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.
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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Beliefs are funny things. For instance I’ve always believed that ‘Eleanor’ by The Turtles is one of the finest lyrical masterpieces in Rock & Roll history, but most of my friends believe that I’m nuts. Clearly, I need new friends – ones with better judgement…but I digress. Three ...
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Realizing that everything that happens online is just going to be different, we need to understand what works better and under what circumstances. Read more...
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With due respect to the previous article and its suggestions for convincing people to mask up, most people don’t understand numbers very well. People who routinely work with numbers like numbers a lot, but for most other people, numbers need to be explained in context and with relevance. Data and ...
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There’s an old saying that You do not need a parachute to skydive, you only need a parachute to skydive twice, which I think relates nicely to the face mask debate. Science says wearing face masks in public will prevent a lot of coronavirus illness and death and many of ...
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We’ve talked a lot here about risk assessment – the science of measuring the bad things that happen and the magnitude of harm – vs. risk communication, the art of helping people understand and act (or not) on the science and the math of risks. Some risks are high probability ...
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