As the first major effort to use a behavioral economics lens to examine human services programs that serve poor and vulnerable families in the United States, the Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project demonstrated the value of applying behavioral insights to improve the efficacy of human services programs. The BIAS…

Many social policy and education programs start from the assumption that people act in their best interest. But behavioral science shows that people often weigh intuition over reason, make inconsistent choices, and put off big decisions. The individuals and families who need services and the staff who provide them are no exception. From city…

An experimental tool is described for the investigation of the human control behavior for slow responding dynamic systems. The Program for Research on Operator Control in an Experimental Simulated Setting (PROCESS) is a simulation of a dynamic water-alcohol distillation system that can be used in research on operator training. In particular,…

According to the hedonic treadmill model, good and bad events temporarily affect happiness, but people quickly adapt back to hedonic neutrality. The theory, which has gained widespread acceptance in recent years, implies that individual and societal efforts to increase happiness are doomed to failure. The recent empirical work outlined here…

The Federally-sponsored manpower development project is concerned with two major issues: (1) ways to determine what particular services are needed by given clients in manpower programs for the disadvantaged, and (2) ways to organize a manpower program so that each individual receives appropriate services to fulfill individual needs. Following two…

The review of social and behavioral science programs supported by the National Science Foundation recommends improvements in program substance and management. Sixteen social and behavioral scientists who are or have been grantees under Foundation programs served on the review committee. They examined more than 150 documents pertaining to…