The language of rationality is closely tied to ideas from behavioural science, economics and nudge theory, but how does it shape the way we make public policy and should we be casting it under a critical eye? Read this post to find out more.
Like many of you, I work in problem domains that are bedeviled by complexities, often in dispersed teams of people with different skills. New technologies are thrown into this problem solving mix with an accompaniment of overwhelming hyperbole on a daily basis. It soon becomes a case of struggling to see the forest for the trees. How exactly do we marry behavioral science, app design and engineering in an organized, coherent and repeatable manner in such a workplace?
What goes through your head when choosing between different payment options?
The interconnection of devices within the “Internet of Things” (IoT) creates new data sources. Companies can now better observe people’s choices and test the effectiveness of different mechanisms to activate and retain more customers. It may also help policymakers overcome one of the most frequent problems of policy design: the lack of personalized content. We argue that the IoT not only disrupts the way we track our actions and monitor our goals, but also allows the identification of effective methods to alter our behavior. This is optimized by the combination of IoT, data analytics and behavioral science.
Despite good intentions, environmentally friendly attitudes do not always translate into corresponding food choices (the so-called intention-behavior gap). To investigate the potential benefits of behavioral nudges, the Flemish government’s Environmental, Nature and Energy Department, together with its partners, conducted tests in several retail locations. The results of our research are reported in this post.
Planning our retirement is an endeavour we need to undertake sooner or later. A well thought-out pension plan must be able to ensure our well-being during a long period of professional inactivity. However, a striking finding is that people do not save enough for their retirement. They have difficulties to design a retirement plan tailored to their needs and end up with an insufficient pension income and an impoverished lifestyle. Behavioural economics has pointed out some of the problems that affect retirement planning.
Applications of behavioural knowledge could play a crucial role in improving corporate decision-making
“How can we use behavioral insights to nudge individuals into better health decision making?” This is one of the fundamental questions that inspired the third annual Conference on Behavioral Economics (BE) in Global Health at UC Berkeley, organized by the Behavioral Economics in Reproductive Health Initiative (BERI) at the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA).
Getting trust right is critical to commerce and economic growth. Evidence from behavioral economics can help guide the way.
The BIAS project completed 15 randomized controlled trials of behavioral interventions in child care, child support, and work support programs. This article summarizes the “SIMPLER” framework of behavioral concepts and shares examples of how these concepts were used in BIAS interventions.
