Tali Sharot

Even stimulating jobs, breathtaking works of art, an exciting new gadget, lose their sparkle after a while. We desensitize to what is wonderful around us. We also stop noticing what is not-so-great: cracks in a relationship, a culture of fraud that developed slowly within a company or the gradual rise of misinformation. It is not that we are lazy or stupid. It is simply that our brain evolved to respond to what is new and different, not to things that are constant or change gradually. As a result, we stop noticing what is suboptimal and so fail to try and make changes. We also stop noticing what is good in our lives and so we don’t feel the joy. But what if we could ‘dishabituate’? Based on her new book Look Again, Sharot shares what psychology and biology tell us about why we stop noticing both the great and not-so-great things around us and how to regain sensitivity in the office, at home, online, and at the store, so we can enjoy what is good and change what’s not.

A major goal of managers and companies is to induce behavioral change. We want to influence the actions of our clients, employees and colleagues in positive ways. Sharot has advised some of the world largest companies, including Pepsi, Bank of America and Prudential, on inducing behavioural change. In this engaging, thoughtful and humours presentation Sharot shares which factors – according to empirical findings – have the largest impact on peoples’ actions, and why. Using her own cutting-edge science she explains how we can use innate human tendencies to nudge people in the right direction, and which commonly used approaches often back-fire. The audience learn powerful practical applications for inducing change and gains a deeper understanding of human behaviour.

Making good decisions is key to the success of any company and a critical skill for leaders and investors. Yet, making wise choices, whether regarding finances, business or health, is difficult. We now know that human decision-making is rife with bias; from over-confidence to irrational optimism and future discounting. The good news is that understanding where people go wrong enables us to improve the decision-making process. Sharot occupies a unique spot at the intersection of behavioural economics, neuroscience and psychology. From this rare seat Sharot integrates up-to-date research in decision science and transforms this knowledge into practical insights. In this lively talk Sharot helps the audience identify systematic decision-making errors and offers methods for corrections and improvement.

Part of our daily job as humans is to affect others; we advise our clients, guide our patients, teach our children and inform our online followers. Yet, science shows we systematically fall on to suboptimal habits when trying to change others’ beliefs – from insisting the other is wrong to exerting control. Based on her award-winning book, The Influential Mind, internationally acclaimed behavioral neuroscientist, Tali Sharot, explains how an attempt to alter beliefs will be successful only if it is well-matched with the core elements that govern how we think and feel. By understanding the minds and brains of those around us, we become better at advising and communicating information.

As our world is rapidly changing, companies and governments are occupied with the question of what the future holds. Imagining the future is a marvellous ability that can foster creativity and innovation. But our capacity to think about the future is also constrained – by the past, by what we hope will be true and by our current beliefs. In this talk, Sharot shares what science tells us about the human ability for “mental time travel”; how we can use this skill to our advantage avoiding poor planning and systematic mispredictions. Sharot builds on her pioneering discoveries in this area, described in her book ‘The Optimism Bias’, to explain how we can better prepare for, and shape, the future, today.