Behavioural insights reading list: the best podcasts, reports, books

Over the past decade, behavioural insights has spread around the world, helping governments to make better policy and people to make better choices. The field can seem complex and daunting. But there’s lots of great resources out there for any policymaker interested in incorporating behavioural ideas and methods in their work.

So, with the help of nominations from Apolitical’s members, we’ve put together our top books and reports for anyone that wants to learn more. Some offer practical advice, others are engaging introductions to the broader field and latest research. For those wanting something lighter touch, the box at the bottom includes podcast and blog suggestions.

Thanks to members from the following organisations for nominating ideas:
New South Wales Behavioural Insights Unit, Australia
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), Mexico
Behavioural Insights Team, UK
Queen’s University, Canada
Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC)
City of Amsterdam government, Netherlands
Ontario state government, Canada
Centre for Forensic Behavioural Science, Australia

Reports

EAST: Four simple ways to apply behavioural insights (opens in a new tab)
Behavioural Insights Team, 2015

For policymakers that want very concrete steps to implement behavioural insights in their work, the EAST report is a great first port of call. The BIT draws together years of work with policymakers, its own experiences from running trials, and the wider academic literature to create a simple, pragmatic framework for thinking about behaviour change. Policymakers that want to encourage a behaviour should make it Easy, Attractive, Social and Timely (EAST).

Also by BIT & Institute for Government: MINDSPACE: Influencing behaviour through public policy (opens in a new tab)

World Development Report 2015: Mind, Society, and Behaviour (opens in a new tab)
World Bank, 2015

This report, drawing together hundreds of empirical papers on human decision-making, aims to make behavioural insights more accessible to international development practitioners and researchers. It shows how a richer view of human behaviour can help achieve development goals in many areas, including childhood development, productivity, health, and climate change. The findings apply not only to individuals in developing countries but also to development professionals, who are also prone to errors and biases.

Behavioural government (opens in a new tab)
Institute for Government & Behavioural Insights Team, 2018

Much has been written on how behavioural insights can offer governments new options for addressing policy problems, often at low cost. This report turns the table, setting out a series of practical ways government can improve itself with those same techniques. Public servants are humans too, influenced by the same decision-making biases they try to help citizens avoid. This report explores how bias in policymaking happens — and how to mitigate it with design. It focuses on three core activities of policymaking: noticing, deliberating and executing.

Books

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions (opens in a new tab)
Dan Ariely, 2008

Dan Ariely unpicks the common assumption that we behave in fundamentally rational ways. Whether we’re dieting, dating or driving, we consistently overpay, underestimate and procrastinate. However, our misguided decisions and behaviours are not random — they’re systematic and predictable. In other words, we’re predictably irrational — and it’s here that policymakers can step in.

What Works: Gender Equality by Design (opens in a new tab)
Iris Bohnet, 2016

Many governments and organisations rely on diversity training and unconscious bias programs in search of gender equality. But these programs not only fail — they can even cause backlash. Behavioral design offers a new solution. By de-biasing organizations instead of individuals, we can make small changes with serious impact — from classrooms to boardrooms. The book draws on data and randomized controlled trials from governments, companies and universities around the world.

Inside the Nudge Unit: How Small Changes Can Make a Big Difference (opens in a new tab)
David Halpern, 2015

The UK’s Behavioural Insights Team has accelerated tax receipts by $70 million a month, persuaded an extra 100,000 Britons a year to register as organ donors and improved racial diversity in the police force. Led by Halpern, the team uses behavioural economics to examine and influence human behaviour, then “nudges” citizens into making better choices. In this book, Halpern details how a small agency on a shoestring budget began using psychology to steer citizen behaviour.

Thinking, Fast and Slow (opens in a new tab)
Daniel Kahneman, 2013

In this book Nobel Prize winning psychologist Kahneman explains the two systems of the mind that drive all of our thinking. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. Knowing how the two systems shape our judgments and decisions is essential to understand how people respond and react to different policies and services. Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and gives practical insights into how choices are made.

Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (opens in a new tab)
Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein, 2008

This book brought behavioural economics to a mainstream audience for the first time and was a driving force at the start of the behavioural insights movement in government. Nudge is about the irrational and biased way that people make choices, and what can be done to improve it. Nobel Prize winner Thaler and Harvard professor Sunstein show no choice is ever presented in a neutral way. This means that with “choice architecture” — changing the context in which a decision is made — policymakers can push citizens toward better decision-making.

Also by Cass Sunstein: How Change Happens (opens in a new tab); Simpler: The Future of Government (opens in a new tab)
Also by Richard Thaler: Misbehaving: the Making of Behavioural Economics (opens in a new tab)

Running Randomized Evaluations: A Practical Guide (opens in a new tab)
Rachel Glennerster & Kudzai Takavarasha, 2013

This book provides a practical guide to running randomized evaluations of policies and programs, particularly in an international development context. It explains why randomized evaluations are useful, when they should be used, and how to prioritize different opportunities. Glennerster and Takavarasha draw on research from the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, which has run hundreds of evaluations in dozens of countries throughout the world.

Think Small: The Surprisingly Simple Ways to Reach Big Goals (opens in a new tab)
Owain Service & Rory Gallagher, 2017

In this Book, Service and Gallagher, from the Behavioural Insights Team, use behavioural insights to demonstrate how people can more effectively reach their goals. The book shows that small changes based on a scientific understanding of human behaviour,can have vast impact, whether you’re trying to be a better manager or get more people to vote in an election. It translates successful approaches into an easy framework that anybody can use in their life or work.