Speaker 1: Pushkin, this is solvable. I'm Ronald Young Junior. What do
Speaker 1: you get when you put a behavioral scientist in the
Speaker 1: room with policymakers? Every program in policy has a default
Speaker 1: design that will influence people one way or the other.
Speaker 1: If that behavioral scientist is Maya Shankar, you may get
Speaker 1: an analysis of how our complicated human minds impact our
Speaker 1: participation in government programs. We are influenced by some very
Speaker 1: surprising factors that ought to not influence our decisions, but
Speaker 1: absolutely do. Effective government policies are tricky things to get right.
Speaker 1: To begin with, there's lobbying and then rigorous debate around
Speaker 1: whether a policy or program should exist at all. That's
Speaker 1: followed by, as we've seen recently, a lot of argument
Speaker 1: about how much money to spend. But once the budget
Speaker 1: has been settled and the money allocated to federal programs,
Speaker 1: there's the important step of designing programs that truly serve
Speaker 1: the people and reach them, and that's where studying human
Speaker 1: behavior can help. Small changes can be the difference between
Speaker 1: successful engagement or a low participation rate. So the government
Speaker 1: ended up leveraging an insight known as the power of defaults,
Speaker 1: and basically it changed the school Lunch program from an
Speaker 1: opt in program to an opt out program. The National
Speaker 1: School Lunch Program reaches nearly thirty million children each year.
Speaker 1: Thanks to smart, sometimes seemingly subtle changes like these, millions
Speaker 1: more Americans may be making the most of government programs,
Speaker 1: from farmers to veterans to college age students. Behavioral science
Speaker 1: is the study of how and why we make decisions,
Speaker 1: as well as how we develop our attitudes and beliefs
Speaker 1: about the world. Maya Shankar is the host of the
Speaker 1: podcast A Slight Change of Plans, and she founded the
Speaker 1: White House's Behavioral Science Team, serving as an advisor during
Speaker 1: the Obama administration to help develop strategy and implement government
Speaker 1: policies by studying behavioral factors that influence decision making. Better
Speaker 1: implementation of government policy is solvable but the help of
Speaker 1: behavioral science. I think if you'd asked me as a
Speaker 1: little kid, what do you want to be when you
Speaker 1: grow up? I would have definitely not said cognitive scientists
Speaker 1: because I had no idea what it was. I was
Speaker 1: actually a violinist growing up. That was my passion. I
Speaker 1: started playing when I was six years old, and I
Speaker 1: really got on the speed train when I was nine
Speaker 1: and started studying at the Juilliard School of Music in
Speaker 1: New York. And then when I was a teenager, It's
Speaker 1: a pearlman asked me to be his private violence student,
Speaker 1: and so at that point I thought, Wow, I've gotten
Speaker 1: a vote of confidence from the person I think is
Speaker 1: the best violinist in the world. I might actually have
Speaker 1: what it takes. Very Unfortunately, I had a sudden injury
Speaker 1: in my left hand that basically ended my career overnight
Speaker 1: when I was fifteen. So how did you make the
Speaker 1: pivot from violinists to behavioral scientists. I was forced to
Speaker 1: explore other avenues and other paths In that summer before college,
Speaker 1: when I was supposed to be touring in China with
Speaker 1: my friends Ronald and instead I was helping my parents
Speaker 1: clean their basement. So equally cool summer situation, but I
Speaker 1: ended up discovering a book on how the mind works.
Speaker 1: I remember thinking, oh, my gosh, I had no idea
Speaker 1: just how complicated our mental systems are and what goes
Speaker 1: behind our ability to make decisions and learn language and
Speaker 1: you know, interact with the world and the way that
Speaker 1: we do. And I was just a light bulb moment
Speaker 1: for me where I realized, I think this is what
Speaker 1: I want to do. I think this is what I
Speaker 1: want to study, because I felt completely in all of
Speaker 1: the human mind. And you did it. You went through
Speaker 1: a lot of schooling to immerse yourself in this stuff.
Speaker 1: You studied with esteemed cognitive psychologist Lori Santo said, Yeo,
Speaker 1: also a Pushkin co worker. Went on to get a
Speaker 1: PhD and do a post doc and join the ranks
Speaker 1: in academia. But after a number of years involved with
Speaker 1: the research side of things, you realize that you didn't
Speaker 1: love it. You know. It was like an o explotive moment.
