Practitioner Survey, Results so Far

Lessons About Behavioral Science Practitioners

In July 2023, we launched a new version of our survey of practitioners. However, we have some initial results from this one and a prior, shorter, version of the survey last year. 

In this page, you’ll find those preliminary results.  We’ll develop a more polished report as additional answers come in. 

Where BeSci practitioners are

Across the 748 people who have listed a country on the practitioner survey thus far, there is a remarkable diversity. In fact, 72 countries are represented. 

This result is similar to the 71 countries who are represented in our longer-running behavioral teams survey. However, it also includes a few countries that don’t have known teams yet — like Mozambique. Some of the respondents explicitly mentioned that they are working remotely or are part of teams headquartered in other places. 

The roles we're playing

Among the respondents who are currently applying BeSci in their work, we found that 51% are in full time “official” behavioral science or behavioral design roles. 38% are applying behavioral science through another discipline, like design or product management. 11% are doing besci as a side job.    

In addition, we found that the plurality of practitioners are doing so on their own projects and products, followed closely by external consultants — as shown in the next graphic.

What we're struggling with

We asked respondents for the major challenges that they faced in applying behavioral science in their work. The most common response, at 56% of people, was “Measuring the impact of your interventions”, followed by “Making the case for BeSci to senior management, leadership, etc.” at 53%, and getting interventions implemented at  51%. Difficulty finding contractors or consultants — only 30%. 

A public list

Of the 780 respondents so far, 435 explicitly consented to have their name on a public directory, and provided sufficient information to be listed.  Here’s the directory so far.

More to come!

These are preliminary results, based on an early version of the survey.  Please fill out the survey yourself if you haven’t already, and encourage others to do so.  We’ll post the results here for everyone to benefit from.