Core Insights: Behavioural Science

Send us Fan Mail

Core Insights host Trevor Barnes talks to Daniel Read, Professor of Behavioural Science, about his research into intertemporal choices, which looks at why, even though we are on a diet, we choose to eat a cream bun now, rather than wait for our lunchtime salad. Or why in repeated experiments people would prefer £10 now rather than £15 in two weeks. These are intertemporal trade-offs and despite economics teaching us we should weigh up the options, calculating the benefits between the two points in time and choosing the most beneficial, we don’t always do this in a way that is best for us, or for society. You can see it playing out at every climate change conference, where hard choices to curb emissions are put off for another day. Professor Read also reveals research on a way to make us more patient and take the better, but further away, option - by simply adding a zero. Read more on this here.

Send us Fan Mail

We assume that below a mental “surface” of conscious awareness lies a deep and complex set of inner beliefs, values, and desires that govern our thoughts, ideas, and actions, and that to know this depth is to know ourselves. But Nick Chater, Professor of Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School, reveals to Core Insights host Trevor Barnes how this is in fact all an illusion. The pair discuss the latest research in psychology and neuroscience detailed in Professor Chater's book The Mind is Flat, where Professor Chater argues that rather than being the plaything of unconscious currents, the brain generates behaviours in the moment based entirely on our past experiences and environment. The brain, Professor Chater contends, is a ceaseless and creative improviser. Read an extract from the book at Warwick Business School here.