What do we really mean when we say something is a social norm? And why do some norms hold on—even when nobody seems to like them?

This episode explores the architecture of social norms through the work of Cristina Bicchieri, drawing on notes from Norms in the Wild and The Grammar of Society. It covers what distinguishes norms from customs, conventions, laws, and moral rules - and why that distinction matters for anyone working in behavioural science, public policy, or cultural change.

The episode covers:

* How empirical and normative expectations work together

* What it means to have a conditional preference for conformity

* How scripts activate norms in context

* Why unpopular norms persist (hint: it’s not always about belief)

* What it actually takes to shift social norms—not just in theory, but in practice

The episode is based on briefing notes synthesised from Bicchieri’s writing and aims to support practitioners who want a more structured view of norm dynamics. As with all episodes, it was generated using NotebookLM and curated by Elina Halonen.

Quick Glossary

* Empirical expectations: What I believe others will do

* Normative expectations: What I believe others think I should do

* Conditional preference: I’ll conform if I believe others are conforming—and expect me to

* Reference network: The people whose opinions and behaviours shape my expectations

* Pluralistic ignorance: When we wrongly assume others support a norm, and stay silent

* Scripts: Mental templates that guide behaviour in familiar situations—often unconsciously

Note on terminology: In Norms in the Wild, Bicchieri clarifies that what she defines as social norms corresponds to what Cialdini et al. (1990) refer to as injunctive norms—that is, rules based on perceived social approval or disapproval. Although the terminology differs, the underlying concept is the same.

This episode introduces the choice triad model—a transdisciplinary framework that integrates strategic design, behavioural science, and systems thinking. Originally proposed in “Choice posture, architecture, and infrastructure: systemic behavioral design for public health policy” (Schmidt, Chen & Soldan, 2022), the episode offers a reflective walkthrough of the paper’s core ideas and practical implications, especially for those working at the intersection of behavioural strategy and policy design.

Rather than focusing solely on individual behaviour, the authors offer three intersecting lenses for understanding and shaping public health policy:

* Choice posture – the predispositions, histories, and values of agents within the system

* Choice architecture – how decisions are shaped by immediate environments and cues

* Choice infrastructure – the underlying systems, structures, and policies that support or constrain behaviour

Using the Flint water crisis as a case example, the episode explores how these three dimensions interact in real-world contexts—and how they can be used across the diagnosis, generation, and evaluation phases of intervention design.

It covers:

* A clear explanation of each component of the triad

* How the model applies across stages of intervention development

* Why infrastructure and posture can quietly undermine even well-designed nudges

* What a more systemic view of behaviour change can offer for complex public health and policy challenges

As always, this audio version was generated using NotebookLM and curated by Elina Halonen. It’s intended as a listenable way into the ideas—for when reading the paper isn’t an option, but engaging with the thinking still is.

Source:

Schmidt, R., Chen, Z., & Soldan, V. P. (2022). Choice posture, architecture, and infrastructure: systemic behavioral Design for Public Health Policy. She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation, 8(4), 504-525.

ResearchGate | Ruth Schmidt’s website

This episode brings together key ideas from three essays on the use of ontologies in behavioural science. It looks at how shared frameworks can help organise behavioural concepts across sectors like public health, technology, and policy—making them easier to apply, scale, and adapt.

It also reflects on the challenges that come with this approach: from the risk of oversimplifying complex behaviour to the difficulty of maintaining frameworks that stay useful over time.

The podcast version was created using NotebookLM and curated by Elina Halonen. It’s designed for times when listening fits better than reading—offering a way into the ideas, with links to the full texts for deeper exploration.

The podcast version was created with AI tools and curated by Elina Halonen to reflect the intent and tone of the original. It’s designed for those moments when you don’t have the bandwidth to read a long, detailed article—something you can listen to while doing other things, and come back to the full piece when you're ready to dive deeper.

Articles covered in this podcast:

Updated audio

This episode takes a closer look at the COM-B model and the Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW), drawing on four articles to create a clear, structured overview. It’s designed to help listeners who are new to these frameworks get up to speed quickly—and understand how they work together in practice.

