BEAR x BIOrg Webinar: Neil Lewis, Jr.

• Speaker: Neil Lewis, Jr., Assistant Professor, Cornell University and Weill Cornell Medicine
  
  Neil Lewis, Jr. is an assistant professor at Cornell University and Weill Cornell Medicine in the department of communication, division of general internal medicine, and graduate field of psychology. His research examines how people's social contexts and identities influence: (1) how they interpret and make meaning of the world around them, (2) their motivation to pursue their goals and success in goal pursuit efforts, and (3) the implications of these processes for the effectiveness of interventions and policies to improve equity in social outcomes.

• Date: April 21, 2022 12 PM ET 
• Topic: Behavioral Insights for Building More Equitable Societies
• Description: When societies separate people into different groups and provide those groups with differential access to resources and opportunities, members those groups inevitably have different experiences in life. Due to situated cognition processes, differences in contexts that arise from such social stratification influence how people make meaning of the world around them. Moreover, those differences in meaning-making have cascading effects on the decisions people make. In this talk, I will share recent findings from my program of research that has been examining these processes in the context of the United States. We have been examining how US segregation (i.e., by race and socioeconomic status) influences how Americans make meaning of their experiences, and the implications of that meaning for their motivation to pursue different goals and success in goal pursuit efforts. I will discuss the implications of this research for behavioral interventions that aim to foster equity in society.

BEAR x BIOrg Webinar: Varun Gauri

• Speaker: Varun Gauri, Princeton University and The Brookings Institution
  
  Varun Gauri is Non-Resident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution, and Lecturer of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. Previously, he was an economist in the World Bank’s research department, where he founded and headed the World Bank’s behavioral science unit, eMBeD. He was co-director of the World Development Report 2015: Mind, Society, and Behavior. He has served on the editorial boards of the journals Behavioral Public Policy, BMJ Global Health, and Health and Human Rights, as well as on the World Economic Forum Council on Behavior, the WHO Technical Advisory Group for Behavioral Science, the OECD Expert Group on Behavioural Insights, the Board of the Behavioral Economics Action Research Centre at the University of Toronto, and the American Political Science Association Task Force on Democratic Imperatives. His research has appeared in journals such as PNAS, American Political Science Review, Journal of Political Philosophy, and World Bank Economic Review, and has been covered in The New York Times, The Economist, The Washington Post, Le Monde, Forbes, The Hindu, The Guardian, and Frontline. His publications include Courting Social Justice: Judicial Enforcement of Social and Economic Rights in the Developing World and The Community Paralegal Movement and the Pursuit of Justice, and School Choice in Chile. His current research addresses behavioral economics, human rights, and social policy in developing countries.

• Date: March 17, 2022 12 PM ET 
• Topic: Moral cosmopolitanism: Cosmopolitan morality trades off in-group for the world, separating benefits and protection
• Description: Global cooperation rests on popular endorsement of cosmopolitan values—putting all humanity equal to or ahead of conationals. Despite being comparative judgments that may trade off, even sacrifice, the in-group’s interests for the rest of the world, moral cosmopolitanism finds support in large, nationally representative surveys from Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany, China, Japan, the United States, Colombia, and Guatemala. A series of studies probe this trading off of the in-group’s interests against the world’s interests. Respondents everywhere distinguish preventing harm to foreign citizens, which almost all support, from redistributing resources, which only about half support. These two dimensions of moral cosmopolitanism, equitable security (preventing harm) and equitable benefits (redistributing resources), predict attitudes toward contested international policies, actual charitable donations, and preferences for mask and vaccine allocations in the COVID-19 response. The dimensions do not reflect several demographic variables and only weakly reflect political ideology. Moral cosmopolitanism also differs from related psychological constructs such as group identity. Finally, to understand the underlying thought structures, natural language processing reveals cognitive associations underlying moral cosmopolitanism (e.g., world, both) versus the alternative, parochial moral mindset (e.g., USA, first). Making these global or local terms accessible introduces an effective intervention that at least temporarily leads more people to behave like moral cosmopolitans.

BEAR x BIOrg Webinar: Nancy Sin

• Speaker: Nancy Sin, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia
  
  Dr. Nancy L. Sin (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia. As a health psychologist, Dr. Sin’s research focuses on biological and behavioural pathways linking daily experiences – including stressors and emotions – with long-term health and well-being. Dr. Sin is particularly interested in daily positive events as protective factors for stress processes. She has published extensively in journals for behavioural medicine, psychology, and aging. Her work has been supported by grant funding agencies in Canada and the U.S. Dr. Sin has held leadership roles in the American Psychological Association and the American Psychosomatic Society. In addition, Dr. Sin directs the UBC Psychology Diversity Mentorship Program to provide mentorship to students from traditionally disadvantaged, underrepresented, and marginalized backgrounds.

• Date: February 16, 2022 12 PM ET 
• Topic: Enhancing health and well-being in everyday life: Insights from the COVID-19 pandemic
• Description: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to prolonged stress and mental health challenges around the world. Yet, people differ from one another in their vulnerability to pandemic-related stressors, and within a given person, some days are more stressful than others. Drawing on evidence from daily diary studies, Dr. Sin will discuss risks for and resilience to stress in everyday life during the COVID-19 pandemic. This webinar will emphasize protective factors – including daily positive events, prosocial behaviours, and sleep – which have been shown to offset the impacts of day-to-day stressors and discrimination on health and well-being. Insights from this research can inform the development of interventions to bolster psychological and physical health.

BEAR x BIOrg Webinar: Victoria Behavioural Insights Unit & BehaviourWorks Australia

• Speakers: Kate Phillips, Manager, Victoria's Behavioural Insights Unit & Dr. Alexander Saeri, Research Fellow, BehaviourWorks Australia
  
  Kate Phillips is the Manager of Victoria’s Behavioural Insights Unit, providing oversight on the application of behavioural insights to public policy challenges in Victoria. Kate has previously worked across State, Federal and Territory Governments on policy areas ranging from human rights to financial crime. Kate holds a Master in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and degrees in Laws and Science from the Australian National University. While studying at Harvard Kate led the Behavioural Insights Student Group.
  Dr. Alexander Saeri is a research fellow at BehaviourWorks Australia. His work seeks to increase the reach and impact of behaviour science on the world's most pressing problems. Alexander has worked on multiple projects with Australian governments and organizations, especially at the nexus of health, technology and the environment; he also co-leads the Climate Adaptation Mission. Alexander completed his Bachelor of Psychological Science (Hons I, 2010) and PhD (2015) at The University of Queensland. His thesis investigated intergroup conflict and cooperation, and he has developed and coordinated courses in advanced research methods, philosophy of science and social psychology.

