Behavioural Science Basics

Definition and Scope

• Behavioural science is the study of human behaviour, exploring the underlying psychological and social processes that drive human actions and decision-making.
• It is an interdisciplinary field that draws on concepts and methods from psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, and neuroscience.

Key Concepts

• Biases and Heuristics: mental shortcuts that influence decision-making, such as confirmation bias, anchoring bias, and availability heuristic.
• Cognitive Psychology: the study of mental processes, including perception, attention, memory, language, and problem-solving.
• Social Influence: the ways in which people are influenced by others, including social norms, conformity, and obedience.
• Emotions and Motivation: the role of emotions and motivation in driving human behaviour, including intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

Applications

• Behavioural Economics: the application of behavioural science to understand economic decision-making, including the design of policies and interventions to "nudge" people towards better choices.
• Health and Wellbeing: the application of behavioural science to understand health behaviours, including the design of interventions to promote healthy behaviours and prevent disease.
• Education and Learning: the application of behavioural science to understand how people learn and how to design effective educational interventions.
• Organizational Behaviour: the application of behavioural science to understand how people behave in organizations, including the design of policies and practices to promote productivity and wellbeing.

Research Methods

• Experiments: controlled studies that manipulate variables to test hypotheses about human behaviour.
• Surveys and Questionnaires: self-report measures that assess attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours.
• Observational Studies: studies that observe people in naturalistic settings to understand their behaviour.
• Neuroimaging: the use of techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study the neural basis of human behaviour.

Famous Researchers and Theories

• Daniel Kahneman: Nobel laureate and developer of prospect theory, which describes how people make decisions under uncertainty.
• Amos Tversky: developer of prospect theory and contributor to the field of behavioural economics.
• B.F. Skinner: developer of operant conditioning theory, which describes how behaviour is shaped by its consequences.
• Albert Bandura: developer of social learning theory, which describes how people learn through observation and imitation.

Definition and Scope

• Behavioural science studies human behaviour, exploring underlying psychological and social processes that drive human actions and decision-making.
• It is an interdisciplinary field drawing on concepts and methods from psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, and neuroscience.

Key Concepts

• Biases and heuristics are mental shortcuts that influence decision-making, including confirmation bias, anchoring bias, and availability heuristic.
• Cognitive psychology studies mental processes, including perception, attention, memory, language, and problem-solving.
• Social influence refers to the ways people are influenced by others, including social norms, conformity, and obedience.
• Emotions and motivation drive human behaviour, including intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

Applications

• Behavioural economics applies behavioural science to understand economic decision-making and designs policies and interventions to "nudge" people towards better choices.
• Behavioural science is applied to health and wellbeing to understand health behaviours and design interventions to promote healthy behaviours and prevent disease.
• It is applied to education and learning to understand how people learn and design effective educational interventions.
• It is applied to organizational behaviour to understand how people behave in organizations and design policies and practices to promote productivity and wellbeing.

Research Methods

• Experiments are controlled studies that manipulate variables to test hypotheses about human behaviour.
• Surveys and questionnaires are self-report measures that assess attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours.
• Observational studies observe people in naturalistic settings to understand their behaviour.
• Neuroimaging uses techniques like functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study the neural basis of human behaviour.

Famous Researchers and Theories

• Daniel Kahneman is a Nobel laureate and developed prospect theory, which describes how people make decisions under uncertainty.
• Amos Tversky developed prospect theory and contributed to behavioural economics.
• B.F. Skinner developed operant conditioning theory, which describes how behaviour is shaped by its consequences.
• Albert Bandura developed social learning theory, which describes how people learn through observation and imitation.