Unlocking Behaviour Change

Unlocking Behaviour Change Podcast Episode 29: The ebb and flow of group decision making

Crucial decisions that affect our lives are made in 'groups', which technically can range from two or more people, as in the flight crew of a commercial jet, to the voting population of a country. This episode begins to examine how group decisions are made. Robert and Jamie analyse the ebb and flow of discussions and the art of skilful chairing. 
Want more? Check out our latest books:  
Energise: The Secrets Of Motivation: https://shorturl.at/bbA7y 
React: Harness Your Animal Brain: https://shorturl.at/yiFQ9  
Sign up to Robert’s Substack: https://robertwest100.substack.com/  
Subscribe to the UBC YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@unlockingbehaviourchange

Unlocking Behaviour Change Podcast Episode 28: What are 'ontologies' and why they will be at the heart of behavioural science?

Robert was fed up with asking for a flat white and getting heaven knows what, so with the help of his AI friend, Claude, he created an 'ontology' of milk-containing coffee drinks! Claude and Robert got carried away and ended up writing a Substack article about the power of ontologies as a way of clarifying meaning - something that is sorely needed in behavioural and social sciences. https://robertwest100.substack.com/p/a-flat-white-by-any-other-name
This episode of the Unlocking Behaviour Change podcast may seem a bit technical at first but we hope it gives listeners a glimpse into what can be achieved when we use ontologies as a way for humans and computers to share knowledge and understanding - to take HI (human intelligence) and AI to the next level.
Robert mentions a few links in the podcast, so here they are:
The Behaviour Change Intervention Ontology (BCIO): https://www.bciontology.org/
This has lots of resources and tools to help you understand ontologies and their uses.
The Smoking Cessation Intervention Prediction Tool: https://www.humanbehaviourchange.org/prediction
This demonstrates what can be achieved when we use ontologies to capture features of studies evaluating behaviour change interventions, their target population and settings, and use machine learning to predict outcomes in never-before-seen interventions.
Want more? Check out our latest books:  
Energise: The Secrets Of Motivation: https://shorturl.at/bbA7y 
React: Harness Your Animal Brain: https://shorturl.at/yiFQ9  
Sign up to Robert’s Substack: https://robertwest100.substack.com/  
Subscribe to the UBC YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@unlockingbehaviourchange  
 

Unlocking Behaviour Change Podcast Episode 27: The desire to believe ...

Robert argues that we should assume people pretty much always believe things because we want or need to believe them. Some of us value evidence and truth and so want to believe things based on evidence, but clearly that is only one source of desire. So when we hear someone espousing a belief, it is worth asking 'Why does this person want or need to believe this?' And then Robert and Jamie discuss the potential adaptive advantages of unjustified beliefs ...
Want more? Check out our latest books:  
Energise: The Secrets Of Motivation: https://shorturl.at/bbA7y 
React: Harness Your Animal Brain: https://shorturl.at/yiFQ9  
Sign up to Robert’s Substack: https://robertwest100.substack.com/  
Subscribe to the UBC YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@unlockingbehaviourchange  

Unlocking Behaviour Change Podcast Episode 26: Explaining decisions, 'optics' and the 'lose-change/win-stay' heuristic

Jamie has been watching Celebrity Traitors while Robert has been learning about Cicero. In this episode, the duo talk about why it can be stressful to explain your decisions to others, the pros and cons of focusing on ‘optics’, and how the simple 'lose-change/win-stay' heuristic can lead to bad decisions. 
Want more? Check out our latest books:  
Energise: The Secrets Of Motivation: https://shorturl.at/bbA7y 
React: Harness Your Animal Brain: https://shorturl.at/yiFQ9  
Sign up to Robert’s Substack: https://robertwest100.substack.com/  
Subscribe to the UBC YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@unlockingbehaviourchange  

