{"title":"Boosting: Empowering Citizens with Behavioral Science","authors":"Stefan M. Herzog, Ralph Hertwig","doi":"10.1146/annurev-psych-020924-124753","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Behavioral public policy came to the fore with the introduction of nudging, which aims to steer behavior while maintaining freedom of choice. Responding to critiques of nudging (e.g., that it does not promote agency and relies on benevolent choice architects), other behavioral policy approaches focus on empowering citizens. Here we review boosting, a behavioral policy approach that aims to foster people's agency, self-control, and ability to make informed decisions. It is grounded in evidence from behavioral science showing that human decision making is not as notoriously flawed as the nudging approach assumes. We argue that addressing the challenges of our time—such as climate change, pandemics, and the threats to liberal democracies and human autonomy posed by digital technologies and choice architectures—calls for fostering capable and engaged citizens as a first line of response to complement slower, systemic approaches.","PeriodicalId":8010,"journal":{"name":"Annual review of psychology","volume":"97 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":23.6000,"publicationDate":"2024-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Annual review of psychology","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-020924-124753","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Behavioral public policy came to the fore with the introduction of nudging, which aims to steer behavior while maintaining freedom of choice. Responding to critiques of nudging (e.g., that it does not promote agency and relies on benevolent choice architects), other behavioral policy approaches focus on empowering citizens. Here we review boosting, a behavioral policy approach that aims to foster people's agency, self-control, and ability to make informed decisions. It is grounded in evidence from behavioral science showing that human decision making is not as notoriously flawed as the nudging approach assumes. We argue that addressing the challenges of our time—such as climate change, pandemics, and the threats to liberal democracies and human autonomy posed by digital technologies and choice architectures—calls for fostering capable and engaged citizens as a first line of response to complement slower, systemic approaches.
期刊介绍:
The Annual Review of Psychology, a publication that has been available since 1950, provides comprehensive coverage of the latest advancements in psychological research. It encompasses a wide range of topics, including the biological underpinnings of human behavior, the intricacies of our senses and perception, the functioning of the mind, animal behavior and learning, human development, psychopathology, clinical and counseling psychology, social psychology, personality, environmental psychology, community psychology, and much more. In a recent development, the current volume of this esteemed journal has transitioned from a subscription-based model to an open access format as part of the Annual Reviews' Subscribe to Open initiative. As a result, all articles published in this volume are now freely accessible to the public under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.