What does it take to change a mind?

In this episode of Wired for This, we’ll hear from Dr. Katy Milkman, James G. Dinan Professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and host of the behavioral economics podcast Choiceology. She co-founded the Behavior Change for Good Initiative and has advised organizations like Google, the White House, and the U.S. Department of Defense. Her research on behavior change has been published in top journals and featured in her bestselling book How to Change. Dr. Milkman was also named a Top 10 innovator shaping the future of health by Fortune Magazine and won UPenn’s highest teaching award, the Provost’s Lindback Award for Excellence in Teaching, in 2022.

The transcript for this episode will be available the day after the original airdate.

Links/Sources mentioned:

• More from Dr. Milkman: 

• Website

• How to Change, her self-help book 

• Milkman Delivers, her behavioral science Substack 

• Choiceology, her podcast on how to make better judgments and avoid costly mistakes

• Dr. Milkman’s studies: 

• Dai, H., Milkman, K. L., & Riis, J. (2014). The Fresh Start Effect: Temporal Landmarks Motivate Aspirational Behavior. Management Science, 60(10), 2563–2582.

• Beshears, J., Dai, H., Milkman, K. L., & Benartzi, S. (2021). Using fresh starts to nudge increased retirement savings. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 167, 72–87.

• Milkman, K. L., Minson, J. A., & Volpp, K. G. (2014). Holding the hunger games hostage at the gym: An evaluation of temptation bundling. Management science, 60(2), 283-299.

• Other academic work discussed 

• Nembhard, I. M., & Edmondson, A. C. (2006). Making it safe: the effects of leader inclusiveness and professional status on psychological safety and improvement efforts in health care teams. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 27(7), 941–966. 

• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, by Carol Dweck

• Asch conformity experiments, designed by Solomon Asch

• Petrik, R., Vega, J., & Vindas-Meléndez, A. (2022). A Reflection on Growth Mindset and Meritocracy. Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, 12(1), 408–421. 

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Wired for This is produced and edited by Nwabata Nnani and hosted by Celia Ford. 

Music by Nat Keefe

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