Social media, mobile trading, and increased DIY investing have created new opportunities but also new risks. This panel discussion at the OSC’s virtual annual conference, held on 23rd November, shares insights on how investing is changing, and considers the implications for industry, regulators, and investors.
In this interview with Alicia Salgado, Mexican journalist and host of the program Enfoque Noticias, Kelly Peters, CEO & Co-Founder, BEworks discusses how new tools based on the science of behavior change can add value to stakeholders and the powerful role that scientific thinking plays in the business world.
Trying to reduce food waste at home?
A large-scale study conducted by BEworks joint with Unilever Hellmann’s Canada showed that choosing one night a week to use up the food you have on hand can significantly reduce the amount of food you throw away.
Would you like to increase how much your clients trust you and follow your advice?
BEworks and Manulife Investment Management partnered on a study to help financial advisors create better outcomes for clients.
In this article written by Wealth Professional Canada Magazine, Catherine Milum, Head of Wealth Sales at Manulife Investment Management, and Dr. David Lewis, President of BEworks Research Institute share some behaviorally informed advice to improve investor behavior.
The world of investing is complex and abstract for most people. We place our money in the hands of investment advisors or take on the task ourselves hoping our choices will lead to a better financial future, but our own decision-making biases can be costing us a richer future.
Learn about what investment institutions and advisors can do to prevent the common traps of investment biases from impacting their clients in the recent talk at AMIB by Kelly Peters, CEO and Co-Founder, BEworks.
Despite being the 6th largest investor in longevity advancements globally, the 2019 Fraser Institute Study found that Canada is lagging behind in innovation.
Kelly Peters, CEO and Co-Founder, BEworks and David Lewis, President of Research Institute, BEworks weigh in on how traditional ways of analyzing the market, using simplistic age-based demographic segmentation, are holding us back from “seeing the light”.
Read about why we believe that traditional market analysis, like demographic segmentation, is outdated, biased, and frankly, mis-informed.
Can you guess which paint color will increase the value of a home for sale down to the exact room in the house?
Our team of behavioral scientists worked with Zillow‘s Behavioral Science team to get the answer. This color could increase the value of a home by almost $5,000.
Our work with Zillow is a great example of the power of curiosity and science coming together to leave intuition at the door. Uncover the hidden forces that influence decisions at your company. What questions are being left unanswered in your field?
Read more about our work in the latest article by Fast Company.
Advertising and Marketing veteran, Sean Donnelly to drive the next stage of growth at BEworks.
BEworks, the world’s first and foremost consulting firm dedicated to the application of Behavioral Economics to real-world challenges, has strengthened its team with the appointment of Sean Donnelly as Vice President of Growth.
Listen to Kelly Peters on CBC’s The current with Matt Galloway where she discusses the role of incentives like cash, scholarships, and lotteries on driving vaccine uptake. In her interview she highlights the research by BEworks to understand the drivers of vaccine hesitancy. Can incentives work on this group?
To help business leaders and policy makers, make better decisions, Kelly Peters, developed the BEworks Method, which is a proprietary framework for how to drive marketing, innovation, and organizational transformation. This is a powerful framework from Theory to Action.
In the latest episode of Habit Weekly, Kelly Peters, CEO and co-founder, BEworks shares her journey into behavioral economics, BEworks Method, challenges related to COVID-19, and much more.
BEworks experts argue that ‘de-biasing’ the hiring and promotion process is the single-most effective step businesses can take to start meeting their DEI ambitions.
The average household throws out over $1,000 of food every year, and the tragic part is 60% of that food is edible. The research undertaken by Hellmann’s Unilever and BEworks tells us that people tend to think they already are less wasteful than the average person, and that the fact they compost their leftovers makes waste less problematic.
After studying over 900 families, they found some very simple solutions that reduced food waste by 30% — saving households at least $300 per year. Dr. Angela Cooper, PhD, Associate at BEworks, was invited on The Cash and Kerry Podcast with host Kerry Taylor to speak about ways to reduce food waste and share insights on the research undertaken.
