Predicting People: Recent Episodes
Dectech
Predicting People is a podcast, all about the applications of behavioural science in the commercial world. In each episode, we invite experts to talk about how behavioural science has been affecting their business, and how they see it being used in the future.
In our twelfth episode, Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater, discuss the many nuanced challenges of data science. They explore five common, but often overlooked, pitfalls - from missing causes to spurious correlations. In a world where data science is of rapidly increasing interest to businesses, addressing these issues is highly relevant to avoid flawed data-driven decisions.
Drawing on scientific principles and many years of practical experience, Henry and Nick present recommendations to help businesses gain more reliable insights from their data. They discuss how rigorous techniques, such as randomised controlled trials, can avoid false conclusions and improve the validity of outcomes.
In our eleventh episode, Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater, discuss the vast field of consumer decision making. In particular, they talk about why people buy the products they do and explore how advertising, brand perceptions, cognitive biases and flexible preferences influence our purchasing behaviour.
The insights discussed suggest that consumer decision making can be surprisingly simple, and despite large global spending on advertising, consumers may not hold such deep brand perceptions as we may assume. Rather than having stable brand images, consumers seem to react to specific events and post-rationalise their choices and preferences. Using examples from the cognitive science literature, Nick and Henry highlight the importance of testing real behaviour and experimentation beyond self-report to inform marketing strategies and our understanding of our customers.
In our tenth episode, Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater, discuss New Year's resolutions. Drawing on their own experiences and insights from the cognitive science literature, they propose strategies that can help you to set effective resolutions and stick to them.
The episode explores interesting studies on factors that influence the effectiveness of behavioural change, from implementation intentions to specific actions and how ego depletion and social commitment can impact your likelihood of success. Nick and Henry illustrate why some resolutions are easier to achieve than others, and consider the steps you could take to successfully achieve your goals.
In this ninth episode, Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater, discuss algorithms and whether they are able to outperform expert advice. Their conversation draws on a variety of commercial examples and traces the development of algorithms across multiple fields.
The episode explores a couple interesting Dectech case studies, from the world of credit underwriting to football scouting. These examples illustrate the key reasons why algorithms often outperform expert predictions, as identified in existing research. Finally, they consider scenarios where expert judgment still holds value and provide insights into the future of algorithmic decision-making.
In this eighth episode, Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater discuss the nudge movement. Specifically, they explore how this movement has led to many policy problems being framed in individual, not systemic, terms - known as adopting an i-frame rather than an s-frame. Considering an influential paper that Nick himself wrote on this topic1, they discuss whether individual-level solutions like nudges have overplayed their hand, with reference to interesting case studies and Dectech’s own research in areas like carbon emissions and retirement savings. The episode also addresses what this means for not just government policy, but the commercial world around it.
In this seventh episode, Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater discuss the topic of trust. Specifically, they explore the intuitive sense we all have of who we do or don’t trust and how it can perhaps be explained. The episode also addresses why we need trust as a society and how businesses can earn and keep it, with reference to interesting Behavioural Science experiments such as the Ultimatum Games, the ABC trust framework we created for companies and our own experience of building trust with brands.
In the sixth episode, we were delighted to have Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater discuss how AI is influencing financial services. Specifically, they consider whether AI can help to comply with the new Consumer Duty rules, and with protecting consumers. They explore what banking activities are being augmented by AI, what role AI can play in meeting the new Consumer Duty requirements, and they give an outlook on future developments in AI and its applications.
In the fifth episode, we were delighted to have Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater discuss the new Consumer Duty rules by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which come into effect this month. They broadly answer three key questions: how Consumer Duty came about, what the psychology behind Consumer Duty is, and what this now means for the financial service industry in practice. They also give an outlook on future trends in Consumer Duty and ethics in companies, that are spreading to sectors beyond financial services.
In the fourth episode, we were delighted to have Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater discuss the currently high levels of inflation. They broadly answer three key questions: how economists measure inflation, how it is perceived by the wider population, and what is its effect on businesses?
Specifically, this episode explores the psychology of inflation using a Behavioural Science lense. Among the topics discussed are: how measures of inflation relate to price perceptions, how consumers recognise inflation via different reference prices, and how businesses can adjust their prices in a way that is acceptable to customers.
In the third episode, we were delighted to have Ash Schofield, CEO of giffgaff, joining our director Dr Benny Cheung to discuss data-driven decision-making and its role in business.
Specifically, this episode explores whether there are too many marketers waiting for the perfect data to make decisions. Among the topics discussed are: data-driven decision obstacles, different decision types and their relationship with data, the role of technology, analysis paralysis and personal experience with data-driven decision-making in giffgaff.
Here at Dectech we help businesses understand and manage consumer decision making. After two decades of forecasting behaviour changes, we wanted to share our knowledge of what affects our choices, our behaviours, and our experiences of products and services, what works and getting to grips with behavioural measures and predictions, not just in theory, but how these insights are applied in client side challenges. Predicting People is a podcast, all about the applications of behavioural science in the commercial world. In each episode, we invite experts to talk about how behavioural science has been affecting their business, and how they see it being used in the future.
In the second episode we were delighted to be joined by Georgina White and Philippa Rose, who spoke to us about the BT Insights Team, the challenges they face in proposition design and how Behavioural Science can provide solutions.
Here at Dectech we help businesses understand and manage consumer decision making. After two decades of forecasting behaviour changes, we wanted to share our knowledge of what affects our choices, our behaviours, and our experiences of products and services, what works and getting to grips with behavioural measures and predictions, not just in theory, but how these insights are applied in client side challenges. Predicting People is a podcast, all about the applications of behavioural science in the commercial world. In each episode, we invite experts to talk about how behavioural science has been affecting their business, and how they see it being used in the future.
In the first episode we were delighted to be joined by Dr Lizzy Lubczanski, who spoke to us about applying behavioural science research and applications in her role as a Behavioural Research Manager at Swiss Re.
Here at Dectech we help businesses understand and manage consumer decision making. After two decades of forecasting behaviour changes, we wanted to share our knowledge of what affects our choices, our behaviours, and our experiences of products and services, what works and getting to grips with behavioural measures and predictions, not just in theory, but how these insights are applied in client side challenges. Predicting People is a podcast, all about the applications of behavioural science in the commercial world. In each episode, we invite experts to talk about how behavioural science has been affecting their business, and how they see it being used in the future.