Behavioural Science, Behavioral Economics, or Are We Bad at Taking Our Own Advice? (Or how we fought momentum and built intuitive engagement)

The name "Behavioral Science" referring to our field is confusing, ineffective, and disengaging. There, I said it.

Ambiguous from the start

Our field originated in the science and application of Behavioral Economics, a blend of Psychology and Economics. Early academic pioneers who were peddling the emerging field to businesses as consultants found that the term "economics" created a narrowing effect. Behavioral Economics became a field understood in academia; Behavioral Science became a compromise to break into the boardroom.

In its evolution, few who practice have a substantive background in applied economics, and many aren't trained psychologists. Vanishingly few have both. That shouldn't be a barrier to those who choose to learn and understand the collective applied science of incentives, engagement, and human behavior. 

Additionally, how the term "Behavioral Science" is used ignores the predominant group of behavioral scientists who are licensed clinicians. It also competes with I/O Psychology, Organizational Development, Business or Consulting Psychology, Decision Science, Consumer Psychology, and UX Computer Scientists, among many others. There is no clear identity in borrowing pieces from others' fields. And so, the application of these under the "Behavioral Science" moniker refuses to create insight into where practitioners fit into an organization, how they add value, or what they own. Selling the value is down to the strength of the organizational stakeholder's influence, or to being compartmentalized and marginalized into "nudge units," which create separate issues of intuition, effectiveness, and marginalization.

The term "Behavioral Science" in business- or government-focused application is neither intuitive, specific, nor effective at describing the field. The name is propelled forward by momentum. Ironically, maintaining the term Behavioral Science is the antithesis of applying "behavioral science" principles.

A disconnect between practitioners and stakeholders

There is a dramatic difference between those in the field and those who decide to fund it. In my (admittedly unscientific) LinkedIn poll, 74% of respondents related to the field selected Behavioral Economics or Behavioral Science. Only 33% of Executives selected those terms. While I wouldn't submit these for peer review, there is a clear disconnect between our preferences and the perception of those who might fund our work. The stark difference in perception should spark reflection.

Polling in various LinkedIn Behavioral Economics and Behavioral Science Groups (with some expected inherent bias), half (50%) of 894 votes preferred Behavioral Economics, while "Behavioral Science" and "Behavioral Strategy" were roughly split, with 24% and 20% respectively. "Other" was selected by 6% of respondents. While there was a winner, there was not consensus.

Polling multiple Executive, Strategy, and Leadership groups on LinkedIn with 358 collective responses, "Behavioral Strategy" was the clear winner, receiving 41%, with "Other" in second place with 26%. Behavioral Science garnered 18%; Behavioral Economics, only 15%. The perception and preferences were clearly not aligned with those who need our knowledge and skills.

With more than 80 comments collectively, many shared ideas, but most sparked debate. "Behavioral Design," "Consumer Behavior," "Consumer Decision Making," "Human Capabilities," and "Behavioral Intelligence" were all offered. All insightful, and demonstrated the lack of consistency and understanding behind our work.

• As one executive commented, "IMO, anything that smacks of intellectualism turns off most senior executives."

• And one of our own wrote: "After 7 years of trying to show an organization what this is, I've learned the word 'behavioral' is a key inhibitor."

Whatever the solution, it should respect the scientific rigor and the human element. It should be approachable, clear, and engaging.

Facing difficult change is at the core of what we do

Some will say we shouldn't. Status Quo Bias keeps some locked into the current framing. The Endowment Effect keeps us tethered because we've built companies, careers, individual personas, and professional identities entangled with the current language. We live with the Curse of Knowledge problem, where the term has become intuitive to use, and we've educated those closest to us, so everyone must understand now. We advocated and explained so persistently, we've become blind and resigned.

In big ways and in small, we are divided. Our ineffective name doesn't allow consistent spelling globally, with cultural inconsistency between "Behavioral" vs. "Behavioural." In many minds, psychology is a soft science or worse, dismissed as a pseudoscience. More broadly, our name is perceived as pretentious, ambiguous, and ineffective. Our name shouldn't be a barrier, nor should it require excessive advocacy or explanation. We should be globally consistent, functionally distinct, and intuitively recognized. 

We shouldn't allow identity-protective cognition to trick us into maintaining a brand that many in our field have adopted because of history, a lack of alternatives, and institutional momentum. We should not continue to perpetuate an ineffective brand because we have lived with it for so long - we must demonstrate our own ability to overcome the sunk cost fallacy. We must shed our anchor. 

We use our talents to influence, incentivize, and improve people's decisions. We apply our insights to digital, print, and real-life interactions. We operate within businesses, governments, social organizations, and communities. We improve the efficacy of choices made by customers, employees, leaders, citizens, and society. We help people engage with their values and preferences, options and alternatives, and decisions and outcomes. We and our work can be intuitively understood. 

We create engagement

We must cast off the burden of an ineffective past and use the tools of our field to define our field. But with what?

I've considered and discussed many alternatives, and my heart and mind land on "Engagement." 

Engagement is well understood, widely used, and not owned or associated exclusively with any other field. The term engagement lives everywhere we work, is a commonly used measure of our impact, and is immediately recognizable to our customers, stakeholders, and leaders in the areas we influence. If a business or government needs to improve engagement anywhere within their influence, it is a calling card. We must create and maintain engagement to realize the results we design. Engagement creates a natural call to action to those who need our expertise.

Collectively, we help customers make more informed purchases, support employees in finding joy and purpose in their work, allow teams and executives to shape more effective strategies, improve the intuitiveness of digital interactions, create connections and confidence in products and brands, increase adoption of life-saving technologies, drive critical improvements in blood, tissue, and organ donation, and make access to services more intuitive for underserved communities. We do all this, and more, by creating engagement.

Behavioral Science or Engagement Science

We integrate science and learning from many fields to understand people and keep people engaged. We can create a change that makes our profession more recognizable and understood. Let's design, define, and align who we are and what we achieve. Our name, our brand, and our identity can reflect the value and insights we bring. Let's take the same advice we give: let go of the weight and biases of the past, use the lessons we've learned, and move forward with a clear, memorable, and impactful identity. 

We are Engagement Strategists, Engagement Engineers, Engagement Architects, Engagement Designers, Engagement Analysts, and yes, Engagement Scientists. 

What we call ourselves should be as engaging as our work.