Behavioural Science and a Post-COVID World

Contributor(s): Professor Nick Chater, Professor Paul Dolan, Dr Grace Lordan, Professor Tali Sharot, Rory Sutherland | The impacts of COVID-19 on society post-COVID and how we deal with them hinge on how politicians, firms and the public respond. What valuable lessons can we learn from behavioural science in a post-COVID-19 world? These unique insights are crucial to mitigating the societal impacts of COVID-19.

Nick Chater (@NickJChater) is Professor of Behavioural Science, Warwick Business School. He is co-founder of Decision Technology Ltd, and is a member of the UK's Committee on Climate Change.

Paul Dolan (@profpauldolan) is Professor of Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is author of the Sunday Times best-selling book Happiness by Design, and Happy Ever After.

Grace Lordan is an associate professor in behavioural science at the LSE. Her research focuses on why some people have successful lives as compared to others because of factors beyond their own control. She is the founder and director of The Inclusion Initiative, a research centre at the LSE & the author of Think Big: Take Small Steps and Build the Career You Want.

Tali Sharot is a Professor Cognitive Neuroscientist at the Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London, where she is the director of the Affective Brain Lab. She is the author of The Optimism Bias and The Influential Mind, both of which received the British Psychological Society Book Award. She was also awarded fellowships from the Wellcome Trust and the British Academy.

Rory Sutherland (@rorysutherland) is the Vice Chairman of Ogilvy, an attractively vague job title which has allowed him to co-found a behavioural science practice within the agency. Before founding Ogilvy Change, Rory was a copywriter and creative director at Ogilvy for over 20 years, having joined as a graduate trainee in 1988. He has variously been President of the IPA, Chair of the Judges for the Direct Jury at Cannes, and has spoken at TED Global. He writes regular columns for the Spectator, Market Leader and Impact, and also occasional pieces for Wired.

Simon Hix (@simonjhix) is Pro-Director (Research) and Harold Laski Professor of Political Science at LSE. He is one of the leading researchers, teachers, and commentators on European and comparative politics in the UK. He has published over 100 books and articles and has won several prestigious prizes and fellowships for his research, including from the US-UK Fulbright Commission, the American Political Science Association, and the UK Economic and Social Research Council. He is also a prize-winning teacher, and continues to teach “Introduction to Political Science” to over 300 first-year undergraduate students.

This event forms part of LSE’s Shaping the Post-COVID World initiative, a series of debates about the direction the world could and should be taking after the crisis.

Twitter Hashtag for this event: #LSECOVID19