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Highlights

Ashoka University Online Exclusive

Uniquely Crafted – First in India

Live Learning & Real-World Projects

Senior Professional Peer Cohort

Few spots left – last week of applications
Details


Total Weekly Commitment: 6 – 8 hours

Tuesdays and Thursdays: 6:00 – 7:30 PM
Saturdays: Discussions & Guest Seminars
Session recordings available to all selected
Why take this course?
From public policy to advertising and digital media, there is a rapidly growing demand and value for organizations to use Behavioural Science to design solutions and solve complex challenges. But :
- How and where are Behavioural Science insights applied?
- What are the frameworks for assessing and implementing interventions?
- How do you invent a “nudge” and design solutions for complex problems?
This unique programme will equip you with a toolkit of scope, theory and implementation to provide you with the “know-how” for applying behavioural science for both personal development and in your professional role.
Taught by behavioural science specialists at the Centre of Social and Behavioural Change, who work at the forefront of behavioural change interventions for positive impact, this programme is specially designed for working professionals across industries.

Anchor Faculty

Pavan Mamidi
Director, CSBC
Ph. D. University of Oxford

Sanna Balsari-Palsule
Asst. Professor, Ashoka University
Ph. D. University of Cambridge

Shagata Mukherjee
Lead, NITI Aayog Behavioural Insights Unit
Ph. D. Georgia State University
Guest Faculty

