Made of Millions: An Evidence-Based Management Approach Using Behavioral Science to Reduce Mental Health Stigma in the Workplace

Made of Millions is a New York-based global advocacy nonprofit that uses art, media and technology to democratize mental health knowledge and access to care to reduce stigma. (Made of Millions, 2019) This capstone incorporates behavior science into an evidence-based management (Briner, et al., 2009) model to understand how competitive environments and social proximity can shape our altruistic preferences (Dimant, Hyndman, 2019) to inform a behavioral intervention design aimed at reducing mental health stigma within a target workplace population. This paper integrates existing behavioral evidence, including underlying factors causing stigma and strategies to confront it with three key additional variables: Professional expert data (facts and figures surrounding workplace mental health); Organizational (internal) data, and Stakeholder values and concerns (expressed needs and challenges from those who may be affected by the intervention). With this holistic perspective of the problem, we will identify the optimal behavioral drivers informing our intervention design proposal. The goal of this intervention is to answer the question of how using behavioral insights can reduce mental health stigma in the workplace, increase social proximity, and improve greater access to resources and care