Beyond self-help: World Bank examines behavioral science & development

Insights in behavioral science can lead to more than helping us stick to our New Year’s Resolutions!

In early December, the World Bank released its annual World Development Report. Every year they choose a different theme, and the theme this time is “Mind, Society and Behavior”.  After acknowledging that people do not always make rational choices, they present a three-part framework for ‘an expanded understanding of human behavior for economic development.’ The three core ideas – thinking automatically, thinking socially and thinking with mental models – will be familiar to anyone who’s read anything by Daniel Kahneman of Thinking Fast and Slow fame (and his work is extensively cited). In fact these ideas can be found in many recent self-help books.

World Bank Report Infographic

What’s new and exciting is the broad application of these psychological and social science findings to challenges in international development, with many real-life case studies (stories!) from policies on poverty, child development, household finance and even climate change. (The public health community has been working with evidence-based behavior change principles for many years, see the work of Alive & Thrive on breastfeeding for just one example.)

Another remarkable thing about this report is the recognition that the Bank’s own staff make assumptions and have biases that can compromise the success of their work. The final third of the report is on “improving the work of development professionals!"

How does this apply to our challenges in communicating about agriculture, food and nutrition issues? 

I believe many of us, especially those of us with science backgrounds, make assumptions similar to those made by World Bank economists. When we prepare a report, make a presentation or go to stakeholders seeking support for our program, research or policy, too often, we believe that our audience will consider all available information and carefully weigh choices, before reaching a conclusion as an individual. In fact, people rarely form opinions or develop positions that way. 

Interestingly, Paul Slovic, originator of important theories about risk perception, is also cited numerous times, including in the opening paragraphs of the World Bank’s Report. His theories underpin the principles and best practices of ‘Risk communication’, for use in situations where trust is low and concern is high. I and others have been teaching these tools in training courses and applying it in our work for years.  

I believe that combining proven risk communication practices with new insights about how people really make decisions can lead to new levels of understanding and support for agriculture, food and nutrition.  

But we have to start where the World Bank has: by recognizing biases in those we serve, those whose support we need, and in ourselves. 

Jill Kuehnert

You won’t believe how I chose this headline! Tips on viral content from the people who convince you to click on cat videos

A recent New Yorker article touches on incentives and dynamics that seem to work against creating viral internet content for the greater good, development and social change. 

The January 5 issue of the New Yorker includes a profile of a young man whose life work, so far,  is to create viral content on the internet (“The Virologist: How a young entrepreneur built an empire by repackaging memes” by Andrew Marantz).  Who wouldn't love to see their content to drawing more attention to our causes in international development?

Emerson Spartz has started up several sites that gather, package and promote those funny lists and videos that our friends share on Facebook – and make lots of money from advertising on the sites when people click to view. 

Spartz’s success at capturing attention and leading people to his websites is driven by a lot of data analysis, including ‘headline testing’. This is the common practice of posting articles under different headlines, and then measuring which headline leads people to click the most.  Proprietary algorithms are involved. Once a ‘winner’ is identified, it becomes the headline for all of the posts.  It sounds like evidence-based communications practice to me!

[I don't know how long it took the good people at Upworthy to come up with this headline, but it makes me giggle every time: His Way Of Looking At Genetically Modified Food Will Make You Go WTF At First And Then — WHOA !!]

Unfortunately, most people in this business don't seem to think much about how to use their capabilities to impact social issues, or respect the original good intentions behind some of the content they ‘recycle’. 

A few months ago, a collection of pictures of families from around the world, posed in their kitchens with what they eat in a week, went viral from one of these sites.  Maybe some people expanded their awareness of global food cultures, which would be a good thing. But the photographers didn’t get any credit or share of the advertising revenue generated – which could have gone to supporting more creative work.  

That’s not cool. And yet, as discussed last week at a conference on science communication, we can hardly complain if we ourselves do not use data and evidence-based tools to get our work out there. 

