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Further guidance is available from sources such as the Economic and Social Research Centre
UK Centre for Evidence Based Policy13 and the Oregon Health and Science University Centre of Evidence Based Policy.14 As consensus continues to gather around what constitutes good practice in social program design we will begin to see
the development of more effective and efficient programs that will also through their rigorous evaluations add further understanding to what works and what does not. Taken together the communications and data revolutions mean that not-for-profit social programs and social business will be in a stronger position to demonstrate their effectiveness and efficiency. However, one clear challenge is to encourage practitioners to use these models and for program funders to insist that some form of systematic planning is used to structure program delivery and evaluation. Rather alarmingly a study by Godin et al (2007) found that of 123 social intervention projects that they assessed only 15% properly completed an objective setting stage and only 25% were underpinned by any form of theory or practice assessment. So we have some way to go.
Our Growing Understanding of Behavioral In uence and Implications for Social Policy
A great deal of work has been undertaken by behavioral psychologists, brain scientists and biologists in recent years that have expanded our understanding about what in uences behavior. Major works in this area are those by Ariely (2009), Ciladidi (1994) Goldstein et al (2007) and Brafman and Brafman (2009).Traditional models of rational decision-making inherent in neo- classic economic theory have underpinned much of social policy interventions until relatively recently. Classical conceptions about rationality make two key assumptions about human behavior;
1. People always seek to maximize their own utility and their own interest.
2. People systematically assess and process the range of choices and information available to them and in weighing up the options and information are able to make choices that should result in optimal outcomes.
Now however, behavioral sciences have developed a challenge to this view of human rationality. New
behavioral theory indicates that people are irrational but contends that this irrationality can be understood and predicted and therefore can be used in both economic and social change programs, Thaler (2005).
Behavioral scientists using insights from experimentation and observation have built new explanations about human behavior. These additions to the neo-classical model include, but are not limited to assertions that:
1. People, exhibit bounded rationality, they are not always rational.
2. People often make systematic mistakes.
3. People have limited willpower which gets rapidly used up if continuously challenged.
4. People avoid making complicated decisions.
5. People often make choices that are inconsistent over time.
6. People prefer fairness and are willing to pay for it.
7. People are influenced by how choices are ‘Framed’ or worded.
8. People tend to be overconfident and over optimistic.
9. People are risk averse.
Behavioral economics recognizes that people are inconsistent and awed decision makers and that people make decisions based on previous personal experience and beliefs about the trustworthiness of sources of information as well as facts.
Interestingly behavioural economics theory has been underpinned by two people who are not economists but who have won Nobel prizes for economics. Based on his earlier work Herbert Simon, a political scientist, put forward the concept of ‘Bounded Rationality,’ (1957), (1979) arguing that rational thought alone was not enough to totally explain human decision-making. Then, Daniel Kahneman, with Amos Tversky two psychologists published a paper called, Prospect Theory’ (1979).
This was a key paper on how people handle decisions about uncertain rewards and risks. The authors argued that the ways in which alternatives are ‘framed’, or worded not simply their relative value, heavily in uence the decisions people make. In 2000 Stanovich & West
13 http://www.esrc.ac.uk/research/research-methods/uk-cebp.aspx
14 http://www.ohsu.edu/xd/research/centers-institutes/evidence-based-policy-center/index.cfm
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