Nudging policymakers on gendered impacts of policy
Despite the proliferation of nudge research in the last few decades, very little published work aims to nudge the behavior of policymakers. Here we explore the impact of a well-established nudge on policymakers in the Northwest Territories of Canada. In a pre-registered randomized controlled trial,...
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crplos:10.1371/journal.pone.0293036 2024-05-19T07:46:17+00:00 Nudging policymakers on gendered impacts of policy Bochon, Lindsay Blair Dean, Janet Rosteck, Tanja Zhao, Jiaying Komatsu, Hidenori 2023 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0293036 https://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0293036 en eng Public Library of Science (PLoS) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ PLOS ONE volume 18, issue 10, page e0293036 ISSN 1932-6203 journal-article 2023 crplos https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0293036 2024-05-01T07:08:19Z Despite the proliferation of nudge research in the last few decades, very little published work aims to nudge the behavior of policymakers. Here we explore the impact of a well-established nudge on policymakers in the Northwest Territories of Canada. In a pre-registered randomized controlled trial, we emailed an invitation to policymakers ( N = 263) to attend an online briefing on gendered impacts of policy. In the treatment condition ( N = 133), the invitation contained personal stories of two women whose lives were disproportionally impacted by public policies more than men. In the control condition ( N = 130), the invitation did not contain such stories. After the briefing, we sent all participants in both conditions a link to a public pledge that they could sign. The pledge was to lead and advocate for equity-oriented policymaking. Contrary to our prediction, there was a small backfiring effect where policymakers in the treatment condition (3.0%) were less likely to attend the briefing than the control condition (7.7%). However, two policymakers (1.5%) in the treatment condition signed the public pledge compared to one (0.8%) in the control condition. The current findings reveal the limits of using personal stories as a nudge to influence policymakers. We discuss insights gained from this experiment and follow-up debriefings with policymakers on how to improve future behavioral interventions designed to nudge policymakers. Article in Journal/Newspaper Northwest Territories PLOS PLOS ONE 18 10 e0293036 |
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Despite the proliferation of nudge research in the last few decades, very little published work aims to nudge the behavior of policymakers. Here we explore the impact of a well-established nudge on policymakers in the Northwest Territories of Canada. In a pre-registered randomized controlled trial, we emailed an invitation to policymakers ( N = 263) to attend an online briefing on gendered impacts of policy. In the treatment condition ( N = 133), the invitation contained personal stories of two women whose lives were disproportionally impacted by public policies more than men. In the control condition ( N = 130), the invitation did not contain such stories. After the briefing, we sent all participants in both conditions a link to a public pledge that they could sign. The pledge was to lead and advocate for equity-oriented policymaking. Contrary to our prediction, there was a small backfiring effect where policymakers in the treatment condition (3.0%) were less likely to attend the briefing than the control condition (7.7%). However, two policymakers (1.5%) in the treatment condition signed the public pledge compared to one (0.8%) in the control condition. The current findings reveal the limits of using personal stories as a nudge to influence policymakers. We discuss insights gained from this experiment and follow-up debriefings with policymakers on how to improve future behavioral interventions designed to nudge policymakers. |
author2 |
Komatsu, Hidenori |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Bochon, Lindsay Blair Dean, Janet Rosteck, Tanja Zhao, Jiaying |
spellingShingle |
Bochon, Lindsay Blair Dean, Janet Rosteck, Tanja Zhao, Jiaying Nudging policymakers on gendered impacts of policy |
author_facet |
Bochon, Lindsay Blair Dean, Janet Rosteck, Tanja Zhao, Jiaying |
author_sort |
Bochon, Lindsay Blair |
title |
Nudging policymakers on gendered impacts of policy |
title_short |
Nudging policymakers on gendered impacts of policy |
title_full |
Nudging policymakers on gendered impacts of policy |
title_fullStr |
Nudging policymakers on gendered impacts of policy |
title_full_unstemmed |
Nudging policymakers on gendered impacts of policy |
title_sort |
nudging policymakers on gendered impacts of policy |
publisher |
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0293036 https://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0293036 |
genre |
Northwest Territories |
genre_facet |
Northwest Territories |
op_source |
PLOS ONE volume 18, issue 10, page e0293036 ISSN 1932-6203 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0293036 |
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PLOS ONE |
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18 |
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10 |
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e0293036 |
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