Dr. Michelle Hilscher, Ph.D. Vice President, BEworks was invited on David Emanuel’s podcast show D-BEnefits to talk about why behavioural economics is a gamechanger for the benefits industry, including how it can help to improve employee uptake and participation in benefits programs, and what it can mean for corporate culture more generally.
Each year, the Southern Ontario Behavioural Decision Research (SOBDR) Conference brings together researchers and academics from various disciplines across Ontario with an interest in the study of how people make judgments and decisions. They come from a number of disciplines including: Marketing, Psychology, Organizational Behaviour, Management, Accounting, Finance, and Economics.
This year, BEworks hosted the virtual SOBDR conference on Friday, May 14th, 2021. The conference featured a keynote presentation by Dr. Nina Mazar Professor, Boston University, Co-director of The Susilo Institute for Ethics in the Global Economy and Co-founder & Chief Scientific Advisor, BEworks.
On Chatter that Matters, Dan and Kelly chat about why we make bad and irrational decisions, why others’ bad behaviour might encourage you. We also look at how has COVID has stripped us of our freedom and control. Dan and Kelly will provide you with coping mechanisms and strategies to reclaim your sense of control and make better financial, career, and life decisions while offering compelling advice for business and political leaders.
BEworks is proud to announce our partnership with Hellmann’s to reduce household food-waste. We launched new interventions to reconceptualize recipe’s into Flexipe’s. The first large-scale, longitudinal study on the challenge resulted in a 30% reduction on household food waste.
Vaccinations for COVID-19 are ramping up, and while many of us can’t wait to get in line, 1/3 of Canadians are hesitant to get one. Kelly Peters, CEO and Co-founder of BEworks joins Candace Sampson on the show ‘What She Said’ – 1059 The Region, to discuss the vaccine showdown shaping up in our country, and how we can address concerns of those that believe they are not safe.
Time stamp: 21:47 – 31:32
‘Why vaccinate? Natural is better’.
As one of the most frequently cited reasons against getting the COVID-19 vaccine, the pro-nature argument isn’t new. But it is becoming increasingly dangerous.
In a new article published in Behavioral Scientist, Sofia Deleniv, Dan Ariely, and Kelly Peters dissect the history and origins of the naturalistic fallacy, the wider threat it poses to human progress and health, and what we can do about it.
Tackling Misinformation: Stuart McGinn, News Anchor, 680 News, speaks with psychology investigator and BEworks CEO Kelly Peters about the psychological roadblocks affecting pandemic recovery.
According to a recent report published by BEworks – “COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy: A Behavioral Lens on a Critical Problem”, demographic factors are not as good predictors of vaccination intentions as one might think!
During an interview with Radio Canada La Reveil, our Associate, Pierre-Jean Malé stated that the report identifies four traits that describe how people think and predict people’s intentions about vaccines. These traits are – Adherence to conspiracy theories, Scientific knowledge, Open-mindedness and Concerns about the vaccine.
A new study that was released this week found almost one-third of Canadians are on the fence when it comes to getting a COVID-19 vaccine while 9 per cent don’t intend to get vaccinated at all. The study commissioned by BEworks, a Canadian scientific think-tank.
Kelly Peters, co-founder of BEworks, joins Devon Peacock on the Morning Show to discuss.
BEworks showed that belief in conspiracy theories played a factor, with “vaccine-opposed” people 429 percent more likely to believe conspiracy theories, while people who are on-the-fence were 163 percent more likely to believe conspiracy theories. “Understanding why people are hesitant (or object out-right) and then deploying scientifically-grounded solutions will be essential if we want to encourage Canadians to get vaccinated,” said lead investigator and BEworks CEO Kelly Peters.
The study (COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy: A Behavioural Lens on a Critical Problem) shows that the way people think is significantly more predictive of their willingness to get vaccinated than their demographics alone.
A ground-breaking study conducted by BEworks indicates that four cognitive factors are driving Canadians’ vaccine intentions.
Belief in conspiracy theory may increase COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy! According to a study – COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy: A Behavioural Lens on a Critical Problem, conducted by BEworks understanding why people are hesitant and then deploying scientifically grounded solutions is essential if we want to encourage Canadians to get vaccinated.
Here is what Kelly Peters, Co-founder, and CEO, BEworks, had to say about the report on The Jamil Jivani Show.