About half-way through the article, Spartz outlines the model he would use if he were interested in making a difference :

… “If I were running a more hard-news-oriented media company and I wanted to inform people about Uganda, first, I would look it up and find out exactly what’s going on there. Then I would find a few really poignant images or story lines, ones that create a lot of resonant emotion, and I would make those into a short video—under three minutes—with clear, simple words and statistics. Short, declarative sentences. And at the end I’d give people something they can do, something to feel hopeful about.”

He makes it sound pretty easy.  Maybe we can make some progress, one headline at a time.

Jill Kuehnert

4 provocative ideas on scientific communication

Living in Singapore for the past 10+ years, I’m happy to skip winter, but sometimes I really hate that the distance keeps me from participating in interesting and important events in other places. 

Yesterday was one of those days, as the National Research Council’s Roundtable on Public Interfaces of Life Sciences began a 2-day workshop ‘to explore what is known about successful models in scientific engagement with the public.’ 

The workshop focus is on genetically modified organisms (GMOs), a topic I’ve worked on throughout my career, as I’ve helped plan strategic communications and equip scientists to interact with the public more effectively on these often controversial issues. The speakers are some of the most thoughtful in the science of science communications, a topic that fascinates me. One of the organizers is Sarah Davidson Evanega of Cornell University’s new Alliance forScience movement, which has blossomed over the past year. 

Happily, the event was webcast live. Trying to ignore the 13 hour time difference, I snuggled up with my Ipad for the morning plenary, only throwing in the towel after midnight when they broke for lunch. 

I’m a ‘cognitive miser’ that can’t listen and tweet at the same time, so here are four of the ideas I found most provocative:

• There is evidence that neither the knowledge deficit model nor the public engagement model for science communication really works. All four of the morning’s speakers challenged conventional assumptions about lack of information or trust as primary causes of unscientific views and behaviors in the public. Dietram Scheufele proposed a political communication model that recognizes the socio-political context and mediated nature of science communications.  William Hallman presented “ecolacy” as a necessary skill for science communicators to have, in addition to literacy, graphicacy and numeracy.

• A ‘polluted scientific communication environment,’ according to Dan Kahan, is when political affiliation dictates viewpoints on scientific topics, like climate change in the US. Strong interest in identifying with the group makes members susceptible to what Dan Kahan calls ‘opportunistic misinformers.’ But he argued that the scientific communication environment in the US isn’t politically polluted on all topics, using interesting examples around vaccinations.

• Kahan also passionately warned against what he calls ‘evidence-free feral risk communications’ as a threat to public health. Those of us engaged in science communications create polarization ourselves when we neglect the significant body of work on evidence-based science communications, he said.  As one who has studied, used and taught the theories and practice of rigorous risk communications for years, I was happy to hear this exhortation! The science behind science communication is far too little known and applied.

• Science is politicized and we must consciously conduct our communications with that in mind. Roger Pielke,Jr. offered a useful definition of politics as bargaining, negotiation and compromise in pursuit of a desired thing -- and science should of course be used for desired ends in society. Issues of science policy (decisions to be made) are ‘wicked’ because they involve uncertainty and conflicting values, and trying to pretend they are ‘tame’ only leads to stealth advocacy and hurts our credibility. If we want to swim, we’re going to have to get wet, he said!

How do these ideas apply to challenges in communicating about agriculture technology, especially GMOs? The afternoon session seemed designed to delve into that more specifically, and I’m looking forward hearing insights from others on that. For now, my top questions are these:

Are the new models robust enough to begin using them now to equip scientists and others in practical ways to interact with the public more effectively? 

What about the rest of the world, beyond the US (and Europe)? Are the socio-political dynamics of science communication similar enough in other countries to apply these new ideas? 

UPDATE (28 January):  It looks like videos of all sessions of the NAS Roundtable are now on YouTube!

Jill Kuehnert

Four Foundations for Ag Communications and Advocacy

Last week I had the pleasure of working with colleagues from agriculture-related research institutes, civil society and industry as they gathered in Indonesia and Vietnam to learn about more about communications, advocacy and issues management. 

My session focused on the lessons I’ve learned from participating in agriculture communications and advocacy over the past ten years here in Asia. I believe that planning and implementation in four strategic areas can help teams achieve their goals for improving agriculture and food security, while navigating issues that inevitably arise. 

