World Development Report-2015: Mind, Society and Behavior (4) - Rawan For Media Artistic and Production
Conventional financial literacy programs in low-income countries have had limited effect.
In contrast, a recent effort in South Africa to teach financial
literacy through an engaging television soap opera improved the
financial choices that individuals made. Financial messages were
embedded in a soap opera about a financially reckless character.
Households
that watched the soap opera for two months were less likely to gamble
and less likely to purchase goods through an expensive installment plan.
In
Ethiopia, disadvantaged individuals commonly report feelings of low
psychological agency, often making comments like “we have neither a
dream nor an imagination” or “we live only for today” . In 2010,
randomly selected households were invited to watch an hour of
inspirational videos comprising four documentaries of individuals from
the region telling their personal stories about how they had improved
their socioeconomic position by setting goals and working hard.
Six
months later, the households that had watched the inspirational videos
had higher total savings and had invested more in their children’s
education, on average.
Surveys
revealed that the videos had increased people’s aspirations and hopes,
especially for their children’s educational future.
The study illustrates the ability of an intervention to change a mental model—one’s belief in what is possible in the future.
The
view that labeling, role models, and aspirations can affect savings is
not inconsistent with the view that people respond in predictable ways
to changes in interest rates or prices and other incentives. The new
approaches do not replace standard economics. But the new approaches
enhance our understanding of the development process and the way
development policies and interventions can be designed and implemented.
The
mind, society, and behavior framework points to new tools for achieving
development objectives, as well as new means of increasing the
effectiveness of existing interventions.
It provides more entry points for policy and new tools that
practitioners can draw on in their efforts to reduce poverty and
increase shared prosperity. This Report discusses how taking the human
factors more completely into account in decision making sheds light on a
number of areas: the persistence of poverty, early childhood
development, household finance, productivity, health, and climate
change. The framework and many examples in the
Report
show how impediments to people’s ability to process information and the
ways societies shape mindsets can be sources of development
disadvantage but also can be changed.
The
three ways of thinking emphasized here apply equally to all human
beings. They are not limited to those at higher or lower income levels,
or to those at higher or lower educational levels, or to those in high
income or low-income countries. Numerous examples from high-income
countries throughout this Report demonstrate the universality of
psychological and social influences on decision making.
For
development practitioners, identifying psychological and social
influences on behavior and constructing policies that work with
them-rather than against them-require a more empirical and experimental
approach to policy design. Because human decision making is so
complicated, predicting how beneficiaries will respond to particular
interventions is a challenge.
The processes of devising and implementing development policy would
benefit from richer diagnoses of behavioral drivers and early
experimentation in program design that anticipates failures and creates
feedback loops that allow practitioners to incrementally and
continuously improve the design of interventions.
By World Bank Group Edited by Alula Berhe Kidani, 17 hours 7 minutes ago
This
Report aims to inspire and guide the researchers and practitioners who
can help advance a new set of development approaches based on a fuller
consideration of psychological and social influences.
In
Kenya, many households report a lack of cash as an impediment to
investing in preventive health products, such as insecticide-treated
mosquito nets. However, by providing people with a lockable metal box, a
padlock, and a passbook that a household simply labels with the name of
a preventive health product, researchers increased savings, and
investment in these products rose by 66–75 percent. The idea behind the
program is that although money is fungible-and cash on hand can be spent
at any time-people tend to allocate funds through a process of “mental
accounting” in which they define categories of spending and structure
their spending behaviors accordingly. What was important about the metal
box, the lock, and the labeled passbook was that it allowed people to
put the money in a mental account for preventive health products. The
intervention worked because mental accounting is one way in which people
are often “thinking automatically” and is an example of a more general
framing or labeling effect in which assigning something to a category
influences how it is perceived.
Report aims to inspire and guide the researchers and practitioners who
can help advance a new set of development approaches based on a fuller
consideration of psychological and social influences.
In
Kenya, many households report a lack of cash as an impediment to
investing in preventive health products, such as insecticide-treated
mosquito nets. However, by providing people with a lockable metal box, a
padlock, and a passbook that a household simply labels with the name of
a preventive health product, researchers increased savings, and
investment in these products rose by 66–75 percent. The idea behind the
program is that although money is fungible-and cash on hand can be spent
at any time-people tend to allocate funds through a process of “mental
accounting” in which they define categories of spending and structure
their spending behaviors accordingly. What was important about the metal
box, the lock, and the labeled passbook was that it allowed people to
put the money in a mental account for preventive health products. The
intervention worked because mental accounting is one way in which people
are often “thinking automatically” and is an example of a more general
framing or labeling effect in which assigning something to a category
influences how it is perceived.