• Date: January 19, 2022 5 PM ET (January 20, 2022 9 AM AUS)
• Topic: The scale up toolkit for behaviour change – progress and challenges
• Description: BehaviourWorks Australia and the Victorian Government Behavioural Insights Unit developed an evidence-informed toolkit to help behavioural insights researchers and practitioners to start with scale up in mind. This toolkit was conceived as a collaborative and interactive tool in which researchers and practitioners can suggest changes, present case studies, and provide feedback on the different tools. One year on, we present reflections on what’s worked, what hasn’t, and seek feedback from the behavioural science community about where to next.

BEAR x BIOrg Webinar: Chiara Varazzani

• Speaker: Dr. Chiara Varazzani, Lead Behavioural Scientist, OECD
  
  Dr Chiara Varazzani is currently Lead Behavioural Scientist at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Chiara also serves as a member of the Technical Advisory Group on Behavioural Insights for the World Health Organization (WHO) and she is an Adjunct Research Fellow at Monash University. Chiara has led units of behavioural scientists in government, designed behaviour change interventions and shaped communication across different policy areas, including health, education, financial decision-making, energy and international development. Prior to this, Dr Varazzani held several positions in government. She was Principal Advisor of the Behavioural Insights Unit of the Victorian Government in Australia, Advisor in behavioural economics to the Australian Federal Government and Research Fellow at the Behavioural Insights Team in London. She holds a MSc from the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences, a MSc in Cognitive Sciences from the École Normale Supérieure, and a PhD in Behavioural Neuroscience from Sorbonne University.

• Date: December 9, 2021 12 PM ET
• Topic: Behavioural science across governments for global policy challenges
• Description: In this webinar session, Chiara will talk about some of the trends, initiatives, and challenges to enable the international behavioural science community to collaborate more effectively on global policy challenges. Chiara will share lessons learned, case studies, tips and OECD tools to support the use of behavioural science in public policy, including the new OECD BI map oe.cd/behav-science-teams-world-map and the OECD BI pre-registration portal oe.cd/pre-register

BEAR x BIOrg Webinar: Rishad Habib

• Speaker: Rishad Habib, Assistant Professor, Marketing, Ted Rogers School of Management, Ryerson University
  
  Rishad Habib is an Assistant Professor in Marketing at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University. Her research focuses on how people react to shifting norms and novel marketing practices, and its effect on their prosocial and sustainable decision making. She also explores strategies to encourage positive behaviour.

• Date: November 17, 2021 12 PM ET
• Topic: New ways to SHIFT consumers towards sustainable options
• Description: Companies are increasingly moving towards sustainability but they can only be successful if this comes hand-in-hand with behaviour change from consumers themselves. This session discusses the SHIFT framework which identifies five psychological routes to sustainable behaviour change (Social influence, Habit, Individual self, Feelings and cognition, and Tangibility) and illustrates each with examples from recent research.

BEAR x BIOrg Webinar: Applied Behavioral Science Association (ABSA)

• Speakers: Lena Belogolova and Connor Joyce, Co-founders of Applied Behavioral Science Association (ABSA)     

• Date: October 13, 2021 12 PM ET
• Topic: Trends in Applying Behavioural Science Today
• Description: TBA

BEAR x BIOrg Webinar: Anisha Singh, Busara Center

• Speaker: Anisha Singh, Director for Research and Innovation, Busara Center for Behavioral Economics
  

  Anisha Singh leads Busara's Labs globally. Busara's lab in Nairobi was one of the first experimental labs in the Global South and continues to be at the edge of cutting behavioural science research. Specifically, Anisha focuses on the implementation of academically rigorous experimental research and builds methodologically tested research tools and technology needed to work with hard-to-reach populations.

• Date: September 16, 2021 12 PM ET
• Topic: Developing and Implementing Behavioural Science Insights with Low-Income Populations in the Global South
• Description: In this session, the Busara Center will share lessons learned and mistakes (in hindsight only!) in implementing behavioural science research and insights in the previous seven years, and their hopes for the future. Specifically, the organization has realized the importance of context, how to overcome researcher biases, the realities of infrastructural needs, and the future of behavioural science talent - all in the form of stories that others can learn from.

Questions? Contact rotmanbiorg@rotman.utoronto.ca

BEAR x BIOrg Webinar: Ammaarah Martinus

• Speaker: Ammaarah Martinus, Director of Policy, Research and Analysis, Western Cape Government, South Africa
  

  Ammaarah Martinus is currently the Director of Policy, Research and Analysis at the Western Cape Government in South Africa. In her current role, she focuses on managing and implementing strategic programmes in the social sector in the Western Cape, as well as innovative research and policy development. There, she leads the behavioural insights portfolio (BI4GOV) and has done extensive work in implementing and evaluating behaviourally informed programmes and interventions within government, with the view to scale. Her recent work includes scaling a Growth Mindset pilot to schools in the Province and implementing a behaviourally informed smart water meter project during the recent water crisis in Cape Town.

• Date: April 14, 2021 12 PM ET
• Topic: What it takes to embed BI projects in government - Moving from pilot to scale
• Description: The talk will give an example of a scaled-up BI project in the Western Cape Government, the challenges, successes and essential tips for moving from pilot to scale in big bureaucracies, such as governments. It will be an open and honest overview of everything it takes to pilot, negotiate and scale a project in government.

BEAR x BIOrg Webinar: Jiaying Zhao

• Speaker: Jiaying Zhao, Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair, Department of Psychology and Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, University of British Columbia
  

  Dr. Jiaying Zhao is an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in the Department of Psychology and the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Zhao's work uses psychological principles to design behavioural solutions to address financial and environmental sustainability challenges.

