My main day job at the moment is still as head of the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science at LSE. I am five years into a two three-year term of six years. When I started I was struck by how many Department heads in UK universities could tell you how many days they had left in the role and it is still noticeable how quickly some colleagues deteriorate in general sense of calm and cheer when they take on the role at first. I found the first year very tough (newish multi-group Department, learning the ropes at a new place, changing city, covid etc.,) and it has been ok since with some genuine highs in being part of building a very interesting Department in a very vibrant university. I also teach across our undergraduate, postgraduate, and executive education programmes, including co-directing and delivering the foundations course with Chris Krekel on our MSc in Behavioural Science. One aspect of the role I have enjoyed is really deep diving into how to develop different aspects of behavioural science education and we have done quite a few things as a group including developing new student journals, policy simulations, advanced policy seminar formats etc., Certainly won't attempt a lessons learned piece at this stage but for the most part once you deeply realise you could drop dead in the morning and people will just get on with things, you can relax a bit and do your best in most roles. It has changed my orientation to research and I have not tried to maintain a formal research group alongside the role for the first time in my career (watch this space soon!). Instead I have tried to focus on some "death-bed" projects that I am fairly sure I will do in one form or another for as long as I am healthy enough to do so. Broadly speaking, these are the projects that I would be open to talk about if I am being considered to speak at a seminar or if you happen to meet me in the street. I am afraid I am unlikely to be able to supervise new PhD students in the next 18 months until the Department head role finishes and current students graduate.
1. History of Behavioural Science: I have also been working on a history of behavioural science for a very long time at this stage. At the very least it will lead to one paper this year as I have been asked to give the keynote lecture at the international economic psychology conference. At the moment, I have a version where I go through the development of concepts like hyperbolic discounting and outline the interplay between psychological ideas and later formalisation in behavioural economics. It is being developed for a broad social science audience. I am keeping track of readings and links on this post. This is also informing some ideas for new teaching particularly the potential for a new course in economic psychology.
2. Valuation of the Past: I talked about this in a post when I was at Stirling in 2016 and I have thought it about regularly since. I will be giving some talks on this topic in 2025 including in Galway on March 7th and hope to finish at least one paper. I am using this post to keep track of some links on this topic.
3. Ethics and Institutionalisation of Behavioural Science: We are continuing to develop the FORGOOD ethics framework along different lines. One has been the development of a formal initiative to develop models of good practice for behavioural science in corporate settings with Annabel Gillard and Bishin Ho (provisional webpage here). Along with Leo Lades, we are continuing to develop the theoretical aspects of the ethics of behavioural science in policy (video of a recent seminar on this here). In particular, we are building the case more explicitly for the advantages of contextual, multi-dimensional, pragmatic ethical appraisals in the policy context. I am continuing to develop the LSE Behavioural Science and the Wider World seminar series and am hoping to embed new ideas about how to have interesting conversations in these areas across countries and sectors.
4. Psychology of Unemployment: I am continuing to work on the links between unemployment and mental health and the psychology of unemployment more generally, including work with Lucia Macchia and Michael Daly on pain, employment conditions, and well-being more generally and with Sharon Raj and Chris Krekel on time perception. time structure, well-being and unemployment (e.g. working paper here in the new ISER innovation panel document).
5. Day Reconstruction Methods for Behavioural Public Policy: The Ulysses project continues. I have continued to work with a number of colleagues and students including Kate Laffan, Leo Lades, Michael Daly, and Lucie Martin on developing day reconstruction methods for public policy. My paper with Leo "Self-control failures as judged by themselves" is one of the most interesting papers we have done in this area and a testimony to allowing something to gestate a little bit (about 8 years from start to finish). My paper with Lucie Martin and Orla Doyle in Public Administration Review is also something I have very happy to have seen fully in print and it brings these methods into the study of administrative burdens in public and private settings, an area with a lot more to be done. I was very happy with the paper with Leo and Kate using these methods to examine the contextual predictors of meat consumption. One medium term aim is to develop a solid research group in this area for September 2026 and I am doing some background work on this.
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