Access the audio-descriptive version of this video
Many human services programs require individuals to make a series of decisions and take several active steps to realize a benefit. This includes needing to decide which programs to apply for, completing forms, showing proof of eligibility, attending multiple meetings, and arranging travel and child care for those meetings. Over the past 30 years, innovative behavioral science research has provided a body of theory and evidence that can help program designers and administrators better understand why these steps can be so challenging, based on a sophisticated understanding of human decision-making and behavior. Behavioral science helps us understand the importance of how and when important information is shared and the environmental factors that can facilitate distraction, disengagement, or overwhelm, as well as their opposite.
Insights from behavioral economics, which combines findings from psychology and economics, and from the broader field of behavioral science, suggest that a deeper understanding of decision-making and behavior could improve human services program design and outcomes. Principles from behavioral science can both shed light on decision-making and offer new tools to improve outcomes for program participants. Small changes in the environment can facilitate desired behaviors; planning and commitment devices can be used to improve follow-through; and default rules can produce positive outcomes even for people who fail to act.
In 2010, OPRE launched the Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project, the first major effort to view programs for U.S. families who have low incomes, including working poor families, through a behavioral science lens. In 2015, OPRE launched two additional behavioral science projects — BIAS Capstone (concluded in 2018) and BIAS Next Generation (ongoing) — in order to synthesize, disseminate, and build on BIAS’s applied behavioral science work. In 2017, OPRE launched the Behavioral Interventions Scholars grant program, which supports dissertation research by advanced graduate students who are applying a behavioral science lens to research questions with relevance to social services programs and policies and other issues facing families with low incomes in the United States.
Point(s) of contact: Kim Clum, Marie Lawrence, Elizabeth Karberg, and KaLeigh White.
Affiliated Projects: