Real World Behavioural Science

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In this episide, Stu is joined by Adam Ferrier, Founder & Chief Thinker at Thinkerbell, an agency that practices measured magic - bridging marketing science and hard core creativity. Thinkerbell won AdNews' 2019  Creative Agency of the Year. Adam is also author of two books: "The Advertising Effect: How to Change Behaviour" & "Stop Listening to the Customer: Try Hearing Your Brand Instead".

Adam shares how he was always interested in money and people which led him into the world of consumer psychology. His thesis was on what makes people 'cool' and spent time training in the clinical psychology model, but soon found that this alone didn't offer the most effective solutions.

Adam and Stu discuss what makes effective behaviour change campaigns from across sectors; from the effort paradox in IKEA's furniture, to why weight loss control groups lose more weight than the experimental groups. They look at some of the public health campaigns that Adam has worked on in Australia: Man Up, a documentary on how men express themselves to broaden stereotypes; ABC Goes Mental As, a dedicated week of programming for Mental Health; Doing Nothing Does Harm,  an online campaign giving people the option to stop sexist behaviour, which involved people in the campaign as well as mimicked the desired behaviour.

The pair look at what public health can learn from marketing and advertising - creating a category of cause, understanding the irrationality of people's choices and the influence of reality TV. To illustrate this Adam and Stu give examples of Milgram's experiments, asking why you bought the shoes you're wearing, and how picking up dog poo makes you feel when you do, or don't, own a dog. They both also recommend Rory Sutherland's book "Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense" as a starting point for anyone looking to understand and change behaviours. Adam also discusses the need to find a brand category, like the work of OMGyes which fills the niche of education around sexual pleasure.

Adam leaves us with what he is looking at and working on in behavioural science at the moment: s p a c e - where ideas meet influence and DOA - a social cause agency working with business, brands, government and movements to have a positive impact on the world.

Contact & more information:
Adam: Twitter, LinkedIn
Stu: Twitter, LinkedIn, Stu's blogs

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Recorded 15th December 2020

Guests:
Professor Jim McManus - Director of Public Health at Hertfordshire County Council and VP of the Association of Directors of Public Health. He is a Chartered Psychologist, British Psychological Society Fellow & Co-Founder and Chair of the Behavioural Science and Public Health Network. 

Dr Daniel Jolley - Snr Lecturer in Psychology at Northumbria University, Chartered Psychologist of the British Psychological Society & member of the Executive Committee of the Social Psychology Section. Daniel is a social psychologist with expertise in the psychology of conspiracy theories.

Episode Description:
In this coronavirus special, Stu talks with Jim and Dan about conspiracy theories - including what separates conspiratorial thinking from more simple questioning, and how as conspiracies become more familiar to us, they can also become more believable. 

They explore the history of conspiracies, how they are nothing new and often accompany significant cultural or political change. In doing so, Dan demonstrates how beliefs in conspiracies are linked with higher anxiety and feelings of threat. 

The group then go on to examine and tackle some conspiracies relating to COVID-19 and the vaccine:

• 5G and worsening COVID-19 symptoms
• Vaccines and side effects 
• How could it have been developed so quickly?
• If it works why can't we stop social distancing?
• Vaccine contains nanoparticles
• Vaccine is being used for tracking
• We don’t know what’s in it

The group also discuss how to bring people away from conspiracies, and how this starts with building back trust; having a genuine dialogue with compassion and establishing common ground.

Additional resources:

Go Viral! - game developed by University of Cambridge & UK Government. It gives a taste of the techniques and motivations behind the spread of coronavirus misinformation .

NHS Why Vaccinations Are Important - how vaccines work, what they contain and the most common side effects.

Contact:
Dr Daniel Jolley: Website  & Twitter
Professor Jim McManus: LinkedIn
Stu King: LinkedIn, Twitter & Stu's Blogs

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Recorded 8th December 2020.

Guests joining Stu King:
Professor Jim McManus - Director of Public Health at Hertfordshire County Council & Vice President of the Association of Directors of Public Health.
Wayne Bateman - Behavioural Science Specialist in the Behaviour Change Unit at Hertfordshire County Council.
Dr Paul Chadwick -  Associate Professor and Deputy Director Centre for Behaviour Change at University College London & Consultant Clinical and Health Psychologist.