• Date: March 17, 2021 12 PM ET
• Topic:The impact of direct giving on people experiencing homelessness: Experimental evidence from Vancouver, Canada
• Description: Homelessness is a growing economic, health, and social crisis. To tackle homelessness, we conducted the world’s first randomized controlled trial examining the impact of unconditional cash transfers on individuals experiencing homelessness. Specifically, we distributed a one-time unconditional cash grant of $7,500 to each of 50 homeless individuals in Vancouver, with another group as controls. Our results demonstrate that the cash transfers led to significant improvements in housing stability, food security, savings, employment, and cognitive function, with no increases in spending on temptation goods. Based on a cost-benefit analysis, the cash transfers produced net savings per person per year via reduced shelter use. Our findings suggest that unconditional cash transfers can be an effective and cost-effective solution to reduce homelessness.

BEAR x BIOrg Webinar: Simon Brascoupé

• Speaker: Simon Brascoupé, MA, CAPA, CFNHM, Senior Vice-President Education, Communications and Services, First Nations Education Administrators Association
  

  Simon Brascoupé, Anishinabeg/Haudenausanee – Bear Clan is a member of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation, Maniwaki, Quebec. Senior Vice-President Education, Communications and Services, First Nations Education Administrators Association
  
  Brascoupé is an Adjunct Research Professor at Carleton University and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Indigenous Studies at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. He has a B.A. and M.A. from State University of New York at Buffalo and obtained his Certified Aboriginal Professional Administrator (CAPA) designation in 2014. Previously Brascoupé was Chief Executive Officer, National Aboriginal Health Organization; Director, Primary Health Care Division, First Nations and Inuit Health Branch, Health Canada; and Director, Aboriginal Affairs Branch, Environment Canada. He has written and worked in the field of traditional knowledge, financial literacy and is on Trent University’s Ph.D. Indigenous Knowledge Council. Simon is Co-Chair of the Indigenous Peoples Financial Literacy Working Group, Financial Consumer Agency of Canada. He has had experience with development and delivery of Indigenous Financial Wellness programs and research for AFOA Canada.

• Date: February 17, 2021 12 PM ET
• Topic: Indigenous Mental Health and Financial Literacy: Behavioural Insights from an Indigenous Perspective
• Description: The webinar will explore the Indigenous mental health and wellness and behavioural insights to financial wellbeing, health and personal, family and community wellbeing.

BEAR x BIOrg Webinar: Nina Mažar

• Speaker: Nina Mažar, Professor of Marketing and Co-Director of the Susilo Institute for Ethics in the Global Economy at Questrom School of Business at Boston University
  

  Nina, was the 2019 president of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making and has been named one of "The 40 Most Outstanding B-School Profs Under 40 In The World” (2014). With her focus on behavioral economics she investigates the implication of human biases on welfare, development, and policy. Popular accounts of her work have appeared among others on NPR, BBC, in the New York Times, Financial Times, Wired, Harvard Business Review, and various NYTimes Bestsellers as well as in the documentary feature film “The Honest Truth about Dishonesty.”
  
  Nina is the co-founder of BEworks, a former co-director of BEAR, and former inaugural Senior Behavioral Scientist of the World Bank’s behavioral insights team in Washington, DC. She serves as advisor on boards of various government and non-for-profit organizations (e.g., Irrational Labs in San Francisco, CA). She holds a PhD in Marketing from the University of Mainz in Germany. Her website is www.ninamazar.com.

• Date: January 21, 2021 12 PM ET
• Topic: Behavioural Insights in Action: From Organ Donation to Tax Compliance
• Description: Professor Mažar will be discussing behavioural insights in action providing real world examples and outcomes of field experiments from organ donation studies, to tax studies conducted in Ontario, as well as in Poland (in collaboration with the World Bank).

BEAR x BIOrg Webinar: Elizabeth Linos

• Speaker: Elizabeth Linos, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley
  

  Elizabeth Linos is a behavioral scientist and public management scholar. The majority of her research focuses on how to improve government by focusing on its people. Specifically, her studies consider how we can improve diversity in recruitment and selection, how to reduce burnout at work, and how different work environments affect performance and motivation in government. In her research on behavioral public administration, she also studies how to use low-cost nudges to reduce administrative burdens and to improve overall resident-state interactions.

• Date: December 10, 2020 12 PM ET
• Topic: Burnout on the Front Line
• Description: Employee burnout is alarmingly high across a host of different professions, particularly for front line workers. While there is a rich literature on the predictors of burnout, there is limited causal evidence about how to mitigate it. Dr. Linos will present multiple studies on how to think about burnout as an inclusion question and experimental evidence of how to reduce it.
  
  

BEAR x BIOrg Webinar: Swiss Re Institute

• Speakers: William Trump, Head of the iptiQ Behavioural insights Group, Swiss Re Institute & Francesca Tamma, Head of the Behavioural Research Unit, Swiss Re Institute
  
  

  Will pioneered the application of behavioural science within Swiss Re, establishing a team and setting this up as a client service in 2012. By using rigorous experimentation methods, this has helped insurers optimise their customer touchpoints in sales, retention, underwriting & claims. He then moved over to iptiQ in 2016, where he now leads the Behavioural Insights Group, with responsibility for consumer insight, CX strategy and the application of behavioural science within iptiQ.
  
  Francesca leads Swiss Re's Behavioural Research Unit – a truly unique group of industry-experienced behavioural scientists. Our aim is to design behavioural solutions for problems in the (re)insurance sector. We run field experiments and mixed-method research, which help our partners and clients determine what really works and changes policy holders' and insurers' behaviour. She has worked on setting behavioural research agendas and teams, first within the UK Behavioural Insights Team, the UK Tax Authority and now at Swiss Re. Her academic background is in economics (MA Hons from the University of Edinburgh and MSc with merit from the London School of Economics).