Timestamp for Kelly’s interview is from 1:56 – 9:54
There is no better time to go BEyond traditional notions of success and innovation, and aspire to be greater
Major transformations are driven by a growing consensus that an existing paradigm has ceased to function adequately. Most stakeholders agree we are at a major turning point. There is a significant opportunity to improve how we serve customer’s needs, how we motivate our teams with purpose, and how we empower leaders to drive with aspiration. But it is not enough to simply reject the status quo; rejecting one paradigm without simultaneously substituting it with another can be dangerous.
Behavioral science offers that new framework.
The Southern Ontario Behavioural Decision Research (SOBDR) Conference brings together researchers from Ontario universities (and beyond!) with an interest in the study of how people make judgments and decisions.
Registration and program details to come.
In partnership with Sheridan College, BEworks was awarded a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) grant, through the College and Community Innovation Program – Applied Research Rapid Response to COVID-19. The grant is designed to ‘Optimize Interventions to Combat COVID-19 Misinformation Online’. We will partner to apply our expertise in behavioural science to help devise and test interventions. We also have MediaSmarts, Canada’s Centre for Digital and Media Literacy, as a partner. Our academic collaborators Gordon Pennycook, Paul Seli, and David Rand, are amongst the world’s leading misinformation researchers and have published extensively on the causes of and solutions to misinformation.
Can behavioral economics aid in our industry recovery?
Travel Health Insurance Association (THIA) News spoke to Kelly Peters, CEO of BEworks, to get her insights into how the insurance industry can influence smart consumer decisions when recovery begins.
During the “Debiased Hiring Through Behavioural Science” webinar, the President of Clarity Recruitment Joe Diubaldo, will be speaking with Dhushan Thevarajah, the Chief Operating Officer at BEworks and Dr. Shelbie Sutherland, an associate at BEworks on various topics concerning diversity and inclusion including:
- Behavioural Economics and importance on diversity and inclusion pertaining to hiring;
Examples of Issues concerning Diversity and Inclusion in hiring;
The typical approaches to improve these issues (and their limitations);
How to think about this challenge differently etc.
The purpose of this webinar is to better understand the challenges facing Diversity and Inclusion initiatives so that we can start to build better solutions moving forward.
It’s no secret that the world has changed. The pandemic has ravaged societies and economies, and financial companies are increasingly worried about the possibility of investors panicking and making poor decisions during the market-volatility that seems to be the new norm. Aware of the importance of understanding human psychology in these uncertain times, leading financial research firm Morningstar put behavioural economics center stage at its most recent investment conference.
Behavioural science thinktank BEworks and The Ontario Securities Commission celebrate joint success in identifying a strategy for protecting ageing investors.
Kelly Peters’ keynote talk at BlockHack Global focused on the topic of consumer technology adoption. In many cases, developers and organizations build a solution anticipating droves of consumer interest, only to find that unanticipated barriers are curbing uptake rates.
In her talk, she provides an overview of BE for blockchain developers looking to overcome adoption challenges at the very outset of their conceptual stage. She shares some key behavioural insights that can be used to understand how people typically make decisions, and how they can apply these lessons to overcome the most common pitfalls facing adoption today.
In this report, we outline key questions and problems raised by the pandemic, highlight relevant research we and others are conducting, and outline preliminary thoughts on how we might work together to bring behavioural science to the fight against COVID-19.
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced massive behavioral change for both investors and advisors alike. How can investment advisors maintain and build their relationships with their clients under these new conditions?
BEworks co-founders renowned Behavioural Economics Professor Dan Ariely & Applied BE Pioneer, Kelly Peters, are hosted by Catherine Milum, Head of Wealth Sales at Manulife. Their discussion is focused on helping advisors understand investor behaviour amidst the pandemic and arm them with actionable insights to guide clients at this critical time.
Where: Manulife
In this conversation, Kelly and Cristina discuss how social norms and nudging norm behavior can be a powerful way to influence behavior during the pandemic. Cristina also discusses the interesting research she has been doing during the pandemic.
