Behavioral Insights for Public Policy
Contextualizing our Science

Provides recommendations for generating equitable empirical and practical applications of behavioral insights to the field of public policy.

Crystal C. Hall (Author), Ines Jurcevic (Author)

9781009013918, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 28 April 2022

75 pages
22.8 x 15.3 x 0.4 cm, 0.11 kg

There has been an increasing effort to integrate behavioral insights into public policy. These insights are often reliant on social psychological research and theory. However, in this relatively young field, policy interventions and behavioral insights are often built on laboratory-based psychological research with effects that can prove to be unstable in the 'real world'. In this Element, the author provides a brief history of how behavioral insights have been applied to complex policy problems. The author describes ways in which behavioral insights have been successful and where they have fallen short. In addition, the author examines unintended negative consequences of nudges and provides a more nuanced examination of their impacts on behavior change. Finally, the author concludes with a set of recommendations for generating more effective practical applications of psychology to the field of public policy.

1. Overview
2. Background
3. Behavioral insights: Successes and shortcomings
4. A constrained context: Concerns and challenges for applying behavioral sciences
5. Better data for equitable outcomes
6. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Social, group or collective psychology [JMH]