Core Insights: Behavioural Science

Dec 14 2020 12

Core Insights: Behavioural Science Podcast artwork

Warwick Business School's Core Insights team presents a 12-part series on behavioural science. Warwick Business School has the biggest group of behavioural science researchers in Europe. Over 12 episodes host Trevor Barnes interviews academics on the latest research and thinking into how our mind works, how we make decisions, the biases and heuristics that govern our behaviour and how we can apply behavioural science insights to help improve business, government, health and society.

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How behavioural science nudges can improve our health

Dec 14 2020 32 mins

In the final episode of our first Behavioural Science series, Core Insights host Trevor Barnes talks to Ivo Vlaev, Professor of Behavioural Science, about his work in the health sector. Professor Vlaev has put together a series of randomised controlled trials testing various nudges on patients. The nudges have helped people adopt healthier diets, cut down on drinking alcohol, lower

How do Governments balance saving lives with impacting the economy?

Dec 07 2020 30 mins

Core Insights host Trevor Barnes talks to Graham Loomes, Professor of Behavioural Science, about his research on the trade-offs involved in implementing costly health polices like those used during the pandemic. How does a Government decide how far to go with restrictions that will have a severe impact on the economy but stop many people from being infected and dying from COVID-19?

How AI can help us build more scenic towns and cities

Nov 30 2020 26 mins

Chanuki Seresinhe has been training AI to recognise beautiful scenery and now believes it can be used to help design towns and cities that can improve our mental wellbeing. Dr Seresinhe tells Core Insights host Trevor Barnes how she has used AI to quantify beauty and make the link between beautiful scenery and our mental wellbeing. And she found beautiful scenery does not always me

How neuroscience can now predict our decisions

Nov 23 2020 30 mins

Core Insights host Trevor Barnes talks to Nick Lee, Professor of Marketing, whose research using neuroscience and chaos theory has found a way of predicting our decisions before we have even made them. Professor Lee reveals how brain scans can determine the state of our mind and so work out what we will decide. He reveals the implications and future possibilities in the field of ne

The impact of Brexit on the UK's mental health

Nov 16 2020 23 mins

Nick Powdthavee reveals the results of his nationwide research into the effect of Brexit on the population's mental wellbeing. The vote split the nation and for those who voted remain Professor Powdthavee has found evidence that the distress and anguish was still affecting them a year later. Core Insights host Trevor Barnes goes through the research with Professor Powdthavee t

How our digital traces can be used as a real-time measure of global travel

Nov 09 2020 26 mins

Tobias Preis and Suzy Moat direct the Data Science Lab, which examines how data science can offer insights into human behaviour and decision making. They are also Fellows at The Alan Turing Institute. Here, the pair talk to Core Insights host Trevor Barnes about how they have used millions of online photos to produce real-time indicators of global travel. Read more on this here.

Nick Chater on why autonomous vehicles will need their own roads

Nov 03 2020 28 mins

Self-driving cars have been promised as the future for the last decade with various manufacturers experimenting with their own designs alongside tech giants Google, Uber and Apple. Nick Chater, Professor of Behavioural Science, has been trying to model the trickiest task for autonomous vehicles of navigating the cluttered and narrow roads of the UK's towns and cities. But he a

How business strategists can take advantage of our bias of ignoring luck

Oct 24 2020 29 mins

Chengwei Liu, Associate Professor of Strategy and Behavioral Science, talks about his research into luck with Core Insights host Trevor Barnes. Dr Liu reveals the situations and reasons why we have a bias towards luck, underestimating our good luck and overestimating bad luck. This bias can be exploited by firms alive to the opportunities that luck brings. Read more about it here.

Does giving workers a pay rise lead to greater productivity?

Oct 19 2020 25 mins

Andrea Isoni, Professor of Behavioural Science, joins Core Insights host Trevor Barnes to discuss the conundrum of pay rises. Professor Isoni has used game theory to examine how pay rises are actually reciprocated by employees. For many bosses giving workers a pay rise is seen as an act of kindness that they expect to be reciprocated by more effort. But Professor Isoni details the

Anchoring - the nudge plunging us all into debt

Oct 12 2020 30 mins

Trevor Barnes, host of Core Insights, interviews Neil Stewart, Professor of Behavioural Science, about a nudge - or sludge - that he discovered on his credit card statement. Anchoring is a well-established nudge with plenty of research confirming its existence. Here, Professor Stewart explains how it is affecting our credit card bill thanks to the minimum payment. For more on this,