In recent years, remarkable progress has been made in behavioral research on a wide variety of topics, from behavioral finance, labor contracts, philanthropy, and the analysis of savings and poverty, to eyewitness identification and sentencing decisions, racism, sexism, health behaviors, and voting. Research findings have often been strikingly counterintuitive, with serious implications for public policymaking. In this book, leading experts in psychology, decision research, policy analysis, economics, political science, law, medicine, and philosophy explore major trends, principles, and general insights about human behavior in policy-relevant settings. Their work provides a deeper understanding of the many drivers--cognitive, social, perceptual, motivational, and emotional--that guide behaviors in everyday settings. They give depth and insight into the methods of behavioral research, and highlight how this knowledge might influence the implementation of public policy for the improvement of society.
This collection examines the policy relevance of behavioral science to our social and political lives, to issues ranging from health, environment, and nutrition, to dispute resolution, implicit racism, and false convictions. The book illuminates the relationship between behavioral findings and economic analyses, and calls attention to what policymakers might learn from this vast body of groundbreaking work.
Wide-ranging investigation into people's motivations, abilities, attitudes, and perceptions finds that they differ in profound ways from what is typically assumed. The result is that public policy acquires even greater significance, since rather than merely facilitating the conduct of human affairs, policy actually shapes their trajectory.
The first interdisciplinary look at behaviorally informed policymaking
Leading behavioral experts across the social sciences consider important policy problems
A compendium of behavioral findings and their application to relevant policy domains
"Roll over economists. We have always, pridefully, thought of ourselves as the major arbiters of good public policy: take it or leave it based on cost-benefit analysis. The Behavioral Foundations of Public Policy challenges that hegemony. In each interesting chapter--on topics ranging from discrimination and poverty to health, savings, and bureaucracy--the book shows the role of psychology in public policy. Only one word can describe this book: wow!"--George Akerlof, Nobel Laureate in Economics
"This book establishes that psychology has a great deal to contribute on public policy matters of great concern to everyone. I doubt whether so many superb psychologists and behavioral scientists have been found between the covers of a single book before. Their contributions do not disappoint and it seems certain that many policy issues are going to look different from now on."--Richard Nisbett, University of Michigan
"From well-documented biases to important discrimination and intervention policies, this amazing collection takes a systematic approach to behavioral aspects of public policy and gathers together the best in the psychology of decision making and behavioral economics."--Uri Gneezy, University of California, San Diego
"Behavioral public policy is an emerging field, with a great deal of interesting work just beginning to be done. This book is a compilation of perspectives by a truly stellar collection of leading researchers in a range of social science disciplines. For graduate-level courses on public policy, it is difficult to imagine any book that is better for learning about this field."--Daniel J. Benjamin, Cornell University
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Foreword vii
Daniel Kahneman
List of Contributors xi
Acknowledgments xvii
Introduction 1
Eldar Shafir
PART 1. PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION
Chapter 1. The Nature of Implicit Prejudice:
Implications for Personal and Public Policy 13
Curtis D. Hardin
Mahzarin R. Banaji
Chapter 2. Biases in Interracial Interactions:
Implications for Social Policy 32
/. Nicole Shelton
Jennifer A. Richeson
John F. Dovidio
Chapter 3. Policy Implications of Unexamined Discrimination:
Gender Bias in Employment as a Case Study 52
Susan T. Fiske
Linda H. Krieger
PART 2. SOCIAL INTERACTIONS
Chapter 4. The Psychology of Cooperation:
Implications for Public Policy 77
Tom Tyler
Chapter 5. Rethinking Why People Vote:
Voting as Dynamic Social Expression 91
Todd Rogers
Craig R. Fox
oAlan S. Gerber
Chapter 6. Perspectives on Disagreement and
Dispute Resolution: Lessons from the Lab
and the Real World 108
Lee Ross
Chapter 7. Psychic Numbing and Mass Atrocity 126
Paul Slavic
David Zionts
Andrew K. Woods
Ryan Goodman
Derek Jinks
PART 3. THE JUSTICE SYSTEM
Chapter 8. Eyewitness Identification and the
Legal System 145
Nancy K. Steblay
Elizabeth F. Loftus
Chapter 9. False Convictions
Phoebe Ellsworth
Sam Gross
163
Chapter 10. Behavioral Issues of Punishment, Retribution,
and Deterrence 181
John M. Darley
Adam L. Alter
PART 4. BIAS AND COMPETENCE
Chapter 11. Claims and Denials of Bias and Their
Implications for Policy 195
Emily Pronin
Kathleen Schmidt
Chapter 12. Questions of Competence:
The Duty to Inform and the Limits to Choice 217
Baruch Fischhoff
Sara L. Eggers
Chapter 13. If Misf earing Is the Problem, Is Cost-Benefit
Analysis the Solution? 231
Cass R. Sunstein
PART 5. BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS
AND FINANCE
Chapter 14. Choice Architecture and Retirement
Saving Plans 245
Shlomo Renartzi
Ehud Peleg
Richard H. Tl>aler
VI CONTENTS
Chapter 15. Behavioral Economics Analysis of
Employment Law 264
Christine Jolls
Chapter 16. Decision Making and Policy in Contexts
of Poverty 281
Sendhil Mullainathan
Eldttr Shafir
PART 6. BEHAVIOR CHANGE
Chapter 17. Psychological Levers of Behavior Change 301
Dak T. Miller
Deborah A. Prentice
Chapter 18. Turning Mindless Eating into Healthy Eating 310
Brian Wansink
Chapter 19. A Social Psychological Approach to
Educational Intervention 329
Julio Garcia
Geoffrey L. Cohen
Chapter 23. Overcoming Decision Biases to Reduce Losses
from Natural Catastrophes 398
Howard Kunreuther
Robert Meyer
Erwann Michel-Kerjan
PART 8. DECISION CONTEXTS
Chapter 24. Decisions by Default
Eric ]. Johnson
Daniel G. Goldstein
417
Chapter 25. Choice Architecture 428
Richard H. Thaler
Cass R. Sunstein
John P. Bah
Chapter 26. Behaviorally Informed Regulation
Michael S. Barr
Sendhil Mullainathan
Eldar Shajir
440
PART 7. IMPROVING DECISIONS PART 9. COMMENTARIES
Chapter 20. Beyond Comprehension:
Figuring Out Whether Decision Aids Improve People's
Decisions 351
Peter Ubel
Chapter 21. Using Decision Errors to Help People
Help Themselves 361
George Loewenstein
Leslie John
Kevin G. Volpp
Chapter 22. Doing the Right Thing Willingly:
Using the Insights of Behavioral Decision Research for
Better Environmental Decisions 380
Elke U. Weber
Chapter 27. Psychology and Economic Policy 465
William J. Congdon
Chapter 28. Behavioral Decision Science Applied to
Health-Care Policy 475
Donald A. Redelmeier
Chapter 29. Quis custodiet ipsos cnstotles7 Dehiasing the
Policy Makers Themselves 481
Paul Brest
Chapter 30. Paternalism, Manipulation, Freedom, and the
Good 494
Judith Lichtenberg
Index 499