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Behavioral Science at Work: Persuasion, Bias, Change
2,903 students
Behavioral Science at Work: Persuasion, Bias, Change
behavioral science | cognitive biases | persuasion | behavior change | motivation | gamification | how people think
Last updated 9/2026
English
English [Auto],
What you'll learn
- Catch confirmation bias, anchoring and framing in your own reasoning first
- Tell a strong argument from a weak one, and name the error in a bad one
- Separate a fact from an opinion, and check a source properly
- Read a person's type in conversation without asking them to take a test
- Recognise how emotional state transfers between people, including from you
- Explain why bonuses stop working on non-routine work, and what replaces them
- Use the twelve engagement factors as a diagnostic rather than a survey
- Design behaviour with game mechanics without turning it into a points scheme
- Direct the rational side, motivate the emotional side, and clear the path
- Learn alongside Mike's 1.6 million students from 185 countries
Explore related topics
Course content
14 sections • 40 lectures • 20h 38m total length
Requirements
- Interest in why people do what they do rather than what to say to them
- No psychology background required
- One behaviour you have tried to change in someone and failed to
- English at intermediate level or above, since all lessons are in English
- Willingness to find your own reasoning at fault at least once
Description
This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.
People do not change their behaviour because the argument was good. They change it when something around them makes the new behaviour easier than the old one.
Why persuasion training does not stick
Because it teaches you what to say, and saying is the smallest part. You explain the reasoning, everyone agrees, and six weeks later the spreadsheet is still being filled in by hand. You attach a bonus to the outcome and performance on the creative part of the work quietly gets worse. You present the evidence and the person who most needs it finds a reason it does not apply to them — not dishonestly, but because confirmation bias is not a character flaw, it is how the equipment works, including yours.
What this course covers
Thirty-eight lessons across six layers, starting with your own reasoning. Critical thinking first: deduction, induction and abduction, strong and weak arguments, the standard errors, confirmation bias, anchoring and framing, telling fact from opinion, evaluating a source, and decision models for when the information is incomplete. Then why people differ: MBTI, DISC, PAEI, Belbin's roles, the Hogan assessment and the Big Five, including how to read a type in conversation without a test and how to use one without turning it into astrology. Then emotion as a channel: how state transfers between people, energising and draining, the role of stress and recovery, what low self-awareness looks like from outside, how people actually change, empathy as distinct from sympathy, and the three development zones. Then motive: what makes people work, the link between motivation and output, culture as amplifier or damper, loyalty, the twelve engagement factors, and Motivation 3.0 — why carrot and stick fails on non-routine work and what the three replacing elements are. Then designing behaviour with game mechanics, in selection, first weeks, motivation, culture and learning, including the low-budget versions. Finally moving a group: the eight standard failures, Kotter's model, honest urgency, the rider-elephant-path frame, vision, early wins and making it permanent.
A note on where the examples come from
Four of the six blocks were recorded for a workplace context, so the worked examples involve employees — gamification is demonstrated on hiring and onboarding, motivation on teams. The mechanisms are not specific to any of that. Confirmation bias, personality type, Motivation 3.0, the twelve factors and the rider-elephant-path frame describe a person, not a job title. If you are applying this to customers, students or your own household, the examples translate without modification.
Who is teaching this
I am Mike. I built the people system at Preply as it became a unicorn, and I have worked at Wargaming, iDeals and Alfa-Bank. More than 1.6 million students have enrolled in my courses across 185 countries, and over 150,000 specialists have gone through my programmes. I hold PHRi and SHRM-CP certifications and represent HRCI in more than ten countries.
What is included
Lifetime access to all 38 lessons
Active instructor support in the Q&A section
A Udemy Certificate of Completion
Working models: the bias set, OODA and Cynefin, five personality frameworks, the twelve engagement factors, Motivation 3.0, game mechanics by purpose, Kotter's eight steps, the rider-elephant-path frame
Attention to your own reasoning before anyone else's
Where to start
Think of one behaviour you have tried to change in someone and failed. Then ask which of the three you addressed: their reasoning, their feelings, or the path in front of them. Almost everyone answers the first. Enrol now and start today.
Who this course is for:
- Managers whose team agreed to a change and then carried on as before
- Professionals who win arguments and lose outcomes
- Anyone who has offered a bonus for something and seen performance drop
- People designing processes others have to follow voluntarily
- Consultants and internal advisers who need adoption, not sign-off
- Team leads working with people whose reactions they find baffling
- Anyone who suspects their own decisions are less rational than they feel