The Behavioural Science Podcast
Cognitive footprints
This is a regular podcast interviewing the world's leading behavioural scientists. Each episode takes their story and learnings into the decisions you make every day.
About the podcast
Why do you keep hitting snooze?
Why is a "20% off" sign so hard to walk past? Why does quitting a habit feel so much harder than starting it did?These are well-documented patterns. Behavioural science has been mapping them for decades. The research has already shaped how hospitals communicate risk, how pension schemes are structured, and how apps are built to keep you on them longer than you intended. The people being studied rarely get told any of this.Cognitive Footprints interviews the researchers doing this work and asks them to explain it in plain terms. What does the science actually say? Where does it get misused? And what would you do differently if you understood it?
Why we are making this
Behavioural science matters
Most of the advice people get about changing their behaviour - eat better, save more, exercise, sleep enough - ignores fifty years of research into why those things are hard.Behavioural science takes the gap between what people intend and what they actually do seriously, as a scientific problem worth solving. That gap turns out to explain a lot: why willpower-based approaches fail, why hospital appointment reminders work when they include a named nurse, why the order items appear on a menu affects what people order.
Meet your hosts
The Behavioural Scientist and the Tech Founder
A Doctor of Behavioural Science. Spent years in research before deciding the findings needed a wider audience than academic journals tend to reach.
Karolina Czarna, PhD.
An engineer and product builder who has worked inside companies that used behavioural science commercially. Asks the questions someone without a PhD would ask.
Damian Bramanis
