The reading group meets every Tuesday from 4:10-5:00 pm, in Tolman 3201 (Warner Brown Room).

Here is the current Reading Agenda and Potential Papers. 

If you have any questions or you want to sign up for the reading group mailing list, you can email me at joseph_williams AT berkeley DOT edu.

To just receive general updates on this website and other information on behavior change you can join this google group/mailing list at this link: http://groups.google.com/group/psychologyofbehaviorchange/

What will the group involve?
The goal of the reading group is to review and discuss literature on how people’s behavior can be changed. There's a vast amount of potentially relevant literature, so we'll try to choose the research that has been most effective and is most relevant to participants' interests. It will provide an opportunity for people to draw on their own background knowledge to consider how basic research in their own area of expertise might be relevant. I’ll also be developing this website with a knowledge base of relevant references, with the aim of providing an introduction to work on behavior change, along with a consideration of practical implications. 

Why have one?
The motivation for the group is that understanding how to change people’s behavior has immense practical benefits – NIH has identified that substantial health costs and mortalities stem from conditions that can be avoided if people change their behavior – like smoking, obesity, heart disease, lack of exercise. The breadth of the topic – What does not count as behavior change? – means that it can be readily linked to a wide range of basic research in psychology and related disciplines. Considering how to change behavior can provide valuable contexts to apply basic research, and also serve to suggest and guide novel basic research questions.