"Policymakers who work with behavioral scientists to identify particular behavioral problems (e.g. Why don’t people save more in their retirement accounts? Why do people fail to take advantage of a social program they’ve started to apply to?) and understand how and why they form are the ones most likely to benefit from behavioral insights – in combination, of course, with other traditional insights. So are those where considerable thought is given to questions about the scalability of a particular behavioral solution. Skipping ahead to technical solutions in the form of handy lists of nudges may be tempting, but is likely to lead to unsatisfactory results.
There is also a much bigger political debate going on in the background of these conversations. Is behavioral science a challenge to the regulatory state or a supporter of it? Is it ideologically left, right, or center? When is a nudge a shove? What constitutes “voluntary”? Are behavioral policies transformative or cute and tiny? Perhaps you think applied behavioral scientists should grapple with these questions. Or perhaps you think they are largely irrelevant to the particular problems and policymakers who work in partnership with them. Like other political debates, these are philosophical ones that can go in circles without reaching clear resolutions. That’s fine. Individual societies with differing social and cultural values will settle on answers to their own level of satisfaction. Either way, applying behavioral science is not a mandate, it is a choice. The applied behavioral scientists and those who would like to engage with them, in the public and private sectors, should (and hopefully will) continue to do so with an openness to scientific experimentation, a commitment to rigor, and an expectation of realism."
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There is also a much bigger political debate going on in the background of these conversations. Is behavioral science a challenge to the regulatory state or a supporter of it? Is it ideologically left, right, or center? When is a nudge a shove? What constitutes “voluntary”? Are behavioral policies transformative or cute and tiny? Perhaps you think applied behavioral scientists should grapple with these questions. Or perhaps you think they are largely irrelevant to the particular problems and policymakers who work in partnership with them. Like other political debates, these are philosophical ones that can go in circles without reaching clear resolutions. That’s fine. Individual societies with differing social and cultural values will settle on answers to their own level of satisfaction. Either way, applying behavioral science is not a mandate, it is a choice. The applied behavioral scientists and those who would like to engage with them, in the public and private sectors, should (and hopefully will) continue to do so with an openness to scientific experimentation, a commitment to rigor, and an expectation of realism."
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