What doctors and behavioral scientists have in common

What doctors and behavioral scientists have in common

When I’m feeling particularly fanciful, I like to think of myself as a less charming House M.D.

Instead of staring into a Macbook and going through graphs in Tableau or Mixpanel, I imagine I’m looking at the charts of a particularly challenging patient—trying to figure out what’s *really* going on.

While you may think this is a strange comparison, the job of an applied behavioral scientist is more doctor-like than you’d think.

On many projects, it’s our job to make a proper diagnosis of the behavioral problem and then determine the most effective intervention.

The same way doctors have a standard approach to assessing a patient, we have a standard way of assessing a behavior-change problem:

  • Take the vitals (collect & look at the numbers)
  • Observe the patient (ethnography / customer observation)
  • Ask some questions (customer interviewing)
  • Develop hypotheses (based on an understanding of the science & past experience)
  • Prescribe a probable solution
  • Observe results
  • Repeat the process if the problem isn’t resolved

Like a challenging patient, some particularly stubborn behavior problems may require a few rounds of treatment (and sometimes major surgery); but that’s the iterative nature of the diagnostic process.

So the next time you’re working on figuring out a really tricky behavior problem, sit down, close your eyes, and channel your inner House. The patient will thank you for it.

Best,

Jason 

Featured Articles

Hooked How To Form Habit Forming Products Is Wrong

Hooked: How to Build Habit Forming Products Is Wrong

Read Article →
Behavioral Science Consultancy: Why you probably shouldn’t hire one

Behavioral Science Consultancy: Why you probably shouldn’t hire one

Read Article →
​Here's Why the Loop is Stupid

​Here’s Why the Loop is Stupid

Read Article →
The death of behavioral economics

The Death Of Behavioral Economics

Read Article →