1.       Messages. As scientists, advocates and businesses involved in agriculture, we often focus our communication messages on describing our work in complete detail. I believe that it’s more important for agriculture communicators to frame messages around a story, one that starts with the human need behind the policy, research or product. When we jump right into describing our own work, we skip over the farmer, the consumer or the environmental impact leading us to do it in the first place. The story that stakeholders will be interested in hearing is one with a vivid need, a compelling potential solution, and a well-considered path to making it reality.

2.       Questions. The second core component of good communications strategy is being prepared to answer questions and address concerns. Risk communication theory says that the vast majority questions have been asked before or can be predicted based on what we know about our issues. Yet we often rely on our general knowledge and ability to think on our feet to quickly come up with the right answer to tricky questions. Spending time to gather questions and prepare answers (with partners if we are collaborating) is time well spent. When a topic is complicated, having our knowledge well-organized in advance helps us respond with empathy and care.

3.       Allies. All agriculture projects, businesses and research initiatives need to be supported by stakeholders. We often ‘sing to the choir’ when we talk to people who are already familiar with our issues, or are even working in the same areas. However, communications only becomes effective advocacy when we share our knowledge and our values with potential allies in fields related to ours. I encourage colleagues to take every opportunity to understand the programs and priorities of others and talk to them about our own work. When an issue arises, we can then connect with stakeholders who know us, rather than introducing ourselves in a moment of crisis.

4.       Issues and urgent situations. Despite our best plans, things go awry. To improve our chances of successfully managing potential issues, we should identify areas of vulnerability and make plans to manage the worst-case scenarios. Intense consultation with team members closest to our weak areas is vital. Building standard operating procedures or a checklist system can help those on the front line to focus on priority actions such as ensuring safety and gathering and sharing information to help manage the issue. 

It’s my belief that thoughtful and thorough preparation in each of these four areas will benefit the research, projects and businesses we support, especially when issues arise. I see exciting progress ahead for agriculture, farmers, consumers and the environment here in Asia – and it starts with sharing a story.

Finally, I'm very grateful to the good people at v-Fluence who invited me to take part in the workshops last week.  Combining decades of practical experience, a vast network and up-to-the-minute intelligence on agriculture issues, their team is without peer in this space and it was an honor to work with them.

From left: S. Johnson & J. Byrne from v-Fluence, and me! (Jill Kuehnert)

What I learned from the podcast: You Are Not So Smart on The New Science Communicators

Host David McRaney begins this episode of his very excellent You Are Not So Smart podcast by reminiscing about Carl Sagan, David Attenborough, James Burke, Mr. Wizard and Bill Nye the Science Guy. Decades ago, when some of us were kids, the popularity of these entertaining and educational shows made a big contribution to science education beyond what we got in school.

McRaney reckons high returns from reality television programming then got in the way, and these shows all but disappeared or lost out to ones about exploding things. The only bright note on television, and it is a big one, is the recent reappearance of Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson. At this point I had to pause the podcast to meet a colleague for lunch, wincing a bit over the passing of this golden age of television science.

But when I picked it up again, McRaney’s story became more encouraging as he described a new generation of science communicators who have gained huge audiences through podcasts and video episodes on YouTube. The average audience of Game of Thrones is 7 million people, and the new Cosmos holds its own with an audience of 6 million (if I wrote the numbers down right). According to McRaney most YouTube channels get about the same amount of viewers, or more.

For example, there are 7.5 million subscribers to the Vsauce YouTube channels, and their video on what would happen if everyone earth jumped at the same time has over 13 million views! They passed a milestone in June: one billion views across the entire video series.

McRaney’s guest on the podcast is Joe Hanson from the blog and PBS-sponsored YouTube channel, It’s Okay To Be Smart. Hanson says there have always been curious and intelligent people who think science is fun and want to know more. It’s just that now we can follow our curiosity via podcasts and YouTube programs that circumvent the old gatekeepers: TV producers.

McRaney’s entire conversation with Hanson is well worth the listen. Their discussion ranges from critiques of pop science based on trivia (‘the science of farts’!), to the need to elicit emotional responses in science communication, to the importance of connecting science with meaning. They also talk about why it’s important for people to like the person who’s talking to them about science and what story-telling does for science communication that documentaries can’t.

