PB400 Advances in Psychological and Behavioural Science

Giving first session in a new course for all MSc and upper UG students. Posting for network in particular alumni who might be interested and have suggestions. Course revives a format that existed in one form or another for a very long time, a general overview driven by faculty debates. Will be called Pb400 Advances in Psychological and Behavioural Science. Driven partly by areas of interest and concentration in Department. Moderated faculty discussions with interactive elements with students. Pre-readings and various ways to accumulate and disseminate interesting ideas throughout the term, with at least some eye on dissertations and career ideas. Students encouraged to engage across programmes. 

Will begin with "Overview and Debates in Psychological and Behavioural Science" namely a history of psychology and behavioural science at LSE in the context of the wider fields and the key questions addressed. Aim to welcome students into communities of knowledge and stimulate thinking about role of what we do. 

• Overview and debates in psychological and behavioural science
• The future and past of social psychology
• What makes a technology conversational? From conversation analysis to industry
• Can AI interpret? Artificial intelligence and large-scale qualitative research
• Between individual and system change: What is the role of psychology and the behavioural sciences in addressing climate change?
• Social influence: What do we know, and does it work?
• What is truly human? AI and the boundaries of authenticity
• Leadership for a sustainable future
• From nostalgia to utopia: A societal approach to imagining collective futures
• End-of-term review: Where next for psychological and behavioural science?

Alumni from pre-covid may remember and hopefully have good memories of a recent iteration of this course. In general, suggestions welcome for topics and themes likely to lead to a high desire for further exploration and inspiration for the time people spend here. We are clearly not trying to span everything. But to give sufficient sense of psychology and behavioural science as vast, dynamic, aspects of human creation intellectually and practically at heart of many evolving existential areas of concern for 21st century.

From Nexus to the Tower of Babel: On Truly Human Psychology in the Dawn of AI

This is a very stimulating (open access) paper from Dario Krpan a highly original thinker "From Nexus to the Tower of Babel: On Truly Human Psychology in the Dawn of AI". Caution against the rush to create a vast data-driven form of psychology that, among other things, renders humanity vulnerable to AI-controlled systems. On a vision for psychology and many other forms of human knowledge endeavor that "emphasizes unique personal experience, introspection, and creative expression". Paper goes through many considerations in the development of universal knowledge in psychology in the age of AI. "I propose both a radical version of this psychology, which resists universal frameworks entirely, and a pluralistic version that integrates uniquely human ways of knowing alongside psychology’s dominant natural science traditions. I conclude that embracing Babel need not mean abandoning the question of universality; paradoxically, it may provide a more fruitful path for exploring that possibility."

Academic Policy Interactions in UK Behavioural Science

Spoke at a panel today on academic-policy interactions in behavioural science as part of an excellent event for UK policymakers organised by HMRC behavioural insights and trials team and hosted by School for Government at King's College London. From my side (and also excellently articulated by Professor Brooke Rogers), behavioural science in government is not new and did not start with the behavioural insights team. But the energy of that period and the work of those colleagues was a major source of acceleration of the idea of behavioural research being embedded into public policy and regulation. There has been huge progress in the depth and quality of the information, and in my view there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic about the quality of the field going forward nationally and globally, particularly as there are far more people trained in the area, more solid expectations about can be achieved by a behavioural evidence function, and more people working directly in public policy who have awareness of the type of work that can be done and capacity to co-ordinate such work. The behavioural dimensions of issues like climate, financial instability, conflict, AI are all vast and as daunting as they are, it is still exciting to see emerging generations of people working on these areas, and bringing new ideas. Many other speakers at the conference spoke or will speak about challenges and points of optimism in these spaces. I could not stay for all talks due to teaching commitment here. But look forward to talking through many of these issues throughout this year and to participate and contribute to more events bringing together research and policy. (h/t Martha Férez for photo).

Post HOD Life and Work

First week in a long time not being a department head. It is a very interesting part of the journey. Outside academic life, there is plenty filling the admin stress void at the moment, but this still feels like a fresh departure and I have more brain cells to spare for conceptual work.

I am allowed to take some research sabbatical after a fairly lengthy administrative run, but am delaying it as I want to have one “normal” year and just inhabit what I am doing here. In particular, I want to spend a lot of time talking to students, colleagues and external people about ideas in these areas.

Using LinkedIn to keep people in my network aware of some things we are working on, by necessity through very top-level and incomplete summaries:

Currently finalising a new course for all PBS MSc and final-year undergraduate students, driven by faculty-led debates on key topics in psychology and behavioural science. Also revamping elements of my Foundations in Behavioural Science course to keep up with a fast-moving field. Open to all sorts of discussions on these!

Working with a really great team to develop the next step of our behavioural science FORGOOD initiative. Some excellent milestones reached, with more to announce soon.

