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Sunday, November 25, 2012

Move Over Economists: We Need a Council of Psychological Advisers

Much of governing involves predicting behavior or getting people to change it. Lawyers and economists need some help with both.

By Barry Schwartz
The Atlantic
Originally published

Though President Obama won reelection decisively, he won't have much time to celebrate. Many of the nation's problems -- stimulating employment, reducing the deficit, controlling health-care costs, and improving the quality of education -- are very serious, and some of them must be addressed with great urgency. And none of these problems can be addressed simply by waving a magic government wand. To a significant degree, they all involve understanding what motivates current practices -- of business-people, financiers, doctors, patients, teachers, students -- and what levers we may be able to use to change those practices.

Historically, when the need has arisen to change behavior, political leaders have turned to economists. That's one reason why presidents have a Council of Economic Advisers. When economists speak, presidents listen. And when economists have the president's ear, all their whispers are predicated on a set of assumptions about human behavior. Whether it's increasing GDP, reducing unemployment, sustaining Social Security, making sure people are financially prepared for retirement, or stabilizing the financial sector, economists commonly hold certain beliefs. They will for example argue that people are motivated by self-interest and are rational calculators of their interests, and that the most effective way to get people to change the way they behave is by creating the right material incentives.

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There is also growing evidence, some of it provided by psychologists Carol Dweck and Angela Duckworth, that the focus on beefing up the cognitive components of education that has dominated reform for the last 30 years may be misplaced. More important may be efforts to cultivate motivation and character (Paul Tough's remarkable new book, How Children Succeed, provides a vivid summary of this work). The importance of character and motivation suggests that the drill-and-test model of education that has become so common may actually be not just ineffective, but counterproductive.

The entire story is here.