Their conversation about scientific literacy and ideology was particularly interesting -- making a distinction between folks’ understanding of how scientists view a topic and their acceptance of that as truth. The answers can be a political litmus test on either side. (For more on this topic, I recommend this essay about the importance of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s public statements on GM technology.)

Not only have I found myself talking nonstop about everything I learned from this podcast to anyone who will listen, I’ve also been wondering how this trend applies to those of us with an interest in communicating better about the science around agriculture, food and nutrition. 

Most of the YouTube or video content on agriculture, food and nutrition consists of advocacy pieces produced, hosted and promoted directly by interested parties. There’s not a lot on the science itself.

These new general science videos seem to skew toward engineering, physics, animal or medical sciences. I was able to easily find only a few on topics related to plant science or agriculture. Scishow has episode about bananas which describes how they are cultivated and efforts to combat plant diseases. They also have one on changes in honeybee population (colony collapse disorder), including potential links to agriculture production methods. The Crash Course channel has an episode on the agricultural revolution. But that's as far as it goes, for now.

Maybe we are not so smart!

Book Report: What I learned from Lead with a Story

Lead with a Story: a guide to crafting business narratives that captivate, convince and inspire

by Paul Smith 

2012, AMACOM

I sat down to read Lead with a Story early last week, armed with a pad of blue sticky notes. When I finished it a few days later, the book was stuffed with blue -- quotes, key points, book recommendations and ideas for my own stories that were prompted while I read. Although this book is geared toward communicators and leaders in the business world, I believe it is broadly useful to communicators of all sorts, on at least three levels.

First, Lead with a Story is organized around different types of business situations that can be helped by storytelling.  Smith explains why ‘corporate storytelling’ can bring bolster achievement, motivation, teamwork, and personal development. At this level, the book will be very helpful for leaders and others involved in organizational development (I thought of my sister, the human resources exec) in almost any aspect of ‘people management’ -- ranging from setting a vision, to valuing diversity, to providing coaching and feedback. In the chapter “Set policy without rules,” for example, Smith advises: 

“The main way people learn the rules is through the stories they hear about other people – those who broke the rules and suffered the consequences, and those who didn’t and got rewarded. So in addition to your legally required policy manual, what you need are some good stories.”

Second, Smith builds his case for the usefulness of stories by incorporating into each chapter a number of specific stories that have been used successfully by others in working through business challenges. In the chapter on rules, there are four different stories: how monkeys learn behavior and keep following it, employees who posed as trainees to get free lunches, how a new CFO handled long-term financial misstatements and what happens when expense approvals get out of hand. There’s a helpful index in the back to make it easy for readers to use these same stories in their own work right away.

Finally, the ‘how-to’ chapters in this book are very good. They help the reader to understand what makes a story a story, the important elements, why a story should usually be told in a particular order, and stylistic recommendations to help stories be as powerful as they can be. The final chapter includes excellent questions to prompt discovery of stories from my own experience and those around me.

My favorite of the “how-to” chapters is the one about appealing to emotion. A lot of my work is with scientists of one sort or another, people who are very data-oriented and find it difficult to bring this into their presentations and interactions with people.  So I loved hearing that emotion is a defining element of story. As Smith says:

"If you don’t generate an emotional reaction in your audience, you haven't told a story. It might be a good memo, or perhaps a case study. But it's not a story. "

I also liked the discussion of engaging the audience into the story through ‘teachable moments’ or demonstrations. My personal favorite example of this (not in the book) comes from the first 5 minutes of Bill Gates’ 2009 TED talk on malaria. I’m not going to give it away – go watch it for yourself!

I was pleased to see references to other storytelling teachers that I admire and whose books I've been recommending for years, including Chip & Dan Heath, Annette Simmons, and Stephen Denning. I made a list of others to seek out based on the wisdom that Paul pulled from them for this book, including Language of Success by Tom Sant and Elements of Persuasion by Richard Maxwell and Robert Dickman. 

So stay tuned for more book reports!