061: Patrick Fagan on psychology in business

I welcome this week the behavioural scientist Patrick Fagan, described by comedian David Mitchell as a "Mother Superior in nipple tassels".

He's also a former Cambridge Analytica man, if your minds can take you back to that scandal and time in history. Patrick is the author of Hooked whose by-line is 'Why cute sells and other marketing magic we just can't resist.

And by the way, he is soon to publish a new book Free Your Mind: The New World of Manipulation and How to Resist It in collaboration with Laura Dodsworth.

You’ll pick up some old references in this conversation to our former PM (which one you may reasonably ask?!) Boris Johnson here as this episode was recorded before he toppled. That aside, all the chat is super relevant.

Show notes

• Magic and creativity
• Pioneering work as lead psychologist at Cambridge Analytica
• What factors influence political preference?
• Status quo bias and fear of change
• Patrick’s book: the 10 psychological principles for crafting effective communications in 3 categories
  • Grab attention
  • Get people to think about your message
  • Influence behaviour
• Why do we get dressed?
• Unintended consequences
• Why we need to take care with nudges

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Podcast music: Tamsin Waley-Cohen's Mendelssohn's violin concerto