Sharon Barnhardt
Director-Research, CSBC

Pooja Haldea
Senior Advisor, CSBC

Sneha Shashidhara
Senior Research Consultant, CSBC

Diksha Radhakrishnan
Deputy Director, CSBC

Purnima Mehrotra
Leads Measurement & Learning Vertical, CSBC

Gautam Patel
Lead, State BIUs & Deputy Director, CSBC
What You’ll Take from this Course
Latest frameworks and theories from Behavioural Economics, Social Psychology and Neuroscience
Hands-On skills to apply Behavioural Insights to Drive Change
Real-World experience working with Behavioural Scientists and Policy Leaders on Live Projects
Leading perspectives on "Nudging" and "Nudge-Based" Techniques
The most effective tools to Design, Implement & Assess interventions and change.
You should take this Course if
You are a Mid to Senior Professional Leader keen to apply the latest Behavioural Science tools and techniques to make better connections.
You engage directly with consumers and brands either as a marketer, advertiser, a brand in-charge or a communication executive.
You are a community and/or institution builder working in policy, academia or individual or societal change in any form.
You design user interactions, products or experiences in retail, consumer applications, media or marketplaces.
- Psychology
- Law
- Marketing
- Criminology
- UI/UX Design
- Business Development
- Public Policy
- Modern Medicine
- Personality Coaching
Programme Schedule
Tuesdays, Thursdays – Live Coursework with Anchor Faculty
Saturdays/Sundays – Guest Speaker Presentations and Discussion Sections
Programme Structure
This programme takes a unique approach to the application of behavioural science. Divided into two modules of roughly 6 weeks each, students will be introduced to the precepts and applications of behavioural science beginning with themselves, all the way to society at large. As part of the course, a 5-part specialisation seminar series is also offered to take a closer look at narratives and how they become instruments of behaviour change.
Course Modules
Module 1. How to Change Your Life – Nudging Yourself
The first part of the programme trains you in the application of behavioural science to your own lives. From strengthening your interpersonal skills, to tackling biases, these eight modules translate key theories and frameworks from behavioural science, behavioural economics, neuroscience and social psychology into practical “action strategies” and exercises to practice and incorporate into your daily life.
1. How to craft your goals
- The power of your personal projects
- Aligning your personal projects to your actions
- Strategies for achieving your goals and personal projects
2. How to build habits and stick to them
- The power of elastic habits
- The science of habit formation
- Strategies for building good habits (and doing away with the bad ones)
3. How to outsmart biases
- Exploring a balanced decision-making potential
- The science of unconscious biases and their effect
- Discover your approach and design your own decision architecture
- De-biasing techniques – the impact of micro decision
4. How to manage your emotions
- Faking emotions at work and avoiding burnout
- The power of multiple selves
- Strategies for exercising your emotion muscle
5. How to change your personality
- How personality shapes your life and why change is possible
- Building restorative niches for your well-being
- Strategies for changing your personality
6. How to tell your story
- The role of self-authoring and the narratives shaping our lives
- The power of effective communication
- Strategies that change the way you tell your story
7. How to navigate conflict
- The science of persuasion and conflict resolution
- The importance of tolerance for ambiguity
- Strategies for conflict resolution
Module 2. How to Change Someone Else’ Life – Nudging Others
The second module turns the lens outwards and combines empirical research with real-life case studies from the Centre of Social Behavioural Change. By the end of these eight modules, learners will be adept and equipped with the tools to adopt a behavioural lens, apply frameworks and design and evaluate successful interventions (and even build a nudge unit!) .
1. How to change behaviour
- The power of formal institutions – laws
- The power of informal institutions – social norms
- Nudges/Choice Architecture
2. How to run experiments
- Iconic experiments in science
- Causation
- Behavioural Experiments
- Observational Methods
- Field experiments
3. How to conduct ethnographic research
- Ethnography
- Talking to people
- Picking up barriers to change
- Picking up enablers of change
4. How to design for social norms
- What are social norms?
- Can norms be changed in a short duration?
- How does one measure and study norms?
- Norm nudging
5. How to run digital campaigns and strategies
- Role of social media in social change
- Building a behavioural change campaign for digital world
- Mapping different digital platforms
- Building a community based change strategy
6. How to create stories for change
- Behavioural economics and Narratives
- Edutainment
- Fragmented attention, and Tik Tok messages
- Storytelling, cartoons, songs, and music
7. How to apply behavioural science at the bottom of the pyramid
- Health
- Financial Inclusion
- Gender
- Ethnicity and Caste
8. How to invent nudges
- Case studies of iconic nudges
- Processes of invention
- User innovation
- Boring but effective versus Interesting and Ineffective
9. How to build a Nudge Unit
- Types of people in a Nudge Unit
- Building a team to do ethnography
- Building a behavioural lab
- What does it take to do advocacy, and scale up?
10. How to be an ethical nudger
- Trolley problem – Utilitarianism and Rights
- Libertarian Paternalism – the contradiction
- The price of autonomy
- Deception in nudging
- What does the law say about nudging?
Specialisation Seminar Series: Constructing Stories for Behaviour Change
This 5-part seminar series lends a shared platform to speakers from scientific and creative perspectives to jointly explore how to construct compelling narratives and leverage them for behaviour change. These diverse perspectives will enable conversations and spark ideas that narrow the gap between rigorous theory and pragmatic application.
The seminar series inspires telling your own story more effectively (“Nudge Yourself”), as well as leveraging the power of narratives for behaviour change (“Nudge Others”). At the end of the 5-part series, we hope to leave learners with a deep understanding of ways to construct narratives that can lead to behaviour change.
1. Understanding the power of narratives
- Influence of narratives on attitudes and behaviours
- Underlying mechanisms that lend power to narratives
- How stories can be leveraged in an attention-scarce world
2. Humour, drama or sci-fi: How do you pick the right tonality for your story?
- The influence of varying tonality on audience perceptions
- How to choose the right narrative “mood” for different communication goals
3. Creating memorable characters to tell your story
- How audiences interact with narrative characters
- The influence of characters’ personalities and arcs on audience perceptions
- Strategies to build strong characters
4. Blurring lines between the story and its platform of delivery
- The influence of various mediums of storytelling and its impact on audience perceptions
5. Educating while Entertaining
- The impact of differing education:entertainment ratios in edutainment and its implications on audience perceptions
Application and Selection
● Submit your application with basic details and a short Statement of Purpose
● Each Application is carefully reviewed by a faculty committee of the CSBC
● The programme is a limited, exclusive offering and admission will be offered to selected candidates only
For more information , schedule a call with an enrollment representative.