• Date: November 19, 2020 12 PM ET
• Topic: Insurance that is as attractive as humanly possible
• Description: Many companies, including insurers, have dabbled in behavioural science. Some have run trials or even hired their own behavioural scientist(s). But what would it look like for an insurer to fully embrace behavioural insights in the way it operates? Will works at iptiQ, Swiss Re's primary insurance division, and has been progressively embedding behavioural insights into the organisation for the past few years. In this session, Will and Francesca will map out the behavioural science "journey" that Swiss Re has been on, share some of their most surprising case studies, and unveil the newly-developed iptiQ Human-centered Design (HD) Framework for insurance propositions – which was developed in collaboration with Prof Dilip Soman of BEAR.
  
  

BEAR x BIOrg Webinar: Gautam Rao

• Speaker: Gautam Rao, Associate Professor of Economics, Harvard University
  

  Gautam Rao's research brings insights from psychology to bear on topics in economics, particularly topics relevant to developing countries. Recent projects include studying how improving sleep affects the economic outcomes of workers in India, how the endowment effect influences consumer demand for collateralized loans in Kenya, how research findings affect the beliefs and policy of mayors in Brazil, and how mixing rich and poor students in schools in India affects social preferences and behaviours.

• Date: October 21, 2020 12 PM ET
• Topic: The Economic Consequences of Increasing Sleep Among the Urban Poor
• Description: Gautam Rao will be presenting his research on the economic consequences of increasing sleep among the urban poor.
  
  Abstract: Using state-of-the-art technology, we measure sleep among the urban poor in India and conduct a field experiment to estimate the consequences of increased sleep. Adults in Chennai sleep only 5.5 hours per night on average, despite spending 8 hours per night in bed. Their sleep is highly disrupted, with 32 awakenings per night. A three-week treatment providing information, encouragement, and improvements to home-sleep environments increased sleep quantity by 27 minutes per night but came at the cost of more time in bed. Contrary to expert predictions, increased night sleep had no detectable effects on cognition, productivity, decision-making, or psychological and physical well-being, and led to small decreases in labor supply. Yet sleep is not irrelevant in this setting. Offering afternoon naps at the workplace improved outcomes on average by 0.12 standard deviations. However, naps still entail significant opportunity costs of time.

BEAR x BIOrg Webinar: Fadi Makki

• Speaker: Dr. Fadi Makki, B4Development & Nudge Lebanon
  

  Fadi Makki heads the first behavioural insights & nudge unit in the Middle East – B4Development (formerly the Qatar Behavioural Insights Unit) at the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, and is founder of Nudge Lebanon and the Consumer Citizen Lab. He has 23+ years of experience in public sector reform, socio-economic development, trade policy and behavioural economics. He was former Director General of the Ministry of Economy & Trade, and Advisor to the Prime Minister of Lebanon. He served for two years on the World Economic Forum’s Council on the Future of Behavioural Sciences. He is member of the WHO’s technical advisory group on behavioural insights and sciences for health. He holds a PhD from Cambridge University, a Master degree from the London School of Economics, and a BA from the American University of Beirut. 

• Date: September 16, 2020 12 PM ET
• Topic: Reflections from Recent Applications of Behavioural Insights to Policy Challenges in Arab Countries
• Description: The purpose of this webinar is to shed lights on recent experiments by B4Develolment - the first nudge unit in the MENA region - that have used behavioural insights with a focus on two areas: first, sports contexts e.g., to promote healthy lifestyle, inclusion as well as general education. second, and more recently, COVID-19 contexts, e.g., to promote compliance with prevention measures and to sustain positive behavioral change in the new normal

BEAR x BIOrg Webinar: Catherine Yeung

• Speaker: Catherine Yeung, Associate Professor of Marketing, Chinese University of Hong Kong
  

  Catherine Yeung is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Prior to that, she was an Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore. Catherine holds a PhD in Marketing. Her main research areas are behavioural decision making and consumer psychology. She conducts both academic and community-based research, which designs and tests interventions that aim at improving individual and community wellbeing. Her research cuts across multiple domains, including weight loss, diabetes prevention, medication adherence, transportation, and workforce development. Her research has been published in leading academic journals including Management Science, Journal of Marketing Research, and Journal of Consumer Research.
  

• Date: April 16, 2020 12 PM ET
• Topic: The chasm between BI knowledge and BI practice: What is it and how does it affect the success of your own project?
• Description: In this webinar session, Catherine will talk about some of the fundamental differences between BI researchers and policymakers in the way they approach behavioural science, and how do these differences pose challenges to BI projects.

BEAR x BIOrg Webinar: Ned Welch

• Speaker: Ned Welch, Adjunct Professor & Executive in Residence, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto
  

  Ned Welch is an Adjunct Professor and Executive in Residence at Rotman and an expert in using insights from behavioural economics and consumer psychology to help companies make better decisions. Before joining Rotman, Ned held Senior Design Director and Senior Expert roles at McKinsey & Co.’s Marketing Practice and at McKinsey Design, where he led clients and consulting teams on topics related to insight-driven product development, innovation, product and pricing optimization, and customer strategy. Ned holds MS and PhD degrees in Behavioral Decision Theory from Carnegie Mellon University.
  

• Date: (UPDATED) March 27, 2020 12 PM ET
• Topic: Organizing for Behavioural Insights
• Description: As a discipline, behavioural insights is at a threshold in the adoption process. For both its practitioners and consumers, the question is how to move beyond early adoption (with lead users) to mass adoption by a larger and more diverse set of organizations. In this talk, Ned draws analogies between behavioural insights and related types of consumer insights that have a long and rich history. Companies vary widely in how they organize themselves for these activities, and their experiences offer useful lessons for how to think about structuring such work and using deep functional expertise in organizations.

BEAR x BIOrg Webinar: Mariam Chammat

• Speaker: Mariam Chammat, Executive Advisor, French Behavioural Insights Unit, Interministerial Directorate for Public Transformation (DITP)
  

  Mariam Chammat is an executive advisor at the French behavioural insights unit within the Interministerial Directorate for public transformation (DITP). Her work consists in translating findings and methods from cognitive and behavioural sciences into improvements in public policies. Mariam also works on strengthening evidence-based policy making by developing and piloting projects between policy-makers and researchers. Ms Chammat holds a PhD in affective and cognitive neuroscience and has co-founded a think tank (CHIASMA) that aims at translating findings on cognitive biases into tools that can help improve people's mental habits and their metacognitive skills.
  

