Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T05:14:41.941Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Informing behavioural policies with data from everyday life

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2018

LEONHARD K. LADES Open the ORCID record for LEONHARD K. LADES [Opens in a new window] ,
LUCIE MARTIN  and
LIAM DELANEY
LEONHARD K. LADES*
Affiliation:
EnvEcon, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland and University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland
LUCIE MARTIN
Affiliation:
Behavioural Insights Team, London, UK
LIAM DELANEY
Affiliation:
University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland and Stirling Management School, University of Stirling, Stirling, UK
*
*Correspondence to: EnvEcon, 11 Priory Office Park, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Naturalistic monitoring tools provide detailed information about people's behaviours and experiences in everyday life. Most naturalistic monitoring research has focused on measuring subjective well-being. This paper discusses how naturalistic monitoring can inform behavioural public policy-making by providing detailed information about everyday decisions and the choice architecture in which these decisions are made. We describe how the Day Reconstruction Method (DRM) – a naturalistic monitoring tool popular in the subjective well-being literature – can be used to: (i) improve ecological validity of behavioural economics; (ii) provide mechanistic evidence of the everyday workings of behavioural interventions; and (iii) help us to better understand people's true preferences. We believe that DRM data on everyday life have great potential to support the design and evaluation of behavioural policies.

Type
Article
Information
Behavioural Public Policy , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , April 2022 , pp. 172 - 190
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anusic, I., Lucas, R. E. and Donnellan, M. B. (2017), ‘The validity of the Day Reconstruction Method in the German Socio-economic Panel Study’, Social Indicators Research, 130(1): 213–232.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bakker, A. B., Demerouti, E., Oerlemans, W. and Sonnentag, S. (2013), ‘Workaholism and daily recovery: A day reconstruction study of leisure activities’, Journal of Organizational Behavior, 34(1): 87–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernheim, B. D. (2016), ‘The good, the bad, and the ugly: a unified approach to behavioral welfare economics’, Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, 7(1): 12–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beshears, J., Choi, J. J., Laibson, D. and Madrian, B. C. (2008), ‘How are preferences revealed?’ Journal of Public Economics, 92(8): 1787–1794.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blanchflower, D. G. and Oswald, A. J. (2004), ‘Well-being over time in Britain and the USA’, Journal of Public Economics, 88(7): 1359–1386.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brunswik, E. (1956), Perception and the Representative Design of Psychological Experiments, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Camerer, C., Loewenstein, G. and Rabin, M. (2004), Advances in Behavioral Economics, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chetty, R. (2015), ‘Behavioral economics and public policy: a pragmatic perspective’, American Economic Review, 105(5): 1–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daly, M., Baumeister, R. F., Delaney, L. and MacLachlan, M. (2014), ‘Self-control and its relation to emotions and psychobiology: evidence from a Day Reconstruction Method study’, Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 37(1): 81–93.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Daly, M., Delaney, L., Doran, P. P., Harmon, C. and MacLachlan, M. (2010), ‘Naturalistic monitoring of the affect-heart rate relationship: a day reconstruction study’, Health Psychology, 29(2): 186–195.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Deaton, A. and Cartwright, N. (2018), ‘Understanding and misunderstanding randomized controlled trials’, Social Science & Medicine, 210, 2–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Delaney, L. and Lades, L. K. (2017), ‘Present bias and everyday self-control failures: a Day Reconstruction Study’, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 30(5): 1157–1167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Ridder, D. T. D., Lensvelt-Mulders, G., Finkenauer, C., Stok, F. M. and Baumeister, R. F. (2012), ‘Taking stock of self-control: a meta-analysis of how trait self-control relates to a wide range of behaviors’, Personality and Social Psychology Review, 16(1): 76–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dhami, S. (2016), The Foundations of Behavioral Economic Analysis, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Diener, E. and Tay, L. (2014), ‘Review of the day reconstruction method (DRM)’, Social Indicators Research, 116(1): 255–267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dockray, S., Grant, N., Stone, A. A., Kahneman, D., Wardle, J. and Steptoe, A. (2010), ‘A comparison of affect ratings obtained with ecological momentary assessment and the Day Reconstruction Method’, Social Indicators Research, 99(2): 269–283.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dolan, P. and White, M. P. (2007), ‘How can measures of subjective well-being be used to inform public policy?’ Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2(1): 71–85.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Doyle, O., Delaney, L., O'Farrelly, C., Fitzpatrick, N. and Daly, M. (2017), ‘Can early intervention improve maternal well-being? Evidence from a randomized controlled trial’, PLoS ONE, 12(1): e0169829.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Duckworth, A. L., Gendler, T. S. and Gross, J. J., (2016), ‘Situational strategies for self-control’, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11(1): 35–55.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Duflo, E. (2017), ‘Richard T. Ely Lecture: The Economist as Plumber’, American Economic Review, 107(5): 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elster, J. (1979), Ulysses and the Sirens: Studies in Rationality and Irrationality, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fisher, I. (1918), ‘Is “utility” the most suitable term for the concept it is used to denote?’ The American Economic Review, 8(2): 335–337.Google Scholar
Frey, B. S. and Stutzer, A. (2002), ‘What can economists learn from happiness research?’ Journal of Economic Literature, 40(2): 402–435.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fujita, K. (2011), ‘On conceptualizing self-control as more than the effortful inhibition of impulses’, Personality and Social Psychology Review, 15(4): 352–366.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galizzi, M. M. and Navarro-Martinez, D. (2018), ‘On the external validity of social preference games: a systematic lab-field study’. Management Science, Epub ahead of print.Google Scholar
Gneezy, U. and Imas, A. (2017), ‘Chapter 10 – lab in the field: measuring preferences in the wild’, In Banerjee, A. V. and Duflo, E. (Eds.), Handbook of Economic Field Experiments, (Vol. 1, pp. 439–464). North-Holland.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grube, A., Schroer, J., Hentzschel, C. and Hertel, G. (2008), ‘The event reconstruction method: An efficient measure of experience-based job satisfaction’, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 81(4): 669–689.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grüne-Yanoff, T. (2015), ‘Why behavioural policy needs mechanistic evidence’, Economics and Philosophy, 1–21.Google Scholar
Halpern, D. (2015), ‘The rise of psychology in policy: The UK's de facto Council of Psychological Science Advisers’, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(6): 768–771.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harrison, G. W. (2014), ‘Cautionary notes on the use of field experiments to address policy issues’, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 30(4): 753–763.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrison, G. W. and List, J. A. (2004), ‘Field experiments’, Journal of Economic Literature, 42(4): 1009–1055.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hausman, D. M. (2000), ‘Revealed preference, belief, and game theory’, Economics & Philosophy, 16(1): 99–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hausman, D. M. (2012), Preference, Value, Choice, and Welfare, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hoch, S. J. and Loewenstein, G. (1991), ‘Time-inconsistent preferences and consumer self-control’, Journal of Consumer Research, 17(4): 492–507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hofmann, W., Baumeister, R. F., Förster, G. and Vohs, K. D. (2012), ‘Everyday temptations: An experience sampling study of desire, conflict, and self-control’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(6): 1318–1335.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hofmann, W. and Patel, P. V. (2015), ‘SurveySignal: a convenient solution for experience sampling research using participants’ own smartphones’, Social Science Computer Review, 33(2): 235–253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Infante, G., Lecouteux, G. and Sugden, R. (2016), ‘Preference purification and the inner rational agent: a critique of the conventional wisdom of behavioural welfare economics’, Journal of Economic Methodology, 23(1): 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ishio, J. and Abe, N. (2017), ‘Measuring affective well-being by the combination of the Day Reconstruction Method and a wearable device: case study of an aging and depopulating community in Japan’. Augmented Human Research, 2(1): 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jiménez-Buedo, M. (2011), ‘Conceptual tools for assessing experiments: some well-entrenched confusions regarding the internal/external validity distinction’, Journal of Economic Methodology, 18(3): 271–282.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jolls, C., Sunstein, C. R. and Thaler, R. H. (1998). ‘A behavioral approach to law and economics’, Stanford Law Review, 1471–1550.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, D., Krueger, A. B., Schkade, D. A., Schwarz, N. and Stone, A. A. (2004a). ‘A survey method for characterizing daily life experience: the Day Reconstruction Method’, Science, 306(5702): 1776–1780.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, D., Krueger, A. B., Schkade, D. A., Schwarz, N. and Stone, A. A. (2004b). The Day Reconstruction Method (DRM). Instrument Documentation. Supporting Online Material for Kahneman et al. (2004a). URL https://dornsife.usc.edu/assets/sites/780/docs/drm_documentation_july_2004.pdf.Google Scholar
Kahneman, D. and Sugden, R. (2005), ‘Experienced utility as a standard of policy evaluation’. Environmental and Resource Economics, 32(1): 161–181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaplan, R. M. and Stone, A. A. (2013), ‘Bringing the laboratory and clinic to the community: mobile technologies for health promotion and disease prevention’, Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 471–498.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, J., Kikuchi, H. and Yamamoto, Y. (2013), ‘Systematic comparison between ecological momentary assessment and day reconstruction method for fatigue and mood states in healthy adults’, British Journal of Health Psychology, 18(1): 155–167.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Knabe, A., Rätzel, S., Schöb, R. and Weimann, J. (2010), ‘Dissatisfied with life but having a good day: time-use and well-being of the unemployed’, The Economic Journal, 120(547): 867–889.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knabe, A., Schöb, R. and Weimann, J. (2017), ‘The subjective well-being of workfare participants: insights from a day reconstruction survey’, Applied Economics, 49(13): 1311–1325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krueger, A. B., Kahneman, D., Schkade, D., Schwarz, N. and Stone, A. A. (2009), ‘National time accounting: The currency of life’. In Measuring the subjective well-being of nations: National accounts of time use and well-being, (pp. 9–86). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larson, R. and Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1983), ‘The experience sampling method’, New Directions for Methodology of Social & Behavioral Science, 15, 41–56.Google Scholar
