World Development Report 2015 : Mind, Society, and Behavior

Every policy relies on explicit or implicit assumptions about how people make choices. Those assumptions typically rest on an idealized model of how people think, rather than an understanding of how everyday thinking actually works. This year’s World Development Report argues that a more realistic a...

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Main Author:	World Bank Group
Format:	Publication
Language:	en_US
Published:	Washington, DC: World Bank 2014
Subjects:	behavioral economics civic innovation human factors design norms policy design psychological social policy
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/20597

id	okr-10986-20597
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-205972021-04-23T14:03:56Z World Development Report 2015 : Mind, Society, and Behavior World Bank Group behavioral economics civic innovation human factors design norms policy design psychological social policy Every policy relies on explicit or implicit assumptions about how people make choices. Those assumptions typically rest on an idealized model of how people think, rather than an understanding of how everyday thinking actually works. This year’s World Development Report argues that a more realistic account of decision-making and behavior will make development policy more effective. The Report emphasizes what it calls 'the three marks of everyday thinking.' In everyday thinking, people use intuition much more than careful analysis. They employ concepts and tools that prior experience in their cultural world has made familiar. And social emotions and social norms motivate much of what they do. These insights together explain the extraordinary persistence of some social practices, and rapid change in others. They also offer new targets for development policy. A richer understanding of why people save, use preventive health care, work hard, learn, and conserve energy provides a basis for innovative and inexpensive interventions. The insights reveal that poverty not only deprives people of resources but is an environment that shapes decision making, a fact that development projects across the board need to recognize. The insights show that the psychological foundations of decision making emerge at a young age and require social support. The Report applies insights from modern behavioral and social sciences to development policies for addressing poverty, finance, productivity, health, children, and climate change. It demonstrates that new policy ideas based on a richer view of decision-making can yield high economic returns. These new policy targets include: the choice architecture (for example, the default option); the scope for social rewards; frames that influence whether or not a norm is activated; information in the form of rules of thumb; opportunities for experiences that change mental models or social norms. Finally, the Report shows that small changes in context have large effects on behavior. As a result, discovering which interventions are most effective, and with which contexts and populations, inherently requires an experimental approach. Rigor is needed for testing the processes for delivering interventions, not just the products that are delivered. 2014-12-02T15:51:56Z 2014-12-02T15:51:56Z 2015 978-1-4648-0342-0 0163-5085 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/20597 en_US CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo Washington, DC: World Bank Publications & Research :: Publication
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	en_US
topic	behavioral economics civic innovation human factors design norms policy design psychological social policy
spellingShingle	behavioral economics civic innovation human factors design norms policy design psychological social policy World Bank Group World Development Report 2015 : Mind, Society, and Behavior
description	Every policy relies on explicit or implicit assumptions about how people make choices. Those assumptions typically rest on an idealized model of how people think, rather than an understanding of how everyday thinking actually works. This year’s World Development Report argues that a more realistic account of decision-making and behavior will make development policy more effective. The Report emphasizes what it calls 'the three marks of everyday thinking.' In everyday thinking, people use intuition much more than careful analysis. They employ concepts and tools that prior experience in their cultural world has made familiar. And social emotions and social norms motivate much of what they do. These insights together explain the extraordinary persistence of some social practices, and rapid change in others. They also offer new targets for development policy. A richer understanding of why people save, use preventive health care, work hard, learn, and conserve energy provides a basis for innovative and inexpensive interventions. The insights reveal that poverty not only deprives people of resources but is an environment that shapes decision making, a fact that development projects across the board need to recognize. The insights show that the psychological foundations of decision making emerge at a young age and require social support. The Report applies insights from modern behavioral and social sciences to development policies for addressing poverty, finance, productivity, health, children, and climate change. It demonstrates that new policy ideas based on a richer view of decision-making can yield high economic returns. These new policy targets include: the choice architecture (for example, the default option); the scope for social rewards; frames that influence whether or not a norm is activated; information in the form of rules of thumb; opportunities for experiences that change mental models or social norms. Finally, the Report shows that small changes in context have large effects on behavior. As a result, discovering which interventions are most effective, and with which contexts and populations, inherently requires an experimental approach. Rigor is needed for testing the processes for delivering interventions, not just the products that are delivered.
format	Publications & Research :: Publication
author	World Bank Group
author_facet	World Bank Group
author_sort	World Bank Group
title	World Development Report 2015 : Mind, Society, and Behavior
title_short	World Development Report 2015 : Mind, Society, and Behavior
title_full	World Development Report 2015 : Mind, Society, and Behavior
title_fullStr	World Development Report 2015 : Mind, Society, and Behavior
title_full_unstemmed	World Development Report 2015 : Mind, Society, and Behavior
title_sort	world development report 2015 : mind, society, and behavior
publisher	Washington, DC: World Bank
publishDate	2014
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/20597
_version_	1764445830524174336

World Development Report 2015 : Mind, Society, and Behavior

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