Interview with Samantha Lamas

Behavioural Science is a rapidly expanding field and everyday new research is being developed in academia, tested and implemented by practitioners in financial organisations, development agencies, government ‘nudge’ units and more. This interview is part of a series interviewing prominent people in the field. And in today's interview the answers are provided by Samantha Lamas. Samantha is a senior behavioral researcher at Morningstar and recipient of the Montgomery-Warschauer Award for her research in financial planning. Her research focuses on investor engagement and the factors that drive people’s decision making about investing and money. Her work delves into how people think about their financial goals, what they look for when seeking financial advice, and what kinds of mental shortcuts people use when making decisions about their personal finances. 

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Who or what or just how did you get into behavioural science?

I kind of stumbled upon it, if anything. In my undergrad, I really wanted to understand how to help people make better decisions with money. Growing up in a lower income household, I was surrounded by individuals that were making these terrible decisions and obviously weren't doing very well because of it. So when I got to school, I was excited about learning to change the story, change the narrative, for my future and the future of those around me. But. I quickly realized that it's not exactly a literacy problem. When it comes to financial decisions, you can know the right answer and still not do the right thing.

So my undergrad was in finance, which then got me into Morningstar. And that’s when I stumbled onto the behavioral science team and that was just a light bulb moment for me; where I finally understood that it has to do more with behavior and the psychology and how we're thinking about these decisions that can impact what the ultimate outcomes are.

And then while on the team, I've had these great mentors. Ryan Murphy and Steve Wendel are really great to learn from! And I had to learn. Because all of my programming, stats, psychology, everything has been on the job experience.

What are you proudest of having achieved so far? And what more would you like to achieve in behavioural science?

I think my greatest achievement really has to do with what our team does. Our team is very much applying research into practice. And you've written a lot about this [directed at Merle], but there's so much of academia that's amazing and great and groundbreaking, and then it kind of just dies there. So our team is so focused on trying to bring that into practice, to bring that to real life, to helping people make better decisions with their finances or helping advisors who serve their investors.

And I think one of the greatest examples from our team has to do with our goals research. So we uses some pretty standard principles from choice architecture, developed this really simple 3 step process that uses a master list to help people understand and identify their financial goals. And it was a great way to start those financial planning conversations with the right goals in mind, and it had this huge effect. It was extremely impactful and advisors got so excited because it's a great way to apply research to their everyday lives. I think we're all tired of hearing all this great research and having no idea how to apply it. That happens to me all the time. So I love that.

And in terms of what I still want to achieve, there's so much! On the personal side, I know there's still so much to learn and so many ways I can be a better researcher, practitioner, communicator. Communication is a big push for myself this year. There's so many skills I still have to improve on. I'm currently trying to do online classes.

On a more general level, there's still so much we have to do to help people make better decisions about their finances, especially as they're confronted with all these different distractions around finance. We have more tools, investment opportunities, gadgets, and all these things available to us. And that's both a good and a bad thing. Good because there's more opportunity, but bad because a lot of these can actually be bad for investors. So I think there's still a lot we have to do in that space especially as I'm a little more afraid than ever that the guardrails around investing have been completely toppled down and investors are kind of let loose in their finances and we see a lot of investors making these terrible decisions.

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Let's take a much more broader look at the field. Where do you think behavioural science, or behavioural finance, if you prefer, is going to find itself say in about a decade? And is that something you hope for?

I think in the past, behavioral science has kind of been about these cute little stories that get everyone's attention and somehow have a huge effect size and a lot of press behind it. And I think we're stepping away from that for good reason. The whole replication crisis kind of scared us all. I think behavioral science is going to get a new level of rigor to it. I would also be excited to see behavioral science use data more than ever. Delve into data science more, even though that's a slightly different field, but I can definitely see behavioral scientists looking at actual behavioral data of what people are doing in their everyday lives and using that to gather insights and do research. And that gets us closer to practice, to where we're not just developing these ideas using a survey or in a lab. We're actually seeing what people are doing and trying to help them out there as well. I think that's where the field is going. And I'd be excited about that, as I think people would take us a little more seriously as well, both in academia and on the business side.

I feel a challenge coming on. So tell me what you’re seeing in terms of current and future challenges for behavioural science.

I think people not taking behavioral science serious is a challenge. So, as someone who ‘grew up’ on the business side, when I talk to other people that are also doing behavioral science at different corporations, they're constantly being pushed to prove their worth. And I think that's where we're starting to get into trouble, because we're having trouble communicating what we do and how those insights can be applied into product, practice and decision making on strategic levels of the business. This communication gap could be dangerous because sometimes you're being pushed into trying to generate those cute little narratives or see results where there aren't results. So it's going to take some rigor and discipline to stay concentrated on the actual science of behavioral science, and not just trying to generate results for the business.

That is fair, but then realistically, how do you do that? The scientific process is not the fastest, not the neatest, not the cheapest. So then what's your USP, Sam?

That's something we've been struggling with, because we're not the fastest and we're not the cheapest. Someone can run a survey on a random sample and give you results that could look good on a press study. I think what we're trying to do as a team, and something we're trying to push for, is that communication angle, and it's something any scientist is going to struggle with once they get into the practitioner space: trying to explain how these insights can apply to a product. So, what we're trying to do a lot more of this year is to connect the dots for different groups. So, say we have a study, and we think you can apply the insights to product A; talking to those product teams and showing them how it applies via B and C, not just hoping that the product team reads the paper and implements those ideas on their own. And it's about over communicating. So you can't just do the research, throw it out there and leave it alone. It's about talking a lot internally to different stakeholders, as well as externally. I've been trying to communicate a lot more on social media and our external sites. It's about talking about it more and more and getting more eyes on the research. I think too many behavioral science teams write a paper, put it out there, and then they kind of hope that it gets implemented throughout the company. But if the insights aren't as readily accessible to a product manager, you can’t expect them to use it. You have to help them take those steps.

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In addition to that challenge, do you have a personal frustration with the field? 

Hmm, I think sometimes people struggle to understand what the field does, because it is a combination of different fields of study and it's not a product. You can't just bundle up behavioral science and then sell it. And sometimes, at least in the business sense, that's what they're so focused on. So, I guess that's my frustration constantly having to communicate what we do to start and how it's different from UX research, how it's different from market research and all these other more understandable and tangible jobs.

The line I've been using lately is I think one by Henry Ford and I always butcher it, but he says “if I had asked the customer what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse and not a car”, and I think that's the difference between, for example, market research and behavioral research. We understand that people want to get from point A to point B. They don't care how they do it. They just want to get there and get there faster. So that's where the car came in versus the horse itself. So that's the line I've been using. If I find a better one, I'll let you know.

I was about to say, so how does UX come into play? Does it then determine the colour of the horse? 

That's kind of how I've been Thinking about it, I feel like UX is more connected to improving the product (be that in terms of making more accessible, easier to use, and/or easier to sell) versus the behavioral is about helping people overcome the psychological barrier to doing X, which is the point of the product. Right? But honestly, I would be curious to hear what other behavioral scientists and practitioners have to say about this.

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What is the skill set that you think makes for a good applied behavioural scientist? What are the musts and what are the nice to haves? 

I think the musts are really character traits. A dedication to learning and challenging yourself. Because I do feel like the behavioral science field is constantly evolving and getting better in a lot of ways. So people have to be on top of that. It will help if you have a psychological background, specifically a stats background. You need to have a good understanding of statistics and analytics. And again, as I was talking about before, the future of behavioral science is kind of this mixture with data science. So any sort of programming skills will be beneficial.  

If you recommend people get into behavioural science, first of all, would you recommend it to them? And if you would, how? 

When I talk to someone, I try to dig in. Say a person is really interested in the actual research angle of behavioral science. In that case, I always push them to go back to school. Usually, I'm talking to people who just have an undergrad. I always push them that if you're going in that direction, you need to go back to school. There's no way around it. But if they're trying to really focus on using behavioral science to do something else, say, they want to look into product management and they can incorporate behavioral science, then I think you can do that by reading the right books, taking the right courses, going to the right meetups. There's so many behavioral science meetups now and just going to different talks that way.

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Where do you think you would have ended up if there's no behavioural science in your life? 

I think it could have gone in 2 directions. So I do think that financial advising and financial planning is important and it kind of gets to my desire to help people with their finances, which is really what's been driving me since the very beginning. So, I can see myself in that direction, where I'm working 1 on 1 with an investor, helping them stick to their financial plans, reach their financial goals. Or I think I would have gone somewhere with data, because I do have this love for learning and understanding and data really helps you get there. So I can see myself going in either direction.

Sam, do you apply behavioural science to your personal life? Be very honest.

I am really aware of my environment. I think what gets me the most, in terms of my wellness and stuff like that, is that if I want to stick to my diet, I try to make sure there's no cookies or anything like that in my vicinity and make sure my groceries are healthy. So I think more than anything I apply the environment angle. And especially in finance, I do try to make those easy decisions of automatic savings, especially in terms of your 401(k).

Who else in behavioural science has really inspired you, which is a really slipshod way of me asking who else do you want me to interview?

I definitely recommend my current manager., Ryan Murphy, he's probably been one of the people that have pushed me towards the programming and the more quantitative angle of behavioral science.

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Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions Sam!

As I said before, this interview is part of a larger series which can also be found here on the blog. Make sure you don't miss any of those, nor any of the upcoming interviews!

Keep your eye on Money on the Mind!