We examine a disposition—engagement in analytic-thinking—that might predict beliefs that the pandemic is a hoax and failures to change behavior in positive ways during that critical early period in March. Our results indicate that individuals less likely to engage effortful, deliberative, and reflective cognitive processes were more likely to believe the pandemic was a hoax and less likely to have recently engaged in social-distancing and hand-washing in March. We discuss possible implications of these results for understanding and addressing the COVID-19 pandemic.
In this Toronto Star article, our colleague Juan Camilo Salcedo, PhD is interviewed about surveys that measure employee comfort with returning back to life as we know it, return to school, return to work, or return to live entertainment. Everyone has their measurement tools out in an attempt to understand what it is that will help introduce the psychological and physical comforts necessary to bring people back in some capacity.
The top six banks have deferred mortgage repayments at nearly double the rate of their U.S. counterparts, accounting for approximately 16% of their mortgage portfolios, which amounts to over $250 billion. Many people, driven by well-documented behavioural biases, fail to grasp the negative impact that this will have on their finances over the long-term, and instead treat the deferrals as a way to enjoy some extra cash for discretionary spending.
Host Kelley Keehn interviews David Lewis and Kelly Peters of BEworks, as they discuss necessary changes to discretionary spending so that consumers and banks can be prepared to resume payments when required.
In this whitepaper in partnership with JUST Capital, we explore the challenges faced by organizational leaders as they look to traverse the complexities of the new WFH environments faced by their employees.
Leaders today are in uncharted territory, seeking new toolsets and evidence-based approaches to make a meaningful difference on the well-being and productivity of employees.
This interview hosted by Martin Whittaker, CEO of JUST Capital, on Wednesday, features a candid discussion with Dan Ariely, and Kelly Peters, world leaders on behavioral science and co-founders of the world’s leading applied Behavioral Economics firm, BEworks.
Speaking to the importance of scientific thinking and the biases all leaders should look to avoid as they navigate these new waters.
Risk, Liberty, and Scientific Thinking in the Time of COVID-19
In this conversation, Kelly and Cass discuss liberty in the context of public health, the role of scientific thinking in democracy, how people’s risk perceptions are shaped in response to mortality fears, and much more
In this conversation, Kelly and Dilip discuss how behavioral science can inform COVID-19 responses, and how it is resulting in a focus on digital transformation for educators and organizations alike.
How can we use creativity to solve complex business problems?
On the Human Risk Pocast, Kelly and Christian Hunt talk about how Kelly came to establish BEworks, the kinds of problems they help solve and how they deliver scientific solutions to the business community. We also explore the impact COVID is having on business and business models today.
In this conversation, Kelly and David discuss the importance of bridging the gap between theory and application in the behavioral sciences, misinformation and polarization in the context of a pandemic, and much more.
Watch this video as Kelly Peters, CEO and CoFounder at BEworks, shares an experiment about adult learners to show the challenge of driving innovation and reveals the steps to achieve it.
Is my team ready to return to the office? What needs to be true for my employees to be comfortable returning to the workplace? How can I better understand the behavioral drivers of work-from-home productivity?
Equifax Canada collaborates with BEworks to analyze consumer behaviour.
In this conversation, Kelly and David discuss how we evaluate information, and how behavioral science, data collection, and experimentation are key to understanding the pandemic.
In this conversation, Kelly and Paul discuss issues of empathy, scientific thinking, and motivation during a pandemic.
In this conversation, Kelly and Michael discuss rituals, routines, and behaviors in the face of a pandemic, some of the quirks of the way we do things, sometimes in very specific ways, and what that can tell us about human behavior.
In this conversation, Kelly and Dan discuss how behavioral science can inform COVID-19 communication and polices, including the challenges created by uncertainty and risk perception.
Live webinar hosted by Julie Kuzmic, Director of Consumer Advocacy at Equifax Canada. She will be joined by Michelle Hilscher, Director, Discovery & Behavioral Diagnostics at BEworks, as they provide actionable insights into the cognitive biases that may be playing a role in the credit trends underway.
Equifax and BEworks
In this conversation, Kelly and Nina discuss the role of behavioral science in the face of a pandemic, covering productivity, well-being, ethics, and much more.
Rotman Management Magazine Speaker Series
Talk at WOBI Bogota 2018.
