Phase 1: The Stone Age – Dumb Mechanical Friction, Phase 2: The Information Age – Reciprocity Engines, Phase 3: The Modern Era – Industrialised Flattery
You don’t need a two-day offsite or an external consultant to start. You need ninety minutes, a whiteboard, and the willingness to ask uncomfortable questions. Pick one part of your business. Kill it on paper. Zero-base it. Horizon-audit it. Run the E/A/D on its core process. What survives is what matters. What doesn’t – you already knew, somewhere. You are one PDF away from a full structured session.
The Core Problem: Standard LLMs suffer from Sycophancy and Anchoring, meaning they often mirror the user’s biases rather than providing objective, scientifically-backed strategy. Key Insight: AI is not a neutral tool; it has a ‘Machine Psychology’ inherited from biased human training data. Without a filter, it follows the Least Effort Principle, producing ‘vanilla’ marketing clichés. The Solution: The Behavioral Operating System (B.O.S.) uses a RAG framework to force AI to cross-reference every output against 30 years of behavioural frameworks (like the 19 Ways to Ask for Change), turning a ‘chatty intern’ into a ‘Senior Behavioural Strategist.’
Doomscrolling This, appropriately named behaviour, is doomscrolling. It gained popularity during the 2020 pandemic when we were viewing nonstop negative online content, even though it didn’t make us feel great. Mostly, this behaviour may be motivated by short-term gains, such as a sense of urgency and satisfaction from understanding a certain event. However, in the long term, it is associated with greater depression, anxiety, and a secondary, indirect form of post-traumatic stress. Brain rot The effects of clicking and scrolling on this content can accumulate, making your mind feel depleted and worn out. For instance, have you ever scrolled on social media for hours and then struggled to complete a crossword puzzle? Feels harder, doesn’t it? You may be experiencing ‘brain rot’. Let’s face it – many posts on social media aren’t particularly intellectually stimulating.
The Solution: This guide identifies the three signals – The Rationality Ceiling, Cognitive Sludge, and Unclear Churn – that indicate your organisation has outgrown traditional marketing and requires a behavioural intervention.
Through the Bottomless Bowl Effect and Variable Ratio Reinforcement, modern UI bypasses the prefrontal cortex and speaks directly to the dopamine-driven reward system.
Welcome to the Freeze Response. In the world of behavioural science, this isn’t a lack of motivation; it’s a systemic glitch. It’s the nervous system’s version of the ‘Blue Screen of Death’ on a (perhaps older!) computer.
Mary Douglas' Grid-Group Theory supercharges your organisation. It's not fear of failure, it's the comfort of mediocrity; two diagonal moves solve this. See also the: • The two levers of cultural safety • The four quadrants of effect: fatalist, hierarchist, egalitarian, individualist • The diagonal hunt: strategic use of grid and group levers ..and the merit and the social shock
ead the intriguing stories everyone wants
see the cultural shifts shaping our world
explore long-term organisational resilience
know how the brain processes your organisation/brand
see real-world results and examples
understand the science of choice
They are victims of the Sunk Cost Snare, a crippling condition rooted in the Endowment Effect. We all know the basics: humans irrationally overvalue what they own. You ask $5 for your coffee mug; you wouldn’t pay $3 for an identical one.
For ten thousand years, we were hunters, and the world was our prey. Our domain was the simple, understandable arc of a thrown spear.
Listening to Behavioural Science podcasts is more than just professional development; it’s a tactical and strategic advantage. Whether you’re in the office, at home, or navigating a global commute, these seven selections offer the meat of the discipline; actionable insights over academic fluff.
Your AI prompt is a behavioral anchor, and your prompt is the only guardrail: Here's 3 powerful resets to get brilliant answers. not just safe answers.
If you look at almost every modern business you’ll find the word personalisation. Give the customer what they want, when they want: That belief is flawed.
The Endowment Effect: A $5 mug & the Chimp brain tell us 'possession is nine points of the law'; True. We value an item we own, simply because we own it..
Naming and framing: Do we name things as they are? Or do we see them as they’re named? It’s the latter, it seems. Find out about naming, framing, and behaviour
Applying behavioral science for real-world impact for 16 years (2009–2025). Discover how behavioral science principles can be translated into tangible results. Our insights provide practical strategies for businesses and individuals seeking to drive meaningful change. Explore real-world cases and proven methods.
The order in which we frame data can have a greater effect on our interpretation than the data itself. There’s how you structure your question.
The perception of a brand as ‘premium’ or ‘fun’ is not a logical conclusion; it is a psychological feeling built over time. And affecting behavior is not about telling people what to do; it’s about making a brand easy to choose.
The shift in perspective from group averages to individual journeys is not just a mathematical curiosity; it’s a powerful new way to see the world — and a more effective way to grow success in your business, organisational, and social challenges.
Material choices can effortlessly steer perceptions, build stronger brands, drive greater perceived value, and, frankly, inspire more discerning, and more lucrative, consumer choices.
