HeyJaredUnlocking Behaviour Change
Welcome to the Unlocking Behaviour Change (UBC) podcast – a show all about psychology and changing behaviour. Meet your hosts: Professor Robert West and Jamie West OBE (not really, but he wanted a title).
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 10
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- Sep 8, 2026
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- Jul 7, 2026
Latest episodes
How do we understand and use probability in decision-making? (opens the original)
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Robert and Jamie discuss various ways in which we understand probability, including a tendency to 'overchunk' probabilities ('possible', 'likely'), and how these can lead to disastrous decisions. Want more? Check out our latest books: Energise: The Secrets Of Motivation: https://shorturl.at/bbA7y React: Harness Your Animal Brain: https://shorturl.at/yiFQ9 Sign up to Robert’s Substack: https://robertwest100.substack.com/ Subscribe to the UBC YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@unlockingbeha
Why every behavioural scientist should understand 'Bayesian' probability (opens the original)
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Robert makes the bold claim that 'probability' underlies all knowledge and that behavioural scientist should always be thinking about knowledge and claims we make in terms of 'priors' (their judgement of the likelihood that something is true before gathering some evidence) and their 'posterior probabilities' (their judgement of the likelihood that it is true after having gathered some evidence), and should never be 100% certain about anything! Want more? Check out our latest books: Energise: The
The Odyssey, AI and the human condition (opens the original)
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Robert and Jamie discuss the ubiquitous phenomenon, illustrated by one of the episodes in The Odyssey, that the first priority of our motivational system is not necessarily our best interests, or even what we most enjoy - it's something else. Because humans kind of know this, we are sometimes willing to put in place regulation and barriers on our own and others' behaviour to counter this. When it comes to AI, we face a very dangerous situation in which the speed of progress is so fast that we ma
How does COM-B compare to the Theory of Planned Behaviour? Part 2 - What COM-B adds (opens the original)
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In the second half of a two-parter, Robert explains the limitations of the Theory of Planned Behaviour and how the COM-B model addresses these. The Theory of Planned Behaviour is EXTREMELY widely used and increasingly so despite its age. Among the limitations of the TPB that COM-B addresses are: 1) TPB focuses on beliefs and intentions when emotions, drives, desires, habit, instinct, physical and psychological capabilities and our social and physical environment clearly play a crucial role in be
How does COM-B compare to the Theory of Planned Behaviour? Part 1 - Understanding the TPB (opens the original)
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The COM-B model of behaviour was put forward in 2011 as a comprehensive model of behaviour, capturing influences that lay within individuals (capability and motivation) as well as the outside world (opportunity). It has become popular, with some 17,000 citations to the original paper, but nothing like as popular as the Theory of Planned Behaviour, whose primary reference, published in 1991, currently has 186,000 citations! In 2025 alone, the COM-B paper was cited almost 3,000 times, but the TPB
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