Columbian publication, Retina.
In this conversation, Barbara speaks with Kelly Peters about how to define and measure customer loyalty, the factors that influence loyalty in the marketplace, the way COVID-19 is disrupting loyalty, the way consumers interact with companies, and much more.
In this conversation, Kelly and Jonathan discuss his experience working in the hospitals and treating COVID-19 patients, the biases that can influence medical diagnosis. They also discuss the appeal and challenges of pseudoscientific beliefs.
StartWell, A New Normal.
Sarah Bowen and Merle van den Akker interview Kelly Peters about the gap between behavioural science in academia and business.
Behavioral economist Dan Ariely, the author of Predictably Irrational, uses classic visual illusions and his own counterintuitive (and sometimes shocking) research findings to show how we’re not as rational as we think when we make decisions.
On TEDTalks
How behavioural economic works? Kelly Peter has the answer: Science
On WOBI Bogota
Globe & Mail
Money On The Mind Website Blog
Analytic-Thinking Predicts Hoax Beliefs and Helping Behaviors in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
PsyArXiv
‘No more water cooler conversations’: 5 ways managers can adapt to the work-from-home-force now, because it’ll be here for a while.
Business Insider
Rituals, apps and other methods to help clients overcome an aversion to saving.
On Advisor’s Edge.
Want to make your brand psychologically capturing? Try using the power of ritual.
Business Insider
In this presentation, Kelly makes her case for the use of Behavioural Science as a way of approaching and tackling challenges and problems in education.
BlockChain Learning Group
This article marks Kelly Peter’s (CEO and Co-Founder) contribution to a series on behavioral scientists at Burning Man, the temporary society marked by the descent of tens of thousands to the Nevada desert for transformation.
Read more to learn about the nature of their experiment, what it suggests about the transformative potential of Burning Man, and the ways that science can transcend the laboratory.
Behavioral Scientist
How Topo Chico Crossed the Border: Empathy is the Key to Marketing Success
Globe & Mail
On Benefits Canada
Behavioral economics applied to the insurance value chain.
Manulife’s Investments Unplugged Podcast
Lets see ourselves as scientists with Kelly Peters.
On Advisor’s Edge
David Lewis, Chief Client Officer, BEworks, explains what drives investor behaviour and why advice is the key to embedding your clients in your business.
On Manulife’s Podcast
On Financial Independence Hub
The firm is preparing its advisors to deal with anxious clients.
On Investment Executive
Behavioral economist Dan Ariely studies the bugs in our moral code: the hidden reasons we think it’s OK to cheat or steal (sometimes). Clever studies help make his point that we’re predictably irrational — and can be influenced in ways we can’t grasp.
On TEDTalks
On Advisor’s Edge
On The Agenda at TVO
The book Predictably Irrational was published in 2008. This special interview between Kelly Peters and Dan Ariely reflects their ten year friendship, covers Dan’s experiences with the book, and his views on how the field is evolving and continues to evolve. Dan brings his funny story-telling abilities to Kelly’s insightful questions to this lively discussion that will be of interest to people who are fans of Dan’s research as well as advanced practitioners curious about some of the more advanced topics of the field.
“Our intuition is beautiful and can give us tremendous insights, but we also need to recognize that it’s misguided.” Kelly Peters explains how her “irrational passion” for behavioral economics led her to co-found the first management consulting firm dedicated to bringing scientific thinking into business strategy, and how leaders can make smarter decisions by incorporating behavioral economics into their operations.
On SYPartners: Leading into the Unkown
Kelly Peters featured in Italian publication, Ninja Marketing, for her talk at WOBI Milan.
Italian publication, Ninja Marketing.
On Forbes Mexico
On Mexican radio show, WRadio
In this episode, Kelly Peters and Michael Barbera discuss the three pillars to behavioral economics, credit risk, and applying behavioral science to business. Kelly Peters shares her experience and knowledge of financial decision-making that extends from the BE Works office in Toronto to the Nevada desert. Join Kelly and Michael on the first episode of season 4 to understand how intuition and guesswork could influence business decisions. Kelly Peters is the CEO and co-founder of BEworks. She is passionate about bringing scientific thinking to business strategy, marketing, and operations. Among the first to see the commercial potential of the Web in 1993, Kelly spent several years in the dot-com industry before focusing on financial services, where she spent 12 years leading complex innovation projects.
