Doug Evans looks at the world through different lenses. As the Director of the BRIGHT Institute at the Milken Institute School of Public Health, he leads research on the influence of digital technology on public health behaviors. As a collector of old and inaccurate maps, he sees the world through ancient eyes. Both views have a meaningful impact on how he strides through his work and life.
What’s your story?
My training is in social and cognitive psychology. After I finished my doctoral work, I realized you could apply all that theory and research principles to using media and communication techniques to understand people’s behavior and potentially influence it and direct them toward healthier behaviors.
My career path led me into the public health space, to some extent, by accident. While there have been many intentional decisions to move me in this direction, I happened to be in certain places at certain times that created opportunities. I happened to come along at a time when digital technologies were beginning to blossom and we were just starting to grasp the potential. I started working with internet-based research platforms using content that can be delivered online as stimulus to run experiments. Essentially, we created virtual laboratories to test hypotheses that would be much harder to test in a physical space. Then, if you learn which messages resonate with a particular population, you can run a campaign. I started with text message campaigns and have moved into social media.
I’m very curious. I’m constantly asking questions and pursuing knowledge. In this effort, I find myself doing many things at the same time — on a scale of zero to 100, I’m probably a 99 in multitasking. I easily go back and forth between complex intellectual tasks and more mundane to-dos like taking care of finances and reporting. I don’t have a problem with getting things wrong. When that happens, I go back and I make it right.
I get a thrill out of finishing things: submitting the grant, submitting a paper, getting it done. I like to check items off my list, so I guess that makes me a closer.
What gets you out of bed in the morning?
My research. Trying hard things and succeeding in at least some or most of them. And as I said, getting answers to my questions, learning.
In another part of my life, I’ve purchased quite a few pieces of real estate over the years. I’m adept at recognizing the potential of a property that might be a bit run down and knowing what needs to be done to spruce it up. I like polishing these diamonds in the rough.
About seven or eight years ago, I bought a piece of land and built a house on it. That was a fun project. I had a design in mind and worked with someone who could see my vision and then build it. It was a successful rental property for a number of years.
What is that one book that has influenced you the most?
That’s a tough question. There are a lot of books that have influenced me. I read books that are relevant to my research but I also read a lot of novels and history books. (And I finish them!) I like audio books because I can listen to them while I’m doing something else. That’s just part of my multitasking side.
As far as that one book, it would have to be Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment. The key takeaway is that we — humans — are just not as smart as we think we are. There are failure points built into human beings that we just can’t escape. And this is all because of evolution. 25,000 years ago, we were using heuristics to survive and those are the most involved part of being a human being. The complex executive functions that require the frontal lobe and more advanced higher-order thinking evolved much more recently, and as much as we think we’re in control and command of them, we’re not. We’re all subject to being fooled by a lot of things. I knew this, but was fascinated by the extent by which our behavior and decision-making is governed by biases.
What absolutely excites you right now?
A lot of my work has to do with applying digital technologies to better understand human behavior and how to change it for the better, and using the potential of AI to then take it even further. Using AI for public health and social and behavioral change purposes is one of, if not the most exciting thing, in my field right now. It’s a way to harness people’s heuristics and biases, to create incentive structures for people to do the best thing for themselves, their families, and community.
For example, I’m working on trying to get young adults to stop vaping or not start at all, and to avoid oral nicotine pouches that have become very popular with young men in particular. AI can help us determine what’s motivating them and what they’re being exposed to in social media. Then we can tailor content to counteract that effect and create interventions. By using digital technologies, we can drill down and get really precise about how our messages are influencing people, how we’re persuading them and nudging them to do the “right thing.”
What’s the most interesting thing we should know about you?
I collect maps. I’ve had a long and abiding interest in old and especially inaccurate maps. The reason being is that they tell you a lot about how people thought about the world at a specific point in time.
Think about maps of North America created in, say, 1580. There was such limited knowledge of the continent at that time, and often elements that people thought existed are depicted in these maps. For instance, we know there’s no Northwest Passage. But for a long time, people believed there was one and you can find it on these old maps. They tell you about the states of mind or knowledge people had at certain points in history. Even now, a map is just a representation of how we see the world, and in the future, people will look back and know about this point in history, this time in our culture, because of our maps.