Conventional financial literacy programs in low-income countries have had limited effect.
In contrast, a recent effort in South Africa to teach financial
literacy through an engaging television soap opera improved the
financial choices that individuals made. Financial messages were
embedded in a soap opera about a financially reckless character.
Households
that watched the soap opera for two months were less likely to gamble
and less likely to purchase goods through an expensive installment plan.
The
households felt emotionally engaged with the show’s characters, which
made them more receptive to the financial messages than would be the
case in standard financial literacy programs.
The success of the intervention depended on “thinking socially”-our tendency to identify with and learn from others.
households felt emotionally engaged with the show’s characters, which
made them more receptive to the financial messages than would be the
case in standard financial literacy programs.
The success of the intervention depended on “thinking socially”-our tendency to identify with and learn from others.
In
Ethiopia, disadvantaged individuals commonly report feelings of low
psychological agency, often making comments like “we have neither a
dream nor an imagination” or “we live only for today” . In 2010,
randomly selected households were invited to watch an hour of
inspirational videos comprising four documentaries of individuals from
the region telling their personal stories about how they had improved
their socioeconomic position by setting goals and working hard.
Six
months later, the households that had watched the inspirational videos
had higher total savings and had invested more in their children’s
education, on average.
Surveys
revealed that the videos had increased people’s aspirations and hopes,
especially for their children’s educational future.
The study illustrates the ability of an intervention to change a mental model—one’s belief in what is possible in the future.
The
view that labeling, role models, and aspirations can affect savings is
not inconsistent with the view that people respond in predictable ways
to changes in interest rates or prices and other incentives. The new
approaches do not replace standard economics. But the new approaches
enhance our understanding of the development process and the way
development policies and interventions can be designed and implemented.
The
mind, society, and behavior framework points to new tools for achieving
development objectives, as well as new means of increasing the
effectiveness of existing interventions.
It provides more entry points for policy and new tools that
practitioners can draw on in their efforts to reduce poverty and
increase shared prosperity. This Report discusses how taking the human
factors more completely into account in decision making sheds light on a
number of areas: the persistence of poverty, early childhood
development, household finance, productivity, health, and climate
change. The framework and many examples in the
Report
show how impediments to people’s ability to process information and the
ways societies shape mindsets can be sources of development
disadvantage but also can be changed.
The
three ways of thinking emphasized here apply equally to all human
beings. They are not limited to those at higher or lower income levels,
or to those at higher or lower educational levels, or to those in high
income or low-income countries. Numerous examples from high-income
countries throughout this Report demonstrate the universality of
psychological and social influences on decision making.
The
Report documents the cognitive limitations of people in all walks of
life, including World Bank staff (see spotlight 3 and chapter 10).
Development professionals themselves think automatically, think
socially, and think with mental models and, as a result, may misidentify
the causes of behavior and overlook potential solutions to development
problems. Development organizations could be more effective if
practitioners became aware of their own biases and if organizations
implemented procedures that mitigate their effects.
Report documents the cognitive limitations of people in all walks of
life, including World Bank staff (see spotlight 3 and chapter 10).
Development professionals themselves think automatically, think
socially, and think with mental models and, as a result, may misidentify
the causes of behavior and overlook potential solutions to development
problems. Development organizations could be more effective if
practitioners became aware of their own biases and if organizations
implemented procedures that mitigate their effects.
For
development practitioners, identifying psychological and social
influences on behavior and constructing policies that work with
them-rather than against them-require a more empirical and experimental
approach to policy design. Because human decision making is so
complicated, predicting how beneficiaries will respond to particular
interventions is a challenge.
The processes of devising and implementing development policy would
benefit from richer diagnoses of behavioral drivers and early
experimentation in program design that anticipates failures and creates
feedback loops that allow practitioners to incrementally and
continuously improve the design of interventions.
By World Bank Group Edited by Alula Berhe Kidani, 17 hours 7 minutes ago
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