Speaker 1: What do I do next? And I actually ended up
Speaker 1: calling up my underground advisor and I called her and
Speaker 1: I said, Laurie, so, I know I've been doing this
Speaker 1: whole you know, want to be a professor thing for
Speaker 1: some time because I really admire you. But I actually
Speaker 1: don't want to do that anymore. I'm thinking of becoming
Speaker 1: a general management consultant. And Laurie, you could hear a
Speaker 1: light gasp on the other phone, namely, oh no, I
Speaker 1: did not invest all this time into my student for
Speaker 1: her to leave my field. And so she said okay,
Speaker 1: before she was very gentle before you explore that path, Maya,
Speaker 1: I just want to let you know that there's incredible
Speaker 1: work happening in the Obama White House right now that
Speaker 1: is helping low income kids get access to free lunch.
Speaker 1: But there's no actual job that hiring for. There's no
Speaker 1: They're not like, yeah, we want to hire a behavioral scientist.
Speaker 1: So I end up sending a cold email to a
Speaker 1: former Obama advisor, Cass Sunstein, and I say, hey, Cass, like,
Speaker 1: I'm Maya, I'm a post doc, i have no public
Speaker 1: policy experience, and I've published nothing of significance, but I'd
Speaker 1: really love to work at the intersection of behavioral science
Speaker 1: and policy. Thankfully, he ignored all the insecurities seeping out
Speaker 1: of my email and immediately got back to me and said,
Speaker 1: let me connect you with Obama's science advisor and let
Speaker 1: him know that I sent you along. And so within days,
Speaker 1: Ronald like this was a crazy life change for me.
Speaker 1: I was interviewing with Obama officials, pitching them on the
Speaker 1: idea of creating a new position for me in which
Speaker 1: I could translate insights about human behavior into the design
Speaker 1: of public policy. So I packed up my bags and
Speaker 1: I moved to DC, and you know, I started my
Speaker 1: job at the White House at the beginning of Obama's
Speaker 1: second term. Can you talk a little bit about what
Speaker 1: behavioral factors are, what that looks like, and give a
Speaker 1: few examples on how that played into the work that
Speaker 1: you actually did. Behavioral science is the study of how
Speaker 1: and why we make decisions, as well as how we
Speaker 1: develop our attitudes and beliefs about the world. And the
Speaker 1: reason why this field is so important in the context
Speaker 1: of public policy making is that it reveals that we
Speaker 1: are influenced by some very surprising factors that ought to
Speaker 1: not influence our decisions, but absolutely do, sometimes outside of
Speaker 1: our conscious awareness. So let me give you a concrete example.
Speaker 1: I think we'd all like to believe that when we
Speaker 1: go into a voting booth, we'll end up voting for
Speaker 1: the person we'd most like to see elected into office. Right,
Speaker 1: That's pretty common sense. But research shows that the order
Speaker 1: in which the candidate's names appear on a ballot can
Speaker 1: exert a significant influence on our voting behavior, and so
Speaker 1: when public policymakers become aware of this bias, they can
Speaker 1: in turn design a solution, namely to randomize the order
Speaker 1: in which the candidate's names appear across ballot. When you
Speaker 1: don't appreciate that these factors are actually informing decisions, then
Speaker 1: you might be engaging in suboptimal policy design. So my
Speaker 1: intention joining the White House was to make sure that
Speaker 1: we were designing public policies with our best understanding of
Speaker 1: human behavior in mind. So, talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: the work you did in those early days of the
Speaker 1: second Obama administration. How did you figure out which policies
Speaker 1: needed the help of behavioral science. I was knocking on
Speaker 1: every single door saying, you know what problems are you
Speaker 1: already trying to solve? Now, let me brainstorm how the
Speaker 1: tools in my toolbox can help you achieve those goals.
