Patrick Fagan is a behavioural scientist and data psychologist who served as Lead Psychologist at Cambridge Analytica.

Cambridge Analytica, a political data firm, gained attention for its work on Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and the Brexit referendum, claiming to use psychographic profiling to influence voters by combining personal data with psychological models.

It harvested data from around 50 million Facebook users without consent—via a personality quiz app that also collected information from users' friends. This data was used to build psychological profiles for targeted political advertising.

The company faced widespread criticism for deceptive practices, with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ruling it had misled users about data collection.

With over a decade of experience applying psychology to influence real-world behaviour, he has worked on consumer and political campaigns globally.

He is a part-time lecturer at several London universities, including UCL, and has co-authored peer-reviewed research on topics ranging from Facebook psychology to facial expressions.

Till at last the child's mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child's mind. And not the child's mind only. The adult's mind too—all his life long, the adult's mind is these suggestions.

— Aldous Huxley, author of 'Brave New World'

🎙️ Podcast episode

Patrick and I discussed his work at Cambridge Analytica, the use of behavioural nudges, and how corporations can shape our thoughts and actions.