MIND, SOCIETY,AND BEHAVIOR
Contents
xi Foreword
xiii Acknowledgments
xvii Abbreviations
1 Overview: Human decision making and
development policy
5 Three principles of human decision making
13 Psychological and social perspectives on policy
18 The work of development professionals
21 References
24 Part 1: An expanded understanding of human
behavior for economic development: A conceptual
framework
25 Introduction
26 Chapter 1: Thinking automatically
26 Two systems of thinking
29 Biases in assessing information
34 Biases in assessing value
36 Choice architecture
37 Overcoming intention-action divides
38 Conclusion
38 Notes
39 References
42 Chapter 2: Thinking socially
43 Social preferences and their implications
49 The influence of social networks on individual decision making
51 The role of social norms in individual decision making
54 Conclusion
55 Notes
55 References
60 Spotlight 1: When corruption is the norm
62 Chapter 3: Thinking with mental models
63 Where mental models come from and why they matter
63 How mental models work and how we use them
65 The roots of mental models
67 The effects of making an identity salient
68 The staying power of mental models
70 Policies to improve the match of mental models with a decision context
72 Conclusion
72 Notes
73 References
76 Spotlight 2: Entertainment education
79 Part 2: Psychological and social perspectives
on policy
80 Chapter 4: Poverty
81 Poverty consumes cognitive resources
84 Poverty creates poor frames
85 Social contexts of poverty can generate their own taxes
86 Implications for the design of antipoverty policies and programs
90 Looking ahead
91 References
94 Spotlight 3: How well do we understand the contexts of poverty?
98 Chapter 5: Early childhood development
99 Richer and poorer children differ greatly in school readiness
100 Children need multiple cognitive and noncognitive skills to succeed in school
101 Poverty in infancy and early childhood can impede early brain development
101 Parents are crucial in supporting the development of children’s capacities
for learning
103 Parents’ beliefs and caregiving practices differ across groups, with consequences for
children’s developmental outcomes
104 Designing interventions that focus on and improve parental competence
108 Conclusion
108 Notes
109 References
112 Chapter 6: Household finance
113 The human decision maker in finance
117 Policies to improve the quality of household financial decisions
123 Conclusion
123 Notes
123 References
128 Chapter 7: Productivity
129 Improving effort among employees
134 Recruiting high-performance employees
135 Improving the performance of small businesses
136 Increasing technology adoption in agriculture
139 Using these insights in policy design
140 Notes
140 References
144 Spotlight 4: Using ethnography to understand the workplace
146 Chapter 8: Health
146 Changing health behaviors in the face of psychological biases and social
influences
149 Psychological and social approaches to changing health behavior
151 Improving follow-through and habit formation
153 Encouraging health care providers to do the right things for others
155 Conclusion
155 Notes
156 References
160 Chapter 9: Climate change
161 Cognitive obstacles inhibit action on climate change
167 Psychological and social insights for motivating conservation
171 Conclusion
171 Notes
171 References
176 Spotlight 5: Promoting water conservation in Colombia
179 Part 3: Improving the work of development
professionals
180 Chapter 10: The biases of development professionals
181 Complexity
182 Confirmation bias
185 Sunk cost bias
186 The effects of context on judgment and decision making
189 Conclusion
190 Notes
190 References
192 Chapter 11: Adaptive design, adaptive interventions
194 Diagnosing psychological and social obstacles
195 Designing an intervention
198 Experimenting during implementation
199 Conclusion: Learning and adapting
199 References
202 Spotlight 6: Why should governments shape individual choices?
205 Index
Boxes
O.1 5 The evolution of thinking in economics about human decision making
10.1 184 The home team advantage: Why experts are consistently biased
10.2 187 A clash of values between development professionals and the local populace:
Agricultural reform in Lesotho
10.3 188 It may be difficult for development professionals to accurately predict the views
of poor people
11.1 195 Taking the perspective of program beneficiaries through the Reality Check
approach
11.2 195 Measurement techniques that can help uncover psychological and social
obstacles
11.3 198 Using psychological and social insights and active experimentation in the
United Kingdom
Figures
O.1 7 Automatic thinking gives us a partial view of the world
O.2 8 Reframing decisions can improve welfare: The case of payday borrowing
O.3 9 What others think, expect, and do influences our preferences and decisions
O.4 10 In experimental situations, most people behave as conditional cooperators
rather than free riders
O.5 11 Thinking draws on mental models
O.6 12 Cuing a stigmatized or entitled identity can affect students’ performance
O.7 15 There is greater variation across countries in cognitive caregiving than in
socioemotional caregiving
O.8 16 Clarifying a form can help borrowers find a better loan product
O.9 21 Understanding behavior and identifying effective interventions are complex
and iterative processes
1.1 28 Framing affects what we pay attention to and how we interpret it
1.2 29 A more behavioral model of decision making expands the standard economic
model
1.3 33 Reframing decisions can improve welfare: The case of payday borrowing
1.4 34 Clarifying a form can help borrowers find a better loan product
1.5 35 A small change in the college application process had a huge impact on college
attendance
1.6 37 Simplifying voting procedures in Brazil is having positive welfare effects on the
poor across generations
2.1 43 What others think, expect, and do influences our own preferences and decisions
2.2 45 Children and young adults most affected by war are more likely to favor
members of their own group
2.3 47 Opportunities to punish free riding increase cooperation
2.4 48 In experimental situations, most people behave as conditional cooperators
rather than free riders
2.5 49 The power of social monitoring: Pictures of eyes increased contributions to a
beverage honor bar
2.6 53 Stickers placed in Kenyan minibuses reduced traffic accidents
3.1 64 What we perceive and how we interpret it depend on the frame through which
we view the world around us
3.2 67 Making criminal identity more salient increases dishonesty in prison inmates