Speaker 1: So a good example of this is in an early
Speaker 1: meeting I met with the Department of Veterans Affairs, and
Speaker 1: they had built up this program that was trying to
Speaker 1: help veterans reacclimate to civilian life after their time overseas,
Speaker 1: and that transition, as you might know, can be very
Speaker 1: challenging and fraught with lots of struggles. We ended up
Speaker 1: changing just one word in an email marketing message about
Speaker 1: the program, instead of telling veterans that they were eligible
Speaker 1: for the program, we simply reminded them that they had
Speaker 1: earned it through their years of service, and that one
Speaker 1: word change led to a nine percent increase in access
Speaker 1: to the veterans program. And it was based on a
Speaker 1: behavioral science insight called the endowment effect, which basically says
Speaker 1: that we value things more when we feel that we
Speaker 1: own them or have earned them, and that again led
Speaker 1: to a groundswell of activity and excitement for this work.
Speaker 1: May do you think that your work is a result
Speaker 1: of suboptimal policy making or suboptimal policy enacting. So the
Speaker 1: policies themselves were fantastic, but there was a there was
Speaker 1: an implementation gap, right. We weren't thinking about accessibility, availability
Speaker 1: of the program, what it means in real life to
Speaker 1: engage with the government in this way. Another name that
Speaker 1: they had for your team was the Nudge Unit, And
Speaker 1: when I read that, I was like, I don't want
Speaker 1: to be nudged. I'm not trying to be nudged in
Speaker 1: any direction, especially when it comes to the government. But
Speaker 1: you talking about it being about policy implementation kind of
Speaker 1: makes me understand it a little bit more. But what
Speaker 1: would you say to detractors that say, I don't like
Speaker 1: this policy. I don't want to be nudged into doing it,
Speaker 1: and now they're using government science trickery in order to
Speaker 1: get me to do it. I don't feel good about that.
Speaker 1: How would you respond to those folks? Yeah, well, first
Speaker 1: I would say there's no default less state of the world.
Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is every program and
Speaker 1: policy has a default design that will influence people one
Speaker 1: way or the other. If you're a veteran and you're
Speaker 1: asked to fill out a burdens and application form that
Speaker 1: requires referencing fifteen different resources, well that's a default too.
Speaker 1: That's a nudge too, right, And chances are those requirements
Speaker 1: are nudging veterans away from accessing a program that can
Speaker 1: actually be in their benefit. But nudges will not work
Speaker 1: for people who don't want to take the action. An
Speaker 1: example of this is, you know, sending an email reminder
Speaker 1: about in rolling in a retirement savings plan will make
Speaker 1: a difference for a military service member who wants to
Speaker 1: enroll but just needs a reminder. It will not make
Speaker 1: a difference for someone who doesn't want to enroll because,
Speaker 1: for example, they want to use the money to make
Speaker 1: a down payment on a home or they just want
Speaker 1: the disposable income. So I think it's really important for
Speaker 1: listeners to understand behavioral science is not a silver bullet, right.
Speaker 1: It helps to enable people to reach their long term
Speaker 1: goals who are seeking that long term goal, but it
Speaker 1: will not make a difference for those who don't want
Speaker 1: in So, how do you decide that your approach is
Speaker 1: helping enough people to bother doing it? Leadership and government
Speaker 1: and in the White House put in a lot of
Speaker 1: effort to figure out, you know, what are our goals
Speaker 1: for this year. Then we wanted to make sure that
Speaker 1: we were responding to those goals and we were leveraging
Speaker 1: what we knew from behavioral science to help them achieve
Speaker 1: those goals more effectively. So this might involve helping student
Speaker 1: loan borrowers repay their loans in a more effective way
Speaker 1: or understand what their options are, or helping farmers get
Speaker 1: access to loans with the US Department of Agriculture. And
Speaker 1: then we would also look at other factors. How many
Speaker 1: people are we going to be able to help through
Speaker 1: this project? Right, are we operating in the millions? Because
Speaker 1: if so, yes, that makes a lot of sense for
Speaker 1: us to work on. And then we also wanted to
Speaker 1: make sure that the outcome that we are trying to
Speaker 1: change was significant from a policy perspective. So things like
Speaker 1: helping workers find jobs, getting more people to sign up
Speaker 1: for clean energy plans, or health insurance, these are all
Speaker 1: outcomes that are of huge significance. Some of the policy
Speaker 1: solutions I've read about, which come from studying human behavior,
Speaker 1: kind of sound like common sense. Talking to students telling
Speaker 1: them to sign them for class by text message, having
Speaker 1: the opt in program or the opt out program. Do
Speaker 1: you think that it's necessary to have a government team
Speaker 1: dedicated to behavioral science for these policy tweaks to actually
Speaker 1: be implemented, Like I'm imagining if I'm a member of Congress, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm looking at this line item for this team,
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, do we need a whole team to carry
Speaker 1: out little tweaks like this? Yeah? So I think one is,
Speaker 1: you know, some of these insights can absolutely seem like
Speaker 1: common sense after the fact, but the reality is that
Speaker 1: they weren't being implemented in our absence. And it's also
Speaker 1: important to note that behavioral science is a very context
Speaker 1: specific space to work in. Not all insights will work
Speaker 1: in all areas. And you need trained behavioral scientists in
Speaker 1: order to make the right prescriptions, right to design meaningful
Speaker 1: experiments to teach us what is working in what context
Speaker 1: in the ideal world some decades from now. It would
Speaker 1: be amazing if our team was rendered obsolete because agencies
Speaker 1: were just hiring the relevant people with the relevant skill
Speaker 1: sets to do this work. As a matter of course,
Speaker 1: just good government, that is the goal to drive yourself
Speaker 1: out of existence. But at the time, and it continues
Speaker 1: to be the case today because the team is very
Speaker 1: much still around and the Biden administration and was around
Speaker 1: during the Trump administration doing great work to help you
Speaker 1: on topics like the opioid epidemic and wildfires and whatnot.
