Changing Behavior Beyond the Here and Now

Abstract

Behavioral decision researchers have provided naturally suggesting innovations in how interventions are structured. There has been an explosion in the use of randomized field experiments across the social sciences. This chapter uses the insights and perspective of behavioral science to analyze how field interventions to improve societal well-being work over time. It discusses features of interventions that affect their success at bridging this intervention-behavior lag. The chapter explores why interventions might or might not continue to have an impact with each successive round of treatment. It unveils several pathways that might lead to the persistence of treatment effects after an intervention has been discontinued. Interventions targeting a range of societal challenges are also elucidated. The chapter also talks about two ways that thoughts can be momentarily changed so as to immediately induce target behaviors: the framing of risky choices and changing the accessibility of target behavior relevant goals.

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