Tiziana Dagostino – Design Psychology: Helping People Make Better Choices for Themselves and the Planet

We face thousands of choices everyday: most of them are inconsequential, but others can have very serious and even detrimental outcomes. We have limited mental capacities and get easily overwhelmed, so we often use mental shortcuts or heuristics to help us. Most of the time, this is an effective and efficient method, but sometimes it may take us astray. Also, despite what a lot of people think, we are not rational decision makers: emotions are the strongest influence on decision making. This may lead to poor decisions that won’t benefit us or society.

This is where behavioral design comes in. Behavioral design recognizes that people are not always rational, and often they are not aware of their desires and motivations, so it tries to create design that will facilitate optimal decision making. Behavioral design does not mislead or trick: full autonomy and freedom of choice is always respected. We’ll explore tools such as choice architecture, nudges, anchoring and framing, as well as the ethical implication of behavioral design, and how to avoid ethical pitfalls.