Videos
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How to be Happy: A behavioural science perspective
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Stability and Governance: Navigating the Next Decade
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Paul Dolan: The Secret to Happiness? The Small Stuff | WIRED 2015 | WIRED
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TEDxGlasgow - Conversations worth having - What is the Future of Society?
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Paul Dolan on escaping the myth of the perfect life
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A Decade of Behavioural Science at LSE | LSE Online Event
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A Decade of Behavioural Science at LSE: Part 2 | LSE Online Event
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Grappling with Group Think: How a Smarter State Can Make Better Decisions - featuring Steve Baker MP
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Professor Paul Dolan, speaker showreel.
Learn More About Paul Dolan
With an expertise in happiness, narratives, social class, economics, psychology and polarization, Paul Dolan is a highly sought-after speaker on the science behind human behavior and happiness. With a style that’s straight-talking, accessible, informative, and entertaining, he speaks with personal and professional authority on issues relating to social class and social mobility.
A professor of Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Dolan is the author of the bestselling books, “Happiness by Design” (2015) and “Happy Ever After: Escaping the Myths of the Perfect Life” (2019), and has more than 140 peer-reviewed articles with over 33,000 citations. He is host of the Duck / Rabbit podcast about the polarization problem and the Get Happier audio mini series.
Dolan focuses on how and why we make various choices in our personal lives and in our careers and how we can make better ones. Speaking to Fortune 500 companies and government bodies alike, he outlines how behavioral science can help organizations better achieve their objectives. Named as one of the 100 Most Influential Academics in Government, Dolan is the lead author of “Mindspace: Influencing Behaviour Through Public Policy” published by The Institute for Government, and wrote the questions that are used by the U.K. Office for National Statistics to monitor national wellbeing.
Inspired by the power of checklists, he has developed highly effective mnemonics for three separate but related contexts that lie at the heart of the academic experience and expertise he has developed over the past three decades. Each draws attention to some of the obvious but overlooked “facts” of human behavior and happiness, and will enable you to improve productivity and wellbeing.
Fascinated by the polarization problem and how the challenges of the modern age require that we listen to dissenting voices, Dolan has just finished writing a book on how we can learn to listen to people we disagree with that’s scheduled to be released in 2025.
Paul Dolan is available to advise your organization via virtual and in-person consulting meetings, interactive workshops and customized keynotes through the exclusive representation of Stern Speakers & Advisors, a division of Stern Strategy Group®.
Changing Behavior: How We Can Nudge Consumers, Employees, and Employers to Behave Differently
We act automatically, emotionally and habitually without too much deliberation. This provides myriad opportunities for us to “nudge” people to behave differently without them having to think too hard about it. We can do this at scale, with the potential for big effects from very small changes. When London School of Economics and Political Science professor Paul Dolan was asked to help set up the Behavioral Insights Team in the U.K., he gathered up the most robust ways to influence human behavior into the MINDSPACE checklist. In this session, he outlines his powerful framework:
Messenger – We are heavily influenced by who communicates information to us
Incentives – Our responses to incentives are shaped by predictable mental shortcuts
Norms – We are strongly influenced by what others do
Defaults – We ‘go with the flow’ of pre-set options
Salience – Our attention is drawn to what is novel and seems relevant to us
Priming – Our acts are often influenced by subconscious cues
Affect – Our emotional associations can powerfully shape our actions
Commitments – We seek to be consistent with our public promises, and reciprocate acts
Ego – We act in ways that make us feel better about ourselves
Get Happier: How the Science of Happiness Can Bring Pleasure and Purpose to Life and the Workplace
As consumers and citizens, employees and employers, parents and policymakers, we all want to GET HAPPIER. So, London School of Economics and Political Science professor Paul Dolan created a ten-part podcast mini-series where each episode started with one of the letters of GET HAPPIER as summarized below. In this informative presentation, Dolan can take you and your group through the elements, spending more time on the one(s) that interest you most. He can also consult on how you can embed GET HAPPIER into your organization.
Go – Breaking free from harmful habit loops using effective behavioral science strategies
Evidence – Implementing a more evidence-based approach to your daily life
Tales – Accepting the tales about how we ought to live our lives
Hurdles – Overcoming the behavioral biases that get in the way
Attention – Using tools that can help you pay attention to what matters
Pleasure and purpose – Balancing the two main components of what it means to feel good
Population – How communities underpin our own happiness and how to harness others
Intervention – Using well researched interventions that impact upon happiness
Employment – Understanding the role of work and the workplace in determining happiness
Reflection – Taking a complete perspective on the causes and consequences of happiness
Tolerance by Design: Helping Organizations Channel Diverse Beliefs Into Better Decisions
As human beings, we like to surround ourselves with people who agree with us. Much as you might like to think otherwise, you are inclined towards “beliefism” – discriminating against people who have different beliefs to you. This is inefficient and unfair. Well-functioning societies and the best-performing organizations embrace a wide range of perspectives. Sometimes, shocks to the system are required to break free from group think and to loosen the grip of vested interests. In this eye-opening presentation, London School of Economics and Political Science professor Paul Dolan outlines his new evidence-based EMBRACE framework which will help your organization account for a wider range of perspectives in its decision-making.
Environment: we need to emphasize situational factors
Mistakes: we need to be allowed to make mistakes and to learn from them
Bonding: we need to remember that we are similar in so many ways
Reason: we need better evidence and more coherent narratives
Affect: we need to improve our emotional reactions to perspectives and people
Collection: we need a diversity of people and perspectives in decision-making
Exposure: We need to spend more time with people who disagree with us
