How To Create Lasting Change with Behavioral Scientist Katy Milkman

The Sonya Looney Show

In this week’s podcast, Sonya sat down with Katy Milkman, a professor at The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine, to discuss behavior sciences, behavior change, setting goals, and much more. Katy conducts research that looks at insights from economics and psychology and how they can be harnessed to change consequential behaviors for good. She co-founded, and co-directs, the Behavior Change for Good Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania.

Last year, Katy published How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be, which the New York Times named one of the eight best books for healthy living in 2021. She was also named one of the world’s top 50 management thinkers and the world’s top strategy thinker by Thinkers50.

Katy’s extensive resume includes work with many organizations on behavior change, including The White House, Google, the U.S. Department of Defense, the American Red Cross, and more. She also hosts a podcast called Choiceology, an original podcast from Charles Schwab, that explores the lessons of behavioral economics, exposing the psychological traps that lead to expensive mistakes.

Key Takeaways

• How Katy got into behavioral sciences
• Leading reason to make change
• What the hell effect
• How to set an appropriate goal
• Commitment devices
• Temptation Bundle
• Advice