Episode covers the release of the rapid response paper:
COVID-19 Vaccination: Reducing Vaccine Hesitancy - Review & Recommendations.

This is an incredibly important paper that Hertfordshire County Council will share widely to support the use of behavioural science in creating messaging to maximise uptake of the vaccine in the general population by supporting professionals across the system.
Click here for other Herts County Council COVD-19 Behavioural Sciences Resources.

At the time of recording, the vaccine is being rolled out to the most vulnerable & most exposed, however these groups can also be the most likely to be hesitant to uptake the vaccine due to information and time limitations.

Stu and guests discuss the content of the paper - research on increasing uptake methods, data on previous vaccinations in pandemics, barriers to uptake & surveys on current COVID vaccination hesitancy. It marries up barriers of complacency, confidence & convenience with behaviourally sound strategies to mitigate them. And provides easily digestible messages for Public Health teams to into quick action for local vaccine uptake.

The trio explain how the paper applies the COM-B model to vaccination hesitancy and recommends the EAR strategy when applying to communities: Engaging, Acknowledging and Responding accordingly for each approach and audience. The document is expected to develop over time, with input from the SAGE committee, for example.

Contacts:
Stu King: @Stu_King_Hh, LinkedIn & Stu's Blogs
Dr Paul Chadwick - @drpaulchadwick, LinkedIn, UCL Centre for Behavioural Change
Wayne Bateman - LinkedIn
Professor Jim McManus: @jimmcmanusph and on LinkedIn

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Thanks to BSPHN for hosting this podcast. The BSPHN's annual conference is coming up on 9th-11th February 2021, and will showcase the efforts of behavioural science and public health towards COVID-19. Free for members, or the same price as an annual membership cost.

This week Stu is joined by two PR and Marketing experts; Chloe Franses and Andrew Thomas.
Chloe's experience extends from working as head of creative relationships at Amnesty International, to building authenticity for brands such as Formula E, and individuals such as Idris Elba.  Andrew is a commercial marketer and works in transformation, helping  individuals to thrive in the new digital economy. 

The three look at how marketing and PR has changed over time - the world that Saatchi & Saatchi were working in, the persuasion  that was used, and how different the world is now with more transparency, and more competition for attention.
They also discuss how the aims of PR has changed, from helping brands and organisations to 'not look bad' to showcasing how they create real social value not only for commercial profit for themselves, but to genuinely benefit the community. Using examples of the oil & gas and fashion industry and how audiences are more challenging of brands, and trends like 'green washing' led to the need to demonstrate better values.

Chloe shares her experience of the power of celebrity endorsement and how it can tap into people's identities in a way that organisations cannot. Andrew expands on this notion of identity, driving brand loyalty throughout life.

When looking at what healthcare can learn from marketing across industries, they explore that health messages are explained in a rational way even though people are often irrational in decisions around their health. They examine how this can be better aligned through simplicity, and a focus on who delivers the message. For example, the difficulty in undoing the glamourised imagery of smoking (even with the Suffragettes and torches of freedom) in order to encourage people to quit for their health.

Contacts:
Chloe Franses: Instagram, LinkedIn & website.
Andrew Thomas: LinkedIn
Stu King: Twitter, LinkedIn, Stu's Blogs

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Recorded: 19th Nov 2020
Stu is joined by Dr Nisreen Alwan & Prof Susan Michie. Nisreen is Associate Professor in Public Health, University of Southampton. Susan is Director, UCL Centre for Behaviour Change & a committee member of Independent Sage.

Nisreen shares her experience of long COVID, what it means and its effects. They look at how both those with long COVID and healthcare workers are affected - how the range of symptoms can be difficult to diagnose, causing anxiety. Plus, the challenge for patients of managing with such unpredictability.
Nisreen and Susan discuss the evidence of who is at risk, including young people. And how the public messaging around COVID could do more to alert this group of the risks to their health & wellbeing. Nisreen shares the support available through healthcare and peer support.  And Susan shares how indieSAGE will be discussing it in order to advise the government.
For more on long COVID, see the list of resources below including guidance on recovery & insights for healthcare workers.
Thanks to the BSPHN for hosting. Check out the membership to connect with professionals in public health & behavioural science.

