A look at how behavioral science is being used in businesses around the world -- based on the new Behavioral Teams survey. We examine the key opportunities (including job opportunities) and the challenges, especially ethical challenges, facing the field.

1. ©2020 Morningstar, Inc. All rights reserved.
Challenges and Opportunities for
Behavioral Science in Business
Action Design New York City
22 January 2020
Steve Wendel
Head of Behavioral Science @ Morningstar

2. You’ve just had a new child.
You’re going to
have a baby!

3. You’re bone tired

4. What do you do?
Try to sleep
Push through on autopilot
Ask friends
Check with a doctor

5. What do you do?
Try to sleep
Push through on autopilot
Ask friends
Check with a doctor
Use what’s worked
Rely on habits
Use social cues
Find an expert
You use shortcuts

6. Maternal Anemia:
A good shortcut in one
context can fail badly in
another

10. Simple, easy, common sense. In hindsight.

11. An understanding of how people decide & act
What is behavioral science?
Tools to potentially help people do better
Rigorous testing to find results

12. Who’s out there?

14. Where are teams applying behavioral science?
Behavioral Science Teams, by Country
United States United Kingdom Netherlands Australia Canada India Spain Switzerland France
Singapore Germany South Africa Sweden Mexico Brazil Norway Israel Denmark
Peru Ireland Saudi Arabia Italy New Zealand Portugal Other

15. What types of organizations are they in?
Behavioral Science Teams, By Organizational Type
A private company An academic institution or unit
A government organization or body A non-profit or non-governmental organization

20. The opportunities for BeSci in business
encompass (almost) the full sweep
of modern business

21. Who’s hiring, and for what?

22. Significant growth since 2013
0
5
10
15
20
25
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
Number of Teams Starting Each Year

23. See also: People Science / Action Design Network, SJDM (That’s where we post),
LinkedIn (Look for Behavior Econ); most other job boards are full of junk
With official BeSci jobs

24. Where the work is, within companies
Where is your team located within your organization?
Results for companies and non-profits; N=116
Respondents could select more than one value: Results do not sum to 100%.
External Consulting 28%
Data Science / Business Analytics / Research 26%
Product 18%
Marketing 16%
Design 15%
Other 10%
Human Resources or People Analytics 4%

25. How did your team (or if its just you, your role) get started
applying behavioral science at yourorganization?
Our organization has applied behavioral science since it was founded 32%
A department or other group leader decided to start a team (or role) 22%
Our CEO/President decided to start the team (or role) 19%
One or more individual contributors decided on their own to start
applying behavioral science as part of their work 17%
Other - Please describe 6%
Someone external to the company at the time
convinced the company to start a team (or role) 3%
Results for companies and non-profits; N=115
BeSci gets started from the inside

27. There are job opportunities in BeSci:
Especially by adding to existing roles,
not by starting dedicated teams in
new companies.

28. What do you actually do?

29. More or less, we all follow the same process.
Define the
Problem
Explore the
Context
Craft the
Intervention
Implement
the Solution
Determine
the Impact
Evaluate
Next Steps
DECIDE: A Blueprint for applied behavioral science

30. Why don’t some low income
people receive high quality care?
(Define the Problem)
Not distance to doctor…
Not availability…
(Explore the context)
Lack of doctor search
(Diagnose the Obstacle)
Build Trust. Make it easy.
(Craft the Intervention)
Communication: Here’s the
doctor (Implement)
Test in the field & adapt
(Determine Impact & Refine)

31. What specific techniques?
Results for companies and non-profits; N=120
Respondents could select more than one option
4%
51%
57%
58%
73%
78%
78%
83%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%
OTHER
ORGANIZATIONAL ARCHITECTURE: INTERNAL PROCESSES, REPORTING…
HABITS: BUILDING OR BREAKING (HINDERING) AUTOMATED BEHAVIORS
CHOICE SET: CURATING, ORDERING, FRAMING CHOICES AND ALTERNATIVES
ATTENTION: REMINDERS, PLANNING PROMPTS, ETC
FRICTION: DEFAULTS, AUTOMATIC FEATURES, SIMPLIFICATION…
INCENTIVES: PRICE, PAYMENT, OTHER REWARDS, ETC.
SOCIAL: DESCRIPTIVE NORMS, SOCIAL PROOF, CONFORMITY, COMPARISONS
What types of behavioral techniques does your team typically employ?

