RCT Archives - BehavioralEconomics.com

Stress Less, Achieve More: Boosting Women’s STEM Performance
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Stress Less, Achieve More: Boosting Women’s STEM Performance

Education & Learning, Society & Everyday Life

Stress Less, Achieve More: Boosting Women’s STEM Performance

Gender gaps in STEM fields are far from resolved. High-stakes exams are part of the journey, and several studies prove that women tend to underperform. Why does this happen? How can the gap be closed? Despite accumulated evidence, efforts still need to be made to shed light on this issue. An intervention performed by Ceibal’s Behavioral Insights Lab in Uruguay showed that a stress management exercise during a high-stakes exam can enhance women's performance.

By Lucía Rosich|2024-08-27T01:25:45+00:00August 27th, 2024|Categories: Education & Learning, Society & Everyday Life|Tags: educational interventions, educational psychology, equal opportunities, exam anxiety, gender gap, nudge, RCT, STEM education, stress management|

Decoding Human Behaviour: An Exploration of Behavioural Science Methodologies
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Decoding Human Behaviour: An Exploration of Behavioural Science Methodologies

Behavioral Theory & Insights, Research Methods

Decoding Human Behaviour: An Exploration of Behavioural Science Methodologies

Selecting the right methodology for researching and exploring human behaviour can be a challenge. This article provides an overview of different applied behavioural science methodologies and offers some simple steps toward selecting the most suitable approach to gain insights into human behaviour.

By Lindsey Horne|2024-02-05T02:49:30+00:00February 3rd, 2024|Categories: Behavioral Theory & Insights, Research Methods|Tags: AB test, applied behavioral science, applied behavioural science, behavioral observation, behavioral science methodologies, behavioural observation, behavioural science methodologies, eye tracking, randomised control trial, RCT, research methods, research techniques|

Planning Your First Field Experiment in Business
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Planning Your First Field Experiment in Business

Business & Management, Research Methods

Planning Your First Field Experiment in Business

Experiments (aka A/B tests) are the bread and butter of behavioral scientists. However, running experiments requires much more than knowing statistics, especially when you’re running “field” experiments and not purely digital ones. In this post, I’ll give you four recommendations to get your experiment right.

By Florent Buisson|2022-12-06T01:57:24+00:00June 29th, 2022|Categories: Business & Management, Research Methods|Tags: A/B test, experimentation, randomization, RCT, scaling|

Transparency: A Tool to Build Election Trust
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Transparency: A Tool to Build Election Trust

Behavioral Theory & Insights, Government & Civic Behavior

Transparency: A Tool to Build Election Trust

Trust in government and election confidence rates have continued to decline in the US. Research indicates that employing operational transparency could be a potential solution. Using these insights, we tested how transparency prompts impact trust in the mail-in voting election process. Higher-level transparency regarding the mail-in voting process was most effective and can be easily scaled by election administration to build trust in these processes.

By Joseph Sherlock|2022-05-24T16:04:54+00:00May 17th, 2022|Categories: Behavioral Theory & Insights, Government & Civic Behavior|Tags: behavioral economics, elections, government, public policy, RCT, transparency|

National Identity and Public Health Behaviors During Covid-19
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National Identity and Public Health Behaviors During Covid-19

Cross-Cultural Perspectives, Health & Medicine

National Identity and Public Health Behaviors During Covid-19

In a massive international collaboration including more than 200 researchers, we examined the adoption of public health behaviors and support of public policy interventions during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. We found that individuals who identified more strongly with their nation reported greater engagement in public health behaviors and greater support for public health policies. This result was later replicated using aggregated behavioral data.

By Hallgeir Sjåstad|2022-02-17T05:51:59+00:00June 8th, 2021|Categories: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, Health & Medicine|Tags: behavior change, covid-19, data analytics, data science, identity, public health, public policy, RCT|

The Budgeting App Trap: When Spending Information Backfires
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The Budgeting App Trap: When Spending Information Backfires

Finance & Investing, Technology & Digital

The Budgeting App Trap: When Spending Information Backfires

Do budgeting apps always improve consumers' financial decisions? Contrary to common beliefs, the use of budget apps can increase spending, especially at the end of the budget period. The authors of this article propose five interventions to mitigate the acceleration of spending and help FinTech apps better serve consumers' financial needs.