• Date: February 12, 2020 12 PM ET
• Topic: On the Importance of a Solid Theoretical Framework for Behavioural Insights
• Description: In this talk Mariam will try to show how different theoretical frameworks underlying BI can have different policy implications. More generally the aim is to underline the importance of building solid frameworks of human behaviour in order to build more effective and long lasting interventions. 

BEAR x BIOrg Webinar: Eric Singler

• Speaker: Eric Singler, Managing Director, BVA Group; Founder and CEO, BVA Nudge Unit
  

  Eric Singler is the Managing Director of BVA group, one of the world’s top consulting and research firms (www.bva-group.com). He is also the Founder and CEO of BVA Nudge Unit (www.bvanudgeunit.com) which is a global consultancy firm specialised in driving successful behavioral change. Eric is passionate about bringing Behavioral Science to Business and Social entities to drive efficiency.
  
  He has become a pioneer in applying behavioral economics learnings and Nudges– first in France (he has accompanied Emmanuel Macron’s team during the 2017 Presidential election) and in more than 15 countries – with public policies, Fortune 100 companies, NGO and international organisations. Eric is also the founder and President of the NudgeFrance think tank. He is the author of 3 books specialising in the application of Nudge: “Nudge Marketing”, “Green Nudge” focused on sustainability and “Nudge Management” focused on creating better work environments.

• Date: January 15, 2020 12 PM ET
• Topic: Nudging for Good : From Gender Equality to Healthier lives, how organizations could apply behavioral science for a better world
• Description: The purpose of this webinar is to share case studies – from United Nations to private companies (Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, etc.) – demonstrating the power of behavioral science and nudge to encourage new successful behaviors on critical topics.

BEAR x BIOrg Webinar: Jennifer Robson

• Speaker: Jennifer Robson, Associate Professor of Political Management, Carleton University
  

  Jennifer Robson is an Associate Professor in the Graduate Program in Political Management at Carleton University. Her research touches on poverty, Canadian social policy and public administration. Prior to becoming an academic, Jennifer worked in government and the voluntary sector.

• Date: December 4, 2019 12 PM ET
• Topic: How do you manage when you don’t know what your income will be next month?: The incidence and effects of income volatility
• Description: An important share of households, particularly those with lower incomes, report substantial swings in their monthly incomes. Volatility appears to be related to poorer financial literacy and financial capability. But psychological dimensions, particularly economic locus of control, may mediate the relationship. Implications for the design and administration of income security policies will also be discussed.

BEAR Webinar: Lisa Kramer

• Speaker: Lisa A. Kramer, Professor of Finance, University of Toronto
• Date: April 11, 2018 12:00-1:00 PM ET
• Topic: How Emotions Influence Financial Markets: Building a Constellation of Evidence
• Description: Financial market participants, including investors and practitioners alike, are humans. And humans, of course, experience emotions. This webinar will explore how specific moods and emotions can have important implications for the way financial markets work, for better or worse. The talk will include an overview of a collection of research projects that together build a constellation of evidence that serves as a more convincing way to test a hypothesis than might any single study in isolation.

BEAR x BIOrg Webinar: Sasha Tregebov 

• Speaker: Sasha Tregebov, Director, The Behavioural Insights Team Canada
  
  Sasha is the Director of BIT Canada, leading BIT’s team in Toronto and its work across Canada. Previous to taking his current role, Sasha oversaw BIT’s work with local governments in the US through the What Works Cities initiative. This initiative helps cities build their capacity for using data and evidence, including the application of behavioural insights. Prior to joining BIT, Sasha co-developed and led Deloitte’s Canadian behavioural insights capabilities, where he consulted to public sector organizations across Canada with a focus on strategy and innovation. He began his career as a policy advisor with the Government of Ontario. Sasha holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy and Administration from Ryerson University.

• Date: October 17, 2019 12 PM ET
• Topic: Reducing Burnout Through Behavioural Insights 
• Description: This webinar will focus on a recent trial conducted by the Behavioural Insights Team that reduced burnout and resignations among 911 call takers and dispatchers in the United States. It will also describe how similar approaches are being taken to reduce physician burnout in the UK and teacher / school staff burnout in Canada. 

BEAR x BIOrg Webinar: Joyce He and Sarah Kaplan

• Speaker(s): Joyce He, Ph.D. Student in Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource Management, University of Toronto
  Sarah Kaplan, Distinguished Professor, Director, Institute for Gender and the Economy, Professor of Strategic Management, University of Toronto
  
  Joyce He is a PhD candidate in Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource Management at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. She obtained her Honours Bachelors of Science with high distinction in Psychology from the University of Toronto. Her research has examined how female job seekers attempt to overcome anticipated gender biases in hiring decisions for male-dominated jobs. Her current work harnesses behavioural insights to apply structural changes and “nudges” to the selection procedure to reduce gender biases. 

  
  Sarah Kaplan is Distinguish Professor, Director, Institute for Gender and the Economy, and Professor of Strategic Management at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. She is a co-author of the bestselling business book, Creative Destruction as well as Survive and Thrive: Winning Against Strategic Threats to Your Business. Her latest book, The 360° Corporation: From Stakeholder Trade-offs to Transformation appeared in 2019. Her research has covered how organizations participate in and respond to the emergence of new fields and technologies in biotechnology, fiber optics, financial services, nanotechnology and most recently, the field emerging at the nexus of gender and finance. She recently authored “Gender Equality as an Innovation Challenge” (2017) in the Rotman Management Magazine, “The Risky Rhetoric of Female Risk Aversion” (2016) in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, “Meritocracy: From Myth to Reality” in the Rotman Management Magazine (2015), and “The Rise of Gender Capitalism,” in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (2014). Her current work focuses on applying an innovation lens to understanding the challenges for achieving gender equality.

• Date: September 17, 2019 12PM ET
• Topic: Designing for Equality: 5 myths and 5 solutions
• Description: In this webinar, Joyce He and Sarah Kaplan of the University of Toronto’s Institute for Gender and the Economy use insights from scholarly research to shed light on how to achieve gender equality. They bust 5 common myths and discuss 5 potential solutions for organizations.