Contacts:
Dr Nisreen Alwan:@Dr2NisreenAlwan, [email protected]
Professor Susan Michie:@SusanMichie, [email protected]
Stu King:@Stu_King_Hh, LinkedIn Profile, Stu's Blogs

Additional Resources:
Nature: A negative COVID-19 test does not mean recovery
The Lancet: Underestimating the burden
BMJ: What is mild covid-19?
Wellcome: Why the Term 'Long Covid' is needed
BMJ: From doctors as patients
RCGP: Written evidence
Royal Society Report
NIHR: Living with Covid19
NHS: recovery guidance
The Guardian: lingering heart damage
JAMA: Long-term Health Consequences
BJGP: Finding the 'right' GP

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Professor Ivo Vlaev is Professor of Behaviour Science at Warwick Business School, Warwick University. 
He began his career working in the lab on understanding why people make irrational choices, observing reactions and what part of brain lights ups.  He is currently working on an integrated theory of behaviour change taking into account psychology, neuroscience, economics and other social sciences.
Ivo is also the co-author of the MINDSPACE  report used by the UK government to design policy using insights from behavioural science and nudge theory, and was the basis for establishing the Behaviour Insights team.

Ivo speaks to Stu about his integrated theory of behaviour change, and how it's aim is to create a taxonomy of taxonomies for consistent and comprehensive language to reduce confusion and better evaluate interventions from health to finance decisions. 

They discuss how traditional interventions are based on information and education, as well as focussing on targeting one particular kind of motivation. And how the worst examples can use the 'it sounded like a good idea at the time approach'. Although these can have good outcomes, they lead to a more piecemeal approach. Ivo suggests that the best cases use comprehensive theory and good methodology, for example in financial decisions, where an intervention targeted identity and the framing of people's actions in order to motivate a change in behaviour.

You can find out more about Ivo's work and behaviour change in policy at:
Warwick Business School website
UCL Centre for Behaviour Change
The Behavioural Insights Team

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Recorded 3rd November 2020

RWBS welcomes back Professor Susan Michie in the run up to another national lockdown. 

Stu and Susan discuss what has led us to this point, including the flaws with the current test, trace and isolate processes and the low adherence to isolating. From a behavioural point of view they discuss the reasons behind this low isolation adherence and why this differs between countries.
Exploring the coined term ‘behavioural fatigue’, Susan shares her thoughts on why fewer people are following the rules as strictly compared to the start of the first lockdown, from trust, to time of year. They also look at the most affected groups - younger people due to the impact on their social networks, jobs and stability; as well as groups who already faced inequalities before the pandemic hit. 

On a positive note, there may be scientific, social and personal learnings from the last lockdown that means both coping with, and the outcomes of, a lockdown now give us hope for a more connected festive period.

The episode references Independent SAGE - a group of scientists working to provide independent scientific advice to the UK government and public on how to minimise deaths and support Britain’s recovery from COVID-19. Follow and learn more on their website, Youtube channel and Twitter.

Follow Stu King on Twitter, LinkedIn and through his BeeZee Bodies blogs to hear more about using translating behavioural science into reality.

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Recorded October 2019
Firstly, apologies that this month's podcast is a little delayed! We at BeeZee Bodies are still working double time to support people to be healthy throughout this period.

For this podcast I am joined by:
Em Rahmen, Head of Public Health Workforce Development at Health Education England, Aoife Fortescue-Webb, Public Health Registrar at NHS West Midlands,
Ashlee Mulimba, Health Psychologist at Healthy Dialogues Ltd.

All three have been working on the Behaviour Change Development Framework (BCDF). It is a tool designed to determine the level of behaviour change training needed for each sector and level of Public Health practitioner, informed by, and appropriate to, the user. For more information on it, check out the video, "What is the BCDF?" https://vimeo.com/358296164 

We discussed the background to the framework, how it has been developed as user-need focussed, and how they see it creating a more consistent behaviour change offering across all of Public Health. We discussed some scenarios of how it might supporting different job roles, from receptionists, police men and stop smoking practitioners.

