Going into a full-blown behavioural science process is not always feasible for teams. In fact, it is not always necessarily advisable. A good first step is to review current systems and processes through a behavioural lens first. But what does it mean to ‘apply a behavioural lens’? What does that look like in practice? And how can you help your team do it well?

Applying a behavioural lens is not about adding a behavioural checklist to your next project. It’s about changing how your team sees problems and designs solutions, shifting from what we want people to do to why people do what they do.

Success in applying behavioural starts with the mindsets your organisation cultivates. Below are five that can help you make a great start.

When a social media influencer shares a conspiracy theory, it’s frustrating. But when the misinformation comes from a figure of authority (e.g. a health minister, a CEO, a political leader) it’s something else entirely.

People tend to place greater trust in those with status, titles, or expertise. That trust is a heuristic that saves us from having to fact-check everything ourselves. But it also creates risk. When those in power spread misinformation, the falsehood carries the weight of credibility and can quickly cascade across communities, institutions, and even countries.

So how do we push back when the messenger is as powerful as the message?

If you work in global development, you’ve probably heard people throw around terms like Applied Behavioural Science, Social and Behaviour Change (SBC), and Behavioural Insights (BI). They all sound similar because they are: each draws on how people make decisions and behave.
But they come from different traditions, use different toolkits, and are useful in different ways. As someone who helps social impact organisations apply social and behavioural science in their projects, I see a lot of confusion about the labels. This piece is a practical guide to what each means, how they overlap, and how you can use them alone or together to make programmes more effective.

So far this year, I’ve worked with five different teams on projects ranging from social protection to making nightlife safer. A large portion of my work involves supporting teams in understanding how they can pragmatically apply a social and behavioural science lens to their work. Having always been drawn to psychology and understanding how people are ‘put together’, it still comes as a surprise to me when I encounter people who haven’t really engaged with concepts like understanding behavioural barriers, systems thinking, applying a behavioural design lens or even the socio-ecological model. Because I look at everything through a behavioural science lens, I can’t process how people work without it.

When we run a workshop, what are we really trying to achieve? Sure, we might want to pass on information, “raise awareness” or introduce a new tool. But if we zoom out a little, the real goal is simple: we want people to do things differently afterwards. Whether it’s adopting a new process, shifting their mindset or improving a skill, we’re in the business of behaviour change.

Looking at workshop facilitation through a behavioural science lens can make a real difference.

Here are a few techniques that can help you design and deliver workshops that stick, while keeping things dynamic, responsive, and fun.

About a year ago, I wrapped up a project that involved a deep dive into social and behaviour change (SBC) frameworks being used across the international development space. At the time, we were trying to make sense of all the different approaches floating around: some old, some new, many rebranded, and almost all claiming to be “evidence-based.” The goal was to build a clearer picture of what was actually out there, how these frameworks were being used, and whether they were truly grounded in behavioural science.