Professor Magda Osman on Compliance, Coercion & Competence

What do Compliance, Coercion and Competence have to do with each other? They’re all subjects I talk about with my guest Professor Magda Osman who manages to weave all three topics together.

Compliance is all about exploring the challenges of policymaking in the real world. It’s one thing looking at the theory of how things should be regulated and public policy should be designed, but another to look at the realities of putting it into practice.

Coercion is looking at the topic of ‘free will’; do we have it, and if so, when? Would we know whether we’re exercising free will, or are we always subject to influence?

Competence explores the idea from conventional wisdom that the more we practice something, the better we are at it. But as Magda explains, if we’re crap at something and keep practising being crap, we’re not necessarily going to develop competence. Repeatedly rehearsing badly doesn’t lead to objectively improved performance.

Magda is a Professor in Basic and Applied Decision-Making at the Centre for Science and Policy at the University of Cambridge and the Visiting Professor of Policy Impact at Leeds Business School, part of the University of Leeds.

You can read more about Magda and her work on her faculty page here: https://www.csap.cam.ac.uk/network/magda-osman/

And on her personal website here: https://www.magdaosman.com/

She first appeared on the show in 2020 when she talked about behavioural interventions that had failed and what we can learn from them. You’ll find that here: https://www.humanriskpodcast.com/dr-magda-osman-on-behavioural/

Then in 2021, she returned to talk about Unconscious Bias. You’ll find that here: https://www.humanriskpodcast.com/dr-magda-osman-on-unconscious/

To learn more about my book ‘Humanizing Rules: Bringing Behavioural Science to Ethics & Compliance’ visit: https://www.human-risk.com/humanizing-rules-book