What is Behaviour Change?

Why is falling for fake news so easy despite all the warnings? Why do we carry high-interest debt even when we have the means to pay it off? Why are there so many browser tabs open on your screen right now even though digital clutter is so stressful?

The answers to these questions – and so many other perplexities of human behaviour – are the domain of behavioural science.

Once upon a time, we believed human beings were logical creatures, capable of making good decisions and acting in our own best interests.
Today, we know better.
Thanks to breakthroughs in behavioural research, we’ve been able to peer at the inner workings of our decision-making processes – and instead of logic and reason, we’ve found a tangle of biases and cognitive pitfalls that lead to irrational and even harmful behaviours.
The good news? We have effective tools at our disposal to steer those behaviours in a more desirable direction.
At BCA, we mine insights from behavioural research to illuminate what really motivates human actions.
Then, we add rigorous data analysis and a range of creative strategies to develop behavioural and communication solutions that improve decision-making and create better outcomes for customers, employees and citizens.
"To understand why we do what we do, neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky looks at extreme context, examining actions on timescales from seconds to millions of years before they occurred. In this fascinating talk, he shares his cutting-edge research into the biology that drives our worst and best behaviours."
The biology of behaviour
Understanding something as wildly complex as human behaviour is impossible without considering our biology. The work of Stanford neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky has done a lot to illuminate the neurological and biological factors that influence how we act and make decisions. As we learn more about these interconnections, our insights can be used for positive behaviour change. In Sapolsky's words, “We’re learning more and more about the biological underpinnings of our behaviour, and that can help us produce better outcomes.”
Loss aversion bias
We are more sensitive to losses than gains of the same size, so we often fail to pursue beneficial activities out of fear

“Losses loom larger than corresponding gains.”

– Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman

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The Surprising Ways Behavioral Science Boosts Businesses

You want to create a new app, but don’t know how to code. What do you do? Instead of teaching yourself Ruby, you’ll probably ask a developer to help you out. Similarly, you wouldn’t create a clothing line without help from a designer, or build a house without consulting a carpenter. But what about managers looking to motivate their employees? When it comes to nudging other people towards a certain action – such as gaining motivation or changing a habit – many of us think we are experts in human behavior, because we have experience in being motivated or changing habits ourselves. But experience isn’t the same as expertise.
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Digital Program on Mobile Phones Tames Tuberculosis

September 8, 2019

For tuberculosis patients, complying with a full course of treatment can be daunting and difficult. But a new experiment conducted by MIT researchers in Kenya, in collaboration with the digital health company Keheala, shows that a digital program used on mobile phones helps patients successfully finish their treatments.

If you’re not putting behaviour first it’s time to rethink your marketing

August 27, 2019

When buying a new car, a new phone, a new mattress, most of us can’t claim to be experts. Navigating countless features and benefits tests our patience and analytical prowess; we’re lay people and choosing is tough. What’s the process to compare the best battery life, the most comfortable or the safest? Companies muddy the water further with advertising: if every phone is the best, how do I decide what to buy? On many occasions consumers don’t know what their genuine motivations are. They’re not lying; they’re confabulating.

Will Anyone Eat a Plant-based Big Mac? Behavioral Science Says Yes

August 26, 2019

The findings from a groundbreaking report released earlier this month are clear: Curbing climate change will require revolutionizing the way the world produces food. WRI’s own research shows that a widespread reduction in beef consumption is essential for keeping global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) and preventing the most dangerous climate impacts.

Sendhil Mullainathan says AI can counter human biases

August 7, 2019

There’s a lot of press around algorithms being promoters of inequity or of bias. But we know from the behavioral-science literature that human beings are quite biased. We don’t just look at objective data; we also add our own internal biases. Study after study has demonstrated that when viewing a man and a woman doing a task at the same level of performance, people will make inferences about the woman they don’t make about the man. The mind just adds its own bias. The algorithms, while they may have other problems, tend not to add their own biases. They tend to reflect whatever is in the data.

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