Alongside membership of the Irish Climate Change Advisory Council, I have joined the UNEP Climate and Clean Air Coalition’s Technology and Economic Assessment Panel, with a particular focus on building behavioural science capacities into projects addressing methane and other short-lived climate pollutants.

Completing the programme for this year’s Behavioural Science and the Wider World series.

Continuing to direct the MSc in Behavioural Science, including a new specialism in AI designed by Dario Krpan. Our alumni network is now very extensive, and we will be doing more to understand what people are doing.

We will also shortly hold the first meetings of a new research group on economic psychology and behavioural public administration. This will bring together colleagues, external collaborators, students and early career researchers to study the economic psychological underpinnings of a range of key public administration questions. Some interesting specific projects are taking shape. At a broader level, the contribution economic psychology can make to the type of behavioural science emerging in public policy is something I find fascinating to read and think about.

We have received the first bits of funding, not easy at the moment, for various projects, and some really strong early career researchers are starting to come on board.

I will post more on the substantive aspects of what we are doing, as well as various talks and panels I am involved in. Very happy to talk to anyone around any of these.

Research Group Concept

Economic Psychology and Behavioural Public Administration Group

Led by Professor Liam Delaney, the group brings together economic psychology and behavioural public administration to study how people experience complex administrative environments. The group investigates underlying mental states in administrative environments, using methods such as the day reconstruction method and experience sampling to capture experience as it unfolds. Applications span both public-sector settings, including return-to-employment systems, long-term care, and environmental behaviour, and private-sector ones such as retail investment and debt servicing, reflecting economic psychology's long tradition of engaging real world institutions and policy actors. Two dedicated initiatives bring the work to policy and industry. "Wider World" translates research into public policy through workshops, toolkits, and engagement with policy actors, while also examining, reflexively, how behavioural science ought to be applied. FORGOOD, an ethical behavioural science initiative, applies research from the group to industry. The group is staffed by affiliated researchers from within LSE and visiting colleagues from outside it, partners in policy and industry, and students at every level, from MSc dissertation students to undergraduate apprentices, to affiliated PhD students based primarily in the department.

Some illustrative papers: The papers below give some sense of the interplay of economic psychology, naturalistic methods, and ethical analysis, as well as application to administrative questions. 

Bachmann, R., Gleibs, I. H., & Delaney, L. (2026). Social identity and capital income: A social psychological approach to identity economics using UK household data. British Journal of Social Psychology, 65, e70025

Lades, L. K., Zawojska, E., Johnston, R. J., Hanley, N., Delaney, L., and Czajkowski, M. (2025). Anomalies or expected behaviors? Understanding stated preferences and welfare implications in light of contemporary behavioral economics. Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 19(1), 48–68.

Lades, L. K., & Delaney, L. (2024). Self-control failures, as judged by themselves. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 11(1), Article 1351, 1–14.

Martin, L., Delaney, L., & Doyle, O. (2024). Everyday administrative burdens and inequality. Public Administration Review, 84(4), 660–673.

Laffan, K., Lades, L. K., & Delaney, L. (2023). Paths that lead astray: Examining the situational predictors of intention-behaviour gaps in meat consumption. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 89, Article 102045.

Arulsamy, K., & Delaney, L. (2022). The impact of automatic enrolment on the mental health gap in pension participation: Evidence from the UK. Journal of Health Economics, 86, Article 102673

Lades, L. K., & Delaney, L. (2022). Nudge FORGOOD. Behavioural Public Policy, 6(1), 75–94.

Brief Thoughts on FirstGen Student Issues

I have thought a lot about first generation students and those becoming leaders in various ways. More generally coming from a background where university education is not a norm creates different context factors. Cash and liquidity constraints shape the incentives and experience in a big way, something I have always and maybe sometimes crudely (or so I have been told) put up front when speaking to people about academic careers. I don't experience it as a moral issue primarily even though it is at some level, but it is a fact that some students and early career academics simply won't have those constraints as a dominant part of their experience whereas for others they will be foremost and it is important to understand that. Culture and the hidden curriculum also obviously matters. Personally getting older It has been good to try to fit in less to the cultural expectations of universities and I think they are loosening a bit anyway over time. But again it is obvious that the cultural aspects of universities are just an extension of school and family for some but a distinct and sometimes threatening structural break for others. It is also clearly the case that for given levels of any measurable ability students differ drastically in their earnings anchors and implicit networks. Some use the university itself to create their networks, others have access to family and wider social networks that the university basically complements. There is a lot of good work in the system on widening participation, mentoring, etc., I'm not confident I have anything to add to it but it has been interesting to speak to some others who have come through the university system and into various types of careers. It was also one of the highlights of my job in last few years to work with one of our donors to offer scholarships on our programmes. Have been thinking a lot about the second half of life and work in that space. More to follow.