On Clicksuasion Podcast.
On The Star (Toronto).
There’s a traditional idea in economics that people generally make rational decisions, but behavioural economics says that’s not true. Dan Ariely, a leading researcher in the field, explains the hidden forces the nudge people into action.
On TVO’s The Agenda.
Talk at WOBI Madrid.
On Spanish publication, ReasonWhy.
Talk at WOBI Madrid.
Spanish publication, El Confidencial.
Talk at WOBI Madrid.
On the Spanish publication, MarketingDirecto
BEworks with Investment Funds Institute of Canada (IFIC)
On Globe & Mail
On CBC
BEworks Summit for Science
On News Wire
Bringing scientific thinking into the boardroom improves the quality of strategic decisions and helps in understanding people’s choices.
On Financial Post
On Globe & Mail
BEworks opens office in New York and adds David Lewis, PhD, to senior leadership team
White Paper demonstrates impact of behavioral science to empower workers
Tips from behavioural economics.
On Advisor’s Edge.
Dan Ariely, George Loewenstein, Hal Hershfield, Nina Mažar and Kelly Peters will share cutting-edge scientific research to help bridge gap between academia and business.
Talk at WOBI Bogota 2018.
Columbian publication, Caracol.
The Investment Funds Institute of Canada (IFIC) announced that it has retained behavioral economics consulting firm BEworks to undertake research that will help improve the disclosure practices of investment dealers, advisors and investment fund managers.
Kelly Peters, behavioral scientist and CEO at BEworks, on Canadians’ growing debt loads.
On CBC.
On Behavioral Scientist
On The Insurance & Investment Journal
Presence of smartphones in the same room associated with decreased cognitive function.
On CBC.
On The Drum.
On Advisor’s Edge
On New York Times
On Forbes
On Fortune
On Scientific American
Persuading your customers that they need to pay more for your services is difficult. We asked the experts how to start the conversation.
On Canadian Business
On TEDxToronto
BEworks client report for the OEB
On Judgment and Decision Making
On The Gleaner
The news of society’s growing inequality makes all of us uneasy. But why? Dan Ariely reveals some new, surprising research on what we think is fair, as far as how wealth is distributed over societies … then shows how it stacks up to the real stats.
On TEDTalks
On TEDxBlackRockCity
On B2B News Network
The tools we have to understand people just aren’t good enough. Issues of self-presentation and preservation continue to limit our understanding.
On Ogilvy
On TEDxUtrecht
On Globe & Mail
In Financial Post
What motivates us to work? Contrary to conventional wisdom, it isn’t just money. But it’s not exactly joy either. It seems that most of us thrive by making constant progress and feeling a sense of purpose. Behavioral economist Dan Ariely presents two eye-opening experiments that reveal our unexpected and nuanced attitudes toward meaning in our work.
In TEDxRiodelaPlata
In Rotman School of Management
In Report on Business
In Policy Options Magazine
In the Globe & Mail
What does a disgusting image have to do with how you vote? Equipped with surveys and experiments, psychologist David Pizarro demonstrates a correlation between sensitivity to disgusting cues — a photo of feces, an unpleasant odor — and moral and political conservatism.
On TEDTalks
Best selling author and behavioral economics professor Dan Ariely delves into the essence of human motivation. His clever yet brilliantly simple experiments uncover universal truths about human irrationality and increasing motivation.
On TEDxMidwest
In The Economist
Behavioral economist Dan Ariely talks about self control and the difference between our long term goals and our short term actions.
In TEDxDuke
In The Washington Post
Dan Ariely, behavioral economist and author of Predictably Irrational, explains why saving is so difficult. Here’s his advice on making financial decisions.
In MoneyWatch
Behavioral economist Dan Ariely studies the bugs in our moral code: the hidden reasons we think it’s OK to cheat or steal (sometimes). Clever studies help make his point that we’re predictably irrational — and can be influenced in ways we can’t grasp.
On TED2009
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