The Quest to Imagine a Workplace that (Actually) Values Work-Life Balance
Work-life balance is about making trade-offs. How might we design workplaces that encourage employees to choose the right ones?
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Behavioral Scientist is a nonprofit digital and print magazine offering expert commentary from the front lines of behavioral science.
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What It’s Like to Be…a Life Insurance Salesman
Overcoming “soft objections,” hustling to line up meetings, and navigating the line between business and friendship with David Johnson, a third-generation life insurance salesman.
The Questions at the Heart of Conflict and Peace
Behavioral scientists working in peace and conflict grapple with questions of how prejudice becomes violence, how exclusion begets extremism, and how capable we are of change. The answers are far from simple, but not out of reach.
What We're Reading
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Why I Write My Own Obituary Every Year
By
The New York Times -
Work Debunking ‘Blue Zones’ Wins Ig Nobel Prize
UCL -
Our Kids Are Being Deprived of One of Life’s Coolest Lessons about Language
By
The New York Times -
The Arrival of Field Experiments in Economics
By
Conversable Economist -
The Brain’s Twilight Zone: When You’re Neither Awake Nor Asleep
By
Psyche
Featured
Are We Too Impatient to Be Intelligent?
There are things we need to deliberately and consciously slow down for our own sanity and for our own productivity. If we don’t ask the question about what those things are, we might get things terribly, terribly wrong.
What It’s Like to Be…a Camera Operator
Framing a scene to draw in the audience, dealing with screaming directors, and getting lost in an actor’s performance with Pauline Edwards, a camera operator.
What Does It Take to Build Peace After Six-Decades of Conflict?
To help build peace in Colombia, we gave the people most affected by the conflict—victims and ex-combatants—a platform to share their stories with other Colombians across the country. Hearing those stories transformed how people understood their former enemies.
For Decades, a Behavioral Blind Spot Has Plagued Political Development
Attempts to improve governance in the world’s most troubled states have failed because they’ve been based on the rational design of formal institutions rather than the behavioral logic of the individuals that work inside them.
One Small Step, One Giant Heave
On Earth, what goes up must come down. In zero-g, what comes up, floats.
What It’s Like to Be…a Long-Haul Truck Driver
Hauling 32,000 lbs of dead rats, strategically planning every turn and pit stop, and soaking up the highway sunrises and sunsets with Kathy and Gene Lednicky, team truck drivers.
What the Founding of Behavioral Economics Teaches Us About How to Create a Meaningful Movement
The founders of behavioral economics have more to teach us than what they’ve discovered about human behavior. Over multiple decades, they built a meaningful intellectual movement. Here’s how they did it.
What It’s Like to Be…a Summer Camp Director
Conjuring a world where kids can reinvent themselves, running a small town in the woods, and witnessing camp counselors falling in love with Eric Sasson, a summer camp director.
