Public programs often struggle to reach the people they are meant to help. In this blog post, Christian Schimpf, Vince Hopkins, Priscilla Fisher, and Jeff Dorion explain how behaviourally-informed email messages can successfully encourage enrolment in employment services. … More Getting people to the door, and through it: Lessons on improving take-up of public programs
Much of public life is built on the assumption we act honestly with one another and with the state. But self-interest and wider perceptions of corruption and trust might lead to dishonest behaviour. Can we encourage more honesty through a simple nudge? … More Promoting Our Better Angels in Public Life: Can we Nudge People Honest?
What if the secret to boosting productivity isn’t stricter rules or higher pay, but something as simple as giving workers a voice? Sherry Jueyu Wu shares a field experiment from the production floors of a Chinese factory, which asked whether participatory meetings – in which workers spoke and supervisors listened – could increase productivity. The … More Giving Workers a Voice Boosts Productivity
When we talk about behavioural interventions, we often need to simplify complex concepts, but this can leave critical questions unanswered. The META-BI framework provides shared terminology to foster clearer and more productive behavioural science discussions, across disciplines and with practitioners. … More Beyond Simplistic Narratives: The META-BI Framework for Nudges in Behavioural Public Policy
A one-size-fits-all approach to nudging can be ineffective, or even backfire. Personalising nudges is a way of recognising and acting upon known heterogeneity across and within groups of people to deliver successful behaviour change. … More How Can We Personalise Nudges?
Recommender systems are online algorithms that can help users, reducing complexity and search costs. But they also target and exploit behavioral biases. Recommender systems lend themselves to regulation through ‘budges’. … More Algorithms and Autonomy: Regulating Recommender Systems in the Age of Hyper-Nudging
System change and individual behavior change are often conceptualized as mutually exclusive strategies for climate change mitigation – but what if this duality is misguided? Denise de Ridder and Sander Thomaes map four pathways illustrating that system change is effective when it promotes behavior change and vice versa. … More When and how behavior change can accelerate system change (and vice versa): Mapping reciprocal processes for climate change mitigation
AI safety discussions predominantly focus on easy to conceptualise, highly salient risks including algorithm bias, hallucinations and disinformation. While these are crucial concerns, they overlook a fundamental truth we’ve learned from other high-stakes fields like aviation and healthcare: sometimes the most dangerous risks can hide in plain sight. Dr Moira Nicolson and Holly Marquez (Government Communications, Cabinet Office, UK Government) introduce a framework for anticipating and managing these risks, supporting a safer rollout of AI use in the public sector and beyond. … More Beyond Technical Safeguards: Human Behaviour is the Missing Piece in AI Safety
What if climate communication could enhance support for unpopular but necessary policies? Valerie Dewaelheyns and colleagues show that collective action framing can increase public acceptance of climate adaptation policies and strengthen citizens’ belief in society’s collective power to tackle climate change. … More Yes we can! Collective action framing increases support for hard climate policies
As global temperatures rise, so does our reliance on air conditioning (AC), which accounts for 7% of global electricity use in 2022. But what if the solution to sustainable cooling is not just about better AC technology to cool the entire space, but about changing our behaviour to cooling ourselves? Maggie Yang explores how social … More From AC to me: Can social norms encourage personal cooling in Chinese offices?