We’ve all witnessed it: it’s the end of the semester and the professor’s office is overflowing with nervous students. They’re asking for extra credit, extra assignments, or just a little extra sympathy.
He talked about how often policymakers, in his opinion, not only missed the power of social norms and influence, they often inadvertently used them in a way that actually backfired.
Today, nearly 200 randomized control trials later and with their findings permeating virtually all areas of public policy, the creation of the BIT and the wedding of behavioral science and public policy might seem like forgone conclusions.
Some of society’s stickiest problems aren’t a failure of intention, importance, or value. They’re the result of a failure to understand human behavior at the last mile—the final stage where desires and plans must turn into action.
No matter who you are, whether you are selling soap or shampoo, whether you are a government looking after the welfare of citizens, or an agency promoting financial well-being and better health, or an institution that is responsible for collecting taxes, you are in the business of changing people’s behavior.
On Tuesday President Barack Obama issued an executive order formally establishing the White House Social and Behavioral Sciences Team while also directing federal agencies to examine how they can use behavioral science to improve outcomes for citizens across the United States.
Public reaction to the news that the White House was in the process of setting up its own “Nudge Unit” was a mix between hopeful anticipation on the one hand and big-government alarmism on the other.
The field mistakenly called “behavioral economics” (mistakenly because what it is is psychology applied to domains that are the normal province of economists) has taken the intellectual and political world by storm.
When it comes to being heard in Washington, classical economists have long gotten their way. Behavioral scientists, on the other hand, haven’t proved so adept at getting their message across.
The UK’s Behavioral Insight Team will no longer be a section of the UK Cabinet Offices.
