell coffee machines through a fake online scam to help teach people how to avoid the actual ones. More information can be found on our website https://www.bi.team/. Road safety: https://www.bi.team/blogs/dangerous-left-turns-slow-by-17-in-traffic-study-leveraging-behavioral-science/ Synthetic data: https://www.bi.team/blogs/accelerating-public-policy-research-with-easier-safer-synthetic-data/ Peacebuilding: https://www.bi.team/blogs/can-mass-media-reduce-violent-conflict/ Online fraud: https://www.modernisation.gouv.fr/publications/comment-mieux-proteger-le-consommateur-des-fraudes-lachat-en-ligne-la-ditp-mobilise

In the first of a two-part climate change special, BIT's Lis Costa sits down with Nobel Prize Winner Professor Richard Thaler, Cambridge University's Lucia A. Reisch and, BIT's former CEO and now President Emeritus, Professor David Halpern to answer one big question ahead of the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference: Can we Nudge to Net Zero? According to the Paris Agreement's: Sixth Carbon Budget, in order to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, a 63% reduction in future emissions is required over the next decade or so. This is no mean feat! Such reductions will require substantial changes to our behaviour including the adoption of new technologies such as eco-friendly heating systems, and the reduction of our reliance on high carbon-footprint transportation systems such as flights and diesel cars. Our guests discuss how this behaviour change can be achieved; the psychological biases and barriers that stand in our way; and the role that corporations and government must play to make climate-friendly behaviours tenable. So, can we Nudge to Net Zero? Listen to find out!

In this latest episode BIT's Aisling Colclough and Lis Costa look at two more major areas of work by the team around the world. First they are joined by colleagues Dr Vera Newman and Monica Wills Silva to explore BIT projects in Australia and Latin America looking at the role behavioural insights can play in helping reduce sexual harassment and violence against women on university campuses and in the home. Secondly Nida Broughton and Ravi Dutta-Powell join Lis and Aisling to discuss their recent thought leadership work on how applying a behavioural and experimental lens to economic policy-making can bring substantial benefits to all. The 2019 report referred to by Monica on applying behavioral insights to Intimate Partner Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean is available here: https://www.bi.team/publications/applying-behavioral-insights-to-intimate-partner-violence/ You can find out more about the work discussed in Australia on encouraging bystanders to sexual harassment to take action here: https://www.bi.team/blogs/how-to-stop-sexual-harassment-as-a-bystander/ BIT has also been doing some similar work in Bangladesh on reducing sexual harassment on public transport which you can read about here: https://www.bi.team/blogs/nudging-bystanders-to-fight-sexual-harassment-isnt-easy-but-could-make-perpetrators-think-twice/ and download the full report here: https://www.bi.team/publications/nudging-bystanders-to-combat-sexual-harassment-in-bangladesh/ The two reports discussed by Nida and Ravi are available here: The Behavioural Economy - 10 evidenced-based strategies for policymakers, regulators and researchers: https://www.bi.team/publications/the-behavioural-economy/ Making Markets Better - A policy manifesto for Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia: https://www.bi.team/publications/marking-markets-better/

The second and final part of a very special episode , recorded to tie in with the recent 10 year anniversary of the Behavioural Insights Team. Join BIT's former CEO and now President Emeritus, Professor David Halpern, with the founders and pioneers of behavioural economics, Professor Richard Thaler, Professor Cass Sunstein and Google's head behavioural scientist Dr Maya Shankar, discussing how 'nudge' has evolved over the last decade and where the science of human behaviour is headed next. Richard Thaler is the Charles R. Walgreen Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the 2017 recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to behavioural economics. He has been at the forefront of research into psychology of decision-making and economics for over two decades and is the co-author of the international best seller Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness in which the concepts of behavioural economics are applied to tackle many of society's biggest problems. As well as being co-author of the best-seller Nudge, Cass Sunstein is the founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School and Chair of the World Health Organization's technical advisory group on Behavioural Insights and Sciences for Health. From 2009 to 2012, he was Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, and served on President Barack Obama's Review Board on Intelligence and Communications Technologies and on the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Board. Maya Shankar is Google's Global Director of Behavioral Economics and joined Cass Sunstein as a Senior Advisor within the Obama White House administration where she founded and served as Chair of the White House's Behavioral Science Team — a team of scientists charged with improving public policy using research insights about human behavior. Maya completed a post-doctoral fellowship in cognitive neuroscience at Stanford after receiving a Ph.D. from Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship and a B.A. from Yale in cognitive science. To learn more about BIT's first and next 10 years, go to www.bi.team/bit10 Further reading Nudge is available to buy as paperback or e-book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/0141040017 Read more about Maya Shankar's work on behavioural science at her website: https://mayashankar.com/bio Check out Richard Thaler's Nobel Prize winning work here: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2017/thaler/biographical/

In this episode, BIT's former CEO and now President Emeritus, Professor David Halpern, speaks to the New South Wales Minister for Customer Service, Victor Dominello. David and Victor cover a wide range of topics, starting with why other governments should have a Minister for Customer Service, how behavioural insights can improve economic policy, how markets can be made more transparent and when governments should intervene in markets. Victor has been the Member of Parliament for Ryde since 2008. He has held the position of Minister for Customer Service since April 2019. Prior to that Victor held the position of the Minister for Finance, Services and Property and was appointed the state's first Minister for Innovation and Better Regulation in 2015. His earlier appointments include the Minister for Citizenship, Communities, the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, the Minister for Veterans Affairs and the Assistant Minister for Education. As mentioned on the podcast, the NSW Behavioural Insights Unit was established in 2012 and has been located in the Department of Customer Service since 2019. You can keep up to date with the work that he has been doing through his website, LinkedIn and Twitter. Further reading If you want to read some news coverage about the FuelCheck app, you can go here or head to the FuelCheck website here. If you want to learn more about the Comprehensive Third Party reforms, you can read about it here. You can also read more about the work that the New South Wales Behavioural Insights Unit are doing here. Credits Thanks to Ellie Wood at the Minister's Office, and Dave Trudinger, Eva Koromilas and the Behavioural Insights Unit.