BEAR Webinar: Avni Shah

• Speaker: Avni Shah, Assistant Professor of Marketing, University of Toronto
  

  Avni Shah is an Assistant Professor of Marketing in the Department of Management at the University of Toronto Scarborough with a cross-appointment to the Marketing area at the Rotman School of Management and the Munk School of Global Affairs. Using a multi-method approach combining field and lab experiments as well as empirical modeling, she investigates what motivates consumer decision-making, spending and well-being in household financial settings. Her research focuses on how financial technology (e.g., payment method, mobile payment, SMS reminders for savings) as well as cultural and social forces (e.g., thinking about one’s family, word-of-mouth) influences short-term spending decisions such as buying a product or choosing a healthy versus unhealthy menu item as well as more consequential, long-term financial decision-making (i.e., saving for retirement, choosing a mortgage lender or whether to refinance). Her work has been published in the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, and Psychological Science. Shah is a research fellow at the Behavioural Economics in Action at Rotman research cluster as well as a research affiliate at Ideas42, a non-profit design organization that uses behavioural insights to address complex social problems. Shah pursued her doctorate in Marketing at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and earned her bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College, double majoring in Psychological and Brain Sciences and Religion. Prior to beginning her career in academia, she worked as a research assistant at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, and was a research fellow at the National Institutes of Health.

• Date: April 17, 2019 12PM ET
• Topic: The Death of Cash, the Growth of Debt? How Shifts in Financial Technology Affect Our Spending (and Why it Isn’t all Bad!)
• Description: Over the last 30 years, we have seen a rapid shift in how consumers pay for goods. From cash and cheques to cards and digital wallets, the physical act of spending has never been quicker, easier, and more convenient than ever before. But is this a good thing? In this webinar, we will discuss how shifting payment forms can influence the pain we experience when paying, and subsequently the way we spend and think about our money. We will also discuss ways that we can use this information and financial technology in order to bolster our savings and take back financial control.

BEAR Webinar: Anjali Chainani

• Speaker: Anjali Chainani, Director of Policy, Office of the Mayor, City of Philadelphia  
  

  Anjali Chainani is Director of Policy and GovLabPHL at the mayor’s office in the City of Philadelphia. As Director of Policy, she coordinates policy development to ensure the success of important long-term city investments, including the passage of the sugar sweetened beverage tax. As Director of GovLabPHL, Anjali leads a multi-agency team centered on embedding evidence-based and data-driven practices into City programs and services through cross-sector collaboration. GovLabPHL experiments with how evidence-based methods can intersect to address common municipal challenges to enhance the City's policy-making and service redesign efforts. Anjali was also a Local Government Fellow with Results for America (R4A) from 2016 to 2019. This program was founded in September 2014 to implement strategies that consistently use data and evidence to drive policy and budget decisions on major policy challenges. Anjali holds dual graduate degrees from Temple University in Public Health and Social Work, and is currently completing her PhD in Health Policy at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia. 

• Date: March 13, 2019 12PM ET
• Topic: The Value of a Policy Lab within Local Government
• Description: In February of 2017, the Mayor’s Office launched GovLabPHL, a multi-agency team centered on embedding evidence-based and data-driven practices into City programs and services through cross-sector collaboration. GovLabPHL has three streams of work: 1) creating learning opportunities for city employees; 2) piloting innovative programs and prototypes using evidence-based research; and 3) ensuring the public has access to learn about new initiatives and best practices. GovLabPHL also manages the Philadelphia Behavioral Science Initiative in partnership with local academics to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of taxpayer funded programs using the latest behavioral science research.

BEAR Webinar: Tanjim Hossain

• Speaker: Tanjim Hossain, Associate Professor, Department of Management, University of Toronto Missisauga with a cross-appointed to Rotman School of Management; Chief Scientist, Behavioural Economics in Action at Rotman (BEAR)     
  

  Tanjim Hossain is an Associate Professor at the Department of Management - UTM at the University of Toronto. He is also cross appointed to the Rotman School of Management, the Department of Economics, and the Institute for Management & Innovation. He serves as the Director of the Master of Management of Innovation (MMI) program and as a Chief Scientist at the Behavioural Economics in Action at Rotman (BEAR) centre. His main research interests include behavioural economics, applied microeconomics, and quantitative marketing, especially using field and laboratory experiments to test the validity of theoretical predictions in the real world. His research has been published inAmerican Economic Review,Management Science,Marketing Science,Quarterly Journal of Economics, and theReview of Economic Studies, and has been featured in The Economist, USA Today, and other news outlets. He serves as an associate editor of the journalManagement Science.

• Date: February 21, 2019 12PM ET
• Topic: Carrots vs. Sticks and Other Incentive Stories
• Description: How do behavioural biases affect the impact of incentive schemes in the workplace and how can we utilize these behavioural biases in designing better incentive schemes?

BEAR Webinar: Julian House

• Speaker: Julian House, Behavioural Scientist, Behavioural Insights Unit (BIU), Government of Ontario
  Julian House is a scientist with the Ontario government's Behavioural Insights Unit (BIU). He also teaches behavioural economics and marketing at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, where he is a research fellow. His research into how behavioural science can be applied to advance public policy and social welfare aims appears in top academic journals, including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and the Behavioural Science and Policy Journal.
• Date: January 17, 2019 12PM ET
• Topic: Behavioural Insights into Student Vaccination: Iterative field trials
• Description: Ontario’s Behavioural Insights Unit (BIU) applies the knowledge and methodologies of behavioural insights to improve government services offered to the people of Ontario. Earlier this year, the BIU released the first draft of its Workbook, designed to layout their approach in a series of hands-on exercises. To introduce this approach with a concrete example, this seminar will describe an ongoing research project in partnership with Toronto Public Health. In Ontario, students are required to have up-to-date vaccine records in order to attend school. While this policy contributes to achieving important public-health targets of immunization against childhood diseases, it also results in tens of thousands of students being suspended from school each year. Two consecutive field trials explore whether behavioural insights can improve this process by improving efficiency, increasing vaccine coverage, and decreasing suspensions in the province’s largest public health unit.
• Click here to view the full recording of the webinar.
  