Topics include:

* What the COM-B model is, and how Capability, Opportunity, and Motivation interact to drive behaviour

* How the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) adds detail to COM-B, offering a more granular diagnosis of behavioural influences

* Why the BCW is designed as a diagnostic tool (not a prescriptive one), and how it links behavioural determinants to intervention functions and policy categories

* Practical examples of how the BCW can be applied to different behavioural challenges

* Critiques of the frameworks—particularly around their predictive limits, overuse as templates, and need for contextual tailoring

* The idea of a “periodic table” for behavioural science, and how the Human Behaviour-Change Project contributes to that vision by building ontologies around intervention design

Throughout, the episode reflects on both the usefulness and the limitations of trying to codify behaviour in systematic ways—and what it means to design interventions when the map is never quite the territory.

This podcast version was generated using GenAI tools and curated by Elina Halonen. It’s ideal for long walks, slow mornings, or whenever you want to sit with the structure behind behaviour change.

This episode explores why questions about past behaviour—so common in interviews and research—often give us less insight than we assume. Drawing on Daniel Schacter’s “seven sins of memory” and research on autobiographical recall, it highlights how distortion, cultural framing, and the limits of memory shape what people report about their past actions.

The episode also makes the case for moving beyond single-method inquiry. If we want to understand behaviour in context, we need to account for how memory works, how people interpret their own actions, and how culture shapes what is remembered and shared.

The podcast version was created with AI tools and curated by Elina Halonen to reflect the intent and tone of the original. It’s designed for those moments when you don’t have the bandwidth to read a long, detailed article—something you can listen to while doing other things, and come back to the full piece when you're ready to dive deeper.

This episode explores why rewards alone rarely sustain behaviour change. Based on the original essay from Thinking About Behaviour, it unpacks the deeper dynamics of reinforcement—what it actually means, how it's often misunderstood in practice, and why behaviour change strategies grounded in simple incentives can miss the mark.

The podcast version was created with AI tools and curated by Elina Halonen to reflect the intent and tone of the original. It’s designed for those moments when you don’t have the bandwidth to read a long, detailed article—something you can listen to while doing other things, and come back to the full piece when you're ready to dive deeper.

I'm launching an audio companion to the Substack, where my goal is to write about behavioural science with a strategic lens: sometimes critically, sometimes reflectively, and always with the goal of making our field more useful and intellectually honest.

So, why a podcast? This podcast came to be because some ideas don’t fit neatly into a newsletter—or into people’s schedules. Some articles are long, technical, or concept-heavy, and they lend themselves to listening while walking, commuting, cooking, or just letting your eyes rest after a long day staring at screens. This podcast is also a way for me to stay connected to the material: reading, thinking aloud, and shaping ideas in motion.

Episodes will include:

* Audio versions of selected newsletter posts

* Critical overviews of academic papers

* Reflections on behavioural concepts or books I’m engaging with

* Thematic explorations that may later evolve into full essays

The tone will be reflective, explanatory, and calm—more like a colleague thinking aloud than a presenter broadcasting conclusions. Expect careful framing, layered ideas, and the occasional dry aside.

The podcast is produced using generative AI tools but not in a press-the-button sense. I initially used these tools to create audio overviews for myself as a way to process and revisit material more easily. After doing that for a few months, it occurred to me that with a few tweaks, I could share them and that others might find them useful too.

My role is one of curation and quality control: I create topic guides, write notes, shape the prompts, and review the outputs before making anything public. The tools support the format, but the direction, thinking, and framing come from me. The exact expressions and occasional reactions of the AI hosts may sometimes reflect its own spontaneous creativity—but always within boundaries I’ve set and reviewed.

This podcast is for people who like behavioural science, but want more than frameworks and case studies. It’s for practitioners, adjacent thinkers, and anyone who enjoys following a question a few steps further than necessary.

You can listen here on Substack, or find it on Spotify and Pocketcasts.

Thanks for being here—and for making time to think in a world that rewards speed.

—Elina