Behavioral science is the science of how people behave. Or not. Working with the public, you know that human behavior can be hard (but not impossible) to predict and uncivil at times, delightful at others. Here you can read a collection of the latest news, handpicked by our seasoned and expert facilitators and trainers. Keeping up to date with the latest in behavioral science helps you better understand the people with whom you work and those you represent. And better understanding leads to better anticipation and preparation. As a result, better communication and facilitation is bound to happen. Read on, fearless facilitator, and be sure to send us a note about your reactions.
For the longest time, the work that we do has been referred to as “soft” and I have to admit that’s always bugged me. Describing it this way sounds demeaning, and sometimes I know it’s intended to do so. The underlying attitude is that these soft skills aren’t really important ...
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In the 1950s, thousands of people died annually and tens of thousands were paralyzed by polio. People celebrated and embraced the science that developed the vaccine that quickly eradicated that disease in the U.S. But COVID-19 has produced an entirely different public reaction and health policy experts are wrestling with ...
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Our Strategies for Dealing with Opposition and Outrage in Public Participation (we really need to shorten that name) class describes the indicators that cause people to become angry and fearful. Knowing the causes lets you deal with the effects. It also explains the behaviors that people who work with the ...
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One of the behavioral strategies that we talk about to help angry people become less angry and to rebuild trust is hard and counterintuitive for most experts but truly effective. It’s called dilemma sharing. Bring people in to see the challenges that you’re facing before you try to solve them....
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Although I consider myself quite expert when it comes to bars, sidebars are different. This article is related to the previous piece about why relying solely on Zoom meetings and online encounters don’t make for the most useful relationships.
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Zoom and any of the several other video conferencing platforms that we’re all are using these days has saved our bacon in the past year. I can’t imagine what life might have been like without these platforms. But, as we (in The Participation Company) can attest, Zoom fatigue is really ...
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Understanding why people believe the things they believe is core to understanding the phenomenon of fake news and disinformation. And helping people become more information and media literate (think the Inform level of the IAP2 Spectrum) is core to public engagement and, frankly, the future of democracy. Knowing that it’s ...
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The work of government is complex and it’s hard for us mere mortals to understand everything that people working in the public sector do for a living. When you’re doing the work of balancing tough technical facts and data with the vagueness of public policy, it’s natural that an inside ...
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We’re watching what will turn out to be the costliest and most tragic risk communication failure in modern human history. I’m talking about communicating the probability and magnitude of risks that actually harm people but don’t bother them enough for them to do anything about. We’re setting new COVID-19 daily ...
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In the practical, objective, scientific method world of observation, testing and refined decision making that most of us are tied to, it is sometimes easy to dismiss the emotional elements as fluff, irrelevant, and to be avoided. But any objective reasoning, especially in the public sector, invariably requires an element ...
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