BEAR Webinar: Carey K. Morewedge

• Speaker: Carey K. Morewedge, Professor or Marketing, Everett W. Lord Distinguished Faculty Scholar, Boston University
  

  Carey K. Morewedge is a Professor of Marketing and Everett W. Lord Distinguished Faculty Scholar at Boston University. His research examines the psychological causes, consequences, and correction of bias in judgment and decision making. Using a mix of laboratory, field, and longitudinal experiments, he tackles basic and applied problems from why people won’t bet on the failure of their child or favorite team to developing interventions that improve decision making by producing long-term reductions in cognitive bias. He has published over 40 papers in top academic journals including Science, Psychological Science, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, and Management Science, and contributed to popular outlets including Harvard Business Review and the New York Times. Awards for his work include recognition as a Marketing Institute Scholar in 2018, one of the Top 40 Under 40 MBA Professors by Poets & Quants in 2016, writing the Most Theoretically Innovative Article of the Year as judged by the Society of Personality and Social Psychology in 2010, and receipt of an Ideas of the Year from the New York Times in 2009. Prior to joining the Questrom School of Business at Boston University, Professor Morewedge was a Postdoc at Princeton University in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and served on the faculty as the Director of the Center for Behavioral and Decision Research at Carnegie Mellon University. His PhD is in Social Psychology from Harvard University.

• Date: December 6, 2018 12PM ET
• Topic: Improved Decision Making with One-Shot Training Interventions
• Description: From failures of intelligence analysis to misguided beliefs about vaccinations, biased judgment and decision making creates problems in public and private life. Early failures to improve decision making through training led to its abandonment, and the current focus on debiasing through nudges and incentives. I report laboratory, field, and longitudinal experiments that find one-shot debiasing training interventions are effective. Participants (N = 1,076) received a single 30 to 90 minute training intervention that addressed three of six biases critical to intelligence analysis (i.e., anchoring, bias blind spot, confirmation bias, correspondence bias, representativeness, and social projection). Interventions ranged from instructional videos to serious games. Longitudinal experiments found medium to large immediate debiasing effects (games d ≥ 1.68; videos d ≥  .69) that persisted at least 2 months later (games d ≥ 1.11; videos d ≥ .66). In a field study where participants didn’t know their biases were measured, training reduced confirmatory hypothesis testing by 29% in a complex case. Debiasing effects of training transferred across problems in different contexts and formats. The results provide exciting new evidence that training can improve decision making. 

BEAR Webinar: World Bank

• Speakers: Zeina Afif, Senior Social Scientist, World Bank, & Iman Sen, Research Analyst, World Bank
  
  Zeina Afif is a Senior Social Scientist with the Poverty and Equity Global Practice at the World Bank. Zeina is currently working on applying behavioral insights to improve women’s access to finance and jobs, reduce youth unemployment, reduce gender based violence, promote social cohesion, and improve access to public services and programs. Prior to joining the team, Zeina provided operational communication and behavioral insights support to World Bank projects and has worked in countries such as Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, and Yemen in the areas of taxes, social protection, social accountability, and citizen engagement. Zeina holds a MBA from George Washington University, and a M.Sc. in Behavioral Science from London School of Economics.
  
  Iman Sen is a Research Analyst at the World Bank working with projects on tax compliance, financial management, energy, and understanding social norms through the support of behavioral interventions. Prior to joining the World Bank, he worked on randomized evaluations in governance, energy, health, and gender in South Asia, in different capacities for Innovations for Poverty Action(IPA), and the Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). Iman holds Masters degrees in Economics and Computer Science from New York University.


• Date: November 14, 2018 12PM ET
• Topic: Understanding and Reducing Barriers to Female Labour Force Participation
• Description:The World Bank eMBeD team is testing ways to increase young female participation in the private sector through a multi-dimensional approach, targeting legal, social and psychological barriers women currently face. For example, in Jordan, female labour force participation rates remains extremely low at around 14%, while women are increasingly more educated. The eMBeD team studied in detail the social and cultural norms that may impede greater participation by women in the work force.

BEAR Webinar: Camielle Headlam

• Speaker: Camielle Headlam, Research Analyst, MDRC
  Camielle Headlam is a research analyst at MDRC, an education and social policy research organization. She specializes in projects that apply insights from behavioral science to mitigate pressing postsecondary education issues. She currently leads qualitative diagnostic and implementation research for MDRC’s Encouraging Additional Summer Enrollment (EASE) and Finish Line: Graduation by Design projects. She also conducts implementation research for the Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) Ohio Demonstration and Developmental Education Acceleration projects. Previously, Camielle served as a college success adviser for a community-based organization. She holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Cornell University.
• Date: October 18, 2018 12PM ET
• Topic: Making Summer Pay Off: Using Behavioral Science to Encourage Postsecondary Summer Enrollment 
• Description: In the U.S., a pressing public policy concern is low postsecondary graduation rates, especially at community colleges which often serve low-income and nontraditional students. Research has shown that enrolling in summer courses could improve student success, but few students enroll. Can behavioral science be used to encourage summer enrollment? If so, will students experience improved academic outcomes? This webinar will examine how behavioral insights were used to diagnose barriers to summer enrollment and encourage more students to enroll. Broader implications for applying behavioral science to higher education issues will also be discussed.
• Click here to view the full recording of the webinar session

