“Better to see something once than to hear about it a thousand times”
Believing in this years-old adage, Behavioural Economics Simplified is an initiative from IBEN that aims to promote learning of behavioural economics concepts using simple and easy-to-understand hand-illustrated comics! For our third part in the series, head over to our website and look at The Psychology of Motivation. Stay tuned for more!
Whether it is textbook examples or real-world observations, it is evident that the world has achieved economic growth but not economic development. Whether we talk about poor health outcomes, poverty, or education measures, there is a stark disparity between countries and also within countries. In this edition, we explore how behavioural science can be used to design meaningful interventions.
Read this article by the India Development Review titled How behavioural science can strengthen anti-poverty programmes to understand how behavioural science can be used to design better programs and ensure higher take-up among the target group. To get a much deeper understanding of the issue, read this report titled Leveraging Behavioral Science to Increase the Impact of Economic Inclusion Programming by the World Bank to learn how economic inclusion programs can be made stronger.
Listen to this talk by some of the most eminent behavioural scientists including Cass Sunstein and Dilip Soman discussing how public policy can be shaped by behavioural science. Also, read Rethinking public health using behavioural science and Nudging for Student Success: How Behavioral Science Can Improve Education to get an insight into how behavioural science can be used for better health and education outcomes.
The last decade has seen a massive increase in the use of behavioural science across disciplines. Many countries now have their own behavioural science units to aid in policy formulation. Yet, there are many critics of this science. Read A Manifesto for Applying Behavioral Science by the Behavioural Insights Team to gain a better understanding of the challenges faced by the field and what can be done to make it fulfill its true potential.
How to Depolarize Ourselves: Communication and Understanding Across Cultures
Have you ever thought about how individual differences differentiate people and groups? It is important to understand how we differ culturally and across groups and how we can reduce the impact of these divides through awareness, understanding, and communication. Cross-cultural research has revealed the importance of understanding and applying cross-group differences in areas like politics, such as negotiation and bargaining, learning and teaching, trust, personality traits, visual processing, and politics.
How to Position Your Brand: The Behavioral Science Behind Relative Differentiation
The differentiation approach argues that positioning your brand as highly differentiated should be at the heart of your marketing efforts. Advocates of the distinctiveness approach argue that the degree of differentiation between brands is rather weak and that marketers should focus on the distinctive assets that do not necessarily motivate consumers to buy the brand but rather help in identifying the brand and increasing brand salience.
How can influencers encourage sustainable behaviours?
Have you ever thought about how social media and influencers can be one of the top sources of information? 8 in 10 told us TikTok and Instagram is a good places for advice on how to live sustainably, and over 8 in 10 support influencers doing more in this space. This suggests that social media could play a big role in helping some people to take up more sustainable behaviours.
Why you don't need to be powerful to be influential
The power of influence has been felt by all of us. We have been influenced and influenced others. However, a strong correlation between the idea of power and influence has been implicitly assumed by most of us. Vanessa Bohns is here to dispel this assumption. The podcast begins by discussing the ‘spotlight effect’ and then goes on to offer practical suggestions to harness the power of influence. Another section of the podcast that I found particularly interesting was the discussion on communication and the choice of words. This podcast by the Behavioural Grooves is highly recommended.
The Power of Do-Overs
Yes! It’s okay to fail as long as you try again. With longer goals like fitness and retirement saving, we all slip some time or the other in the daily. Katy Milkman invites guests Jeff Ryan and Marissa Sharif to highlight the importance of building flexibility into our plans, the result of which can actually improve your chance of succeeding. This podcast is extremely entertaining and uses colorful examples to make its points. I like it because it asks all of us to take it a little easy and enjoy the slips and learn from them
Explore. Inform. Nudge. Benefit.
Brought to you by India Behavioural Economics Network
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Editors: Nehal Kaul, Junofy Anto Rozarina
Contributors: Abhishek Chauhan, Manvi Agrawal