Speaker 1: It's important to sometimes have these dedicated teams that are
Speaker 1: exclusively focused on the particular goal of translating human behavioral
Speaker 1: insights into public policy improvements, because otherwise it's too easy
Speaker 1: for it to get ignored. How do we apply these
Speaker 1: ideas when there's not a dedicated office, Like, how would
Speaker 1: state and localities apply some of these principles. Well, the
Speaker 1: nice thing is actually there's been a flurry of activity
Speaker 1: in state and local government in which nudge units are sprouting.
Speaker 1: So lots of state and local governments now have their
Speaker 1: own nudge units or they are using insights from behavioral science.
Speaker 1: But there's no one size fits all approach with behavioral science.
Speaker 1: You can't just say, oh, here are my favorite ten insights,
Speaker 1: let me just apply them to all the policies and
Speaker 1: programs there. There is a rigorous science behind it, and
Speaker 1: you need to make sure that you do have experts
Speaker 1: who are looking at those optimal translations. Is there anything
Speaker 1: our listeners can do if they want to, If they
Speaker 1: they're listening to this and they're like, man, I want
Speaker 1: more science in government, I want to inject more What
Speaker 1: do you, well, what can they do to help if
Speaker 1: they want to be a part of this now? So
Speaker 1: I would say, like, the bible of behavioral science and
Speaker 1: policy is this book called Nudge. And actually Richard Taylor
Speaker 1: and Cass Sunstein, the authors of this book, came out
Speaker 1: with a final edition version just recently. It actually references
Speaker 1: the work that's happened in the UK and the United
Speaker 1: States to try to increase the translation of behavioral science
Speaker 1: into policy. So I would send listeners to that book
Speaker 1: first and foremost on my podcast, A slight change of Plans.
Speaker 1: I had a chance to interview some science experts where
Speaker 1: we talk about the science behind changing people's minds with
Speaker 1: folks like Adam Grant, the science of behavior change with
Speaker 1: doctor Katie Milkman, and I would point folks to those
Speaker 1: specific episodes because I think it's a really nice primer
Speaker 1: for where the science is at right now when it
Speaker 1: comes to human behavior. Maya, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: being with us today. Thanks so much for having me Ronald.
Speaker 1: It was so much fun to chat with you. Doctor
Speaker 1: Maya Shankar is the founder of the White House's Behavioral
Speaker 1: Science Team. She served as a senior advisor in the
Speaker 1: Obama White House. In twenty sixteen, Shanker served as the
Speaker 1: first Behavioral Science Advisor to the United Nations under Bond
Speaker 1: Ki Moon. She's also the host of A Slight Change
Speaker 1: of Plans, another great Pushkin podcast. You should check it out.
Speaker 1: It's available everywhere you listen. Solvable is produced by Jocelyn Frank,
Speaker 1: research by David Jack, booking by Lisa Dunn. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to Keishell Williams. Our managing producer is Sasha Matthias, and
Speaker 1: our executive producer is Mia LaBelle. I'm Ronald Young Jr.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening,