Science of Human Nature and Behavior: A Master Class

I was reminded of this conference by a correspondent,  held in 2011:

In The Edge:
" ... Princeton psychologist Daniel Kahneman on the marvels and the flaws of intuitive thinking; Harvard mathematical biologist Martin Nowak on the evolution of cooperation; UC-Santa Barbara evolutionary psychologist Leda Cosmides on the architecture of motivation; UC-Santa Barbara neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga on neuroscience and the law; Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker on the history of violence; and Princeton religious historian Elaine Pagels on The Book of Revelations ... ". 

At the link, videos, written materials and links to many of the authors' work.  A rich set of materials.

Getting to the Reality of Behavior

 In Research:  (On Wisdom of Crowds and Theory of Group Behavior)

Why research needs to go beyond the individual’s perspective to get closer to the reality of behaviour. By Rob Egerton and Jeanette Kaye.

Gestalt rooms, image sorts, debates, projection and elicitation: as market researchers, we’ve become brilliant at exploring the depth of human perceptions and behaviour. We pride ourselves on challenging respondents and finding new ways to understand the workings of their minds and how they make decisions.

However, two important theories – which many of you may have heard of – shed new light on how we can better access the reality of how people behave and challenge some of our orthodox approaches. These theories give us direction on how we can get better estimates of future intentions but also suggest that we should move away from just exploring why the individual respondent did what they did, but rather explore more widely how the dynamics of others around them influence what they do. ... " 

China's Generation 2 Consumer

In McKinsey:  The rise of the generation 2 consumer in China.  " ... In this video, McKinsey’s Yougang Chen explains how rising middle-class wealth and a new generation of young people are changing the rules for China’s consumer market and the companies that serve it.
 ... " We actively built agent based simulation models of the Chinese consumer.  These findings could be inserted in these models to understand consumption behaviors in buying new products.