Unlocking Behaviour Change Podcast Episode 25: Hot decisions

Decisions can be stressful – sometimes so stressful that we procrastinate or even avoid making them at all. In this episode, Robert and Jamie explore how to use our emotions to clarify rather than cloud our judgements. They also reveal the honest truth about how they feel receiving feedback . . . 
Want more? Check out our latest books:  
Energise: The Secrets Of Motivation: https://shorturl.at/bbA7y 
React: Harness Your Animal Brain: https://shorturl.at/yiFQ9  
Sign up to Robert’s Substack: https://robertwest100.substack.com/  
Subscribe to the UBC YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@unlockingbehaviourchange  

Unlocking Behaviour Change Podcast Episode 24: Emotions and decision-making

What role do emotions play in our decision-making? In this episode in the series discussing 'real-world' decision-making, we talk about threats, opportunities and tasks, the Yerkes-Dodson Law, advertising, horses and riders, tunnel vision, headless chickens, and not being too comfortable on stage. And Jamie develops his radio voice ...
Want more? Check out our latest books:  
Energise: The Secrets Of Motivation: https://shorturl.at/bbA7y 
React: Harness Your Animal Brain: https://shorturl.at/yiFQ9  
Sign up to Robert’s Substack: https://robertwest100.substack.com/  
Subscribe to the UBC YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@unlockingbehaviourchange  

Unlocking Behaviour Change Podcast Episode 23: Loads more biases and why we shouldn't always eat everything left on our plate

In this episode, we talk about how we tend to overstimate the likelihood of things we can easily imagine, overly assume that people who are good at one thing tend to be good at other things, underestimate the importance of things the further we think they will occur in the future, and wrongly allow 'sunk costs' to influence decision-making.
Want more? Check out our latest books:  
Energise: The Secrets Of Motivation: https://shorturl.at/bbA7y 
React: Harness Your Animal Brain: https://shorturl.at/yiFQ9  
Sign up to Robert’s Substack: https://robertwest100.substack.com/  
Subscribe to the UBC YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@unlockingbehaviourchange  
 

Unlocking Behaviour Change Episode 22: False dichotomies and black and white thinking

It’s one of the oldest debates in science: nature vs nurture – but where does the truth lie? Robert and Jamie discuss false dichotomies and black-and-white thinking as they continue exploring biases. Robert promotes using Bayesian probabilities to guide our decision-making, and Jamie gets angry at ChatGPT. 
Want more? Check out our latest books:  
Energise: The Secrets Of Motivation: https://shorturl.at/bbA7y 
React: Harness Your Animal Brain: https://shorturl.at/yiFQ9  
Sign up to Robert’s Substack: https://robertwest100.substack.com/  
Subscribe to the UBC YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@unlockingbehaviourchange  

Unlocking Behaviour Change Podcast Episode 21: Believing what we want or need to believe

Everyone has biases, but what exactly is a bias? When do they work for us, and when are they maladaptive? In this episode, Jamie and Robert explore motivated biases, politics, and the power of optimism, with side-tracks into cricket and vegetarianism!  
Want more? Check out our latest books:  
Energise: The Secrets Of Motivation: https://shorturl.at/bbA7y 
React: Harness Your Animal Brain: https://shorturl.at/yiFQ9  
Sign up to Robert’s Substack: https://robertwest100.substack.com/  
Subscribe to the UBC YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@unlockingbehaviourchange  

Unlocking Behaviour Change Podcast Episode 20: Notice the difference!

In this episode, Robert has an update on recent research into changes in mental rigidity as we age, and Jamie searches for silver linings. The duo go on to talk about ‘Just Noticeable Differences’, the transformative power of turning things off then on again, and how human's are going to have to become like chicken sexers when it comes to detecting fake videos and stories ...
Want more? Check out our latest books:  
Energise: The Secrets Of Motivation: https://shorturl.at/bbA7y 
React: Harness Your Animal Brain: https://shorturl.at/yiFQ9  
Sign up to Robert’s Substack: https://robertwest100.substack.com/  
Subscribe to the UBC YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@unlockingbehaviourchange