Behavioral Insights for Regulatory Compliance

Compliance programs have come far over the last few decades, but there is still more that they could do to elevate their performance. In this podcast, Alison Taylor, Clinical Associate Professor at NYU Stern School of Business and author of the book Higher Ground shares some intriguing and provocative ideas for improvement. She is a strong believer in what she calls “firm foundations”. These foundations avoid having too many rules which can, inadvertently, have a negative impact, causing employees to abdicate responsibility for their action and grow overly reliant on following rules. Instead, she argues for simplifying and being attuned to human behavior and the role of incentives. Be wary too, she advises, of mixed messages and potentially pernicious effects when it appears, whether true or not, that the rules for the rank and file do not apply to leadership. It degrades trust and the culture. To get more employees to speak up when they see wrongdoing, she advises investing the time in understanding why they don’t raise their hands more. When it comes to measuring the impact of the compliance program, she is a strong proponent of measuring the ethical culture. Do employees feel safe speaking up? Whom do they speak to when there is a problem? Do they believe the whistleblower line is truly anonymous? Is leadership looking out for them? The answers to these questions, and how they change over time, can illuminate how well the program is working. Listen in to gain more insights, including how to build a common ethical foundation and the importance of adequate authority for the compliance and ethics program. https://lnkd.in/g6CNJtnc

That is an insightful post; thank you for elevating this conversation. From a Cyberpsychology and Forensic Cyberpsychology standpoint, human-centered risk is fundamentally a behavioral challenge before it is a technical one. Controls and security awareness training remain vital "hygiene," but they address only the how of an attack. To outpace the threat, it's crucial to delve into the why, including cognitive biases, emotional triggers, and social dynamics that drive individuals to become inadvertent or deliberate threat actors. In practice, this means enhancing traditional SOC telemetry with what my field refers to as behavioral threat intelligence (BTI). By integrating digital forensics artifacts (logins, file movements, anomaly scores) with empirically validated behavioral markers, we can surface intent before it manifests as harm. Models such as the Adversary Behavior Analysis Model (ABAM) and the Cyber Forensics Behavioral Analysis" (CFBA) framework operationalize this fusion, enabling security teams to: - Profile motivation (grievance, ideology, profit, curiosity) rather than relying solely on role‑based access assumptions. - Detect cognitive fatigue or moral disengagement in employees, early indicators of risky click paths, and policy violations. - Map social engineering pressure points by analyzing how attackers exploit trust dynamics inside supply‑chain and hiring workflows. It's essential to tailor interventions (such as coaching, peer support, or investigative escalation) proportionate to both the technical severity and psychological drivers. This personalized approach is key to effectively managing cybersecurity risks. When we treat human risk as a continuum of behavioral signals rather than a binary of compliant versus malicious, we create response playbooks that are preventative, proportionate, and humane. The outcome is a workforce that is not merely "aware" but actively engaged in its cyber resilience. That culture, more than any single control, is what closes today's widening gap between threat velocity and organizational readiness. #Cyberpsychology #ForensicCyberpsychology #BehavioralThreatIntelligence #HumanCentricSecurity #CognitiveSecurity #InsiderThreats #HumanRisk #CyberBehavioralScience #SecurityAwareness #IntentBasedDefense #CyberResilience #SecurityCulture #ThreatModeling #DigitalForensics #CybersecurityLeadership #NeurodiversityInSecurity #CyberDeception #AdaptiveDefense #DarkTriadAnalysis #BehavioralAnalytics Landon W. Prof. Mary Aiken

A Four Step Process for Changing Any Behavior What if the best way to change behavior isn’t through rules or willpower—but by designing smarter systems? That’s the idea behind the EAST framework, developed by the UK’s Behavioral Insights Team (BIT), better known as the “Nudge Unit.” EAST stands for Easy, Attractive, Social, and Timely. These four principles have helped governments and organizations create policies that actually work. They’ve improved tax compliance, boosted retirement savings, reduced smoking rates, and even cut recidivism. Here’s how it works: Easy: Simplify decisions. The “Save More Tomorrow” program auto-enrolls workers to increase retirement savings with future raises, removing the need for constant effort. Savings tripled in 28 months. Attractive: Use design and messaging to grab attention. Personalized letters from the Nudge Unit to taxpayers led to higher compliance rates simply by stating, “Most people in your area pay on time.” Social: People follow the herd. Highlighting what peers are doing—like emphasizing that 9 out of 10 people recycle—nudges individuals to do the same. Timely: Intervene at the right moment. Retirement contributions tied to annual raises work because the pain of saving is masked by the excitement of a higher paycheck. The EAST framework proves that small, well-timed nudges can make a world of difference. *** Stats taken from The Soul of Wealth...have you read it yet? What did you think? ***

Companies in several industries have experienced significant quality issues during the last 12 months, many of which have captured the public’s attention. Quality, regulatory and compliance professionals investigate events like these to understand what happened and to prevent it from happening again. One of the contributors to some of these events has been the absence of what’s called “psychological safety,” which the Harvard Business Review describes as “a shared belief held by members of a team that it’s OK to express their ideas and concerns, to speak up with questions, and to admit mistakes — all without fear of negative consequences.” In a manufacturing environment, it means that front-line workers believe they can speak with their manager about problems they are seeing with a product, and they can raise a quality or safety concern – which could result in suspending production - without being reprimanded or viewed as a problem employee. And it means they can raise those concerns even if doing so may result in monthly or quarterly production goals going unmet. Investigations into some of the quality or safety events have shown that manufacturing employees had noticed that something was wrong, but were afraid to say anything. Or they didn’t say anything because when they had in the past, their concerns weren’t taken seriously. In a December 20, 2024 article on Forbes.com entitled “How Psychological Safety Transforms Good Teams Into Great Ones,” contributor Keith Ferrazzi writes that psychological safety flows to a company’s bottom line noting “…psychological safety is one of the factors that helps to unlock innovation, speeds decision-making, and drives breakthrough performance.” More importantly, the article states, “In today's business environment, psychological safety isn't a nice-to-have—it's a strategic imperative.” I agree. Psychological safety is a necessary part of creating a quality culture. And a company with a quality culture is far more likely to be successful. #thermofisher #QualityProfessionals #QualityAssurance #RegulatoryAffairs #QARA #Regulatory #Quality #Compliance #PsychologicalSafety