32. Sample Interventions

33. CREATE: A Framework for Behavioral Techniques

34. Techniques 1 2 3 4
Obstacle: Try This:
Cue Tell the Person What the Action Is
Make It Clear Where to Act
Clear the Page of Distractions
Reaction Make Site Beautiful and Professional
Deploy Social Proof
Display Strong Authority on the Subject
Be Authentic and Personal
Evaluation Prime Relevant Associations
Leverage Loss Aversion
Use Peer Comparisons
Run a Competition
Avoid Cognitive Overhead
Avoid Choice Overload
Avoid Direct Payments
Ability Elicit Implementation Intentions
Default Everything
Lessen Burden of Action and Information
Deploy (Positive) Peer Comparisons
Timing Frame text to avoid temporal myopia
Remind of prior commitment to act
Make it scarce
Make it time-sensitive

35. Cue
What would cue you to think about
taking action, in a specific moment?

36. When should you communicate with people?
10:30am Saturday 5:00pm Saturday 10:30am Sunday 5:00pm Sunday
11:00am Thursday 10:30am Thursday 10:30am Friday 8:00am Friday

37. 10:30am Saturday 5:00pm Saturday 10:30am Sunday 5:00pm Sunday
11:00am Thursday 10:30am Thursday 10:30am Friday 8:00am Friday
6.4% clicked 7.2% clicked4.7% clicked 5.7% clicked
4.1% clicked 5% clicked4.5% clicked 5.9% clicked
When they have the time and attention to spare.

38. Reaction
What emotional reaction do you have, in that
moment?

39. 39

40. Evaluation
What’s your evaluation of the costs and benefits?
Does it seem worthwhile to do?

42. 42
Original
• Ok to ignore
• Hurt by primacy and recency effects

43. 43
New Version
• Encourage people to make a choice
• Leverage primacy and recency effects
• Loss aversion
• Personalization to give a sense of control

44. Ability
Do you think you’ll succeed?
Timing
Is it urgent right now?
Experience
Have you had negative experiences in the past

45. And the Challenges…

46. There are manageable, practical challenges
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%
Designing ideas or interventions
Conducting preliminary research/data gathering
Having an impact (i.e., you measure the impact and it's not…
Disseminating the lessons from your work or getting the…
Getting approval to run the intervention
Getting access to broader outcome data
Finding the right partners
Getting those ideas or interventions implemented
Measuring the impact of your interventions
Where does your team struggle to be successful?

48. But the real challenge is ethical.
And we’re headed towards a reckoning.
“U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) and Deb Fischer (R-NE)
have introduced the Deceptive Experiences To Online Users
Reduction (DETOUR) Act…
“Enables the creation of a professional standards body”
“Prohibits segmenting consumers for the purposes of
behavioral experiments ”
“For years, social media platforms have been …. drawing on tricks of
behavioral psychology, designed to undermine user autonomy and
push consumers into doing things they wouldn’t otherwise do, like
hand over all of their personal data to be exploited for commercial
purposes,” said Sen. Warner, a former technology executive who is
Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
https://www.fischer.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2019/4/senators-introduce-bipartisan-legislation-to-ban-manipulative-dark-patterns

49. A reckoning we’ve earned.
According to the Norwegian watchdog, Google “tricks” people
into sharing their location with the company, in ways that mean it
does not really have their informed consent. The Consumer
Council highlighted techniques including “hidden
default settings,” “misleading information” about how
collected data is used, repeated “nudging” to turn on
the Location History feature, and users being forced to turn on
location tracking if they want to use the Google Assistant.

51. What’s the answer?
Use behavioral science on ourselves and on our jobs

52. Some closing thoughts

53. There are two types of opportunities:
To do tremendous good: in everything from
helping save people’s lives, to saving their time.
To get a job in a rapidly growing, exciting field.

54. And two challenges:
To create opportunities for behavioral science,
to make the case, and create successful interventions.
To handle the ethical challenges that have long faced design
marketing, and other fields. To address them head on.

57. For more info, check out www.behavioralteams.com