By Think Forward Initiative|2022-02-17T05:29:58+00:00March 10th, 2021|Categories: Finance & Investing, Technology & Digital|Tags: behavioral finance, communication, financial planning, mental accounting, nudge, personal finance, RCT, salience, saving, spending|

Do Lab Studies Replicate in the Field? The Case of Simplified Nutrition Labels
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Do Lab Studies Replicate in the Field? The Case of Simplified Nutrition Labels

Behavioral Theory & Insights, Health & Medicine, Marketing & Consumer Behavior, Research Methods

Do Lab Studies Replicate in the Field? The Case of Simplified Nutrition Labels

There is a growing concern that the academic literature, because of publication biases and other limitations of single-shot, lab-based studies, overstates the power of nudges in real life. We examined this issue in a 10-week RCT in 60 supermarkets comparing 4 front-of-pack simplified nutrition labels. The good news is that the ordering of the nutrition labels was the same as in published lab-based studies. The bad news is that our effect sizes were, on average, 17 times smaller than in the published literature.

By Pierre Chandon|2022-06-30T01:20:06+00:00October 6th, 2020|Categories: Behavioral Theory & Insights, Health & Medicine, Marketing & Consumer Behavior, Research Methods|Tags: consumer behavior, food labeling, generalizability, incentives, nutrition, public health, RCT, replication, shopping|

No Data, No Drama: How Behavioral Science Can Help the Banking Industry
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No Data, No Drama: How Behavioral Science Can Help the Banking Industry

Behavioral Theory & Insights, Finance & Investing, Research Methods

No Data, No Drama: How Behavioral Science Can Help the Banking Industry

With most of its attention captured by the global fervor around 'big data', the banking industry has failed to give behavioral science the attention it deserves. I argue that, considering today’s challenges to fully take advantage of big data, implementing insights from behavioral science is a more cost-effective approach to improve customer experience in banking.

By Flavien Hue|2022-06-30T01:22:12+00:00April 21st, 2020|Categories: Behavioral Theory & Insights, Finance & Investing, Research Methods|Tags: behavioral science, completion bias, data science, experimentation, finance, nudge, online behavior, personal finance, RCT, sunk cost fallacy|

What is the Future of Behavioral Research and Large-scale Nudges? Five Practical Tips
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What is the Future of Behavioral Research and Large-scale Nudges? Five Practical Tips

Behavioral Theory & Insights, Cross-Cultural Perspectives, Research Methods

What is the Future of Behavioral Research and Large-scale Nudges? Five Practical Tips

By Nathan Maddix Can Nudging Overcome Physics Envy? As is now well-known, tremendous results have been found for nudges – behavioral interventions designed to facilitate choice for welfare-promoting outcomes. In my work over the last 5 years, I have sought not only to design and administer nudges, but also to understand how economists and [...]

By Nathan Maddix|2022-06-30T01:27:36+00:00October 31st, 2017|Categories: Behavioral Theory & Insights, Cross-Cultural Perspectives, Research Methods|Tags: behavior change, behavioral design, behavioral economics, behavioral research, choice architecture, decision making, experiments, nudge, public policy, RCT, social psychology|

Behavioral Economics and Healthcare: A Match Made in Heaven
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Behavioral Economics and Healthcare: A Match Made in Heaven

Behavioral Theory & Insights, Health & Medicine

Behavioral Economics and Healthcare: A Match Made in Heaven

By Benjamin Voyer Out of all the areas of public life that can benefit from the applications of behavioural economics (BE) principles, healthcare is probably the one where it can make the biggest societal contribution. There are two main reasons why the healthcare industry should welcome (more!) BE insights. The first reason is that many [...]

By Benjamin Voyer|2022-02-17T07:10:02+00:00September 3rd, 2015|Categories: Behavioral Theory & Insights, Health & Medicine|Tags: behavior change, behavioral economics, behavioral science, choice architecture, feedback, gamification, health, medical compliance, medicine, nudge, nudging, public health, RCT, reciprocity, social norms, technology|