Predicting People Dectech

In this eighth episode, Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater, discuss the Nudge Movement. Specifically, they explore how the rise of Nudging in Behavioural Science has led to many policy problems being framed in individual rather than systemic terms. This is known as adopting an i-frame rather than an s-frame. The approach puts the focus on an individual’s behaviour rather than the systems/rules within which they operate. 

Considering an influential paper that Nick himself wrote on the topic, they discuss whether individual-level solutions like nudges have overplayed their hand. The episode references interesting case studies, from the paper and Dectech’s own research, in areas like carbon emissions and retirement savings. Nick and Henry also address what this means for not just government policy, but the commercial world around it.

In this seventh episode, Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater discuss the topic of trust. Specifically, they explore the intuitive sense we all have of who we do or don’t trust and how it can perhaps be explained. The episode also addresses why we need trust as a society and how businesses can earn and keep it, with reference to interesting Behavioural Science experiments such as the Ultimatum Games, the ABC trust framework we created for companies and our own experience of building trust with brands.

In the sixth episode, we were delighted to have Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater discuss how AI is influencing financial services. Specifically, they consider whether AI can help to comply with the new Consumer Duty rules, and with protecting consumers. They explore what banking activities are being augmented by AI, what role AI can play in meeting the new Consumer Duty requirements, and they give an outlook on future developments in AI and its applications.

In the fifth episode, we were delighted to have Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater discuss the new Consumer Duty rules by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which come into effect this month. They broadly answer three key questions: how Consumer Duty came about, what the psychology behind Consumer Duty is, and what this now means for the financial service industry in practice. They also give an outlook on future trends in Consumer Duty and ethics in companies, that are spreading to sectors beyond financial services.

In the fourth episode, we were delighted to have Dectech’s founders, Dr. Henry Stott and Professor Nick Chater discuss the currently high levels of inflation. They broadly answer three key questions: how economists measure inflation, how it is perceived by the wider population, and what is its effect on businesses? 

Specifically, this episode explores the psychology of inflation using a Behavioural Science lense. Among the topics discussed are: how measures of inflation relate to price perceptions, how consumers recognise inflation via different reference prices, and how businesses can adjust their prices in a way that is acceptable to customers.

In the third episode, we were delighted to have Ash Schofield, CEO of giffgaff, joining our director Dr Benny Cheung to discuss data-driven decision-making and its role in business. Specifically, this episode explores whether there are too many marketers waiting for the perfect data to make decisions. Among the topics discussed are: data-driven decision obstacles, different decision types and their relationship with data, the role of technology, analysis paralysis and personal experience with data-driven decision-making in giffgaff.