🎤 Behavioral Interview with Jessica Taylor

Interview with Jessica Taylor, President of UCL Behavioural Innovations Society.

1. Tell us about Jess and her experience.

I am a financial consultant and part-time student based in London. After graduating from Warwick with my undergraduate degree in Psychology, I went into sales and then consulting in the financial services space. I liked the industry but felt like I wasn’t really using what I had learnt at uni and what I was passionate about. Then Covid hit and combined with my boredom while sitting at home all day I decided to apply for a masters in Behaviour Change at UCL - with the hope of bringing the skills that I learn into what I was already doing. Aside from this, in my spare time I like to run and am running my first marathon this year!

2. How did your interest in Behavioral Science begin?

I really enjoy hearing about creative and innovative solutions to problems, and for this reason the module which most stood out to me during my undergrad was in Behavioural Science. I also found it to be the element of a psychology degree which was most applicable to day-to-day life and liked that everyone can benefit from the insights it brings.

I like that, as human behaviour can be so unpredictable, there are no wrong answers or silly suggestions - everything is worth investigating!

3. What is the UCL Behavioural Innovations Society (BIS)?

The UCL Behavioural Innovations Society (BIS) is a student-led community of behavioural scientists that aim to deliver unique work with impact and bring about positive and sustainable behaviour change in the UCL community and beyond.

Founded in 2020, we organise for our 200+ members: guest speaker seminars investigating the intersection of behavioural science with various fields, the annual 48-hour UCL Nudgeathon Challenge, Applied Projects in collaboration with university stakeholders to implement behaviour change interventions on campus, and for the first time this year, a Careers Fair dedicated to careers in Behavioural Science.

4. What are the challenges for students in Behavioral Science?

In my experience, coming up against stakeholders who don’t see the value in Behavioural Science and aren’t open to welcoming it. For some companies or industries there is still a lot of work to be done in demonstrating the value that a Behavioural view can bring.

I really believe that if you are a company that has anything to do with people you need to make the effort to understand them, whether they are your customers, your colleagues or your employees.

However the nature of Behavioural Science is that it doesn’t provide immediate, tangible rewards and requires an understanding that the output is sometimes longer term or can be completely different to what you expect.

5. What do you hope the field of Behavioral Science will have more of in the future?

Similar to my answer above, I hope more people see the field’s value and applicability. A few times I have come across people who have been in their career a long-time without having this understanding of why their customers or employees behave, and for that reason don’t think they need to. I hope that over time, as these will be the companies that will get left behind, they will adopt this way of looking at business too.

6. What would be your advice for students or specialists who are beginning to discover Behavioral Science? How can they learn more about the discipline?

Try to get involved with everything you can and take every opportunity that comes your way. I find that the industry is full of people who are willing to provide help and support to students starting out, and full of experiences (such as the Nudgeathon!) for you to get involved with to practice your skills and meet new people. If you can’t find what you are looking for already, the industry is still evolving and there is always room to create a new blog, podcast or event covering what you are interested in.

Our society is open to students from all backgrounds, as we love to have this multidisciplinary view and approach to solving problems and the great thing about Behavioural Science is you don’t need to have a degree to get involved - you just need the passion :)

Thank you so much Jess for answering the questions! I hope readers can learn from your experience and suggestions 😄

Silvia Cottone

Behavioral Science Consultant & Worldwide Speaker

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This interview is part of the "Behavioral Interviews" series. It is fully written and edited by the guest. You can read more interviews with behavioral science experts here.