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.”
Self-control bias
Lack of self-discipline in the short term means we fail to act in pursuit of our long-term goals.

“January is always a good month for behavioural economics: Few things illustrate self-control as vividly as New Year’s resolutions. February is even better, though, because it lets us study why so many of those resolutions are broken.”

Sendhil Mullainathan

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Download the 2019 BCA Calendar

Realistic Reasons to be Bullish on Nudging

Critics of nudging argue that it is no longer equal to society’s problems. Nudges try to change behavior by altering the environment in which we make decisions rather than resorting to bans or incentives. For some, this makes them too focused on the individual when our attention should be on wholesale systems change. For others, nudges aren’t focused on the individual enough: rather than tweaking their environment we should be trying to change people’s psychology at a deeper level.
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Behaviour Change in the age of Covid-19

September 15, 2020

This Mail & Guardian webinar was sponsored by The Behaviour Change Agency.  Speakers included Antoine Ferrere, Global Head of Behavioural Science at Novartis, Switzerland; Matthew Battersby, Chief Behavioural Scientist at Reinsurance Group of America, United Kingdom; Aimee Wesso, Advanced Strategic Specialist at Afrocentric Group; Pat Govender, Founder and Managing Director of The Behaviour Change Agency and Dr Anam Nyembezi, Behavioural Medicine Specialist and a Senior Lecturer in the School of Public Health, University of the Western Cape.

Exploring the relationships between adolescent alcohol misuse and later life health outcomes

September 20, 2022

We sought to clarify the impact of adolescent alcohol misuse on adult physical health and subjective well-being. To do so, we investigated both the direct associations between adolescent alcohol misuse and early midlife physical health and life satisfaction and the indirect effects on these outcomes attributable to subsequent alcohol problems.

Facing racial discrimination damages microstructures of the brain, scientists discover

August 5, 2022

A groundbreaking new study, made known by Medical News Today, has put forth research-led evidence that shows those who suffer racial discrimination face neurological changes in the brain that could negatively impact their overall health. Knowing that racism can have serious physical, emotional and psychological repercussions, researchers from Emory University in Atlanta wanted to study how such discrimination has affected the biological microstructures of black women’s brains. Though this research aims to prove something new, the deep and wide impact of racism has been well-documented.

Not all inequalities are alike

July 22, 2022

Better data and new statistical techniques could enable researchers to measure the form of inequality that seems most harmful to society — inequality of opportunity. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with job losses affecting 17% of all UK workers by early April 2020, women in the United Kingdom were 4.8 percentage points more likely than men to have lost their jobs. In South Africa in 2017, the average income for a household of white people (adjusted for size and composition of households) was 5.6 times that for a household of African people (‘African’ is a recognized racial classification in South Africa).

Fast driver, fast life: genetics and everyday behaviour reflected in risky driving

May 16, 2022

A new long-term psychological study of drivers has found an association between driving convictions, accidents and everyday behaviour such as eating junk food or alcohol consumption. The researchers have also uncovered evidence that this relationship is associated with genetic variation in serotonin metabolism – the same neurotransmitter targeted by many antidepressants. This suggests that risky behaviour in driving and in life may have a common psychological basis.

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