Behavioral Scientist

07/02/2025

In this Wednesday’s perspective on behavioral science, Ruth Schmidt asks: How can we balance making our methodology accessible while maintaining a professional level of rigor?

Design’s development from buzzy hotshot to established practice offers insight into the path behavioral design could take and the choices it will face along the way.

06/28/2025

This weekend, revisit Allison Daminger’s award-winning essay. She confronts a clash between her two selves: a sociologist who studies the division of household labor and a young woman navigating her engagement and planning her future family.

In this award-winning personal essay, sociologist Allison Daminger reflects on how her research on the division of household "cognitive labor" influences the decisions she makes in her own relationship.

06/25/2025

Your Wednesday perspective on behavioral science, from the archive: Jeffrey Lees asks how we can make labs stronger by making them more democratic. Expertise should not be accompanied by the power to dominate and control those with slightly less expertise.

Labs with stark power imbalances harm those lower on the academic hierarchy. Decoupling power from expertise can help fix broken models of producing research.

06/21/2025

Your weekend read, from the archive: Conversations that flow often have a person at the center who speaks less, asks more questions, and isn’t afraid to admit their own confusion.

By Charles Duhigg:

Conversations that flow often have a person at the center who speaks less, asks more questions, and isn't afraid to admit their own confusion.

06/18/2025

For this Wednesday’s perspective on behavioral science, revisit the social science conference hosted by the Rio de Janeiro nudge unit alongside last year’s G20 summit.

The Rio de Janeiro behavioral science unit envisions a collaborative network of researchers and policymakers across Latin America, plus a seat for Latin American behavioral scientists on the global stage.

06/14/2025

Your weekend read, from the archive: What Shape Does Progress Take? Don’t Assume It’s a Straight Line by Lee Anne Fennell

As we determine where to allocate effort and money, when to keep going and when to give up, different production functions call for different strategies. Yet, we rarely consider what production functions can tell us about our progress.

06/11/2025

Your Wednesday perspective on behavioral science, via Rohan Arcot and Hunter Gehlbach: What happens when scientists show skeptics how their studies were conducted? Could opening up help combat science skepticism?

What if scientists allowed skeptics in the general public to look under the hood at how their studies were conducted? Could opening up help combat the epidemic of science skepticism?

06/07/2025

Your weekend read from the archive: Craving adventure after finishing their PhDs, Thomas Andrillon & Chiara Varazzani set off on a round-the-world trek in their 2006 Land Rover Defender. They almost didn’t make it back.

By Evan Nesterak:

Craving adventure after finishing their Ph.D.s in neuroscience, Thomas Andrillon and Chiara Varazzani set off on a round-the-world trek in their 2006 Land Rover Defender, nicknamed Bechamel. But the trip almost didn’t happen. And once they were on the road, they almost didn’t make it back.

06/04/2025

Your Wednesday perspective on behavioral science, from the archive: What We Gain from More Behavioral Science in the Global South by Pauline Kabitsis & Lydia Trupe

More work in the Global South means more opportunities to learn to address the systems-level challenges that often lie at the root of our most pressing problems.

05/31/2025

In this weekend’s read, join Danny Oppenheimer on his (mis)adventures doing research in zero-gravity.

From the archive:

On Earth, what goes up must come down. In zero-g, what comes up, floats.

05/29/2025

Check out this week’s Email Edition: ‘Radical Uncertainty’ and Trump’s On-again, Off-again Tariffs — Plus, a conversation between Dean Karlan and Nicholas Kristof, what we’re reading this week and more: https://mailchi.mp/behavioralscientist/nr-radical-uncertainty-and-trumps-on-again-off-again-tariffs

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05/29/2025

“Few of us relish uncertainty, but we can tolerate it if we at least know the odds,” Barry Schwartz writes this week. The problem is that knowing the odds seems harder and harder with each tariff announcement. What are the costs of this ongoing uncertainty?

Few of us relish uncertainty, but we can tolerate it if we at least know the odds.