Part of diagnosing a behavioral problem is realizing that you don’t always know where to look for the “symptoms.” In medical diagnosis, symptoms are at least limited to the physical human body. Human behavior, on the other hand, is shaped by a complex blend of contextual details and internal neuro-cognitive processes into which we have […]
Sometimes it’s good to make mistakes. As soul singer Joss Stone says, “I’ve got a right to be wrong. My mistakes will make me strong.” In behavioral diagnosis, as in life, being wrong is sometimes helpful – especially when it stimulates new insights on the problem. One of our favorite strategies to test hypotheses in […]
The last time you visited the doctor with an illness, what did your physician do? After taking vital signs, your doctor probably examined you, asked questions about your symptoms, possibly asked about your diet, lifestyle or recent events, and perhaps scheduled follow-up tests. This combination of data and contextual details allowed your doctor to make […]
While defining the problem is the first step towards a solution, crafting the right problem statement is inherently difficult. As we mentioned in our last post, a well-crafted problem statement should not be defined too broadly, too narrowly or with hidden presumptions. Here’s how we refined the problem statements at each of our three pilot […]
Behavioral economics is, ultimately, about how we think of people. The assumptions we make about people change how we approach problems related to their behavior. If we assume that their actions follow their intentions, we will design programs that attempt to change intentions. If we think that people take an action if they are informed […]
At each of our pilot sites, the BETA Project uses a four-stage problem-solving process: define, diagnose, design and test. In the coming months, we will highlight interesting findings from our work at each stage over this past year. We’ll start by discussing the define stage, where we attempt to correctly define a problem that can […]
Imagine having to make a small sum of money last an entire month, ensuring that there is money available at the right time for rent, food, school fees, and other incidentals. Anyone who has tried to get by on a limited budget will know how hard this is; winding up with not quite enough as […]
Behavioral economics’ most successful large-scale impacts have so far been in the developed world, with notable successes including the headway made on getting Americans to save for retirement or the many successes of Britain’s Nudge Unit. But at ideas42, we believe that behavioral economics can also dramatically change the way development programs work (for the […]
Of late, ideas42 co-founders Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir and their co-authors (including ideas42 affiliate Anuj Shah) have been looking into a fascinating question: does poverty create additional psychological and cognitive burdens? Is there some way in which poverty makes people take worse decision? The short – and fascinating – answer is: yes. Dave Nussbaum’s blog Random […]
ideas42 co-founder Sendhil Mullainathan was recently at the World Bank, where he spoke about behavioral design and development. The World Bank’s “All About Finance” blog has a nice summary of the talk. Quite apart from anything else, the post provides a good introduction to what ideas42 is about and why it was founded: “(M)any studies […]
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