Syllabus

• Week 1

  Behaviour change

  • Welcome

    Welcome to this course. In these introductory steps, you'll meet lead educator Paul Dolan, who outlines what the course will cover and how best to learn on the course.

  • Why do we act in the way that we do?

    How can we truly understand and predict human behaviour? We'll look at the main approaches of psychologists and of economics, and show how contemporary behavioural science combines the best of the two.

  • Insight from behavioural economics

    In this activity, you will explore the most widely accepted heuristics and biases, and draw from Kahneman and Tversky’s pioneering work in documenting how we really make decisions.

  • Changing behaviour

    In this activity, you will learn about the rationale for nudging and will study a number of case studies where nudging has (and hasn’t) worked.

  • Robust influences

    MINDSPACE is a mnemonic that has synthesised decades of research in behavioural science to give practitioners a good idea of the most reliable effects on our behaviour. In this activity, you explore what it is and why you use it.

  • Wrap up

    In this activity we will summarise what you have learned so far about behavioural science and take a brief look at what you'll learn next week, when we start looking at MINDSPACE in earnest.

• Week 2

  Messengers

  • Welcome

    Welcome to the week on messengers: who we listen to, why, and how we can use it to change behaviour. Paul Dolan will take you through the all-important role of messengers in our lives.

  • The messenger and not the message

    In this activity, you will describe the importance of messengers and be able to identify which factors are important for identifying good messengers in a given situation.

  • Hard messengers

    In this activity, you will assess the main characteristics of ‘hard’ messengers and how to use these to communicate messages effectively. You'll explore examples of these changing behaviours in the public and private sectors.

  • Soft messengers

    You will evaluate 'soft messaging' in this activity to determine when it is superior (or inferior) to hard messaging. You will also explore relevant debates examples on social media.

  • Messengers in practice: the good and the bad

    In this activity, you will identify how our reliance on messengers can lead to positive and negative outcomes, as well as be able to implement proven and practical methods for improving the effectiveness of messengers.

  • Wrap up

    In this short activity we will summarise what you have learned about messengers and how to apply messenger effects in your organisation. We will then look at what you are going to learn next week: social norms.

• Week 3

  Norms

  • Behavioural expectations within groups

    Welcome to the week on social norms, where Paul Dolan will outline how social norms work, why you follow them, and how they can be harnessed to change behaviour.

  • Societal or group norms: taking cues from people like us

    In this activity, you will learn how to recognise the prevalence of norms, as well as how and why people follow them.

  • Encourage desirable norms and relate to your target audience

    In this activity, you will apply and harness positive norms and target them to specific audiences to design effective norm interventions.

  • Social networks and reinforcement

    Norms are not static in the real world, because you continually gain information and learn from those around us. This activity examines and reflects on norms as a dynamic process that requires continual feedback and reinforcement.

  • Dealing with undesirable norms

    In this activity, you will assess how a norm is likely to influence behaviour in a given situation and design interventions in such a way that they avoid backfiring or otherwise undesirable consequences.

  • Wrap up

    This short activity will summarise what you have learned about social norms and how to harness them to create behaviour change. We will also look forward to Ego, the topic for next week.

• Week 4

  Ego

  • Feeling better about yourself

    Welcome to the week on Ego, where Paul Dolan will outline how our beliefs and the narratives we tell ourselves affect our behaviour.

  • Supporting a positive and consistent self image

    In this activity, you will look at how you act in ways that make us feel better about ourselves. Our desire to maintain a positive and consistent self-image is hugely important and can be harnessed for effective behaviour change.

  • Acting in ways that promote positive self image

    In this activity, you will explore how Ego can be harnessed to create desired behaviours. This will help you to design nudges that harness Ego-based effects.

  • Self-consistent behaviours

    In this activity, you'll investigate narratives, motivated reasoning, and how these can be used to understand and predict behaviour. You will learn more about beliefs and how they are constructed and defended.

  • Performance bias

    In this activity, you will look at performance bias, demonstrate how beliefs can be self-reinforced, and how comparison with others can be leveraged to affect behaviour change.

  • Wrap up

    In this activity, we will revisit the poll you did at the beginning, before summarising what we have learned about Ego. We will then move on to the Activity Wrap-Up on Egos.

Who will you learn with?