Our mental models are psychological representations of real, hypothetical, or imaginary situations that we use to anticipate events, to reason, and to underlie explanation (Charles Sanders Peirce, 1896) (Kenneth Craik, 1943). More poetically, Lipmann says, “We do not first see then define, we define first and then see.”
the next time you’re stuck in traffic, or feeling overwhelmed at work, or just rushing through life, remember the humble leaf-cutting ant. Their elegant highway code offers a profound lesson: that true efficiency and sustained success come not from individual maximum speed, but from optimizing the system’s inherent flow, often by embracing a measured, “slow and steady” pace for the greater good.
Read about the thread between #PigglyWiggly, #Toyota, and #onlineshopping in our new post 'Amazing story of Piggly Wiggly transforming shopping in 1916'... So, next time you’re wandering the aisles of your local supermarket, or effortlessly adding something to your cart online, remember Clarence Saunders in 1916. And then ask yourself: what other ‘stockrooms’ are we unknowingly wandering through, that desperately need a behavioural makeover for a better, more efficient tomorrow. Because that’s where the real power lies.
A 20 min dive into storytelling – what is it, what it isn’t, and much more. This long read that will leave you in doubt, give you the complete landscape, and fun stories (of course!)
Let’s have a look at some prompts that you can copy and paste, use, and get ahead in your work.
The journey of personal evolution is uniquely yours, but with the right digital allies, it can be a more structured, supported, and ultimately, a more successful endeavour. Are you ready to architect your better self?
It’s a reminder that in the world of marketing, sometimes the most effective strategies are the ones that focus on building lasting relationships with consumers, one consistent interaction at a time. And that, ultimately, is the secret to creating brands that are not only loved but also resilient to price pressures.
However one approaches reducing complaints, please do remember that every complaint is… well, even when you’re shouting at each other, at least you’re still talking! (and that’s why every complaint directly to you is good (really!))
it’s not just you, or me – it’s all of us: The frothy rom-coms, blockbusters, and low-brow comfort films are picked to watch immediately; The more serious, cerebral, and substantial films are picked to watch later. Welcome to the two ‘yous’, in your Netflix queue(s).
We crave deep insights into the human psyche, but we also grapple with the practicalities of time, budget, and access. Now, with the rise of synthetic respondents, the game is changing. But does this mean the end of traditional research with real participants? Not quite.
What are Synthetic Respondents? I know right. But it is quite interesting. Here's a piece covering... Unveiling the Potential • Ipsos checked the power of product testing with synthetic data • The Feedback Loop on Steroids • Blurring the Lines Between Qual and Quant • Navigating the Challenges, and more!
looking at a study that demonstrates how a simple technological innovation – the mobile phone – significantly improved the flow of information within the fishing industry.
Our aim shouldn’t be merely to make text *appear* simple but to ensure it’s *truly* comprehensible (#comprehension is the real goal)
AI leads to a 44% increase in material discoveries and a 39% rise in patent filings. However, these gains are not evenly distributed. While top researchers experience substantial productivity increases, the impact on lower-performing scientists is minimal.
These 18 books (there’s a 6a and 6b on there which is why the last number is 17!) offer a comprehensive introduction to the field, exploring the key concepts and applications of behavioral economics in the modern world across a wide range of domains.
What does Choice Architecture tell us? Everything communicates – words, images, spaces (real or virtual), timing. To the point where there is no choice to neutrally communicate: There will always be some influence from the form.
Have you ever taken a personality test and been surprised by the results? Or maybe you’ve aced every Myers-Briggs test you’ve ever encountered and swear by its accuracy. Personality tests can be a fun and insightful way to learn more about yourself, but are they a reliable tool for understanding your potential in the workplace? Here we explore the science behind personality tests and their role in the modern workplace.
Some choice Behavioural Science AI Prompt Catalysts to grab here! --> Generating text with particular characteristics, updating text with behavioural tactics, Pre mortems, and valid test approaches, too.
How we increase Bristol household foodwaste recycling by over 28% using behavioural design
Without this, your New Year’s resolution will fail (some up to 92%!). There is a better way that delivers a 50% success rate, and it involves habit forming...
Online returns can cause headaches for both retailers and shoppers. But what if we told you that returns, handled strategically, can actually be a powerful tool to build stronger customer relationships? Behavioral science offers valuable insights into the psychology of returns, and by understanding these, you can turn even unplanned returns into a positive experience for all.
Wellbeing. It might seem a little hard to get hold of. To grasp. It’s physical, right? No? Mental too? Some other stuff, perhaps? Yep; All of that. In fact, it’s these seven: 1. Moral, 2. Psychological, 3. Social, 4. Physical, 5. Emotional, 6. Cognitive, and 7. Mental.
Craving a break? We all do. But there are some surprising secrets: the magic might not lie solely in the escape itself. The anticipation, the delicious simmering excitement, can be a treasure trove of happiness in its own right. and at the end, you may have chance to change how you live. And that doesn’t even talk about the peak and then end on a break; there’s lots to get into.
