#behavioral-science

#behavioral-science

For my colleagues and me, whose task it is to improve population health, we architect specific health interventions because doing so gives us a measurement advantage. Through good intervention design, we (or the intervention's facilitators) can track attendance, program completion, vital signs, functional capacity, clinical labs, and downstream health utilization. Yet, despite our best design efforts, we still chronically face a fundamental challenge: program adherence.

Would you like extra fries? Would you like to go large? Not all people, but I think there's definitely a large proportion of people who may feel judged in those instances, and may say no. Plus, there's really good product imagery on the terminals, so you can see the product, you can see what's in it, you can see all the other products linked to it as well. So there's that.

Cross-cultural research consistently shows that men eat more meat than women, particularly beef and processed varieties. Large-scale surveys from the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, the Middle East, and Australia reveal not only larger portions but also more frequent meat consumption among men. Women, by contrast, tend to eat more plant-based foods and smaller servings of meat, while vegetarianism and veganism remain markedly more prevalent among women than men.

Maybe you were at a coffee shop and when your turn came, you opened your payment app, tapped your phone on the payment device, grabbed your cappuccino, and were done. Quick and easy. Maybe too quick and easy. Did the coffee shop miss a chance to engage with you? Did Mastercard miss an opportunity to show how their brand made this "priceless" moment possible? Did you miss an opportunity to teach your 8-year-old daughter a lesson on the value of money?

The six-step Meet Your Future matchmaking process begins with a thorough intake consultation to uncover each client's values, lifestyle and long-term goals. From there, the expert team benchmarks compatibility, conducts a targeted search through an exclusive candidate network and facilitates high-impact introductions. Every interaction is individually tailored, with an emphasis on discretion. Clients benefit from personalized refinement at every step, with matchmakers serving as strategic advisors throughout the journey. There's no apps, no ice breakers and no time wasted.

I've been teaching Psychology at the college level since 1994. Near the start of many of my classes, I ask students to raise their hand if they came to college thinking that the words "Psychology" and " Therapy" were synonymous. Invariably, more hands go up than not. Most fresh college students seem to think that psychology simply is therapy. I know I thought that when I started as a Psychology major at the University of Connecticut in 1988.

In the 1960s and 70s, researchers showed that while people's actions are heavily influenced by the context around them, we tend to explain behavior by focusing on internal traits. This tendency, for example, to say someone was rude because they are a rude person, rather than because they were in a stressful situation, is called the Fundamental Attribution Error. We pay less attention to the context and attribute behavior to the content of a person's character.

For about 12 years, I was a French horn player in Barcelona. At 28, I went back to school and got my bachelor's degree through distance learning. Then, I became a behavioral scientist. First, I got my master's in economics. For my Ph.D., I focused on public policy analysis and human behavior, learning what makes people tick. I thought: "Where's this stuff been my whole life?"

People like typologies. They simplify complex subjects and make them easier to discuss. However, there's no universal agreement on how to classify serial killers, leading to various proposed typologies.

Morning People is a bold call to transform mornings, encouraging better sleep habits and energetic starts through actionable advice and engaging visuals.

In today’s workplaces, where hybrid teams and digital interactions dominate, subtle trust signals matter more than ever.

"The thing about emotion is it generalizes. It puts the brain into a broader state," says Dr. Karl Deisseroth, a psychiatrist and professor at Stanford University.

Brain-based learning seems pivotal, but its application is only meaningful when linked to observable student behavior, which ultimately signifies real learning.

"Anxious kids aren't trying to be difficult. They're trying to feel safe in an overwhelming and unpredictable world."

Overindulging as a consequence of following the crowd in social situations is extremely common. It can be a person's nemesis when it comes to wanting to stick to a healthy diet.