BEAR Webinar: Jess Leifer

• Speaker: Jess Leifer, Vice President, ideas42
  Jessica Leifer is a Vice President at ideas42 where she leads projects applying behavioral science insights to address challenges in health and health care. Her current work spans using behavioral science insights to prevent diabetes, build and sustain healthy habits in areas including nutrition and medication adherence, improve treatment of opioid use disorder, and build resilience in aging. Prior to joining ideas42, Jess was a fellow at the Mars Centre for Impact Investing in Toronto where she designed a technical assistance program for nonprofits interested in setting up Social Impact Bond programs. Jess previously worked for Success Academy Charter Schools, a large and growing network of public charter schools in New York City, where she collaborated on the design and implementation of their data-driven education management system. Jess received an MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School and her B.A in Psychology (with honors) from the University of Pennsylvania. At Penn she researched self-control, willpower, and educational achievement with Dr. Angela Duckworth. 
• Date: September 13, 2018 12PM ET
• Topic: Improving Health with Applied Behavioural Design
• Description: Health is more than what happens at a doctor’s office. A variety of factors influence how long and how well we live, chief among them our health behaviors and practices. This webinar will illustrate an approach for identifying barriers to health and designing solutions that can make us healthier, using insights from behavioral science.
• Click here to view the full recording of the webinar

BEAR Webinar: Marcie McLean-McKay

• Speaker: Marcie McLean-McKay, Senior Research & Policy Officer, Financial Consumer Agency of Canada 
• Date: May 9, 2018 12:00-1:00 PM ET
• Topic: Initiating Budgeting Behaviour through Targeted Financial Education

BEAR Webinar: Lisa Kramer

• Speaker: Lisa A. Kramer, Professor of Finance, University of Toronto
• Date: April 11, 2018 12:00-1:00 PM ET
• Topic: How Emotions Influence Financial Markets: Building a Constellation of Evidence
• Description: Financial market participants, including investors and practitioners alike, are humans. And humans, of course, experience emotions. This webinar will explore how specific moods and emotions can have important implications for the way financial markets work, for better or worse. The talk will include an overview of a collection of research projects that together build a constellation of evidence that serves as a more convincing way to test a hypothesis than might any single study in isolation.

BEAR Webinar Series: Spike Lee

• Speaker: Spike Lee, Assistant Professor of Marketing at Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto
• Date: March 14, 2018 12:00-1:00 PM ET
• Topic: How Sensory Cues Shape Our Goal Pursuit, Decision Making, and Policy Preference
• Description: Incidental tactile experiences (i.e., touch) promote people’s ability to pursue their goals with flexibility and reduces their biases in decision making. Incidental olfactory cues (i.e., smell) can change people’s investment in economic games and improve their error detection capability. Even a brief exposure to visual and auditory cues of disease threat (e.g., sneezing and coughing) has a noticeable impact on people’s risk perception and related policy preference.

BEAR Webinar Series: Liam Delaney

• Speaker: Liam Delaney, Professor of Economics, University of College Dublin; Visiting Professor of Economics, Stirling University
• Date: February 22, 2018 12:00-1:00 PM ET
• Topic:Using Naturalistic Research Methods in Behavioural Science Applications
• Description: How can we use the detailed survey diary methods and data pioneered by researchers such as Daniel Kahneman and Arthur Stone to understand more about experienced well-being but also how people are making decisions in real-time? The talk will provide data from several studies conducted by the authors group in Dublin looking at how people make every-day decisions and provide examples in domains such as social media usage, TV binge-watching, and food consumption. The talk will be relevant to people thinking about how to design and evaluate interventions and projects across a wide range of business and policy settings.

BEAR Webinar Series: Kelly Peters

• Speaker: Kelly Peters, CEO & Co-Founder, BEworks
• Date: January 17, 2018 12:00-1:00 PM ET
• Topic:Driving Innovation by Bringing Behavioral Science to the Boardroom
• Description: Most organizations list innovation as one of their core values to help ensure the organization becomes or stays strategically advantaged. However, leaders complain that even with encouragement, employees and management still seem reluctant to experiment and some even let risk aversion squash potentially good ideas. This webinar will feature the work, philosophy and methodology of BEworks, led by Kelly Peters, its CEO and Co-Founder. BEworks has helped Fortune 500 policy makers understand how to incorporate behavioral insights and the scientific method to drive innovation to solve strategy, marketing, and operations challenges.
• Registration Deadline: January 16, 2018 3:59 PM ET
• View the full recording of the webinar

BEAR Webinar Series: Dena Gromet

• Speaker: Dena Gromet, Executive Director, Behavior Change for Good (BCFG) Initiative, University of Pennsylvania
• Date: December 7, 2017 12:00-1:00 PM ET
• Topic:Behaviour Change for Good
• Description: This webinar will feature the work of the Behavior Change for Good (BCFG) Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania, led by Katherine Milkman and Angela Duckworth. BCFG is developing a digital platform to conduct large-scale field experiments designed to promote sustained behavior change in education, health, and savings.

BEAR Webinar Series: Sonia Kang

• Speaker: Sonia K. Kang
• Date: November 9, 2017 12:00-1:00 PM ET
• Topic: Nudging for Diversity 
• Description: Most organizations list Diversity and Inclusion at the forefront of their goals and values. However, not all efforts to increase diversity are successful, and some even end up doing more harm than good. This webinar will provide an overview of the current landscape of diversity and inclusion research and practice, and a discussion of how insights from behavioural science might help us to achieve these goals.  

BEAR Webinar Series: Faisal Naru

• Speaker: Faisal Naru
• Date: October 12, 2017 12:00-1:00 PM ET
• Topic:Myth-busting: Behavioural Science across the world
• Description: Behavioural science is being used increasingly in public policy, but how is it being implemented? What are the institutional arrangements? What are the challenges and future opportunities? Based on the 2017 OECD publication “Behavioural Insights in Public Policy: Lessons from across the world”, this webinar will provide practitioners, researchers and policy makers with the key trends.

• Additional Links:
  • Body of work of the OECD since 2012
    http://www.oecd.org/gov/regulatory-policy/behavioural-insights.htm
  • Launch of OECD Behavioural Insights Report
    Videos: http://www.oecd.org/gov/regulatory-policy/behavioural-insights-and-public-policy-9789264270480-en.htm
    Behavioural Insights Summary Report 2015: http://www.oecd.org/gov/regulatory-policy/behavioural-insights-summary-report-2015.pdf

BEAR Webinar Series: Nicola Lacetera

• Speaker: Nicola Lacetera (Bio)
• Date: September 13, 2017 12:00-1:00 PM EDT
• Topic: Motivating prosocial behaviour: Economic incentives and moral concerns
• Download the webinar presentation slides (PDF)