SCIENCE HUMANISED: BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE WITH TREVOR GORE.

From pharmacy counter to behavioural science 

From the first minute, Trevor’s story feels disarmingly familiar. He began in community pharmacy, switched to the road as a rep lured by shiny cars and promise-filled mornings, and eventually spent two decades at Reckitt helping the company become “friends of pharmacy.”  

The turning point came in a GP’s consulting room. 

After a textbook pitch, the doctor agreed Trevor’s product was cheaper, better, and safer – then calmly said he wouldn’t use it because he’d known the other rep longer. In that single moment, the myth of the purely rational decision-maker cracked.  

Trevor went back to University to study behavioural psychology and understand why smart people make “illogical” choices and discovered we all do, predictably so. 

Why defaults beat instructions 

The brain, he explains, is lazy in a useful way. It relies on mental shortcuts, called heuristics, to get to answers quickly. That’s why a classic puzzle about a bat and a ball can fool many of us at first glance.

Kahneman’s work didn’t make humans irrational; it showed that our irrationality follows patterns.  

If you design with those patterns in mind—by changing defaults, removing friction, and framing choices clearly—you change behaviour. Switch pension auto-enrolment from opt-in to opt-out and participation surges. Call it organ donation by default, and rates climb without a single sermon. In practice, default beats instruction. 

Concrete beats abstract 

Trevor’s examples are wonderfully concrete. Pricing at £4.99 feels cheaper than £5 because our brains fixate on the left-hand digit.

Start a wine list with the most expensive bottles and you “anchor” diners higher; begin at the bottom and you pull them down. Add a deliberately unattractive option—the famous “decoy”—and you can nudge customers towards the product you actually want them to choose.
Say “80% fat free,” not “contains 20% fat,” and people will choose it more often, even though the information is identical.

Label a shelf “sold out,” and you signal popularity and make people feel they were too slow to act; write “out of stock,” and you imply failure on the part of the shop manager to order more.  

Concreteness matters, too.

We remember combination words like “red lamp post” more than “healthcare,” and “Red Bull gives you wings” more than “gives you energy,” because vivid pictures stick where abstractions slide off. We are, in fact, 30% more likely to remember a concreate phrase.  

Designing for adherence and self-care 

Roughly half of people on long-term medicines don’t take them as prescribed. Some are consciously choosing not to; others are tripped up by daily-life friction.

The fix isn’t a scolding leaflet. It’s behavioural design: make the right thing the easy thing, and show the benefit in terms that feel immediate. In the UK, where the average medical reading age is around 11, health literacy is the gatekeeper. If your guidance uses acronyms people don’t use in daily life, or buries the action in dense text, you lose them before you’ve begun.

Tools that measure readability help—but testing with real patients helps more. 

Rhymes, choices, and the stories we remember 

As the conversation winds through loyalty schemes, rhyming adverts, and the paradox of choice, a pattern emerges. Humans remember rhyme and rhythm. We prefer this option as it becomes far more memorable. Think back to all those rhyming slogans and advertising jingles we remember years after we last saw them. ‘For mash, get Smash!’ 

We avoid losses more strongly than we chase equivalent gains. Tell a smoker they’ll “gain five years” and some will act; tell them they’ll “lose five years” if they continue, and more will. These are not tricks. They are realities of the human mind that, used ethically, can lead to better health decisions, higher vaccination uptake, and services that work the way people actually live. 

Pharmacy First needs trust, feedback, and framing 

Pharmacy First, in Trevor’s view, is a good idea undersold. Pharmacists can meaningfully triage and treat, but the rollout stumbled on trust and feedback.

Frame the service to GPs as time saved for complex patients, not business lost, and back it with simple metrics. Close the loop: “We handled X cases, saving you Y hours.” That small reframing—again, behavioural at its core—turns potential competition into collaboration.  

Inside pharmacies, tiny details matter: place information where eyes naturally fall, ask questions rather than make statements because questions boost recall, and resist the urge to advertise “pharmacy” when you should be advertising your pharmacy—your community, experience, and results. 

What Trevor is building now 

Today, Trevor wears a range of hats—advising on collaboration and trust, producing podcasts on GP–pharmacy partnerships, and helping organisations weave health literacy into everything from packaging to patient conversations. His nudge is gentle but insistent: stop assuming logic will win on its own. Design for the brain we have. Remove friction. Set smart defaults. Make benefits tangible. Ask good questions. And above all, don’t just tell people what to do—make it easy, attractive, social, and timely to do it.

A final thank you:

Huge thanks to Trevor for generously sharing time, stories, and practical wisdom with our audience! 

Who we are

Verve is a health communications agency with the belief that great scientific communication doesn’t just inform – it connects, inspires, and drives action. Science is more than just clinical data and research papers; it’s also about the people it impacts and the ideas that shape the world around us. 

 Our philosophy at Verve, Science, humanised, brings together the precision of science and the power of human connection. We blend data with empathy, translating complexity into communication that resonates. Whether we’re creating compelling healthcare narratives, simplifying scientific breakthroughs, or engaging audiences with thoughtful storytelling, our mission is the same: to bridge the gap between knowledge and understanding. 

Because when science is understood, it becomes more than knowledge, it becomes meaningful. We don’t just convey facts; we create experiences that make science accessible, relevant, and engaging. Our approach ensures that every story is rooted in accuracy but delivered with emotion, inspiring people to take action. 

In a world where science is more important than ever, clear and impactful communication is key. Let’s make science something individuals don’t just read about-but truly connect with. 

Thanks for reading! Stay curious, stay connected – We give you Verve.