Fighting discrimination is core to Save the Children’s strategy. But what can you do when you witness bias online, in meetings, or at family gatherings? 

In her excellent book, The Person You Mean to Be, Psychologist Dolly Chugh explains you must first determine WHO you are speaking to:

Has this ever happened to you? You’re giving a presentation when you lose your train of thought. You pause for what feels like an eternity, and then continue. You spend the afternoon kicking yourself, embarrassed, ruminating on what your colleagues must think.

Well, I’ve got good news – research indicates that they probably didn’t even notice.

When you were in high school or university and studying for a multiple-choice exam, did you ever receive the advice, “Go with your gut – don’t change your first answer”?

Unfortunately, decades of research has demonstrated that the majority of answer changes are actually from wrong to right. So why do we believe a lie?

Imagine this: you’re working on a health communication campaign to encourage vaccination, and your team has crafted three messages you think might work.

How do you know which will actually be effective?

Among behavioral scientists, the answer usually is: “Test them!”

Think about where you live. Which groups are the most polarized: opposing political, ethnic, or religious groups?

In India, the caste system divides Hindus into hierarchical, inherited social classes; while the constitution bans caste discrimination, divisions between castes persist in many communities.

To bridge these divides, researchers in Uttar Pradesh conducted a fascinating experiment…

Have you ever bought a lottery or raffle ticket? I have. I enjoyed musing about what I’d do with the prize (until, inevitably, I lost!)

While they may not be wise investment strategies, lotteries can be surprisingly effective for encouraging positive behaviors because they can make an unappealing task more motivating (and people tend to focus more on the prize, rather than their chance of winning).

Have you ever been “attacked” online, or felt shocked by the aggressive responses from strangers to a post?

Coined by Psychologist John Suler, the online disinhibition effect* explains that many people say and do things online that they would not do face-to-face. 

Are you planning a holiday this year? Perhaps you’re picturing the sheer joy you’ll feel when you can finally relax.

Now, think back to your last holiday. Was it as amazing as you imagined, or somewhat marred by unexpected issues?

According to Affective Forecasting research, it turns out that people are generally bad at predicting how we’ll feel in the future.

Do you ever find yourself struggling to “stay positive”?

If so, there’s good news – the Pollyanna Principle (named after a perpetually cheerful book and movie character) explains that most people subconsciously focus on the positive in our conversations, and recall more positive memories. We discuss more good news than bad, we’re upbeat in most texts and emails, and we describe others more positively than negatively, too.

Throughout 2021 and 2022, Pakistan’s Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) administered millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccinations. This systematic rollout campaign operated at scale – by August 2021, one million doses were being administered a day. However, at a district level, statistics from EPI showed that the rollout was not penetrating equally in all areas. 50 districts in the provinces of Baluchistan, Sindh, and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa were identified as having the lowest COVID-19 vaccination rates across all districts in Pakistan. These districts are predominantly rural, have lower digital access and lower literacy levels.

Save the Children hypothesized that the population may have been missed by previous COVID-19 communication efforts, due to the identified digital, literacy, and language barriers.

Picture this: You’re shopping for a gift when you spot a fantastic shirt, and it’s the last one. Ugh – it’s twice the price you expected! You can’t decide what to do, but then think “Whatever, I’ll buy it, I don’t want to regret it later!”

CUBIC, along with Save the Children Spain, spent February to May 2023 working with the students at the University of Pennsylvania’s Master of Behavioral and Decision Science program as part of their Capstone Design Challenge.

The challenge at hand: Online gender-based violence against high school students is a grave concern in Spain with devastating impacts for victims.

About how many emails do you receive each day: 50, 100, 200?

Now think for a second: which emails do you respond to immediately, and which do you put off till later, or ignore?

Professor Todd Rogers, a behavioral scientist at Harvard, has determined the secret to increasing responses to emails, letters, and text messages, and it’s (drumroll . . . . )

Think about where you live – which accents are “desirable,” and which are not?

Professor John Baugh explains in an enlightening Ted Talk that how people speak can lead to linguistic profiling: when someone is denied access to available goods or services by phone, sight unseen, based exclusively on the sound of their voice.

Do you feel a little happier when you take a walk, or find yourself surrounded by green? 

Well, it’s not just you.

Think about your favorite backpack, purse, or briefcase. If I really wanted to buy it from you, how much would you charge me?

Now think again – how much do you think your bag is actually worth? I’m guessing your first figure is higher than the second.

Would you call yourself a “binary thinker,” someone who sees only two sides, such as right or wrong, or us vs. them?

I’m guessing you’d say, “Of course not!”

Do you remember the last time you realized you were wrong? 

 In his book, Think Again: The Power of Knowing what You Don’t Know organizational psychologist Adam Grant encourages us not just to develop knowledge and experience, but to hone the skill of rethinking. Grant asserts that too often we favor feeling right over being right, and we slip into one of three mindsets: preacher, prosecutor, or politician.

Do you ever have trouble motivating yourself to exercise, meditate, or study, even though you KNOW you’ll feel better afterwards?

It turns out the composition of the human brain is a key reason this is difficult.

Has this happened to you?

You’re on a hiring panel and you’ve just finished four back-to-back interviews. You launch into discussion with the other panelists – you’re sure the best candidate is obvious. But . . . wait . . . the others have two different top choices. How can that be?