Behavioural Insights

Kirstin Appelt is Research Director, UBC Decision Insights for Business & Society, and Academic Director of UBC's Advanced Professional Certificate in Behavioural Insights. Her research explores why people struggle with important decisions about the future and how to use choice architecture to help them make the best decisions for themselves and for society. Kirstin is also a behavioural science consultant for organizations including the BC Behavioural Insights Group (BC BIG), the California Health Benefit Exchange (Covered California), the Columbia University Center for Decision Sciences, Google, the Pacific Business Group on Health (PBGH), Temple University, and WorkSafeBC. She received her Ph.D. in Psychology from Columbia University and her B.A. magna cum laude in Economics from Dartmouth College.

Dale Griffin is a professor of Marketing and Behavioural Sciences and was the interim Academic Director of the Dhillon Centre for Business Ethics at UBC Sauder School of Business. He has taught at leading universities in Canada, Great Britain, and the United States, most recently at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. Professor Griffin teaches courses in Responsible Business, Marketing Research, and Strategic Decision Making at the undergraduate, MBA and PhD levels, and lectures on strategy and decision-making for executive audiences, and provides legal consulting on consumer behaviour and risk perception. He is the co-editor, along with Thomas Gilovich and Daniel Kahneman, of Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment. He received his PhD from Stanford University.

David Hardisty is Associate Professor of Marketing & Behavioural Science at UBC Sauder School of Business. His research focuses on decisions about the future, including sustainability, financial planning, and impulsivity. He also studies attribute framing and social dilemmas. At UBC Sauder, he teaches Ethics & Sustainability and Consumer Behaviour. His ultimate goal is to develop tools to improve long-term decision making. He received his PhD in Psychology from Columbia University in 2011.

Jiaying Zhao is the Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Sustainability, and an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia. Jiaying uses psychological principles to design behavioural solutions to address financial and environmental sustainability challenges. Specifically, she examines the cognitive consequences of poverty and designs interventions to alleviate the cognitive burdens in low-income individuals. In addition, she develops behavioural interventions to encourage recycling, composting, and biodiversity conservation. Jiaying has served as a research advisor and consultant for a number of organizations, including Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, Policy Horizons Canada, City of Vancouver, and the U.S. Social and Behavioral Sciences Team. She received her PhD in cognitive psychology from Princeton University in 2013.

Vince Hopkins is Assistant Professor in the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of Saskatchewan. Vince studies behavioural public policy—specifically, how we can help low-income and marginalized populations access public services. His research combines data science (e.g. field/survey experiments, web-scraping) and user experience design (e.g. interviews, journey maps).

Kate White is currently Professor of Marketing and Behavioural Science at the UBC-Sauder School of Business. She holds a professorship in Consumer Insights, Prosocial Consumption, and Sustainability and is Academic Director of the Dhillon Centre for Business Ethics. Kate’s research focuses on how to encourage ethical, prosocial, and sustainable consumer behaviours. Kate has consulted on various behaviour-change projects with industry collaborators such as The City of Calgary, Health Canada, BC Women’s Hospital, My Sustainable Canada, BC Hydro, Big Rock Brewery, The United Way, and Celgene Health Care.

This program far exceeded my expectations, both from an individual learning perspective and course delivery perspective.  The instructors went above and beyond to ensure it was engaging throughout with a wide variety of learning activities and practical applications of concepts.  I have applied a BI lens to many of the programs and services I lead as a Strategic HR Manager in the short time since graduation and am excited for the possibilities for organizations.

The UBC Advanced Professional Certificate in Behavioural Insights provides a unique opportunity to develop a practical skillset for addressing real-world problems. Not only do you receive a firm grounding in theory, but you are supported in putting this theory into practice through an applied project. Working with supportive faculty and a project client, the program allowed me to add this applied experience to my existing academic background. I look forward to employing the skills that I learned as I transition out of academia and into a career in the behavioural sciences.

The certificate demonstrates the value of education in applied behavioural science by pulling together expertise from multiple areas and focusing it with a behavioural insights lens. It democratizes that knowledge by allowing more people, especially in the public sector, but also across all types of organizations, to get a base understanding of the value and potential of BI and how to apply it. Having sponsored both students and capstone projects, there is tremendous value in increasing organizational capacity in the knowledge of the potential that BI offers.

The tools and learnings from this program are practical and widely applicable. Although Behavioural Insights have successfully been used at the societal level to shape public policy, I have found them to be particularly helpful in the business and corporate environment, for achieving and effectively managing change in the workplace. The program had a good balance of theory combined with practical application that positioned me well to actually implement what I had learned. 

I have thoroughly enjoyed being a capstone project client for the Advanced Professional Certificate in Behavioural Insights program. Parking systems are highly dependent upon the actions of individual users – being able to test and, most importantly, monitor BI solutions in the field has helped me make these systems better for all.

The UBC Advanced Professional Certificate in Behavioural Insights program provided me with a practical toolkit to incorporate into my current field of work. From behavioural insights theory to statistical analysis and project management, this course taught me how to create, execute, analyze, and scale behavioural interventions accordingly. Whether in a traditional field like marketing or something more modernized such as user experience, this program applies to various work areas and levels of expertise.

Behavioural insights knowledge and skills are increasingly in demand and unquestionably valuable for new and evolving government services. UBC Sauder’s Advanced Professional Certificate in Behavioural Insights helped me develop these skills through thought-provoking materials, engaging professors, and a dynamic format that blends theory and real-world application. The program is exceptional and I am excited to watch it grow.

I would recommend the UBC Advanced Professional Certificate in Behavioural Insights (BI) to anybody looking to advance their experience and education in BI. I chose this program as it is the only BI certificate being offered in Canada. The virtual nature of the certificate allowed me to continue working full time during the program. Since completing the certificate, I was given the opportunity to serve as the Lead of the BC Behavioural Insights Group for six months.

The Behavioural Insights skillset and competency is so critical to effective service delivery. After having an RTB employee complete the program, including a capstone project focused on an RTB challenge, we have successfully classified a new role in the BC Government: Behavioural Insights Specialist. Thank you so much for this program - this certificate is a requirement of the new position.

The Advanced Professional Certificate in Behavioural Insights provides an opportunity to learn more about human behaviour from leading experts. The program provides an excellent opportunity to learn more about the theory behind behavioural insights in addition to providing the opportunity to develop practical skill sets to apply these theories to address real world challenges. Developing these skills not only supported my transition to a new career in the behavioural science field, but it also provided me with a new lens on human behaviour that I will be able to use throughout my career, no matter what field it is in.

The Behavioural Insights program was great in furthering my skills to implement evidence-based Behavioural Insights practices into my work with the BC Government, where I completed an exciting capstone project applying BI to the Child Welfare field. It was refreshing to see the many ways Behavioural Insights can be applied and get to know people in the Behavioural Insights community directly. I was amazed by the caliber of my professors and classmates, who came from a variety of professions

The Advanced Professional Certificate in Behavioural Insights program teaches how to "nudge for good" in a very practical way. The hands-on learning and supportive faculty were greatly beneficial for my career aspirations, and I would recommend this program to anyone looking to venture into the fascinating world of behavioural insights.