Layard, R. (2006), ‘Happiness and public policy: a challenge to the profession’, The Economic Journal, 116(510): C24–C33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, P. H., Tse, A. C. Y. and Lee, K. Y. (2017), ‘A new statistical model for the Day Reconstruction Method’, International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research, 26(4): e1547.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Levitt, S. D. and List, J. A. (2007), ‘What do laboratory experiments measuring social preferences reveal about the real world?’ The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 21(2): 153–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loewenstein, G. (1999), ‘Experimental economics from the vantage-point of behavioural economics’, The Economic Journal, 109(453): 25–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maslow, A. H. (1943), ‘A theory of human motivation’, Psychological Review, 50(4): 370–396.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milyavskaya, M. and Inzlicht, M. (2017), ‘What's so great about self-control? Examining the importance of effortful self-control and temptation in predicting real-life depletion and goal attainment’, Social Psychological and Personality Science, 8(6): 603–611.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miret, M., Caballero, F. F., Mathur, A., Naidoo, N., Kowal, P., Ayuso-Mateos, J. L. and Chatterji, S. (2012), ‘Validation of a measure of subjective well-being: an abbreviated version of the Day Reconstruction Method’, PLoS ONE, 7(8): e43887.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
National Research Council ( US) (2012), The Subjective Well-Being Module of the American Time Use Survey: Assessment for Its Continuation, Panel on Measuring Subjective Well-Being in a Policy-Relevant Framework. Committee on National Statistics, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: National Academies Press (US).Google Scholar
Odermatt, R. and Stutzer, A. (2017), ‘Subjective well-being and public policy’. In Diener, E., Oishi, S., and Tay, L. (Eds.), Handbook of Well-Being, Salt Lake City, UT: DEF Publishers.Google Scholar
Oliver, A. (2017), The Origins of Behavioural Public Policy, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pareto, V. (1971), Manual of Political Economy, Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Rabin, M. (1998), ‘Psychology and economics’, Journal of Economic Literature, 36(1): 11–46.Google Scholar
Rizzo, M. J. and Whitman, D. G. (2009), ‘The knowledge problem of new paternalism’, Brigham Young University Law Review, 2009(4): 905–968.Google Scholar
Samuelson, P. A. (1938), ‘A note on the pure theory of consumer's behaviour’, Economica, 5(17): 61–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwarz, N. and Clore, G. L. (1983), ‘Mood, misattribution, and judgments of well-being: Informative and directive functions of affective states’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(3): 513–523.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shafir, E. (2013), The Behavioral Foundations of Public Policy, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shiffman, S., Stone, A. A. and Hufford, M. R. (2008), ‘Ecological momentary assessment’, Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 4, 1–32.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sonnenberg, B., Riediger, M., Wrzus, C. and Wagner, G. G. (2012), ‘Measuring time use in surveys – concordance of survey and experience sampling measures’, Social Science Research, 41(5): 1037–1052.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Srivastava, S., Angelo, K. M. and Vallereux, S. R. (2008), ‘Extraversion and positive affect: a day reconstruction study of person–environment transactions’, Journal of Research in Personality, 42(6): 1613–1618.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stiglitz, J. E., Sen, A. and Fitoussi, J.-P. (2010), Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, Paris, France: Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress.Google Scholar
Sugden, R. (2017), ‘Do people really want to be nudged towards healthy lifestyles?’ International Review of Economics, 64(2): 113–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sunstein, C. R. (2016a), ‘Cost–benefit analysis, who's your daddy?’ Journal of Benefit–Cost Analysis, 7(1): 107–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sunstein, C. R. (2016b), The Ethics of Influence: Government in the Age of Behavioral Science, New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thaler, R. H. (2016), ‘Behavioral economics: past, present, and future’, American Economic Review, 106(7): 1577–1600.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thaler, R. H. (2018), ‘From cashews to nudges: the evolution of behavioral economics’, American Economic Review, 108(6): 1265–1287.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thaler, R. H. and Sunstein, C. R. (2008), Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Tourangeau, R., Rips, L. J. and Rasinski, K. (2000), The Psychology of Survey Response, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weber, E. U., Blais, A.-R. and Betz, N. E. (2002), ‘A domain-specific risk-attitude scale: measuring risk perceptions and risk behaviors’, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 15(4): 263–290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkowski, B. M., Ferguson, E. L., Williamson, L. Z. and Lappi, S. K. (2018), ‘(How) does initial self-control undermine later self-control in daily life?’ Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 44(9): 1315–1329.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Witt, U. (2017), ‘The evolution of consumption and its welfare effects’, Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 27(2): 273–293.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed