Fake news and conspiracy theories as an evolutionary strategy
Danish social scientist Michael Bang Petersen illuminates the evolutionary foundations and social processes involved in the spread of outright falsehoods.
Insights curated by Experientia, the international UX consultancy
Insights curated by Experientia, the international UX consultancy
Category Behavioral sciences
The drive for privacy and the difficulty of achieving it in the digital age
People care and act to manage their privacy, but face steep psychological and economic hurdles that make not just desired, but also desirable privacy nearly unattainable. Approaches to privacy management that rely purely on market forces and consumer responsibilization have failed.
The incompatibility of Nudge and Co-Design as tools for policymaking
The use of nudge theory to inform policy interventions in response to COVID-19 has re-opened debates over the politically paternalistic nature of governing by ‘nudges’ and has given momentum to calls to include the more participatory elements of co-design into policymaking
Human behaviour: what scientists have learned about it from the pandemic
Several Covid-19 policies have shown "just how deeply some governments distrust their citizens. As if the virus was not enough, the public was portrayed as an additional part of the problem". But, asks Prof. Stephen Reicher of the University of St Andrews, "is this an accurate view of human behaviour"?
The potential of behavioural interventions for optimising energy use at home
Individuals and households can adopt a variety of measures to optimise their energy consumption, writes Elisabatta Cornago of the International Energy Agency. This article focuses on the potential for enhancing energy efficiency with policies and programmes designed to educate consumers and encourage them to alter their daily habits – without resorting to large-scale structural improvements.
[Report] Behavioural insights for demand-side energy policy and programmes
During its first year of activity, the Behavioural Insights Platform of the UsersTCP, with the IEA (International Energy Agency), has developed an environment scan report assessing how behavioural insights have been applied to demand-side energy policy and programmes.
Review and insight on the behavioral aspects of cybersecurity
Since the majority of cyber incidents are human enabled, this shift requires expanding research to underexplored areas such as behavioral aspects of cybersecurity. This paper provides a review of relevant theories and principles, and gives insights including an interdisciplinary framework that combines behavioral cybersecurity, human factors, and modeling and simulation.
Understanding the human aspects of cyber security
CyberBitsEtc. is a website and blog by Ganna Pogrebna (Professor of Behavioural Economics and Data Science, Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute) and Boris Taratine (Cyber Security Architect and Visionary) that focuses a lot on the human aspects of cyber security, in particular behavioural design, psychology and behavioural sciences.
Humans are imperfect, inconsistent decision-makers
In their new book, Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass Sunstein offer strategies for improvement | An Economist book review
New course by Experientia Academy
7 day online interactive course with vertical, thematic focus on tools and methods of behavioral design for cultural change to tackle societal challenges
[Paper] Active consumer participation in smart energy systems
Designing energy services with a human-centered approach will allow us to rely on consumers not only as executors of changes in energy consumption, but also as providers of data.
[Book] The Weirdest People in the World
Provocative and engaging in both its broad scope and its surprising details, The WEIRDest People in the World explores how culture, institutions, and psychology shape one another, and explains what this means for both our most personal sense of who we are as individuals and also the large-scale social, political, and economic forces that drive human history.
[Book] Engaged: Designing for Behavioral Change
Behavior change design creates entrancing - and effective - products and experiences. Whether you've studied psychology or are new to the field, you can incorporate behavior change principles into your designs to help people achieve meaningful goals, learn and grow, and connect with one another.
Anthropology and technology conference
The Anthropology + Technology conference brings together pioneering technologists and social scientists from across the globe. Its aim is to facilitate dialogue on emerging technology projects in order to help businesses benefit from more socially-responsible AI.
Four priorities from the social changes for shaping the post-pandemic world
The social sciences don't produce much in the way of patentable widgets or, indeed, life-saving vaccines. However, the analysis and insights they generate can and do underpin better-evidenced decisions and help guide and target insights from the "natural" sciences.
Security isn’t just a technology problem – it’s about design, too
While it's easy to blame the user, phishing schemes have become incredibly sophisticated and believable. So, instead of blaming the user, we want to instead bring an empathetic lens, and understand more about their needs.
The public’s role in COVID-19 vaccination
This report considers human factors in relation to future vaccines against the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), drawing on insights from design thinking and the social, behavioral, and communication sciences. It provides recommendations on how to advance public understanding of, access to, and acceptance of vaccines that protect against COVID-19.
Behavioural science and the response to COVID-19: a missed opportunity?
While the role of behavioural science in the UK's handling of the pandemic has been criticised, Peter John and Gerry Stoker argue that it is important for governments to try and influence citizens' behaviour rather than rely on laws that are harder to enforce. They nevertheless explain why a different "nudging" approach ought to have been used in this case.
Mass panic unlikely during pandemics
Two articles, one by Matt Simon in Wired and another by Benedict Carey in the New York Times, summarize scientific research that illustrates why mass panic is unlikely in this pandemic situation.
[Book] The Psychology of Pandemics
This book describes the psychological reactions to pandemics, including maladaptive behaviors, emotions, and defensive reactions, and reviews the psychological vulnerability factors that contribute to the spreading of disease and distress.