The Limitations of Science
What is best, evidence based practice, or practice based evidence? The answer, as ever, is it depends. The first takes science and applies it to the the real world, the second takes evidence from the real world and makes sense of it.
The world of Behavioural Science can be murky. It is a field rocked by replication crisis, misinterpretation of intent and with little regulation. So what is right, or best.
The history of Behavioural Science
You could argue that behaviour has been researched and understood since the beginning of the human race. We are naturally sensemakers and we interpret the behavioural intelligence we pick up in others, match it to our mental model and make choices from it. If we see a friend crying, we will reach out for a hug. If we see someone dangerous, we will step back. Politics, factions and tribes have long been part of our societies.
Much of the psychological science goes back to Carl Jung (1875-1961) a Swiss psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and founder of the school of analytical psychology.
He is best known for his concept of archetypes and he was widely influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philosophy, psychology, and religious studies
In the 1950’s economists recognised that humans were behaving in a way that was irrational, but consistently and predictably irrational, which led to a coalition with the psychologists and the creation of the new field called Behavioural Economics. Over time more than 130 cognitive biases have been defined where humans can be observed to predictably follow a biased behaviour. Buster Benson created a cheat sheet in 2017 which maps many of them.
What is Behavioural Science?
There are many behavioural sciences, from Psychology, Neuroscience, Behavioural Economics, Anthropology, Social Sciences, and Linguistics. Each studies humans and tries to make sense of their behaviour and choices. Associated fields include Leadership and Child development, Communications and Marketing.
The limitations of Behavioural Science
Science is often put on a pedestal as the gold standard, and Behavioural Science is no different. The rigour of Random Controlled Trials (RCT) often fails to replicate in the real world, which gives academics a headache.
The reasons why are simple
Research Blindness
To reach academic rigour, scientists rely on RCT’s to isolate the specific behaviour, which required comparative tests with one variable (what is being tested). Typical experiments may include making lego models, or walking down a hallway that has words up, or undertaking a repetitive task. The criteria to show that you have a repeatable effect is high
Context blinkering
The most available source of humans to test are students, who are young, forming their opinions and do not have the same life pressures or things to protect as those who staff our organisations. Their motivations are very different. The research base is skewed.
Paper Pressure
To maintain funding, or position many researchers feel that they need to produce papers, either through their own research or through reviewing or critiquing those that have been previously published. Although intended for good, this can become a weapon when teams are under pressure.
Barbara Friedrickson’s research suggested that higher positivity ratios are predictive of flourishing mental health and other beneficial outcomes. It was challenged, and then refuted by Barbara. Her work is the research behind the advice that you should give three pieces of positive feedback for every piece of constructive or negative. Most couples therapists suggest five pieces or more. In practice this advice is well established and has proven remarkably effective.
Context Matters
In the push for predictability, there is often a leap to take behavioural science insights and implement them blindly in your context and then to be disappointed when they don’t work because the nuance of the original researchers is missing. A reminder that It isn’t what you use, it is how you use it and context really matters.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a Swiss psychiatrist is famous for her work on death and dying where she observed a common set of emotional responses (the five-stage model) to patients given a terminal diagnosis. Her work was implemented in many settings including clinicians working with those who were reaching the end of their lives. The five-stage model was criticised by academics who argued that it should not be applied to all bereaved groups, or be seen as rigidly linear stages, both arguments that Elisabeth made herself whilst she was alive. In some fields, the model is no longer use because of this challenge.
Follow the Money
Most research commissioned and funded in academia focuses on social policy, things like increasing attendance of medical appointments, or signing up for a new service or policy. They are small, limited and consumer oriented. They are hard to scale or apply in an organisation.
Organisations such as Google (who tested psychological safety), Anthropic and Meta hire their own behavioural teams to research and implement behavioural science based insights. The insights and findings are rarely published outside their organisations. It is a source of competitive advantage.
The role of Practice Based Evidence
At Irrational Change, and BeSciAI we use a circular process of evidence based practice based evidence.
We respect the science, but only if it stacks up in practical application. Where we have strong, reliable evidence we incorporate it into our thinking and approach.
Working with our clients, who span many different sectors, types and geographies we test what works repeatedly, what doesn’t and why. We run causal analysis to understand the root causes and interdependencies.
We undertake our own research, inspired by practical application of science and an interdisciplinary approach.
Meanwhile, the leading academics in the field of behaviour are beginning to adopt a systems-based approach, recognising that context, or the system has a big role to play.
The future of Behavioural Science
The next era of behavioural science will belong to AI, which transforms the ability to identify behavioural patterns at scale, their context and causes.
This is the heart of Behavioural Intelligence.
Imagine a world where organisations have a live sentiment tracker that gives insights to the engagement and conviction levels in an organisation enabling in the moment small course corrections before value is wasted or lost.
A new language and seeing behaviour as a strategic asset, or anchor and it will become a factor in the strategic choices our organisations make.
Are you ready for the future?
