Meet The Leading Behavioural Change Neuroscientist for 2026

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Get Manta Sleep Mask: https://bit.ly/4ilzfBL and Code GIANTSMANTA10 Get Professional High Quality Talk Therapy at BetterHelp. 10% off your first month of therapy with this link - https://betterhelp.com/giantsshoulder (Paid Partnership by BetterHelp) Dr. Tali Sharot is a cognitive neuroscientist and director of the Affective Brain Lab, whose research reveals the hidden rules that actually change human behavior, beliefs, and motivation. Most people think facts and logic should be enough to persuade someone, quit a bad habit, or finally convince their dad to exercise. But the brain doesn’t work like that. In this episode, Tali explains why our “priors” and identity make beliefs stubborn, why emotion and storytelling sync brains in a way statistics can’t, and why the real driver of change isn’t knowledge, it’s incentives, rewards, and habit formation. Expect to learn why beliefs and behaviour are only weakly connected, how to use social incentives and immediate rewards to build habits that stick, the surprisingly simple intervention that pushed hospital handwashing compliance to nearly 90%, why punishment often backfires in policy and personal life, how to fight habituation to the best parts of your life through breaks and small changes, and why social media may be the “amygdala of the internet” shaping attention, fear, and belief in the age of AI, VR, and deepfakes… Timestamps: 00:00 Why facts bounce off: priors, identity, motivated reasoning 06:06 Stories beat statistics: the emotion engine of persuasion 07:52 Brain synchrony: why narratives feel contagious 09:27 The “dad won’t exercise” paradox: belief isn’t the problem 11:53 The 3 levers of behavior change: social, rewards, progress 17:18 Handwashing at 10%: the tiny tweak that hit ~90% 19:26 Reward beats punishment: the policy nudges that actually work 33:25 Aphantasia: the shocking percentage who can’t visualize 34:24 Hedonic adaptation: how to stop taking your life for granted 50:03 Social media numbness: when stimulation resets your reward bar 55:04 Deepfakes, VR and truth bias: why “corrections” fail 01:11:06 Closing: the 17M-view TED Talk and final takeaways ... ❤️ Subscribe to our main channel - https://www.youtube.com/@thegiantsshoulder?sub_confirmation=1 💚 Follow on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5m3Gta5MtIYdk59pb2GJ7M?si=Ka2rAQv7TyqiC9wvGwERpA 💜 Follow on Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-giants-shoulder/id1752486249 Download my FREE EBook 26 Neuroscience Books for 2026 HERE: https://thegiantsshoulder.com/