The assessment only takes about 2-3 mins to complete and breaks down what level of training might be appropriate, such as:

• Universal training (recommended for anyone in a Public Health setting) is a 1-hour e-learning toolkit to understand terminology & communication skills: https://behaviourchange.hee.nhs.uk/bcl-e-learning/workforce  
• Behaviour Change (BC) Level 1 
• BC Level 2 
• BC Level 3

The full assessment and toolkits can be found at https://behaviourchange.hee.nhs.uk/ 

Just as a reminder we are recording this on behalf of the BSPHN, who exist to spread word about the importance and usefulness of behavioural science in public health. You can join for just £25 if you are working or £10 if you aren’t working or are a student so get yourself onto www.BSPHN.org.uk and join... why not do it literally right now? Go on! 

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This episode is recorded in the midst of the Coronavirus lockdown and features Aline Holzwarth.
Aline is an applied behavioural scientist, specialising in digital health research and scientifically informed product design. Her training in psychology and business, and her experience working in research and healthcare have given her the interdisciplinary lens necessary to appreciate the complexity of decision-making in the real world.  

We discuss Aline's journey to Dan Ariely's research lab, where she works with illustrators, policy makers, and scientists to test behavioural research's validity in the real world. We look at the impact of the Coronavirus and lockdown, such as breaking down (sometimes decades worth of) barriers in healthcare and the longevity of the flip from in-person to digital interventions. Aline also shares some of her favourite examples of behaviour change in health, such as a simple change on a form leading to a huge saving.

To connect and learn from people working in behaviour change across academia, industry and public health do think about joining the BSPHN. You can join for £25 if you are working and £10 if not including if you are a student, so there is no good excuse not to join!

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Recorded on 14th April 2020
Apologies for the lower sound quality, we wanted to make sure we had both Jim and Susan on podcast as it gives richer content, however it did mean some technical difficulties.

This episode comes out just as the lockdown has been extended for a further 3 weeks. In this episode we discuss what this further period of isolation and distancing means for the population. The potential for, and also ways to tackle, increases in loneliness, tension, and declining adherence, but why it is not appropriate to use the catch all phrase of 'behavioural fatigue' which has often been used.
 
We also celebrated what the population has achieved - the work from frontline key workers, and that around 98% of the population has been adhering to the measures from the government, despite media coverage.

With these measures we discussed the behavioural elements behind them - mist-interpreting people's reasons for doing things like going to parks or buying non-essential items. Susan and Jim described how the government could tweak simple messaging or actions to do a better job of explaining why these are being put in place in order to help people follow the guidelines.

We finished by discussing the potential longer term impacts of this period such as demonstrating who is essential in our society, and reassessing how we live on a 'just in time' principle. 

In this episode Susan mentions 2 papers that discuss scientific understanding of isolation and impacts of current measures, here is a list of those, and other current evidence being used to advise the government:
a. Webster RK, Brooks SK, Smith LE, Woodland L, Wessely S, Rubin GJ. How to improve adherence with quarantine: Rapid review of the evidence. Public Health (under review) 

Brooks SK, Smith LE, Webster RK, Weston D, Woodland L, Hall I, Rubin GJ. The impact of unplanned school closure on children’s social contact: Rapid evidence review. Eurosurveillance (under review) 

Brooks SK, Webster RK, Smith LE, Woodland L, Wessely S, Greenberg N, Rubin GJ. The psychological impact of quarantine and how to reduce it: Rapid review of the evidence. Lancet 2020, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30460-8 

Rubin GJ, Wessely S. The psychological effects of quarantining a city. BMJ 2020; 368. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m313 

Michie S, Rubin GJ, Amlot R. Behavioural science must be at the heart of the public health response to covid -19, BMJ Opinion, February 28 2020. https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/02/28/behavioural-science-must-be-at-the-heart-of-the-public-health-response-to-covid-19/ 

Michie S, West R, Amlot R. Behavioural strategies for reducing covid-19 transmission in the general population. BMJ Opinion, March 3 2020. https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/03/03/behavioural-strategies-for-reducing-covid-19-transmission-in-the-general-population/ 

Smith L, Yardley L, Michie S, Rubin GJ. Should we wave goodbye to the handshake? BMJ Opinion, submitted https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/03/10/should-we-wave-goodbye-to-the-handshake/

International surveys and polls on coronavirus, including public risk perception and consumer behaviour https://bit.ly/2xodaSm